February 29th, 2012 (Leap day!)

Today, since it was a Wednesday, so a short day, we didn't work on our play or do what we normally do. Instead we went out to the amphitheater and you showed us how if you stand at a certain point in the center then your voice will echo back to you, with only a minimal increase in volume to the audience. I had to talk pretty loudly in order for it to work correctly, but thats because it takes alot more volume to be able to talk to a theater full of people. You showed us this soo we will get used to the idea of talking alot louder while on stage so the audience can hear us. That is very important. Also, we played a cat & mouse game where one person chased the other through the lines of the rest of us. When a third person out of bounds call right/left/up/down stage, we, in our lines wuld turn in that direction, blocking certain ways for the cat/mouse to go. The tag game was just a fun way to learn the directions of the stage for when perfoming. It came pretty easily to me, but I did turn stage left when I should've turned right, or vice versa a few times. I do think I got the general idea of it down though.

February 27th, 2012

Today, we started going in a different direction from what we normally would do. Instead of playing games, we read the poem "The Jabberwocky" together and were assigned to do an interpretive narrative play on it where the Jabberwocky stands for some challenge or negative thing that must be overcome by the protagonist of the story. After a long conversation, my group decided to do ours on a victim of rape overcoming their struggle. Eventually the child will seek revenge for its mother. Our choice of topic displays much irony in that a very serious matter is being drawn out of such a  goofy story like The Jabberwocky.  The purpose of this play we will do is to combine all of the skills we have learned so far like stage presence and being able to actually visualize the scene we will play.

February 24th, 2012

Today, we played an improv game where three of us went up and sat in these three chairs. We then were to, without talking, start acting out a scene that will eventually lead us to all getting up for the same reason. The point of this game is follow your group members' lead and to just go with what ever direction the act is going to. Like when Moki ate something and started to throw up, we all jumped up and ran away from it, because it was gross. We all realized it was a good queue to stand up and leave for the same reason.

Also, we played this game where we partnered up and one partner would think of an activity that we could both act out together. Once the partner got the idea, we did just that. It wasn't always so obvious to me what me partner was doing. Like this one time, Margaux (Sorry to her if I spelt that wrong) sort of just started stritting around, almost marching. I followed her lead but  I still didn't really get what she was doing until she struck a pose and turned around. I figured she chose to be fashion models and it turned out I was right. It became easier to get into the role once I knew what exactly it was I was doing. I think the point of the game was to practice following your partners' lead even if you don't know exactly what it is they are doing. Like you said, one of the rules of improv is always say yes, just go with it, so I did.

February 22nd, 2012

Today in class we continued to work on our improvization skills. We did this by first (imaginarily) compressing the air in front of us into a sort of ball of energy. The purpose of this was to practice body language when doing improvs. Next, we continued to work on improv by next picking up a more realistic, but still imaginary ball. We were to bounce it around and we played "catch" with a partner with our imaginary balls. Then we played imaginary volleyball. The purpose of these were to improve our group coordination on improv. I think we did pretty well considering there were 12 if us playing with a fake ball. We sort of just, again, 'got in the zone' and were able to communicate rather well. The few times we did sort of get out of sync, we quickly got it fixed. Then, at the end we did our own individual imoriv skits where we just did a bunch of things. By that I mean  we each went up on "stage" and acted out certain scenarios with few or no props. We all did pretty well, I think. It was to get us more comfortable with being on stage, being the focus of everyones attention and to see how realistic you could make it. For example, if you put something down and if you picked it up from the same place. We used skills we were slowly building up for the past few classes/days/weeks.

Feb. 17th, 2012 (edited)

Today we sat in  a circle and pretended to do stuff like drink  a drink, answer a phone, and open a book. We were supposed to be working on our sort of, instant creation of a scenario kind of thing. I only did this once; The 2nd one we did which was the drink. I imagined I had a Pepsi, a cold American, not foreign, Pepsi. It's hard to get much Pepsi here so it was a little nostalgic. I even like Coke better, but thats what I went with... The phone and book one I just picked up  a generic ... phone\book. I figure that I need to work on improving my ability to instantly create a scene. I do think that I was pretty good at keeping the size and shape of the objects corect though. For example, when I put the soda can was put down. I picked them back up in pretty similar to the same shape and almost exactly the same place.,

February 6th, 2012

I wasn't here today.

Feb. 15th, 2012 (edited)

Today we sat on the ground for 1/2 hour and were supposed to imagine a place that we are familiar with that isn't here. The purpose was supposed to  be able to get into the role of an act and to get comfortable with pretending to be somewhere we're not. I didn't really get it... I did get a little warm when you talked about the honey, but a combination of being on the hard floor for a long time and... just not getting it I guess, prevented me from fully being able to go through with the drill. I didn't feel like I floated away or anything. I did try to imagine the scene when he changed gears towards that from just being warm, but it didn't feel really special to me. Maybe next time I'll be able to get more into it. Maybe more towards the end of the year when the floor won't be so cool.

Feb. 14th, 2012 (edited)

Today we were given a topic and then given a minute to think about how we'd act it out. 2 variations of this we did were archetypes of fruits (my group did banana) and as a group, act as a monster. In these two tableauxs, what I specifically should do in them really clicked fast for me. Especially with the monster one. Once Omar got into a certain hunched over position to be the central part of the monster, I figured that if I used my height to my advantage, by which I hunch over him to sort of be the head of it and to add to additional arms for the monster. I really used my height noone else can reach to help with the levels part of the tableaux which really gave it some feel. This also happened in the fruit one I, but to a lesser extent. Since we did banana, I sort of used my extra length to bend to the side to be like a long floppy banana peel. These  really helped me think of ways that, since I am uniquely tall in our class, I can use it to enhance the thing we will do in class.

Feb. 11th, 2012 (edited)

Today we played a game "tableaux" which is french for whiteboard where we got into groups, chose a theme, and did a still life of the theme and got all hidden meaning-ish and stuff. A "Tableaux" is made up of three main parts: Energy, Levels, & Proximics. In other words, they are what make a good tableax. With the right energy, the audience should still be able to tell generally what message is being portrayed by the emotions, muscle tensity and postures of the actors. Levels because it ads a whole other depth to the scene and more actions instead of just having three or four people standing their. Proximity because it helps give a message or story to the audience by distancing the actors either closer or further apart and by who is facing what. These 3 things help make a good "tableaux" and to help improve your stage presence. Like during one "Tableaux" we did, in order to give a fuller impression, I kneeled down in order to give an impression of my groupmates and I sort of fighting for a thing. I would've just been standing their awkwardly without a solid roll in it. Another thing we did was look at a bunch of the paintings around your classroom and analyzed them or what colors mean. We only had time to go over the scream guy and this one with an orange and a yellow square. I sort of got where we were going with scream guy. The colors that made up the background really enhanced the creepy eerie feeling of it. But I just can't see any possible meaning or reason WHY the one that looked like macaroni & cheese one is supposed to be special, or even famous, or valuable in any way. I wouldn't spend $5 on it. I mean, I can make 2 colored squares  and no one would give me any large sums of money or fame. I will accept deeper meaning in a work of art, but there has to be something there in order for there to be something under it. That is my opinion and I'm sticking to it. sorry to get going on such a rant but, yea. The scream guy one did show show me that seemingly random things can have a hidden meaning that isn't so easy to find unless you think (even though I already knew that). That being said, I do agree that colors can have positive or  negative affectts on peoples reactions especially when paired together. In the scream guy painting, there were many levels and proximics to show how they can alter a fealing of a scenario.

February 7th, 2012

Today we played a game where everyone moved around the room until they got their own space. We then moved to a place where we would have more space, while also creating another space in the process of moving where others who needed more space would move to. We then played variations of this game where everyone had to freeze except one person who walked around us until he "gave" his power of movement to someone else. The point of this game was to learn how to be able to read other peoples' reactions and/or queus... qeus? ... Q's , you know what I mean right? Anyways, people couldn't talk either, helping us react as "a crowd".

Feb. 2nd, 2012 (edited)

Today we played Zip Zap Boing. We were supposed to go around the circle by saying either zip, zap, or boing. Each one did a different thing, causing the next person to be different depending on what the first person said. We did this until someone messed up. During class, we talked about "the zone". "The Zone" is that time in most anything that requires continuous concentration and reaction where you seem to be able to react correctly without thinking. Ofcourse there will always be mistakes, but when you, or the whole group got their you can go faster and with fewer than normal, at least in Zip Zap Boing. I sort of got into "the zone" after a few rounds of the game. After I worked it into my mind what each word goes with each action, everything went smoother for me. When the whoke group got their, it was sort of like (at least for me), my mind got clearer and I didnt really think about anything at all or get distracted by anything. I just waited for another person to make a move at me so I could respond. I think at least a few others got their too because we seemed to pick up speed and still could do it right. I don't think there is any definite or cookie cutter way to get "there". You sort of just really have to focus hard plus eventually after you start to better your skills and get more used to the activity, you can do better which leads to the zone, I think.