Tuesday, March 10, 2015

Week 7 - Assembly Required

The watchword for the night may be "flexibility."   Trains slowed by flooding,  parents meeting at school, various other circumstances created a need to be flexible.
It was a good sensiblity to have as we went into assembling pieces for our presentation of material about Sarra Copia Sulam. Tonight we were forced to create a kind of focus that slid through the factors that could derail process: space crunch, time crunch really made us focus on what we have.
Always easy to get caught up in thoughts about what we don't have, but we needed to begin to assemble the piece what what was available.
The limits teach us and challenge us.
As we put together pieces of what we already have from our work with the materials about Sarra Copia Sulam, led masterfully by Lab Director Alex Randrup, the through line of energy begins to get sketched out.  In the short physical training we had today I focused on through line of energy from one action to the next, and limited my selection of exercises to focus on things we would need as we assemble the piece.
I'm most interested in hearing from the actors about how the limits of tonight challenged you and what you found valuable in the challenge.
Remember to check the comments icon below to see the responses.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

After so many years of being in productions with very little rehearsal or being an understudy with almost no rehearsal except for blocking this is the way I usually find myself working. Never the greatest way to do things but whatever I've taken away from all the training I've done helps me get through these situations. The few weeks that we've been together has been a refresher course for me, and is creating an ensemble that will come together by the training we've been doing so far. It will also continue to grow as everyone becomes familiar with it. My physical limitations because of a shoulder and arm issue has been interesting. This week although I was limiting my arm movements, I found that I was making better choices and connections. Those movements were limited but smoother...if that makes any sense. I didn't attempt lifting my head with some of the core exercises, but did the leg movements. At one point I used the ball to rest my head ( a cheat of course) but that seemed to help not put strain on my neck and shoulder. Sounding my age with these complaints of pain so I'll stop now. Over all it was a good use of time in our abbreviated sections. Enjoyed the 6th grade class scenario and the say anything scenario.

Magis Theatre Company said...

Good insights, Dennis. Grotowski spoke of the banks of the river being the necessary limits that focus the energy of the waterstream. So your organic selections based on certain limits you're facing is not only smoother, but smarter and more authentic (which is what the training is really all about)
- George