February 2, 2012

Lecturer: Gavin Maxwell
Lesson One

The objective for this lesson was to define what an element is and explore the idea of taking on the dynamic of an element into the body.
(Element: Something that makes up something else. Earth, fire, air and water make up the world.)
We began with a warm-up that was quite intense and made us really concentrate. First we walked around the space in nutral, running to the sides of the room when we heard "clear the space". Then we explored different ways of moving in the space, for example breaking, then chewing up the space. I found this challenging, but thoroughly enjoyable as I love exercises like these that allow me to improvise and experiment.
The warm-up was very focused on spacial awareness, exploring and playing with the space and interacting with other people within it.

Then, we revisitted Jacques Lecoq, the famous French practitioner, exploring his theory of using the natural elements to help create a character.
We read a quote from Leonardo Di Vinci: "We are like marble, every character is there waiting to be carved out and created".
At the time, I thought I understood it and it really made me think, but when I reflected on it after the lesson, I realised I didn't quite understand it, because I couldn't see how it related to elements. I will ask about that in a future lesson.

When we all understood exactly what an element was, we talked about how we can use elements to describe a character. For example, fire could be used for an angry or energetic character, and air could be someone flighty and delicate.
The King in Arabian Nights could be fire because of his explosive actions and outbursts, or water because he is powerful and strong, but also quite gentle.
I had never thought of characters as natural elements before, and I really enjoyed doing this, because I love learning new approaches on life and acting.

Next, we explored the natural elements further, taking their dinamics into our bodies. We had to show which one we would be if we were happy, sad, in love and angry, all the prime emotions.
It was a very intense and energetic task, which I found challenging at times, but extremely theraputic.
Some elements were a lot harder to portray than others, for example love in earth and sadness in air, but I enjoyed the challenge.

I was very proud of myself this lesson, because I Achieved my on-going target of not being so self-concious. I completely let myself go, taking up lots of space and not worrying about getting in anyone's way or looking awkward.
This was because I was so engrossed in the task, that I completely forgot to be aware of my surroundings.

Our last task of the lesson, for the remaining ten minutes was to get into groups of four and act out the prologue, portray our characters through elements.
This went well, but I was disappointed that we couldn't show the end part as it was very funny. We exadurated things like getting under the bed to sleep and going to the palace with "all possible speed."

I tried to show the elements water and air for Dinarzad.
Water because she is gentle and goes with the flow, but has an inner strength which gets her through this trying time helping Shahrazad.
Air because she is light and flightly, but refreshing like a pleasant breeze.

This was difficult to create with so little time, but the whole lesson was thoroughly enjoyable.

My strength was achieving my earlier target and completely letting myself go in the space.
My target for next lesson is to think about quotes and deffinitions more in the lesson, so I can ask if I don't understand it.