Workshop 2

Today we continued to develop the work of 'Cost of the actor' and '...being cruel to one’s self.'

We began with a task that focused on body over mind - we started with some movement work, asked to allow the body to overcome the mind, be fluid, improvise with the body. Then after a while soft music was introduced which I found helped to take my mind off what I was doing and gave me a rhythm that I could focus on instead. This music also helped to set the mood of what I was doing, encouraging fluid movements that we then used as we reacted to other bodies in the space. I found with the slow tempo of the music it worked well to help our movements flow and with our focuses on that we lost some of our inhibitions, therefore encouraging more interaction.

I do however find that when we mingle as a group our movements tends to move towards the floor, believing that we should try to maintain different levels because otherwise it begins to get monotonous. The movements together though, did although us to react of each other, using their bodies and energy to influence our own which I found distracted me, helping me to focus on the task and work harder.

The next task we did was tickling each other and then having to replicate what we did and what they did minus sound, which was done because we are not becoming characters we are representing/replicating a person or emotion, in order to hopefully have a greater affect on audiences (a key idea of Artaud's). The replication of the movements had a bizarre quality, making our movements somewhat grotesque and exaggerated, linking to Artaud's theatre of cruelty. 

Later on in the lesson we had to listen out for music to start our different tickle or fluid movements this meant that we had to become more instinctive with our movements and just react to the music, helping it to become more organic. By doing this it also gave us more focus and meant that our reaction time was quicker which would aid our movements in future tasks. 

Artaud's theatre of cruelty is was also explored as we were "being cruel" to our selves, pushing our physical limits as we attempted to achieve the impossible tasks the rest of the class set. For example, my task was to walk through the wall and onto the roof. To push my limits I had to use all my strength against the wall, even though I knew it was an "impossible" task. However I do feel that as a class we all needed to push harder because I felt that we all didn't fully believe what we were doing as this kind of working is quite new to us.

The task was incredibly frustrating because we knew it was impossible and Sarah was still telling us that we weren't trying hard enough. This did then make you work even harder but I did feel it still could've been stretched. I know I was slightly cautious of injuring myself on something around the, so in future if we used a room that had less hard surfaces and safety hazards I think it would be a lot easier to push your limits.

I found that when we just did things without thinking too hard about it, it then meant that you could work more instinctively and therefore work harder , pushing you limits. Without the restrictions of thinking about the reasons behind the task and ignoring that I might not achieve it, it enabled me to just do the task with more natural responses. This is again addressing the "cost of the actor" because we sacrifice the reasons for the task and accepting just doing it in response.