Unit 6 - Performance workshop

Tuesday 7^th March

We started the session with a warmup which consisted of a few activities that we have carried out in previous lessons such as the bean game. We also carried out a new activity which we named this the ‘happy slappy game’ and this is when you gently slap different parts of our bodies to make a rhythm. This game explores body percussion and creativity.

For the main part of the lesson we were thinking about characterisation. To start with, we led on the floor for a few minutes just to think about what sort of character we wanted to create an image of. This character that we were creating today isn’t necessarily going to be the character which we play in the performance. We were asked to think of a name, age, fact, rumour and secret for our character but we were not to reveal the secret to anyone. The character that I came up with was Estelle who is 22 and goes to university. She is currently in a lot of debt but is quite relaxed about this. Once we had gathered our thoughts, we sat in a circle and carried out some improvisation. We went around the circle and we had to describe a ‘day in the life’ of our character. This activity is similar to hot seating because it is putting you on the spot to think about your character. We then had to perform short scenes which had to include our facts that we came up with previously. I was in a group with Danielle and Angel and we were in a doctor’s waiting room.

After a short break we then moved onto hot seating. Callum was the first person to be hot seated. The rest of us in the group sat as if we were a panel and asked James questions. This activity was to enable Callum to develop his character a bit more. Once we had finished asking questions, we improvised as someone from James’ life. We then had to stand next to him and the closer we were to him, the stronger the relationship. We then went on to develop scenes from this so using 2 characters (one of which was James). We then carried out this whole hot seating/improvisation task again but with Angel. Angel’s character is called Lily.

To finish off the lesson we went through a list of the scenes which we have already created which could be used within our final performance. These are:

·      Bus stop scene

·      Pet shop scene

·      I am… I am…

·      Stuck in a lift scene

·      Kitchen scene

·      Doctors surgery scene

We have come up with the idea for the performance of an egg timer effect where the 5 different characters in the performance have different stories but then they all come together at a central point and then go their separate ways again.