My first ever mime class this morning! With Andrew teaching. AMAZING. Why didn't we do this at drama school? These skills would give me confidence in self-devised work. We begin with rolling up and down the spine, precisely arriving down or up to counts of 8, 7, 6 decreasing to 2. Also working with breath.
A warm up exercise in a circle: one person runs quickly to another, makes eye contact and jumps together, working again for precision. Another person is added, so that 4 people are now jumping together, using peripheral vision to time the jump exactly. And so on until the whole group is jumping in unison.
Isolation and co-ordination work followed. Moving hands, arms, shoulders in different ways, different directions, different speeds. Try flapping one hand up from your side to above your head, while you shake the other hand from above your head, down to your waist. Lots of giggling. But also incredible focus from the cast. And me!
Working with stop point, or suspension. I loved the idea that you enjoy the journey before coming to a stop-point or suspension. As opposed to pushing and forcing to the stop, which in me, often caused a little rebound of energy. Some of these moves were like a refined, healthy version of some of my best efforts on the dance floor.
FLYING: a rotation of the shoulders, elbows, wrists, keeping the elbows up as the hands mover through 'shell', 'claw' and 'flower'.
WATER RIPPLES: more flow and smaller movements through the arms and hands.
ROPE-PULLING: too complicated to explain the hands crossing over and weight shifting... I'm just going to have to practice this one to remember!
After movement class, we did a full read of the pre-edited text Dion had found online, that was correlating with the cuts Dion and I had been making independently. It was a slow read, but the precision was preferable to rushing through as it was clear the actors were alive in thought, though struggling with some of the phrasing. I had made a point of stressing the lack of performance-obligation in the first read, and it was encouraging to witness this professional and curious approach. Smart actors. Brilliant.
After lunch we began table-work, continuing to whittle the play down as we went, moving through the text scene by scene with the actors, aiming for total understanding, and a clear reading of each scene for sense. I love this work - glossary and dictionary out, and the pure joy of discovery and knowledge. Thank you Shakespeare for the most beautiful expressions of thought and character, such richness in layers, wit and filth. This is brain heaven for me. In no other mental pursuit am I so consistently engaged and inspired. ...Aside from lengthy discussions with my girlfriends about how we can fix each other's career and relationship dilemmas, of course.
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