Dance show evaluation

20 June. I think the dance show went very well, here are some photos of the day. We prepared and started in good time, and as I was the narator I started mingling with the crowd and moving around the space. We then did Boot Scootin Boogie, which went well but I froze up at one point and forgot the moves but as the movements were very repetative, I could easily catch up.In previous performances, II would not have ha the confidence to find the correct movement in a piece without a  lot  of guidence or restarting. Howeverm rehearsing regularly, and having a solid grasp of this techniwue in addition to more confidence, I was able to do it on this occasion. I feel I could do that again in the future.  It also helped that the girls were positioned round me so that I had land marks to follow as a guide. I then vocally introduced the show, using a slightly drawling American accent for atmosphere, and I think it set the scene very well. I then watched the group carry out the footloose routine, where my character sat brooding at the bar, and hit the bar angrily to the cheerful music. It caused a slight atmosphere that all was not right in the barn. I was extremely happy with the America piece, it was full of life and energy and got a good applause. I found the centre stage positioning difficult but with the help of the guide light, and the position of my peers, I successfully performed the piece. It was a musical theatrew based dance, and for me, this was slightly easier to mange, since I could act a role out while dancing, and we had improvised my solo so I could relate to it.  My waltz with Callum went smoothly, and we crossed the corners without problem.The challenges of the corners had been an ongoing issue in rehearsal due to the fact that I had to angle my body in a different way in order to cross them elegantly.  We finished slightly early, but overall it was a smooth piece and neither of us had a problem with movement or walking in to each other. Ballroom dancing is a new techiniwue for me as unlike previous dances, I had to dance with a partner, and we had to rely on each othere. Rehearsing regularly helped us to master the Chassey, the art of crossing corners in a waltc.  I then went off backstage, as the solos and duets began. After Charlotte's ballet solo, I ran on stage and found my correct position, and narated about Charlott's dissappearance. I then had a mime argument with Angel which was a challenge as I did not know how to mime but I could draw upon the emotion, and previious improvisational techniwues we had  used. I felt I could confidently express myself on the night. There was a slight problem after this as Charlotte could not take off her shoe, but after a second of delay, the show resumed smoothly. I felt the curtain call was also fluid and looked professional. Over all, I feel very pleased with my performance. I oftne struggle to learn choreography, but despite my difficulties, I have managed to learn complex and profesional dance in time for the show. I did not let my difficulties hold me back from doing my best performance. I also did a duet which I have never done before, so this is deffinately progress for me. If I could improve one thing, I would try and join the more upbeat pieces like footloose. Although it worked well as my character watching in annoyance, my own panic about learning qick movements hindered me and stopped me from achieving a different type of dance style. I also think I neede to relax a bit more, as self doubt was making me anxious and by the time the show over, I was feeling unwell. Overall, however, I feel my progress has greatened, and the final dance show was an overall success.

Music int the community task three

Workshop Evaluation

We went to the care home to lead our workshops with Kevin.  Kevin brought his drums and other equipment with him.  I began by asking everyone how they were, and then began the clapping and tapping of my hands and calling out the month, day and date, and also asking everyone's names.  Surprisingly, the group kept up a steady pace, and were mostly all responsive.  The occasional problem was one man singing 1940s songs rather frequently, which was off topic.  However, I paused and then restarted when the noise died down.  I felt pleased with the pace of my activity, and with how the group was responding.  My plan worked, and I had support from Kevin who knows the group better than I do.  Then Callum followed by doing some call and response using the drums and other instruments.  He was very nervous, so there was a large pause, but after a while again the group responded very well to the louder and quieter hand gestures.  Kev had to help Callum at first, by demonstrating.  Then, Callum drummed some rhythms, and the residents responded very eagerly with a response.  Again, we had some random singing in the middle, but we left a pause and then continued.  After this, Kevin took over and played some songs like "chachacha" and "Olay" that the residents could join in with, with only one word. This was so effective as Kev was playing a very detailed and melodic song which were very uplifting, so the residents could enjoy a more cheerful beat and join in with a simple response. 

All in all, I'm pleased with the outcome of the session; the people seemed happy and had a small amount of entertainment and stimulation.  The residents said thank you and seemed grateful, and Kev and the staff said well done, which implies we took on the role in a comfortable and professional manner.

Project evaluation

From the start of the project, we knew that we would need to tailor the project to suit participants with dementia. We would need to finish the work by the end of the session, as the following week the participants would have no recollection of the previous session. We also had to hone in on our skills, learning or creating a song would be too ambitious, as would leading the group in a music composition with a lot of complex notes. We have to assume that there are no musicians in the group so our activities had to rely on body percussion and repetition, which suits people of all abilities.

We met with Kev, who gave us some ideas for activities. Being an experienced activity and workshop leader, Kev has experience in suitable activities for the target group. We then had to realise our skills, and create a session using techniques that we can carry out. For example, Kev is a musician who can play many instruments and music patterns. However, I am not musical, so I tailored my activities to body percussion which was more manageable for me as it suited my skill set.

Finally, Callum and I created a session plan and liaised with Kev to discuss our plans. This was helpful as we decided I would be the most comfortable in introducing the session, and Callum was more comfortable with instrumental work whereas I preferred vocal and body percussion exercises.

I feel that the planning paid off, we were not rushed for time, or thinking of gap fillers. Although we had some disruption, we did gently guide the group back to the plan which worked very well. Although Callum was nervous, with some peer support and demonstrations and support from Kev, the session continued smoothly.    

I think overall, throughout the project, our team effort and planning skills were successful. I think this could be a very successful and stimulating project if we ran hour long sessions for 6 week blocks. This type of session could be moderated to fit with the needs of other client groups for example Age Concern groups, where the takes are based around old songs that could trigger memories, youth work where the youngsters could mix with peers who are also socially isolated to create music and develop communication skills by creating modern music. For participants with dementia, this type of session would be perfect to help them recall memories, whereas it would be a great icebreaker for other groups, perhaps omitting the days and dates exercise.

One good thing about the project was that it was adapted to fit the needs of the participants, and it visibly stimulated them, it was clear to see they were enjoying themselves. I think one way to improve the session would be to have an informal session before the workshops so that we can get to know the group and know what to expect. We could also then aim the workshop towards what the group indicated they wanted to do. Although, as we were working with people with dementia, they may not have a recollection that they inputted in to the session planning.  We have also received some written feedback from Kevin based on responses from staff and residents after the session. We can apply this feedback to future workshops, in order to make adjustments and improvements where needed. 

Music in the community task two

Our objective  for the project is to previde stimulating performances for dementia patients in a residential care home promoting positive feelings.  The residents at the care home will benefit, and so will we as we will learn a new skill.

These sessions are funded by the care home who receive a budget from the NHS for activities and therapy. Other potential sources of funding are given by the care home, but alternative sources are a social care fund, the arts council, and local authorities.

We will deliver the workshops aongside Kevin, the community music facilitator.  Myself and Callum are current performing arts students at RNC.  We will need musiaal instruments, that are suitable.  We will also need a van to move the equipment.  Kevin will bring this.

We would gage a way of evaluating each day.  However, as this is a single session, we will ask for verbal feedback from the care staff, Kevin, and anything we can get from any lucid residents.

While planning our workshop, the initial ideas were:

Ice breaking, Danielle to introduce.  This should take about two minutes as I will ask how they are and then explain who I am and that I am helping Kev run the session. I will then introduce.

I will then lead a  call and responce,using body percussion as it is a bit quietere, this should take about 7 to 10 minutes as I will ask  what's your name, and the response should be My name is. This will help the residents with dementia to make a small connection with their peers so that they could limit peer isolation. I’ll thenproceed with a call and response about  the month day anddate   using forms of body precussion. This is included in the 10 minutes, ans should hopefully stimulate their mind, and potentially memories as they’ll learn the day and date, potentially for the first time in a long time.

Callum will take over and he will hand over the instruments.

Callum will get everyone to make a sound on their instrument.  They can make sounds louder when he raises his hand, and when he lowers  his hand they can make the noise quiet.  He will demonstrate some beats for people to copy on the Djembe. This will take about 10 minutes and will help the residents to work in a group and challenge themselves by following instructions. Meanwhile, I will join in with te residents in order to support Callum.

After this happens, Kevin will then take over and lead the rest of the sessions with his group.

These activitiesare suitable for the learning styles of the  participants.  As they suffer  with dementia  they can respond more easily to call and response, as it is repetition, whereas they could not create their own song due to barriers of memory loss. For example learning song words or chord sequences would not be possible for them to manage. 

Music in the community task one

I spoke to Kevin Bowman from Reaction music, a music making community interest company.  (CIC) Kev is a music making community facilitator who works with many community groups in order to support them to experience music.

Kev has told me that this type of work is very rewarding, as he has worked in prisons, with neet people (not in education employment or training), in acute wards and in nursing homes.  Some people, who were prescribed medications for anxiety and other mental health disorders, have been prescribed with social prescribing, by bringing in funding to get music or theatrical community groups to come in.

There are many specific purposes of omuuinity music projects such as stimulating people who can’t socialise, helping people to express themselves and their emotions, bringing people therapy in a creative way, helping people to socialise with others in similar situations, creating positivity, and improving or triggering memories for those suffering with Dementia or Alzheimer’s.

As part of Kevin's job, he works with a wide variety of areas, such as acute mental health, late stage dementia, people in care homes, schools, prisons, and young offenders institutes.

Before working with the group, Kevin has to have an initial meeting with the manager or sister in charge, so that he can tailor the workshop to fit the group's needs.  Some objectives are boosting people's employability skills, team work, helping people to exchange ideas, and furthering their life skills.

A community music tutor also facilitates in the workshop too.  Sometimes, a session is challenging, particularly with neet.  On the other hand, some sessions are more laid back, for example people who don't want to work with drums or loud precussion.  In these instances Kev has to bring Djembe drums and does an acute session.

Kevin has to also write reports to evaluate after the sessions, to mark progress.  The managers, sisters or person in charge of the group itself have to then fill out evaluation forms to mark the progress and positive effect on the group.  These evaluations prured that the members of the group were less anxious, they were making new friendships, and in some cases the people didn't need their medication.  There is a large benefit to certain individuals throughout many projects.

I have done my own research about community music.  It is an increasingly popular type of therapy, with companies like Music Pool Hefordd, community music Wales, and Sound Sense which is an organisation that promotes community music as a therapz.  It also has connections with community dance, and my personal interest which is community or applied drama/theatre.

I have also had a previous personal experience with community music.  In my home area, there was a youth centre and we had some community musicians there to help us learn to cooperate together, and make songs.  This version of communally music was more acoustic, with some precussion but also mainly vocal.  The facilitator would let us ea pick a phrase or sentence, and ha then put them all together inbba song, which united our ideas.

Soon, we must plan our own community music session, so that we can have a taster of what it is like to facilitate a community session at a care home.

Singing

11 September. This week, we reviewed technical exercises like major and minor scale, arpeggio, and va va va va vee vee vee vee. This reminded us of the ways to warm up, or prepare for a singing performance. This öeek, we just talked in a group about the singing performance, our group songs, and amy further ideas. We didn't get anywhere this week, as there were a lot of mixed conflicting ideas that we hd to discuss. We established that we needed solos, maybe duets and a group piece or two.    18 September. For most of this week, we continued to talk about pieces. We worked out that Groove is in the Heart would make a good group piece. We all liked Madness too, so Baggy TROUSERS was chosen. A popular choice was the 80s track Africa, which I don't really know. I thought about doing feed the birds from Mary Poppins but I'm not sure.   25 September. We have sung through the choruses of Baggy Trousers, while some people struggled, I managed to keep up.  I also had a brief look at the rap in Groove is in the Heart, as we decided I'D do it. I decided to scrap the Mary Poppins idea and do Colours of the Wind from Pocahontas. Emily liked a lady gaga song, Callum liked a Michael Buble song, and we were all happy with the songs. However, some people wanted to do all the songs pre recorded, as in not live. I disagreed, feeling like I öould not feel proud of a pre recorded piece.   2 October. We've given a few of the songs a go. Groove is in the HEart is fun, but hard. People were sceptical about baggy trousers, but I liked it. I am starting to  get used to Africa, as I previousé didn't know it.   13 October. We had a good look at Africa this week, as Cara needed to learn the piano tune for it, aid we needed to look at it. I also sang colours of the wind. My voice is richer and more tuneful than last year. As a second song, I've chosen je veux which is in French. I showed Cara the tune and she is happy with it as a piece for me. We also pre recorded Seasons of love, a song from last year, in the media rooms. Shia was a strange experience for me as I'm not a musician or media student.  We will use this as a musical interlude in a celebration for achievement event in November.    31 October. We began by starting work on melodic phrases. I found one bar phrases easy to repeat, but two bars is harder As there is more to remember. I also managed to work out, during another exercise, which note was coming next and what key ^major or minorä a bar was in. I also identified the number of keys in a note. I am pleased with my work on this, but there is  more to be done.  I did my solo and was told my voice had changed and improved again. We then worked on the noses in my piece, as I don't always take enough breath before a long, very high note. This causes me to frown, and causes headaches. We are going to continue working on this so I can prevent this, and make the note stronger.    3 November  Today I practised my new song, Je Veux, by Zak. It is a FRENCH song, and is very upbeat and lively compared with colours of the wind. I have mislaid my lyrics unfortunately, but I will retape them.     7 November. Today, I practised Je veux properly, at the right speed. I think my first attempt was very successful. I found the right pace, and I can now look at the lyrics properly.The only thing I must do is make sure I don't loose words. As it is a French song, I have to learn how to shorten, or make the words fit in to the tune and the line, like in English we would do gonna instead of going to.    10 November.  Today I spenta lot of time on singing. Cara helped with my rap, for groove is in the heart, all is positive with this but the timings rare hard for some words. Also, my solo in french, Je veux needed some work.  I have got better at not rushing le swallowing words, and the melody and sound of the song has also improved. Also, for one course, there's an almost aca pela moment, and we have adjusted when this will be. Instead of the third chorus, it will be the second, followed by a jolly one to end.  14 September. Today I mainly worked on my songwhich was very productive because we changed the entire pace of je veux to make it jazzy and more French. This would also stop me from swallowing my words and I can work on my diction even in the French language. The key for colours of the wind changed from a c to a b so that I can hit the higher notes in a more tuneful way and it would suit my voice range better.   as it sounds jazzier and I can properly properly speak the French words with a lot of diction. I have tried to sing without a sheetoflyricswhichwas difficult however I have learnt the whole chorus off by heart. In colours of the wind I am still struggling to hit a couple of high notes. We are considering a way of making the notes more approachable and achievable for me.     22 November. Unfortunately for part of the weeek I was ill so I missed Momday's lecture. On Tuesday, I was able to look at my solos again. In colours of the wind we changed the key to a b I think I am making a fair bit of progression this area. We have slowed down the speed of je veux As there isa lot の あの  Colours the wind. I have managed to master the velocity, but one note is difficult for me, and we may adjust the key. However, I have been able to look at

14 November.  This Week i mainly focussed my solo
songs.  I changed the speed and accompany
of my song Je Veux, to make it jazzier and slower.  This meant that I could sing the individual
lyrics more easily, which can be hard in French.  In my other song, Colours of the wind, I
changed the key from C to B.  This helped
as I struggled to meet some of the higher notes.  Also the key fits my vocal range.  I am pleased that I was able to make good
adjustments to my singing to make it easier for myself. Here is a video of me practicing my solo Colours of the Wind
https://youtu.be/2A-8WcC6_Pc
 

 

22 November.  Unfortunately
I missed one of this week's lessons. This was the lesson when the group made the final decision about the songs to be included in the performance. We had 10 songs, 6 will be pre-recorded with a view to creating pop videos to go with them. Four will be sung live and all of the pieces will be live streamed. The focus for the performance will therefore not be to produce a live performance, rather pre-recorded with a live element. I didn't like the idea of pre-recording the pieces, I like the idea of performing on a stage and feeling the adrenaline of singing my best. When we record something, we can do it again but when it's live you only have one chance to do well.
The list of songs for inclusion is as follows:
Africa - group- studio
Groove is in the Heart - group - live
I see the Light -duet - studio Em and Cal
We are Family - group - live
Colours of the Wind- studio my solo
No Floods - studio - Emily
Hallelujah - live Callum solo
Can you Feel it - studio - solo Cal
Je Veux - live my contrasting solo
Own Composition - live - Mikey
This isn't the running order of the show, just a list of how we are going to present the songs.
I did however get the chance to sing through my solos on Tuesday,
without a word sheet.  Although I still
struggle to remember a lot, I am making slow progress.  I am still happy with the adjustments I made
to my solos, and I think this kind of change has helped with my singing skills
as I was able to enhance them by tailoring them to me.

 

29 November.  Today we all had colds so we were not able to
do the solos.  However, I sang through
Groove is in the Heart with Emily.  My
rapping section was really improved, and I even got to show my mum on the phone
this evening and she was pleased.  We are
trying to grasp we are family, as the verses are quite complicated, but I think
it can be done.

https://soundcloud.com/calamity99cb/africa-mix-23rd-march

 

https://soundcloud.com/calamity99cb/colours-of-the-wind

15 January.  This week we had a studio session with the
Art college students, trying to see if they were up for the job as musicians
for us.  We went through all the songs
and worked out what we could add music wise.
My solos were both meant to be piano, but I liked the idea of gentle
precussion.  It was nice to see there
enthusiasm, although unfortunately one person did not wish to take the job and
another knew he was to be very busy.

 

22 January.  This week the art college students did not
come.  It was a shame as they seemed
keen, however, we still continued to practice our songs.  We practiced singing them, which was helpful
as going over words is useful.  We also
tried to record some of the footage, such as I see the light and Can you feel
it.  This was useful as we could see the
progress and we could also understand what we had to focus on.  I was not ready to record colours of the
wind.

 

29 January.  This week, we continued to eddit some of the
prerecorded material.  I was not feeling
that well this week so I whisper-sang colours of the wind.  They managed to record it despite my voice
not being strong.  However, I have been
told that my voice has deffinately improved, partly due to the warm ups and
also due to the fact that I am learning how to control my voice better.

 

26 February: This
week, I really looked at colours of the wind, and managed to record it.  My voice was much better and stronger, and I
felt better vocally.  I used a braille
lyric sheet as a prompt, but this rustled a bit so I put it down.  I was tobbd that the rendition was very good,
however, I forgot the words a couple of times.
However I was able to record over this.
We also did melodic phrases, and I found that with bars of 2 4 and 3 4 I
repeat a melody with confidence.  However
sometimes there was a pause so it was not an automatic repeat and sometimes the
notes were wrong.  However, with practice
I will soon manage to repeat the notes to much longer pieces of music.

5 March: This
week, we practiced all the live songs.
In particular I worked on Je Veux, which went very well but Cara had to
record it so that she could remember my particular arrangement.  Also I accidentally rearranged a few of the
words so I need to work on the lines that went wrong.  We worked on Groove is in the heart, and we
are family, which were fine apart from I slipped up on the words in groove, and
some people didn't know their lines in family.
Since then, I have been practicing my lines and securing my own parts.      12 March. This week my voice was very sore so I tried to sing my solo but could not really manage very well. I did sing my parts in group songs, and reaffirmed a couple of words I had forgotten, for example, I needed to remember "Your groove I do deeply dig." I also helped during we are family as some people found it hard to remember their lines, and others sang quite quietly. Hopefully, next week, my voice will no longer be sore and I can practice my solo. I feel fairly happy with it but again, there are some words I keep forgetting. However, I do feel very confident with my parts in our show, one step beyond.  19 March. This week we practiced our songs, and decided we'd do all of them live when we perform for the French students. It was hard rehearsing colours of the wind after so long not practicing due to thinking we would be using the recording. I will continue to practice my lyrics until the performance.   26 March. The performance is confirmed for monday 27 Major, and I'm not too nervous. I will be doing french translations of the hosting throughout. I will be doing a french translation of Callum's English hosting. When I did je veux,my mind blanked due to the small, connecting words in the French language that make it hard to sing. Its like in English, if you read the word "Zhou do not" you can shorten in to you don't. It is harder to work out where to do this in French, especially when working out the length and accuracy of eaah line. It also was due to the list of similar lines, like suite au ritz, chez chanelle, limousine, personnelle, neuf chatelle, Tour Eiffel. It is hard to remember this while singing a complicated French set of lyrics. Someone made a comment that I didn't know the words and should know them by now, which Quite affected me and slightly knocked my confidence and made me slightly doubt myself, as I wanted to get the song right and seem professional. However, I am confident that I will do my best, as it is hard to explain to non-french speakers the complications of lyrics in a second language, with the abréviations, and I know that the lyrcs are secure in my mind. I am excited for the performance, especially as I can cooperate my French skills in with a theatrical performance.       

Below is a link to my youtube account where there is a video of me carrying out my melodic phrases.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPD-HHuaHTJEan6NiESguUA

Here is a link to the singing performance. I am very happy with this performance. I was unfortunately feeling rather unwell that daybut I managed to translate very competently in Frenchh. I also felt confident that I was loud, clear, and faced the audience. I also felt that having a floor mic really helped, I could tell where it is, but I could still gesture and move without worrying about the sound travelling. I unfortunately sounded like I was out of breath during the songs, but I was confident with the words, and with my overall performance.  I also took part in the ensemble pieces, with my own line in We Alder Family. Apart from a tiny tuning issue I felt confident wish our group song. Unfortunately we could not live stream the fre recorded performance, but I feel that we still carried out a successful, tuneful, and harmonised performance. I unfortunately sang the wrong line at one point, but I am pleased with it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNheDgolR-s&t=326s

 

Skills used in improv

The art of improv needs a number of skills to be successful. Although an umbrella term, you actually need to be able to improvise. If you are put on the 2pot and you acan't stay focussed or in role, you are not successfully improvising. Although in most theatre, planning is vital,  if you plan too much in improvisation, it is not very good. This is because you never know what your peers will want, and the scene or piece could go down a different track. You must also be engaged with your group or partner. If you both or all don't work together or stay engaged, and aware of each other, a quick paced and interesting scene can not work. Team work is vital skill. Although you can do solo improv, group or pair work is more common and desired. If you can't work together, improvising wouldn't be possible, and you would not be sufficient at acting. You must be imaginative. If curing improv you run out of ideas, you must keep going, without stalling and not being creative5 In improv you learn how to do all of these skills, as they're all vital in any improvised piece.  

Improv

11 September. We looked at quite basic improv work this week. In our small groups, we had some very little scenarios to look at. We did an exercise where one person left the room and in a pair, we made a scenario based on an emotion, and the person who left had to guess what the word or emotion was. We had a funeral, a therapy session, and a patient anxious for test results. This helped us to look at  what we were trying to convey, and how the audience would feel in response. On THURSDAY, we did scenarios in pairs as there were 5 of us. These pieces were contrasting. Fair example, one person wanted a pet, the other didn't. There were family scenes, friendship ones and school scenes. It really helped to work with a range of people, with different acting styles.I researched Mike Leigh and looked at his work on youtube. He is a very talented director. His actors are fantastic as they work in a team, without corpsing, and with the ability to devise scenes based on anything.   18 September. This week, we continued doing little scenes. We worked in a small group of 3, creating scenarios based on conversations or relevant group ideas. Callum discussed  the Mary Rose, so we made a scene about that, with a tour guide, a mother and a bored child. We also did a dispute improv, with a problem of different people wanting to watch different things at a cinema. We also worked on a difficult restraunt customers with conflicting problems. We also did a guessing game where we had to assign someone a character, or real person, and make them guess and imagine themselves in their shoc, in order to work out who was chosen for them. This was quite hard as the spectrum of types of character or real person are so broad.    25 September. This week we were introduced to solo improvs. This was where we focussed on one actor, with a scenario. Mina was a person none alone, hearing a sound at the door, and panicking as it was from the kitchen. My first attempt was with lots of speech, and my second had none. I found that without any speech, I found it hard at to portray what I wanted to, however, apparently my expression and movement was better that way. Too much speech took away from that. In future, I will try to use my body more, and speech a little less, but using a fair mixture. We were introduced to one line improv. We were given a line and one of us had to use it at first, launching in to an improv. WE worked together well on this, as the improv sparked from the line, and we worked together while put on the spot.    2 October. This week, we advanced the one liners, by only one person knowing what it would be. This stopped us from overthinking, or being able to plan much storyline. We also looked at people in a place with a problem, as this was a basic improv technique that helps you define characters, or a rough setting for a piece.   14 October. This week we worked on one line improv, in a group of 4. This is very different as this exercise began in a pair, and was increased to 4 people. We also looked at particular scenarios, like people on the edge of  a cliff. We had a couple of seconds to plan, but then we began. The topic was so broad that it could lead anywhere, and it actually traveled down the suicide path, and it was interesting for me to put myself in the shoes of some one trying to put a stop to a mass suicide.   3 November    Today we taught basic improv games to some delegates. We taught Da Da Diddly, and fortunately unfortunately, also what happened to Maria. They seemed interested and had a few questions about the course for us.   We then worked in a group to do a restraunt imprOv. We each had a character trait to impersonate. Mine was a newly redundant character. We had five minutes planning time before starting. We then realised we'd been overthinking so we began. We got our timings  well, and worked together well. We then worked in pairs with doctor patient improvs. It helped us to work together, with enough room for dialogue. We also learnt how each other worked. It was good to work with Charlotte and Angel, as I had not worked with them much before.        https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPD-HHuaHTJEan6NiESguUA


This is a link to my youtube channel which has my improvisation videos on it. Here you can find my solo improvs, and work in a small group.

14 November.  This week, we looked a little at Stanislawski, and how he plays on the emotions in his pieces.  We were given little, emotional scenes like being desperate for the toilet and being late for a plane.  I carried these out quite well, as I was able to connect myself to my character and almost embody them.  We also had to pretend to bully each other, which was so hard as it felt quite realistic.  None of us managed to treat each other unkindly, because we had built up a bond.

 

22 November.  This week, we did work on emotions, as in the words, where we had to act out different emotion words.  We had things like happy, sad, shallow, excited, upset, fragile/vulnerable, and many more.  We had to make a sound, and then maybe a movement that fits the noise.  I liked it as you could study the certain emotions that we have.  We also made a scene of emotions made in gobbledygook, which was interesting as the emotions were still there, even in gobbledygook.  I think it was a good exercise for me.  Some people really struggbed with this.

 

30 November.  This week, we did a game where we replaced words with a random other word.  It helped us to warm up, and to understand our conversations with others.  We also did a radio game, where someone would tune us in and out like an old radio.  This was fun but hard to create a variety of different radios especially while being played and paused very quickly.




7 February.  Last Tuesday we had the chance to go to a theatre in Breckon.  It was amazing to meet the Ceo of the theatre, and have a look around.  After lunch we had the chance to do our monologues and then it was time for improv.  To start with, we did physical theatre, getting into the shape of hoovers, elephants, and other objests.  This was hard as everyone chattered and planned the cape too much instead of an automatic reaction.  We then had the mystery character improv where I had to play the ex-prison convict.  Everyone had to guess who it was but when I gave a huge clue away by leaving the stage when the crime was brought up, no one seemed to get what I was indicating.  It ended up with us all accusing each other, but yet still no one seemed to notice it until the Ceo called me out at the end of the piece.  Our final piece was a therapy session where I had to be the leader.  We had a mix of characters, and it almost leant towards theatre of cruelty.  Mikey was pretending to scream and was talking about someone who he was clearly afraid of, Charlotte was very quiet, but then screamed and refused to speak (whilst in character, which was very effective), Angel told a story about her sister being hurt which was eerie, and Callum told this story about an old lady who had followed him around.  This was eerie, and meanwhile I played a very relaxed and open therapist.  It was deffinately spinetingling as Callum kept tapping, and other voices kept cutting in.  This was a fantastic opportunity and I feel we have had access to a variety of different styles of improv today.