The Begining of an End

Now that Tom rose the bar it's even more difficult to get on and just write this post.......

So I will try to pretend that I don't care by writing facts and making a long story short.

Today I was supposed to have a workshop with the elderly, and I was looking forward to it (this sentence doesn't make the story shorter, but gives you a bit of insight into the type of work that we are doing and tells you how much I like it). Unfortunately the workshop was postponed, good thing about that is I could be in rehearsals from the beginning. Arrived at 10am. We started at 10.45. I got a new part, I'm King George's servant - very good fun. Lauren found her King who's crude like a Viking and as cowardly as a .... something very cowardly. We spent lot's of time with Richard and Kath fighting, threatening and killing each other - extremely amusing.

All day we've been working on specific scenes, but Tom with Rachel and  Esther found time to work on solo parts for the opening song. I knew it was going to be good, didn't know it was going to be that good. Girls have great voices and Tom has fabulous ideas. Enjoyed stamping and 3/4 dancing.
One more highlight - Esther playing double part, stepping in for Rachel who had to leave earlier.
We still have to work on few bits but devising process for this week comes to an end.  

Julianna Skarżyńska
Community Animateur 
Movement director  

A Medieval and Musical Meditation

I think I set my alarm for seven, but maybe it was eight. I remember wanting to beat the rest of my family to the bathroom, so it must have been seven. But whatever, it was eight when I got up and any chance of getting in there first was doomed. Eventually it was my turn and upon filling up the sink to shave a voice came a-shrieking.“We have to go now!” Not even time to shave. Just wash your face, brush your teeth and be on your deliriously merry way.

I arrived late for the rehearsal, the model of professionalism that I am, and was launched canon style straight in to making some music. I'm never good on the spot, and this soon out of bed my brain still feels warm and squishy like boiled broccoli, so it's safe to say I was pleased when I found that the group were musical and saved me the shame of going it alone. Much more comfortable, we played around with the music some more and I was shown a sword dance that they had prepared. At the thought of swords and sword fights the ten year old inside did a small somersault (he was more like thirteen but spare me the embarrassment). Despite my constant efforts to do so I hardly ever get to play music with violin, so it was exciting to throw some over the top of the dance, but I still had no clue how any of this would work with the play so I was eager to see how this all looked in action.

In the second half of the day we switched rooms and I got to see for the first time exactly how that action in the script looked. Less script more action was how. With no discernible language used the play employed a silent movie style of exaggerated madness. Impressed by everyone's zeal I found my sides splitting worse than my ambitious skinny jeans. Freaky masks, sword fights and slapstick hilarity. I can not wait to see the end result.

Tom Morton
Volunteer Musician 

The Weird and Wonderful

On the 29th of May at the unearthly hour of 9 o clock I attended the second day of preparation for the New Vic Borderlines’ visit to Poland. This was only my second day exposed to the weird and wonderful ways of Comedia dell’arte and the first workshop that I had participated in that challenged my abilities as both an actor and performer. Being part of this project is my first experience working with the New Vic Borderlines and although writing this after having partaking in only two days of workshops I have been made to feel both comfortable and welcome by the leaders and participants.

We began the day with a yoga session which allowed us to warm up our bodies and adapt to the physical mind-set that Comedia dell’arte demands. We then started developing the techniques by using our entire bodies to portray a particular emotion. Using the masks was at first a challenge as it is important to never shield the mask and always have the mask facing the audience. We soon adjusted to this way of thinking and began to portray a range of emotions using the mask whilst keeping the audience in mind.

By the end of the day we had fully developed our character using the masks. We took part in exercises whereby we began to think about how our character would wake up in the morning, eat, get ready, and interact with other characters. This then helped when we began to block the play. We decided to perform the whole play using only mime and not text as it allowed us to think more freely and really commit to each action to display to the audience what was happening in each scene. After a hard day’s work I felt that not only I but everyone had fully adapted into working with the mask and becoming their character.


Katherine

Dancing for Poland

 

 Today we learned two dances for our Comedia Dell Arte piece, one of which was quite intricate with the use of wooden swords to link all the group together with, it was very energetic and fun to do, and the other one was in more of a barn dance style, which was more complex but yet I found it easier to learn. And considering we only started learning them both today I feel we picked them up really easily. I'm not a big fan of dance but I enjoyed doing both of them.

It was a very exhausting day but I think we got a lot done and now I feel we are more ready for Poland. We also started to go over our script and went through it a fair few times and I am already pretty much off script which is very good for me, I am now looking forward to seeing how we develop the performance from this point, and how it will go together with the masks.

Richard Marsden 

Commedia Workshop II

First of all we started the workshop by doing yoga like we always do. It's not a our group's favourite though.

We had to make silly noises and we did this to try to find our character's voice. Richard, Rachel, Esther and I made up scenes. In the scene me and Rachel created, she stole my boyfriend and we had an argument but without words. Everything was mime. It was so funny. I had to mime throwing water over Rachel.

I enjoyed fiding my character and letting my body move. It was a very enjoyable session.

Lauren Parkes

Commedia Dell’arte Techniques

The 16^th May was our first workshop learning Commedia Dell’arte techniques in preparation for rehearsals. We started, as we do every rehearsal, with yoga and though not particularly a group favourite at times, it helps to release all of the tension in our bodies and enables us to completely relax before starting, which is essential when exploring Commedia Dell’arte, especially as the techniques are very physical.

After warming up, we formed a circle with one person holding ‘the ball of emotion.’ The aim of the exercise was to physicalise different emotions, by travelling across the circle towards another person whilst holding the ball, using your whole body to communicate that emotion. For example, if somebody chose to convey anger, their body would shake and their movements across the circle would be heavy and strong. This was really interesting, as it was amazing to see how many different interpretations of one emotion could be produced and everybody was learning from one another.

Later on, we were told to walk around in the space, however, every time we wanted to change direction, we had to clearly stop, sharply turn our head in that direction, then quickly turn our body and start walking again. To build on this, we began learning characteristics of different Commedia Dell’arte characters, by walking around the space with a certain part of our bodies leading, for example, the forehead, the nose, the chest, the knees or the stomach. This was hilarious and rewarding for everyone, as even though at times we felt like complete fools, we were so enthusiastic and committed to what we were doing.

Towards the end of the session, we began working with the masks, developing an understanding of the relationship between ourselves and the audience. We would build a character in our mind and then enter the space with a certain emotion, notice and react to the audience and then leave with a contrasting emotion caused by an imaginary stimulus on the other side of the stage. This was so much fun, as everybody immersed themselves into their characters completely, and the action which took place was hilarious.

Overall the session was extremely enjoyable, and as a fairly newcomer to the techniques of Commedia Dell’arte, I surprised myself with how much fun I had, making our trip to Poland seem even more exciting. 

Esther Greene

Costume Fittings and Mask Making

On the 8^th of May we all went in for our costume fittings and mask making for the Poland trip. Firstly we had our costumes fitted; they depended on our character’s personality and class. For my character Jack Finney I had ragged and different coloured clothes to show how my character had the lowest class but is clever and confident.

After we all had our costume fittings we when upstairs to start the mask making. For this we had to firstly put Vaseline all over our face and in our hairline, it was fair to say our skin looked very shinny. Next we started to actually make the masks by putting cast on our forehead down to just above our top lip. We all learnt how to place the cast and it was really hard trying not to laugh or smile so it didn’t break the cast.

In order to remove the cast we had to screw our faces up. Seeing the masks afterwards was strange, I didn’t realise my nose looked like that.

Although the activity was messy it was actually quite fun.  

Rachel Mullock 

WIthout Frontiers Festival 2012

Last year New Vic Borderlines YPTC took part in 'Without Frontiers Festival 2012' for the first time.