PR-Evolution Dance Company in Jaszbereny

Last Thursday we were lucky enough to have PR-Evolution dance group from Budapest come and perform for us.
The four incredibly beautiful girls combined contemporary dance with classical techniques and performed several different routines, each routine accompanied by a different instrument, and with each performer wearing a different costume. The costumes were all highly relevant to the dances, for example, below is what I considered to be the toilet roll dance. In the middle, my favourite dancer is photographed depicting a giant toilet roll (right?!) whilst the others are dancing around in dresses made from the toilet roll inner tubes. My kind of fascinating!

In below's picture they all wore a different bright coloured t-shirt, which they would swap throughout the dance until they had de-shirted themselves completely and danced without being representative of a colour. Some good Michael Jackson philosophies in place there.

The music was outstanding and really heightened the emotional responses. A woman sat in the corner and took turns creating mood with an accordion, a violin, a melodica, and even used a loop pedal for some extra layered effects. Simply brilliant!

I LOVED this show and could have sat there for hours. I was in awe of their bodies and beauty and each graceful movement that was so incredibly expressive.

'Like' them on Facebook!

3rd week of lessons

Another week of lessons completed and all went really well.

We are still getting new students joining various classes, which is good - I guess we're starting to get pretty popular :)

We did more of the same last week but with a few more games relevant to the specific group. For example with the quieter students we wanted to encourage them to use their voices and experiment with sounds, but also be silly, go crazy, release their inhibitions. It will take a while for them to respond well, but so far so good. With the louder students we need to work on bringing them down to a more neutral energy, but most importantly we need them to focus. 

A good activity we started using last week is a quick improvisation game. We split the students into two groups and had a group each - we gave them a place, and assigned each student a character. They could think about it for a minute or so, before improvising a scene. They could talk in Hungarian, it was more an activity to show setting and characters, and the idea was that Clara had to guess where my group were and who they were, and I had to do the same for Clara's group. 

This worked well so we will continue this exercise in our 4th week.

Our lovely mentor got hold of 10 red noses for us so we can do a clown workshop this week with our university students! Yay!

Meanwhile, myself and Clara started working on creating some theatre that we hope to perform on stage around Christmas time - watch this space! 

2nd week of lessons and Performing Arts Festival in Eger!

We have just completed our second week of lessons. :)

This week we did more of the same - games and exercises to get to know names and a bit about each student.
It's funny how all the groups are so remarkably different! We have one group who are VERY LOUD, one group who are all extremely shy, and so on. We decided that now we must alter our lesson plans to adapt to their needs as a group. The loud, energetic group will now start with some 'lets-all-go-mad-and-run-around-and-scream-and-shout' exercises, so they can get it all out of their system before doing exercises that require them to focus.  And for the shy group we need to slowly work on bringing them out of their shells by encouraging silliness and vocal projection .
Starting tomorrow we'll be using music with some of the exercises as it is a really helpful medium to aid focus, creativity and productivity.

We're starting to notice some particularly talented students too and all in all we had lots of fun.

We had a new group on Tuesday - university students all the way from Transylvania in Romania!
They are here on an exchange program in which they see how the lessons are taught, how the students live, etc - to gain a general insight on student life in Jaszbereny! They will have one lesson with us per each of the 4 weeks they are spending here and Tuesday was the first. Obviously they are a bit older than the other students and it's amazing just how different confidence levels are at that age. They all responded incredibly well the exercises, you could FEEL the focus and concentration in the room, and they put effort into everything. They were able to laugh at themselves and be silly and it seemed there was much less self-consciousness than we see amongst the 13 year-olds for example.

We gave them a basic introduction to physical theatre which included the following -

Ways of walking - they walked around the room in different ways - drunk, in a rush, really heavy, on ice, etc

Lead by different parts - they imagined they were being pulled by various parts of their body and that part had to lead - elbow, knee, tongue, etc

Human Machine - I love this exercise! A human machine is gradually developed person by person, with one person starting with a repetitive, machine-like action and sound and then people come in and add to this.

Navigation - With a blindfold someone is directed to the other side of the room but must beware of obstacles (a course is created using chairs and shoes, that they must not touch)

We ended with a creative exercise of passing a pen around which becomes something different each time (eyeliner, a flute, a q-tip, etc). They all think very creatively and some of them are very talented.




In the meantime - myself and Clara visited a small festival of performance arts in Eger and saw an act by Rita.  The 29-year-old has her own dance/theatre company - Tarsulatol, who 'apply dramatic devices and dance-based theatre performances in an interactive manner.' The two performances we saw were both accompanied by live music and the second show even involved audience interaction. Often the music would stop and she'd move to silence which really heightened certain moments and added a completely different element to the overall feeling.

I was really inspired by Rita. How she used her body to express deep, intense, shocking emotions and themes in an outrageously ballsy, avant-garde fashion. Often quite erotic and sensual, she was seen undressing, putting a gun in her underwear (symbolism) and climbing over/between/under the drummer whilst he continued to play. I loved the way it made me feel. I interpreted the first show, with the undressing and the gun, as showing a woman's world in which she experienced rape/ violence.
The second, with the drummer, conjured up many ideas. The way in which the man continued to play, almost oblivious of her clambering over him, seemed to show a disinterest on his part, perhaps portraying a communication problem in a relationship. Rita then started removing various drums, of which the drummer also seemed oblivious to, and simply continued with less drums than before, until finally he had just the one. I liked this 'deconstruction', breaking down of the drumkit, showing the breaking down of the relationship.

I spoke to her a little bit - she studied contemporary dance in Budapest and has been making her own shows for several years and particularly likes working abroad because it emphasises the non-verbal realm of possibilities that dance can bring.

Here are some pictures for a better idea of what she did-

The Opening Show!

Last Friday ( 20th September ) was Malom Film-theatre's opening show for the season and we were blessed with the touring company 'Beregszaszi szinhaz' ( Beregszaszi is a non-translatable name and szinhaz means theatre) who are a large group of Hungarians based in Ukraine, with elaborate/traditional costumes and a huge wagon that acts as the centre-piece for the stage.
The show they dazzled the packed-out room with was called 'Liliomfi', which is a classic farce in Hungarian literature, written by Ede Szigligeti in 1849.
Liliomfi is a story with many Shakespearean themes such as love, deceit, jealousy. Now, unfortunately, I didn't understand the dialogue as I've only been in Hungary a few weeks, but I had a great time looking at the stage, the actors' costumes, expressions and movement. There was also lots of music in the show and most actors seemed to be accomplished musicians. I was so happy to see a double bass player who doubled up as a wonderful actor!

First full week of lessons!

Myself and Clara have just completed our first full week of drama lessons with the kids so I thought i'd share what exactly we did with them and why these exercises worked.

We both agreed that first and foremost we should get to know the children in order to alleviate any shyness and to really make them feel comfortable and at ease.

We wanted to get to know our students' names (there's nothing worse than standing and looking at a child whilst shouting 'you' or 'oi!)  and get to know a bit about them and what they like.

Here's a selection of the most effective exercises we played in the 'introduction week' -

Name Game 1 - Stand in a circle. One person says the name of another person and walks towards that person to stand in their space. Before they have reached that person, the new person must do the same thing - say another person's name and walk towards them. It is a very good exercise for concentration and I personally found it the best way to learn names :)
Variations - have people 'out' if they hesitate, say 'ummmm', or fudge up!
                - shout an emotion and they must move across the person and say the person's name with this particular emotion

Name Game 2 - Prison Break - Half the students sit on a chair with someone stood behind them. 'Prisoners' are sat on the chairs, and the 'guards' are behind them. One chair is empty and has a guard stood behind it. The idea is that the guard keeps the chair occupied at all times. In order to 'gain' a prisoner he/she simply shouts the name of a prisoner and that prisoner runs to the empty chair without their guard catching them. To catch - guards cannot move their feet. They must stand at all times with their hands behind their backs, when their prisoners' name is called they can try to grab them with their hands, but without moving their feet. This game is more enjoyable for younger students :)


Getting to know them game - Each person would mime an action of their favourite hobby with a distinctive sound effect. After taking it in turns presenting their action and sound to the rest of the group, one person starts by 'passing' an action to someone else (they simply do someone else's action and sound, that particular person acknowledges this by subsequently doing someone else's action and sound...). The idea is to keep it fast-paced.
Variation - move on to doing the sounds only


After knowing their names and a little bit about them we would spend about 5 - 10 minutes playing running games, such as stuck in the mud or tag. A particularly good variation of tag is Clara's sheep and wolf game -

Sheep and Wolf - All the 'sheep' stand at one end of the room with a wolf in the middle. All the sheep must get to the other side of the room without being caught by the wolf - if they do get caught they become wolves themselves.

These running games acted as a good 'break' between the other exercises which required a lot of focus and concentration. After the running, we would play some circle games, such as 'SPLAT!', and 'Zip zap zop'. My favourite variation of Zip zap zop is a game I learnt on a clown course in London in which a clap is passed around. To send it in the opposite direction someone shouts 'Ha!' at the person who just sent them the clap, etc, etc.  We started playing this with some basic instructions, the main idea being speed and focus.

Actually, anyone can make up their own variation of this game. In England I would play the Eastenders version (passing an aggressive 'Oi' around the circle, 'Get outta my pub' to skip a person, 'You ain't my Mother' across the circle.... all with exaggerated east London accents). A variation a colleague taught me is played with a southern American accent, passing a 'Yeeha' around the circle, 'haybarn' skips a person, etc etc.

We would then do some more 'serious' activities with either 'Wink Murder' (although I don't think this was understood as a successful game was never actually played) or a miming game using some picture cards we have. We would select students to mime as many words from the cards as possible in 1 minute.

To end we would play sleeping lions which I think worked really well provided they understood that touching a lion was cheating!

Sleeping Lions - There is one 'hunter' and the rest are 'lions' who are asleep on the floor. The hunters must make a lion move (laughing and smiling counts as moving) WITHOUT touching them. When a lion moves he/she becomes a hunter.
What I love about this game is that there's that awkward moment when a hunter realises it's not so easy to make the lion move and they have to think up ingenious ways to do so. This encourages creativity, but most of all, silliness! I think the sillier you can behave in order to get the lion to move, the more fun is had, the more the student is playing and coming out of their shell.


All in all it was a very successful week and I think our lesson plan worked perfectly.
For the next week we will do something similar as we feel it is important to get to know the students a bit more. We will probably keep the same structure but with different exercises.


** Luckily with drama you can use most of the same games and exercises with all ages, no matter how 'silly' they are! So we were able to use the same general plan for all ages. **

Lessons starting today!

HELLO EVERYBODY!

So, we have both been here for a few weeks now, myself (Ashlee) and Clara!

Today we will start our first lessons and we are super duper excited!


Have a good day!

Bemutatkoznak az önkénteseink - Clara Ruiz Guerrero - Introduction of our volunteers

Sziasztok!

Clara-nak hívnak, a dél-spanyolországi Sevillából jövök. Kisgyermek korom óta imádom a színházat és nagyon hálás vagyok a tanáraimnak, akik arra bátorítottak, hogy ezzel foglalkozzak. Emiatt én is nagyon szeretem megosztani a színház élményét másokkal és segíteni felfedezni ezt a varázslatos világot – de vigyázat: ha egyszer belekezdesz, soha nem fogod tudni abbahagyni! 

Színművészetet a Sevillai Drámaiskolában tanultam, emellett pedig Görögországban és Franciaországban folytattam tanulmányokat. Szeretem a hagyományos színházat, az éneklést, táncot, a bohóc-szerepet és az utcaszínházat. Nagyon szeretek utazni és más országokban élő emberektől tanulni, ezért úgy gondolom, hogy ez egy jó alkalom, hogy egymástól tanuljunk, és megosztva a belső dolgainkat, létrehozzunk valami nagyszerűt.

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Hello!

I’m Clara. I come from Sevilla, the south of Spain. I love theatre since I was a child and I loved my theatre teachers that encourage me to do it. That’s why I love sharing theatre with other people and helping then to discover this great world but, be careful! Once you start you can’t stop!

I have studied theatre in the Drama School of Sevilla and also Greece and France. I like theatre, singing, dancing, clowing and street theatre. 

I also love travelling and learning from people of other countries so I think this is a great chance that we all learn from each other, share what we have inside and create something wonderful.

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A "Las colinas que tocan el paraiso" (Hegyek, amelyek a mennyországig érnek) c. darabunk előadása közben /

On the stage in our play "Las colinas que tocan el paraiso" (The hills that touch the paradise)

videóbemutató + interjú / video-report + interview

darableírás / description (PDF)

Bemutatkoznak az önkénteseink - Ashlee Male - Introduction of our volunteers

Sziasztok!

A nevem Ashlee és a dél-Angliai Salisbury misztikus földjéről jövök. Életem nagyrészében előadóművészként tevékenykedtem, különösen a mesemondás, a mozgásszínház és clown-szerep a szenvedélyem. Színművészetet Hollandiában tanultam egyetemen és Európa-szerte több színházi workshopon vettem részt különféle fesztiválokon, ahol rengeteg módszerre és tapasztalatra tettem szert. Vad képzelőerőm van, amit kész vagyok megosztani, emellett állandóan karaktereket és jeleneteket gyártok.

A további hobbijaim közé tartozik az éneklés, ukulelézés, fotózás, képzőművészet. Számomra fontos, hogy állandóan kreatív tevékenységeket folytassak, általában egyszerre többet is (ez leginkább a dalszerzés, a kézművesség és a színházi produkciók).

Nagyon szeretem bátorítani a fiatalokat, hogy mindegy milyen idősek, bújjanak elő a kagylóhéjukból, fejlesszék az előadókészségüket és ami a legfontosabb, hogy érezzék jól magukat. A fiatalok inspirálása és segítése, hogy jobban megismerjék magukat az, amit a legjobban élvezek a tanításban.

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Hello!
My name's Ashlee and I come from the mystical land of Salisbury in the south of England.
I've been performing most of my life with a particular passion for storytelling, physical theatre and clowning. I studied theatre professionally in Holland and have attended workshops and theatre festivals all around Europe, acquiring numerous skills and plenty of knowledge. I have a wild imagination that i'm ready to share and am always creating characters and skits.
Other hobbies include singing, playing the ukulele, art and photography and I have to always be constantly involved in creative endeavours, usually several at a time (mainly song writing, crafts and theatrical productions)!
I love encouraging young people of whatever age to come out of their shell, improve their performance skills and to, most importantly, have fun! The chance to inspire young people and help them learn about themselves is what I greatly enjoy about teaching.

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Hallgassátok meg Ashlee zenéit és kövessétek az oldalait: 
/ Check out here Ashlee's music and follow her on:

SOUNDCLOUD

FACEBOOK

YOUTUBE

Ukulele-awsomeness:

Electronic Amazecakes:

Indul a projectblog!! / The project's blog is started!!

Kedves Érdeklődők!

Örömmel tudatjuk, hogy elindult a hamarosan kezdődő jászberényi, 10 hónapos színházi EVS-project blogja. A project az Új Színházért Alapítvány szervezésében, a Fiatalok Lendületben Program támogatásával valósul meg. Noha ez az Alapítvány első EVS-projectje, a két, Jászberénybe költöző önkéntesünket több, mint 10 ország 75 jelentkezője közül választottuk ki: Ashlee Angliából, Clara pedig Spanyolországból érkezik, mindketten végzett színészek, emellett drámapedagógiával foglalkoznak - ezen kívül pedig rendkívül nyitott, kedves és szórakoztató személyiségek, biztosak vagyunk benne, hogy sok jászsági fiatallal fogják megszerettetni a színházat és a színjátszást.

Az induló kurzusok ingyenesek, a helyszínt pedig Szent István Egyetem biztosítja (Rákóczi út 53.).

Felvételi időpontok: szeptember első két hetében (konkrét időpontok hamarosan!)

Érdeklődni lehet:  
kurzusok@malomszinhaz.hu