TWIST!

One of the activities we did several times during the neutral mask unit was this exercise when we would turn our bodies around, 180 degrees, one body part at a time. So we would start with our heads, move down to our necks, then our shoulders and then torso and then legs and finally feet. It was a bit difficult at first but it was a good exercise to look at how you control yourself and your body. In order to really properly do this activity you have to be acutely aware of every movement of your body.

This is important for neutral masks. It is easy to naturally let yourself go and let your body react, however you have no idea what's going on, so recreating it when thinking about it is hard. This turning activity really helped people thinking about what was going on with your body. It was a really fun to do.

Comparison: Kathakali and Neutral Mask

Kathakali and Neutral Mask have a lot to compare each other to. It was mentioned in class that neutral mask covers the face and makes you rely more heavily on your body as the means of communication to the audience. Neutral mask is an incredible activity, and has many many benefits when working with actors on their movements. It is valuable in more ways than one. But there is a certain aspect of acting that is lost when you cover the face. Yes, movement is important...but it's not everything. The human face is more powerful than people realize.

Kathakali plays on this power. In the theatre practice of kathakali, the face is a very important tool. They use facial expression and movement of the eyes to express different messages. These faces are extremely difficult and take years to master. Yes, kathakali people do put emphasis on their body movements as well. However it really is their face that is focused upon.

This comparison intriqued me. Going from one practice to the next really shows the contrast between them. One day, I was focusing on making my eyes really wide and showing anger like the picture said I should be showing anger. The next day, I've got a paper bag over my head and I have to show anger using my body. When thinking about it, it's even harder to present emotion through your body without being cliche. The best kinds of reactions are all subconscious and out of the control of the person...when you think about it, it's hard to imagine what anger or sadness or happiness looks like on you.

November 3rd, 2008

I'm not sure what to title this blogpost, but I needed to reflect on the class we had today. It was a great class in which we did many exercises that involved mimicking and the face. The first thing we did was we had to pick someone's gaze and hold it while walking around the room. It was really interesting to notice how when you were walking and holding the gaze of the person how you acted in the space given. Devin was my first partner, and when I was walking with her we kind of mirrored each other. A lot of the time we stayed the same distance apart and almost seemed to move together.

After that we did this really cool thing called Bomb and Shield. The first time we played it Emma was my bomb while I was her shield! I found it really interesting and couldn't help but think there must be some serious psychological untones in this game! But more on topic, it was interesting that she was my bomb and I was her shield. At the time I wish I had known or had a tape I could watch because I'm sure it's cool to watch us as I try to get away from her she's trying to stay towards me!

Another activity we did today which I liked was when we were following the other person's hand with our nose. This was really interesting to do, and in some cases I think it would require incredible amounts of flexibility. But this is really up to person A where person B would be led. I did this activity with both Chase and Chelsea O. Chase and I also did the activity where we put our hands up but not touching and were to mirror each other without really leading each other. This was difficult at first but after a bit I was able to read him easier to tell when he was going to move and take control or follow my lead. This was an important idea, how the eyes were a real tool and non verbual communication.

What is Theatre?

We had a discussion in class about what exactly is theatre, and this furthered into what is a performance? The biggest controversy I saw was the way we looked at the idea of an audience and how that affected the definition of performance. In the discussion we decided that an audience would be defined as anyone including yourself. With this being said, I believe that anything and everything would be a performance. Because all though everything maybe not be intended to be performed or acted, there is always an audience present.

This idea of falling down the stairs was an example we used often. I personally think that even that would be considered a performance, because although no one has neccessarily seen it, you have been present, and since we defined an audience as anyone witnessing something, this fits. Here's how I see it:

Theatre is everything.
Everything is performed, and an audience is always present
because often you ARE the audience. For example, if you are lying.
While you are lying TO someone they are not aware of the lie.
So they are the audience, but the BIGGER audience is yourself
who knows that you're lying.
Even when something is not an act, it is still a performance
because I consider performances as anything that gets people to think.
so, if someone falls down the stairs, people are going to think "why did they fall down the stairs?"
or you will think "did i trip on something, why did i fall?"
If you're lying, that's an example of this too, because you think of the lie, which stimulates.

B-utiful Butoh

I googled Butoh and this was what I got. I'm not sure what he's got to do with Butoh (he could be doing a part of the dance, or something to do with the make up) but it is a great picture. I wasn't too sure about letting people draw on my face originally...but Erin Banks just dived right in before I could protest. I guess it wasn't that bad. The exercise afterwards was really exciting. There were a lot of tie-ins I saw to my yoga class, like the ending part when we were instructed to chop the air, Justine made a lot of motions similar to the Warrior positions. A lot of the motions tied into the breathing, like yoga does.

I didn't enjoy the Up Down motion of the exercise when we went from the fetal position to standing up to the fetal position over and over and over again. Most of the time I wasn't even quick enough to stand up all the way! I think it was a good experience though and I liked the connections to yoga.

YOGA CLASS #1

I had my first yoga class. I had never taken yoga before and didn't really know what to expect. I arrived in the library and was glad to see that Erin Banks, Justine and Alma were in the class as well. I know that Justine had taken yoga before but Erin hadn't so it was cool not being the only beginner there. It wasn't what I expected but it wasn't that difficult to do either. I realized I don't have a lot of upper body strength which I pretty much knew already but I didn't realize I was as weak as I was. It was kind of disappointing but I figure that it will build with time, because those positions were definitely pushing me to my limit.

I think my favorite part was the meditation and relaxation at the end. I've tried meditating before, and I've never been very successful, so it was strange how I was able to slip into that state so easily. Getting up after the class was an incredible experience, because I felt like my legs were Jello underneath me. It was an interesting feeling that I hadn't really experienced before. My body felt like it was wide away but my mind was tired and sluggish.

Waking up the next morning, I thought, was going to be extremely painful and I wasn't looking forward to working that day. However, I woke up and was fine for the most part. I felt it mostly in the back of my thighs, but it wasn't a painful feeling, it was more like a stretched, tight feeling. I didn't mind the feeling in the least and I worked 9 1/2 hours that day without a problem (although excessive amounts of tea may have assisted in that :) )

Practice Pitch

5 Second Pitch: "I see a play being told as a story to a little sibling by an older brother."

30 Second Pitch: "The play would switch focuses from the two siblings hearing the story, to the actual story being told, about a young boy drummer sent to war."

5 Minute Pitch: "The play will open with two siblings in the middle of a thunderstorm. Suddenly, the lights will go out with a streak of lightening across the sky. Frightened, the elder would try to entire and comfort the younger with a story about a brave drummer boy, who is sent into war at a very young age, despite the fact that he is morally opposed. The scene would end and when the lights came up instead of the two siblings, it would be the scene of the story, acting out in front of the audience’s eyes. The scenes will switch back and forth several times, continuing the story with the siblings, the younger completely engrossed in the story. Suddenly, at the peak of the storm and the climax of the story, there’s a pounding on the door! It frightens the younger sibling, ( and the elder ) and hopefully the audience. Luckily, it’s only a friend of the elder sibling. The scene switches back to the drummer boy. The story is finished off by the elder sibling with help from the friend - the drummer narrowly escapes death, but becomes the hero as the storm lightens up and the younger sibling drifts off to sleep."

( i may just actually use this idea of mine... )

Kathakali Dance Theatre

I really enjoyed Theatre class today. It was really good exercise I think it was good for the class as well. It was interesting to feel all the different muscles of the face. Something I noticed was the amount of effort it took isolate parts of my body when stretching my muscles one by one. After I did that exercise I feel like I had more control over my body and the muscles I moved afterwards.


(note, Ms. Heick idk if you looked at this already or not but I just found a WHOLE bunch of drafts I didn't know I had!)

I.P.P.: Topic and Ideas

This is the play thing, right? Where I would be devising and writing my own play to be performed? If this is correct, than I have already started and have some stimulus. For starters, this picture:

STAR WARS!!! Hahahahahah. Alright, now before we have the plagarism discussion, I can assure you I'm not going to write a play about Star Wars. What my real stimulus is that stick in the middle of the picture. Yeah, you know the light saver? Use the Force Luke? Yeah, that kind of thing. I want to be focusing on that as a weapon in the story. Besides Luke as a stimulus, I have a few other things. I would blame the empty chairs in the classroom as stimulus, because it gave me the theme of my play: the failing education system. I would also offer some credit and count Erin Banks as a stimulus, because I was looking through her I.P.P. binder when the idea for my play hit me like a ton of bricks. Finally, I would probably count a leaf as a stimulus, because for some reason I just get the feeling that one of these days, at lunch, I need to go for a walk to think about my I.P.P. and return to school with a leaf. Perhaps thats when my inspiration will hit me, again, and harder. We shall see.

Research Investigation: Play Ideas

Gahh!! I honestly have no idea what aspect I could possibly be focusing on! I really need to pick something and pick it quickly....Thinking about it now, I'm wondering it I couldn't do something about the style of outrageous stage makeup worn by a particular type of theatre. I have always been interested in makeup - I love flipping through the Sephora catalog and looking at the models in their incredible makeup. They wear makeup you couldn't possibly wear out unless it was to some nightclub or it was Halloween or something to that affect. I think it's the most fascinating thing and would love to learn how to do that. I'm pretty good at makeup already but that takes some kind of serious skill and I'd have to experiment and experience it. As it stands currently, I would have to find a type of theatre where the makeup would be outrageous and very important to the play, as well as find a play that I could base it on.

Padagoanian Fish Ritual

This exercise was amazing! I liked having to present all of my findings, kind of like the acting theorists but a bit different. I must admit though, I knew as soon as you passed out the paper and started walking around, it wasn't real. Maybe it was just the way you were looking at everyone, but I got the most suspicious when I realized you had given us all the same assignment.

It was fun putting together all the pieces of the puzzle. Some of the information was a bit confusing and I was kind of sad that we didn't get to factor in all of the pieces, but I think we did a pretty decent job with it. My favorite group would have definitely be the first group, when they came in robed and chanting. It was really creepy but cool and accurate at the same time.

I think personally, my group was going more for the kind of native, like wild cannibal people aspect as opposed to the ritualistic or traditional and showy aspect of the whole skit.

Acting Theorist Presentations

All of the presentations these past weeks have been great. I didn't expect anything less from such a great class. But I think that the two presentations that I liked the best would be Laura Fenney's presentation and Julia Caldwell's presentation. I think that Laura presented her theorist in a really creative way. I had never even thought about taking my theorist and acting as her. As for Julia, her Commedia dell Arte was hard to understand at first but she was able to present it in a way that I understood it. On top of that, it was really fun to participate in both of them.

But I was still a little confused about Maureen's presentation. It was a bit confusing and I'm still not clear on his acting theory exactly. But, a lot of these presentations run together. It helps me to understand a bit when I think about the exercises she presented, including Devin's bugs and Justine's plagues. I would also have the most questions about Chase's performance. This is for several reasons. Mainly it's because I wasn't there, but I have heard the play by play and I think personally I would like a bit more information about his theorist. This is good though because Erin Boettcher is going more in depth.

Sample Research Investigation

This example was very interesting for me to read. I like that we were given this sample, because I really hate starting a project and not knowing what I'm doing, especially if it's going to be important to my grade. IB tends to do this to me alot, and so I was extremely glad when I got this sample. Reading it over, I noticed a few things that put my mind at ease. For one, it wasn't too much different than everything we had been doing in different classes: like World Literature papers, and History Internal Assessments. Noticing this made it feel that much more accomplishable.

The thing that really concerns me is finding my topic. I really don't know much about any kinds of theatre, and it's not that I don't want to learn, because I really do. But I'm afraid I wont be able to find any kind of information or research about the topic I chose. Just the idea of having to research a certain way of a threatical practice seems to obscure to me-I have experienced the problem of not being able to find sufficient information before, and it causes stress, and makes me really frustrated. How did this student find all it's information? Things like this I wonder about, it concerns me.

I did enjoy reading it though, because Commedia is very interesting to me. I also think it was very well written. I usually lose interest in the middle of the paper but this one was able to hold me for much longer than that. The length looked daunting and impossible but really a lot of the pages after the paper was the source analysis. I'm not particularly good at analyzing sources, so this will be a very difficult part for me, but I'm happy for the practice.

A thought to ponder...

“The need for players to see themselves and others not as students or teachers but as fellow players, playing on terms of peerage, no matter what their individual ability.” –Viola Spolin, 1983

Are we one bundle, or simply seven separate sticks?

Bread and Other Stories

I really enjoyed the process we've been doing over the past week or so. I wasn't too interested in Bread to begin with because it was rather bland and unexciting, but when we were able to make it creative-spice it up and make it our own-I really enjoyed that. Most of the idea I got were from class discussions and my wild and crazy imagination-hahaha.

At first we had to put on Bread with our own spin and Emme and I came up with psycho old people. I really liked performing it, but what I really enjoyed was writing it. It was like, how many little ways could we slip Bread into the script, and would people notice? As for writing it for real...the idea itself was fun to work with. I thought about going a different direction, maybe taking a different spin on it but I guess I couldn't really come up with much. I often like to fine tune my ideas, repeating them over and over again but tweaking them until they're better and better each time.

I draw creativity and inspiration from things and people around me. I can often find the strangest things inspiring-paintings, or even the way a classroom looks when it's empty; maybe something someone says during a class discussion. I see things and I build a story around them, or I hear something and picture whats going on when someone is hearing it.

Kitty and Blue: the Death in Asylum

So for the past two days we've been working on expanded the play 'Bread' and using it as a stimuli. That has been a lot of fun. I'm really glad I picked Emme as my partner, because we have a lot of fun together and come up with some crazy ideas. It was also a really good opportunity to get to know each other better, because I didnt really talk to her that much before 'Bread'. That is something I haven't really experienced in this class since we started Durang Durang. There are some very dominant people in our class who tend to take over, and often can overshadow the more timid and soft spoken of the group.

Anyways, we started off wanted to do something that had to do with our 'Bread' characters. They were wicked fun to play and so we decided to continue with that and go for something like the backstory of our characters. We already had the basics down, of what was going on in 'Bread' and how they got to their point, now we just needed to develope those points into something more. So we came up with just how they arrived in the insane asylum. Emme was also really into the idea of a movie pitch. Now we have to perform, because it was easy enough to write, it will be a blast to put on.

Creative Growth Projects: Part Two

Alright, here is my second creative project. Also in picture, this project will just have the links posted, because it was really hard getting those pictures to show up in the blog the last time. (Sorry, Ms. Heick)

Anyways, here is my other project.

ONE: http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p155/ohhchelsx/theatrepictureone.jpg

TWO: http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p155/ohhchelsx/theatrepicturetwo.jpg

THREE: http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p155/ohhchelsx/theatrepicturefour.jpg

Picture One is of me before I came into Theatre HL1 junior year. I was a bit (make that really) shy and wasn't really sure what I was supposed to be doing: after all, there were people like Emma Capello who has a lot of experience in the class with people like me who like to say they have experience, but who can really count that play from 1st grade, or the one from 4th?

Picture Two is me half way through. Maybe, just after Durang Durang. I'm getting stronger, more confident, reaching that star at the top. (You might not have seen it at first, but that is the intended goal). Durang Durang was an excellent play to start with; the thing I'll always remember about it is walking out on stage and having people burst out laughing-and I didn't know why! I might have been me, but I don't really know. Midge wasn't that funny of a character, or was she?

And finally, Picture Three is me now. I'm right up at the star, confident, strong, independent and feeling great. I'll never forget coming into S.T.A.G.E. today and being all like "I'm Chelsea, I'm a senior," I'M A SENIOR !!! It's like being a wolf cub for your whole life and then all of a sudden you find out ol' Big Bad's dead and your taking his spot! It feels great but a little scary at the same time. =]

Creative Growth Projects: Part One

So my creative growth projects are in pictures, so I'll post them up here and then offer an explanation. I understand they were supposed to be different, and I did pictures for both, but really I did pictures on both because it's the easiest way to include it in my journal. Both pieces are very different in some way.


My first piece I think talks a lot about our year in general. The first picture is a picture of a plaque I have on my wall next to my bed. It reads, DREAM.

This means a lot to me in different ways. First of all, I've had bigger and bigger dreams the longer I've stayed at Sturgis because I've experienced so many different things. But more relevant to theatre, it meant to me that before Theatre class I did a lot of dreaming and not much else. I had never really been on stage before as an actress, and while every girl wants to be a movie or tv star, it was just a dream to be performing in front of people.

The second picture is the word, LAUGH.

I think of it like this: so first, I was dreaming. And then I joined theatre, and we certainly laugh-a lot. Something I love about that class is that it's so low key but you can get all your stress out. I can go to Theatre having the worst day and leaving cracking up. That was Stage Two. Stage Three: Imagine.

This is Theatre class! With our first production coming up (Durang Durang) it was easy to imagine being on the stage and seeing all these things coming into motion. Imagine plays a HUGE part in the acting world, and now I was finally experiencing it. And the final stage: Stage Four: BELIEVE.

BELIEVE! It's like, this is my senior year!! The end, the sad, exciting, highly anticipated, never seemed achievable in the beginning, end is almost here! It's pratically staring all of us right in the face. Honestly, I believe in myself now, that I can get through school and I believe that I can act and I believe I can try new things and not be ashamed of myself if I mess up. Dream, Laugh, Imagine, Believe.

Reflection: Bread and Class (Wed. 3rd and Thurs. 4th)

Today we experimented with the seemingly rather bland play called 'Bread'. (http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p155/ohhchelsx/haircutandschoolphotos019.jpg <--- bread!) At first, Ms. Heick asked it to be read monotone, and I couldn't imagine we were going to do something so incredibly boring. But then when she explained the assignment...I also wasn't too thrilled. I'm not always the most creative on the spot type, my creative moments tend to come in random bursts. And sure enough, when Emme and I got together we came up with a really creative idea: insane old people!

A lot of the time I feel a peer pressure kind of grading goes on in theatre, and the only way you pass or get a good grade is by how loud, how hard, and how often the crowd cracks up at said skit. For some people this happens a lot, and for others, like myself, it barely happens at all. It can be really intimidating and upsetting, discouraging even, but only after you've been given the official 'grade', after your skit is done. Often I sit down feeling like, wow, that sucked. But it never seems to discourage me before, when planning the activity. Whether it's because Ms. Heick's enthusiasm is contagious, or because I often think what I'm about to do is hilarious (even my mom says I have a strange sense of humor, so it would explain why I don't get the reaction I want half the time I do it), I'm not quite sure, but either way theatre is always fun.

Anyways, me and Emme's skit about the insane old people was great and really fun to perform. I had to stop for some giggling along the way of the performance, which always upsets me when I do that. I try really really hard to stay in character, but when it's the first time I'm performing something and it's really funny, I can't always help it.

The activity turned out to be a hit. I had a lot of fun especially seeing what all the other kids came up with for ideas. Turns out poisoning the man was a lot more popular of an idea than I thought. I wonder what that says about our generation? Nothing good, I'm sure.... =]

Things I Have Learned...

Was it things I have learned or ways I have grown? And couldn't it be considered the same thing? No, I guess not...I think I've changed a lot of ways since September of last year. I mean, I was never really one to be shy really, quiet maybe but not completely shy. Still, the thought of being on stage scared me, it really really did. I didn't want to have to perform in front of people! When I had signed up for theatre, I had always assumed I could just do lights instead of being on stage, and thats why I signed up, knowing that that was an option. But then suddenly I was on stage and doing games and acting and the more I perform the more comfortable I felt.

Now I don't have a problem being up on stage. When we do theatre games, I love playing and will gladly jump right in when before I would hang back and watch a bit first. Theres definitely a way I've grown. I would also say I understand theatre a lot more and understand how things work. I'm more confidant and strong and I think it has done a lot for me not just on stage or in the classroom but outside of school as well.