Today
we did several exercises in which we had to use our imagination to generate and
portray an emotion.
Passing
an Emotion Exercise:
We
started off as a group standing in a circle, a small distance away from one
another. One person started off a portrayal of happiness and sent it to the
next person and so on; each time the happy emotion had to become bigger and
bigger and should be really pushed so that by the time the emotion has made its
way around the entire circle the last person giving the emotion does so in a
very exaggerated way. What was interesting was that we were not told to use our
voices to portray the happy emotion; we were just asked to pass the happiness
along. However, the majority of us in the circle, when it got beyond a certain
point of joy, began to really vocalise the emotion by releasing a shout of joy.
This reaffirmed to me that an actor depends quite heavily on their ability to
use their voice in order to portray an emotion and also that it feels quite
natural to use your voice to portray joy, the happier you are. I observed that
towards the beginning of the circle when portraying joy, no one used their
voice, however towards the end we were almost shouting, proving that the more
you exaggerate an emotion the louder and more bolder you may decide to become.
This was also the same with physicality; the happier we became the larger and
bolder choices we began to make with our bodies, using gestures with our hands
and broadening our shoulders. Personally, I found that when I had to really
exaggerate the happy emotion I would feel quite uncomfortable doing so because
it made me feel quite self-conscious to be so bold and loud.
We did the same exercise again however this time we had to pass a sad
emotion around. Again, I found that the heightened the emotion the louder and
bolder choices people began to make with both their vocal choices and their
physical choices. Everyone towards the end of the circle began to bellow cries
of despair quite loudly, closing their chests, folding their arms or covering
their faces. This time, I didn't find it hard to make bolder choices with my
voice or body when portraying the sad emotion, in fact I found it much easier
perhaps because I was beginning to get used to using my body and voice without
caring about how I sounded or looked like.
Environment Imagination Exercise:
We all had to lie on our backs,
calmly and very still with our eyes closed. We were then described an
environment or place that we as individuals were to imagine ourselves in and
react to it. We were told to act as though we were stuck to the middle of a
cobweb and we had to react to this. Initially, I didn't quite know what would
be an appropriate response to this so I began to slow down my breathing causing
me to inhale and exhale deeper. As my fear became to increase, I began to
release small whimpers of despair. I found that the way I would respond was a
lot of the time quite similar to the way that the people around me would
respond. However, because imagination games like this one are pretty subjective
it meant that every individual would have a different reaction to the change in
environment. For example, when imagining we were still on the spider web we
were told to imagine that the spider was beginning to approach us and in
response many of us began to scream however others could not imagine being as
fearful in this situation and so only whimpered. We also had to imagine that we
were in a chocolate fountain and that we were tasting the really delicious
chocolate and enjoying it very much. As a class, I found that the majority of
us didn't find it so easy to really be vocal about tasting the delicious
chocolate. I know that if I were in a fountain chocolate I would be making
moans of delight but because there were other people in the room, I created an
imaginative barrier so that people would not judge me because of the noises I
was making and so I didn't make noises of enjoyment at all. I did find
it a lot easier to do the exercises in comparison to the previous one because everyone
was lying on the floor with their eyes closed so there wouldn't be anyone
looking at me or judging me. The exercise taught me that the
environment/imagined environment that you are in, is a vital tool in inspiring
the way that you perform and/or respond as an actor and works very much as a
stimulus for the actor.
Underground Chair Tunnel Exercise:
In this exercise we had to move the
chairs, so that they were all lined up facing one direction in rows. A handful
of people (3 or 4) were then selected to lie with their bodies under the chairs
creating the feeling that the individual is in a sort of tunnel. The lights are
then switched off making the room dark. We were then asked to close our eyes
and asked to imagine an environment. The environment that we were asked to
imagine was a dark and earthy tunnel, we were then to experience the noise of
screams and knocks near and around the chair. Being in this imagined
environment with our eyes closed, meant that we would take on the role of the
performers and the rest of the room would become the spectators or audience,
being that we as performers would be under the influence of our environment and
would respond appropriately to our surroundings described to us whilst the
audience would watch and take in the experience of the actors reacting to our
space. Effectively, our described environment worked as a stimulus for us as
actors to respond to with a certain emotion. E.g the stimulus of being in a
dark and earthy tunnel alone would evoke feelings of fear, anxiety and possibly
claustrophobia in the performer. This exercise taught me how simple an activity
has to be in order to incorporate an actor and the audience and how important
the relationship between the two are because of how as spectators they witness
everything an actor does and how everything the performer does from the way
they breath to the pace at which they move has an impact on what the audience
experience.
No comments:
Post a Comment