Week 7 - Monday 5th November 2012

From the moment we started this week, I found it difficult to focus on the tasks we were set. We completed the Makko-Ho stretches and patterns of total body connectivity as usual but I even struggled to focus on these. We performed the stretches in pairs so that we could help one another to stretch slightly further than we thought possible.

We stayed within these pairs and started an exercise which involved connecting to one another via the wrist, we then allowed the movements to become natural between us and found that our arms could move in a lot of ways whilst staying connected to one another. This was important as it started to look at the rolling point of contact. As we began to progress through this, we included the legs to aid the activity, we were not allowed to move our legs and we were instructed to knock the other person off balance only by moving our connected wrists. I found this difficult as I kept wanting to move my legs. We were then allowed to move our legs so that as a pair we could manouvre around the room whilst connected and moving our arms. This was good as it allowed us to explore the differen amounts of force that can be used by one another and how this can change the mood of a character instantly.

Once this had been explored thoroughly, we looked at ways of keeping the body connected but moving between different parts of the body such as using the back and head, and swapping to the other wrist. Again, we did not plan how we were going to move and allowed this to be a natural exploration between us to see which movements felt most comfortable. I found that connecting via the head was the easiest to complete as it was almost impossible to see the other person and therefore I could not predict where he was going to move and so had to rely on my reactions to move with him.

In our assessment groups, we were asked to perform what had been practised during the week with our 'score'. Whilst performing this to an audience we decided that moving around whilst not in the space felt awkward and wasn't necessary for the performance. We also found that we had a very set pace in which there was very little contrast between our movements. Another group was asked to perform again, however, two of the performers were given secret instructions, they performed the scene again and it was interesting to see how different it felt, there was a much more clear storyline and the actors who did not know the instructions reacted very well to those who did.

We were asked in our groups to go back over our improvisations and add in small sound effects that can be completed by us, as well as make any other changes we felt necessary, and to video a new performance, preferrably in the space where one of us had originally observed their surroundings.



We decided to video our performance in a park as this is where Esther (a member of the group) had originally been to observe the space. A lot of our key words such as 'wild', 'adventure' and 'leaves rustling' were easier to perform in this space.

We decided to take out the idea of moving whilst not in the space and added a set beat using our bodies which was always performed by those who weren't in the space. We also tried to focus more on the idea of inculding the patterns of total body connectivity.