Late back from the weekend in glorious Cape Town, Andrew and I stopped in at a Farmer's Market type shop - stocked up on such basic necessaries as chilli jam, chilli sauce, thai green curry paste, olive oil, olives, dried fruit, and special African Habeneros sauce. All essentials.
We got delayed at two road blocks on the road from Port Elizabeth to Grahamstown, I couldn't tell exactly what kid of work they were doing, but one can assume it was road work. Quite lengthy delays, but I enjoyed good conversation with Andrew about the workings of the Rhodes drama department, and the course options the students have on offer. It sounds like the interest in theatre pursuits is more evenly spread here across the fields of interests: design, direction, choreography, stage management and technical theatre are strongly represented as opposed to a majority interest in acting which I had expected (well, of course that was my own world view). This must provide great potential for collaborative works. He also told me about a couple of famous South African shows from the 1980's - 'Woza Albert', meaning "wake-up Albert" (Albert Lutula sp? the head of the ANC who had just passed away) about the 2nd coming of Christ to South Africa - an important piece of political (protest) theatre in SA history. It was followed by the musical 'Serafina' in which Jesus raises up all the dead resistance heros. ...This info was re-written from scribbled notes on the drive back to G-Town, so possibly some screwy details here...
As I was too late in getting into town to see the cast before end of rehearsals, I asked Dion to get the actors to each prepare 2 lines from the play - one which they think may be their character's loudest spoken line, and that which may be their softest. Though this is a non-organic approach, it is a great exercise to find the character's total range and journey. It emphasises making bold choices and committing to them. I got this one from RADA also, and love using it myself. Naturally, the choice of line may change throughout rehearsals, but the risk-taking and strong-choice making should remain.
Made a stir-fry when we arrived home, and did some voice class prep for tomorrow morning. I'll be running the morning workshop for an hour and a quarter. The company have designated morning training classes. Dion and I have asked for three of these time slots to specifically focus on voice and language for our Shakespeare, and also dance choreography for the show (though they'll be other times for this as well as it is integral to our hip hop vs pantzula (tow households both alike in dignity/awesome-dance-moves concept. They also have yoga as well as mime weekly training classes. It would be wonderful to be in an ensemble such as theirs - working consistently all year on numerous productions, school and mainstage, touring a bit, teaching a bit, and training regularly Not to mention, performing at the National Arts Festival right here at Grahamstown. I'm going to get to it one day.
Sunday, 3 April 2011
Thursday 24th March 2011
Today I have sore shoulders from Andrew's mime class!
We began with voice class, Dion leading - Viewpoints and vocal viewpoints using lines from the prologue - a wonderful way to get into the text and begin exploring the language.
Then we continued with more text work, with Dion and I working simultaneously at two tables with different actors for different scenes. I love watching their faces light up with understanding as we work through any unknown words or phrases for meaning. I remember the same sensation of joy and wonderment when I went on my first archeological adventures through Shakespeare. Not much has changed. And I'm still unearthing treasures :)
In a break from the rigorous 'academic' work, I taught the group the Elizabethan song round that I learnt first at the RADA Shakespeare course, and then again more recently at Shakespeare and Company in the U.S. The performers all have incredible vocal talent and were quick to learn the 4 differing parts to round, infused them with feeling, and then transformed them into a very funky, sexy beat-box/hip hop version. I think we'll be using this in the show!
In the next break from table-work, I ran the "bus-stop" game with the cast, although transposing it to a taxi-shelter, as this is where we will be setting our Romeo and Juliet (street scenes) for the local flavor. "Bus stop" is a game I normally play with young students. One character is at the stop, and another enters and tries (with or without dialogue as I decree) to get the other to leave the stop. Of course, this always leads to fart and vomit acting, which it also did with the R&J company, but acted brilliantly! We were all in hysterics at Sisonke's character's unfortunate upset stomach. And all the other choices made, particularly the moments of subtley and stillness were equally as effective. Such a joy watching this exercise with professional actors, I would've paid money to see it.
As I wont be seeing the actors till next week, I've set them a homework task to learn two Shakespearean insults (from the 3 column list sheets so popular for Shakespeare workshops), as well as adding 2 physical insult gestures to accompany them.
In the evening I went with Andrew to see his past student Athena Mazerakis perform at the Box theatre at Rhodes. Her performance mode is physical theatre/dance/political theatre, I guess one might call it, and this piece was an exploration of the issue of "corrective" rape of lesbians in this country. It was an extremely powerful, brilliantly executed short work with beautiful moments of audience intimacy and humour. One particularly clever device was when she put two shox mini speakers down her trousers (yes, like balls) and moved through the audience playing audio interviews with South African lesbians who have been victims of this heinous crime. Her immersion in multi-media was very engaging. Not only the ball-speakers but also video camera which was used in a variety of clever and fascinating ways. Even though the technical processes were sometimes slow to establish, Athena maintained her audience captivation through pure presence. I am afraid of even conceiving utilising such technology in any of my own (future/fantasised) works because of my seemingly ingrained ineptness. However, I almost always enjoy it when I see others doing so. I can imagine a one-woman show of mine with as much technology and cords involved going quite differently. Most likely it would end up being me convulsing expletives in a flaming labyrinth of electrical cords and switches; buttons and levers crackling and popping and clicking while I melted into a fume of defused energy. Which some might consider entertainment.
We began with voice class, Dion leading - Viewpoints and vocal viewpoints using lines from the prologue - a wonderful way to get into the text and begin exploring the language.
Then we continued with more text work, with Dion and I working simultaneously at two tables with different actors for different scenes. I love watching their faces light up with understanding as we work through any unknown words or phrases for meaning. I remember the same sensation of joy and wonderment when I went on my first archeological adventures through Shakespeare. Not much has changed. And I'm still unearthing treasures :)
In a break from the rigorous 'academic' work, I taught the group the Elizabethan song round that I learnt first at the RADA Shakespeare course, and then again more recently at Shakespeare and Company in the U.S. The performers all have incredible vocal talent and were quick to learn the 4 differing parts to round, infused them with feeling, and then transformed them into a very funky, sexy beat-box/hip hop version. I think we'll be using this in the show!
In the next break from table-work, I ran the "bus-stop" game with the cast, although transposing it to a taxi-shelter, as this is where we will be setting our Romeo and Juliet (street scenes) for the local flavor. "Bus stop" is a game I normally play with young students. One character is at the stop, and another enters and tries (with or without dialogue as I decree) to get the other to leave the stop. Of course, this always leads to fart and vomit acting, which it also did with the R&J company, but acted brilliantly! We were all in hysterics at Sisonke's character's unfortunate upset stomach. And all the other choices made, particularly the moments of subtley and stillness were equally as effective. Such a joy watching this exercise with professional actors, I would've paid money to see it.
As I wont be seeing the actors till next week, I've set them a homework task to learn two Shakespearean insults (from the 3 column list sheets so popular for Shakespeare workshops), as well as adding 2 physical insult gestures to accompany them.
In the evening I went with Andrew to see his past student Athena Mazerakis perform at the Box theatre at Rhodes. Her performance mode is physical theatre/dance/political theatre, I guess one might call it, and this piece was an exploration of the issue of "corrective" rape of lesbians in this country. It was an extremely powerful, brilliantly executed short work with beautiful moments of audience intimacy and humour. One particularly clever device was when she put two shox mini speakers down her trousers (yes, like balls) and moved through the audience playing audio interviews with South African lesbians who have been victims of this heinous crime. Her immersion in multi-media was very engaging. Not only the ball-speakers but also video camera which was used in a variety of clever and fascinating ways. Even though the technical processes were sometimes slow to establish, Athena maintained her audience captivation through pure presence. I am afraid of even conceiving utilising such technology in any of my own (future/fantasised) works because of my seemingly ingrained ineptness. However, I almost always enjoy it when I see others doing so. I can imagine a one-woman show of mine with as much technology and cords involved going quite differently. Most likely it would end up being me convulsing expletives in a flaming labyrinth of electrical cords and switches; buttons and levers crackling and popping and clicking while I melted into a fume of defused energy. Which some might consider entertainment.
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