New year new (dance) lessons!

Happy 2014 to everyone and I hope you are feeling as refreshed and wonderful as we are!

Firstly, I'd like to say how brilliant the students were in their show/demonstration at the end of 2013. Myself and Clara were very impressed at how natural the students were on stage - being in front of an audience didn't seem to phase them in the slightest. We had no idea what to expect from them with regards nervousness/ stage fright, so we were so pleasantly surprised!

This year we have lots of exciting plans! I have prepared some lessons in sock puppet making and creating stories, mime workshops, juggling workshops and starting yesterday there are now lessons in dance.

I see the dance lessons as an opportunity for the students to-

 1) learn new skills, such as rhythm, co-ordination, basic dance moves
 2) develop confidence and social skills
 3) develop self-expression and communication using the medium of the body
 4) create stories through movement

With an emphasis on dance for musical theatre (as that's what I have most experience in) lessons are divided into three sections.

Warm up  - warm-ups are so important in ensuring the body is prepared for the lesson's content and to lessen the chances of injuring oneself. We spend 20 minutes doing a general warm-up, making sure all body parts are included in the exercises and stretches. The last 5 minutes will show an introduction to the lesson's specific steps.

Games -  who knew there were so many dance games you could play with children? :)  For this 20 minutes, the children have fun with dance, and get to create. They will dance solo or in pairs or groups to the rest of the class, and they will have the opportunity to lead their own routines or create their own choreographies.
Example of games are musical statues (they freeze when the music stops), who is the leader? (in a circle one person leads movements and the rest follow very closely without looking directly at the person, another student who waits outside then comes in and has to guess who is leading), and silly dances to silly music (students take it in turns either solo or with a partner to cross the room doing a silly dance, accompanied by humorous music). More creative activities include 'beginning middle end' in which a 20 second piece of music is played and they create a mini choreography to it, which tells a story with a clear beginning, middle and end. Also, 'the labyrinth' takes a piece of science fiction music and in pairs students create a short routine showing themselves moving through a labyrinth and the various obstacles they encounter - these exercises really encourage thoughtful response to music and how it makes them feel.

Choreography - we recap some moves and then make a choreography. Yesterday we did the box step, chasse, and started learning the pirouette (this will take a few weeks). We then danced to 'Step in time' from Mary Poppins using our new moves and more!

We both look forward to what 2014 brings us and will continue to make the most of working with the children of Jaszbereny!

Working towards Christmas show

Christmas holidays are approaching and we are scheduled into the theatre's programme to put on a show for all interested in what the Spanish-English duo have been teaching the youth of Jaszbereny!

Despite time restraints, we are feeling the Christmas magic, have great ideas and are confident about showing off the students' talents.  We are both devising together with the students, by finding connections between activities that work well and developing them into a small routine.
For something to work well it usually adheres to the following criteria - the students are engaged and focused - there is a definite flow of creativity energy coming from the students - progress is made throughout the duration of the activity (students respond better, understand more, feel more).

This last few weeks we have been using a combination of exercises the students already know and are familiar with, and new exercises, whilst paying particular attention to exercises that 'work'.

With one group of teenage girls we are focusing on different devises you can use to tell stories. Their English is very good so I can really do a lot with them and get a lot out of them.
Today we started by playing with still images which either did or didn't come alive when I clapped my hands. I started simple (happy/sad) but then went more abstract (power/weakness) then even more abstract (red/blue). The idea is they do not think, but immediately sculpt their bodies into an abstract image to represent the word I say. They should use their whole bodies and not just their face and arms (which shyer students are prone to doing).
We then played with frozen scenes, so they created a bullying scene, Christmas scene (family with children opening presents), market scene, pub scene, and so on, before they created their own for me (they did restaurant and bus - very well!).  When I clapped, they would bring each scene to life.

                                                Students at the pub pictured below!

We then worked with stories. I assigned one group Little Red Riding Hood, and another group were free to choose their own story and they made 60 second plays by acting the whole thing in less than one minute.
The other group chose Cinderella which had some particularly strong images in it, so I decided to use this for the next activity which was to show the story using only 5 frozen scenes. I sat with my eyes closed and got them to say 'open' when they were positioned ready for scene 1, then close as they got into their positions for scene 2, and so on. Over the next few weeks we will explore other devices such as flashforwards and backwards, genre changing (e.g making a 'real-life' version of a story) and character changing (well-known characters from other stories find themselves in a new story), ready for our end of term show!

Physical Theatre in Debrecen

   Once every fortnight we go off to Debrecen - very close to Romania and the second biggest city in Hungary -in order to teach. Our boss, the wonderfully talented Tibor Varszegi has connections at the Debrecen National Theatre. Peter Gemza is the artistic director and worked, studied, and made theatre with Tibor. Both are very experienced in physical theatre, contemporary dance and choreography.

   We teach a group of about 12 teenagers from a secondary school that specialises in drama and these students are GOOD. They come to us on a Saturday for extra lessons (and because they are in English) and they approach every exercise with passion, commitment and more than 100% energy and effort. They LOVE theatre and we LOVE teaching them!

   Myself and Clara take it in turns to teach them, so we have devised our own lesson plans. Whilst they do a lot of acting, singing and dancing at school Monday-Friday, it appears they don't have much/any experience in physical theatre, so I saw it as a great idea to start getting them thinking about what physical theatre is and how they can use it. Obviously physical theatre is vast and there is difficulty in defining what it even is. I want to do a variety of different exercises based on theories by different practitioners in order to encourage creative freedom.

Here is an example of a lesson plan I devised for them - this lesson plan probably works better for students who have already done a lot of acting and have trained their bodies. For a basic introduction for non-actors, look here. 


Physical Theatre Introductory Lesson Plan

Aims - creative freedom, exploration of body, breaking down (deconstruction) of movements, awareness of the body in order to create uncomplicated but powerful and precise gestures.

1. Getting to know your feet
We take most of our body parts for granted, so we started by moving around the room to music, exploring our feet. I told them to think about things like pressure (where is the pressure concentrated?), contact (which part of the foot is making contact with the floor?), muscle activation (which part of the foots muscles are activated and how much muscular energy is expended?) and exploration of speed, rhythm and parts of their foot they don't usually use.  I tried to emphasise slowness as I think the slower you do an exercise like this, the more familiar you become with the part of the body.

2. Getting to know your arms/hands (isolations)
Similar to the 1st exercise, but we went up a notch and did isolations - meaning the body had to stay completely still and only the arm(s) could move, and also meaning that the movements are broken down into component parts. I find this incredibly effective and love playing with isolations myself. We started by simply lifting one arm up to shoulder level but in as smooth a manner as possible, without any juddering. This is actually not as easy as it may sound. Then they could explore different parts of their arms and try isolating the various parts to see what effect they had.

3. Moving the pelvis
So many powerful actions emanate from our pelvis and this exercise is not only good for sensitising the body but also for energising the body in a concentrated manner.  They were told they had a paintbrush coming out of their bottom and with this paintbrush had to write their names as big as possible on an imaginary wall behind them with their feet stuck to the ground. This is quite physically challenging as they need to go right down low and back up again, etc. Then they chose their favourite letter to focus on, and repeat it, each time getting slower and slower so they were aware of all the miniscule movements involved. Then they were told to break down this letter into a few different movements - three or four, then even more, five or six, and to work on these individual parts, playing with them, speeding them up, slowing them down, reversing them, before putting them together with other parts. This deconstruction of movements inspires a new awareness of the body that is very useful in making physical theatre.

4. Pairs exercise - following the hands whole movements
I took this exercise from a recent workshop I attended which was run by The Symptoms Theatre collective. Check out my blog about The Symptoms here. The idea is that one person in the pair plays with their hand, they explore their hand, opening it, closing it, fanning their fingers, pulsating it, going fast, slow, moving different fingers. This is a good exercise for those interested in puppetry as it really activates the hand and raises awareness of what you can do with it and different ways you can move it.  Now, the second person must respond to the hand's movements with their whole bodies. This is one of  my favourite physical theatre exercises as it encourages creativity and freedom of expression (people can interpret the hand's movements however they want). Students also have to think 'on the spot' as they should respond immediately, so they have no time to wonder if they are doing something 'right' or 'wrong'.

5. Slow motion race
Another isolation exercise - this one taken from 'Through The Body- A Practical Guide to Physical Theatre' by Dymphna Callery who says she has 'yet to find a better game for testing concentration, focus and body-awareness.' Students run a pretend 100m race in slow motion, with the winner being the last person to cross the 'line'. The rules are that the runners must always keep in motion, must lift their foot to knee height with each step, must take the longest step possible and must not fall over.

Now that students have worked alone and thoroughly warmed up their bodies, we do some group exercises,  requiring a special type of shared energy.

6. Mexican Wave
To music (a concentration aid) and in front of the mirror, students are told to make a perfect Mexican Wave. Using the techniques they have developed thus far in thinking about articulation of movement, they should make the movements as smooth as possible. They can do this however they like - holding hands or not, at whatever speed (although obviously the speed/rhythm must be consistent and ideally very slow - maybe speeding up as they become confidant and aware of every small movement). This exercise works best when all students are focused and committed to performing it very slowly at first. It requires a lot of concentration to maintain it's 'perfection' but when it is achieved the students will feel that it is right. This notion of 'feeling' an exercise is important, as in physical theatre, it is never a matter of 'just doing' an exercise, it is important to understand why it is done, and to feel what is happening when it is being done.

7. Variation of above - the sea
As above, but this time students are asked to make the sea - however they want. It's good if they experiment with different ideas until they decide on what feels right.

Now that the students should have grasped an awareness of the body, an alertness, attentiveness, familiarity and the concept of 'being in the moment' (comes from 'feeling' the exercises)  after such an in-depth exploration, they can start being creative with their ideas.

Choreographies
Here as some ideas of activities to end the session. I will either choose what I think will work best, or let them decide.

Doctors waiting room / 'Alcoholics Anonymous Meeting' - I had this idea as it comes from doing simple actions, almost nothing, and really breaking them down so they are incredibly effective. Students are asked to imagine they are a bit nervous / uncomfortable, and monitor what actions they do to portray this. They might have big eyes and turn their head around the room. They might be fiddling with their hands and tapping their feet. They may be biting their nails. They be putting their head in their hands. Whatever it is, they take a simple action and break it down into it's component parts and work with these parts - slowing them down, stopping, reversing, and so on, to create the effect of 'slowed down time' when one is in an uncomfortable situation. Music-  'Popcorn' by Hot Butter.

The seed to flower - This works best as a group with a shared energy, with members exploring the multitude of opportunities available to them by working together as one with their bodies. They could climb up each other to show growth, use one body each to represent individual petals. They could bring their heads together and open slowly to show the flower budding.  Attention can be paid to the opening of the buds, the weather conditions that surround it, it's life cycle (pollenation etc) - a very creative exercise. Music - something soft and classical.

Dolls or puppets coming to life -  I love playing with the idea of dolls or puppets (both very different). With dolls I mean Barbie type dolls, with a rigidness, stiffness, lack of flexibility. There's a lot of subtext surrounding Barbies - issues such as plasticity, femininity, lifelessness, gender and society, capitalism, body image etc. Students can decide what area of 'dolls' they wish to explore and find some movements that express that which will then be choreographed together as a whole. I was inspired by this beautiful piece 'Shwarze Puppen' by students from Folkwang Physical Theatre school. 

Puppets are much more loose, free, 'floppy' and it's fun to play with the idea of having strings attached to various parts of your body. Students can play around either in pairs (one person holding the imaginary strings) or individually to create a short but powerful sequence that will be combined with the rest of the groups' sequences.

Autumn Break's Dance Workshop

It was almost 2 weeks ago now, but on the Tuesday of the half term break was an all-day dance workshop, where we focused on musical theatre songs! After a long warm-up and a few ice-breaking games we danced to ' We Go Together' from 'Grease'. I'm a sucker for 'Grease' the musical (it is my dream to play Rizzo in the West End :) ) and so I was in my absolute element! It's such a happy, high-energy song and the lyrics are quite simple too so I encouraged the students to sing along. We did lots of hand jiving, making 'trains', strutting and strolling, shoulder shimmying, and general 50s rock 'n' roll moves! 

The second song was from 'Seussical the Musical' based on Dr Seuss, and was a jungle themed song. This dance was a bit more contemporary and I encouraged freedom of movement and expression. First, students chose a jungle animal (or they could be a tribesman). They moved in the way that this character/animal does, thinking about their qualities, behaviours, and so on. Monkeys, for example, are bouncy, loose, arms hanging, 'naughty', flexible, often seen swinging. Birds are more elegant, free, depending on the type of bird - flamboyant. 

Once they had found their way of moving, we entered the stage at different points and went through a process of 'exploration' before all freezing to create a frozen jungle image. Then there were simple moves like looking to the left (what was that noise?) and then to the right (who's there?) before moving around 'scared'. They also looked for food, and participated in a small 'fight' with another animal, before all going off to sleep (the dance ended with all animals on the floor sleeping).

Natural evolution of lessons

After our initial few weeks of ice-breaking games and 'getting to know each other' activities, we decided to give the kids a more substantial task to get their teeth into at the end of the session. 

The idea was simple - we divided the class into two groups and myself and Clara would give one of the groups a place (setting) and assign individual characters. They had one minute in which to make up some kind of story involving these characters in this particular place and then they had to perform in front of the rest of the class.  They could talk in Hungarian, however, they had to make it very clear WHO they were, and WHERE they were, so that myself or Clara could guess the group we didn't assign. 

This worked well - firstly it's good to do something a bit different from games, but also, some of the students who we thought very shy seemed to impress us with this kind of activity - probably because they were able to speak Hungarian, so they could remove the language barrier that may have been restricting them. 

After one week of ending with this activity, we decided it's essential to introduce the students to some basic skills, such as HOW TO SHOW SETTING, and CHARACTERISATION. 

Our lesson plan naturally evolved to that of 'Characterisation through the body'. After our warm up games (which involve some running games and concentration exercises, depending on the group's needs) we got them to experiment with different types of walks - for example, walking like a business man, a drunk person, an old person, and the idiosyncrasies encompassed by the various types, i.e, gesticulation, body language, speed, rhythm.  

We then divided the room into four invisible sections, each one representing either a baby, a teenager, a mother/father, a grandma/grandpa. Students were encouraged to move freely around the room adopting the various characters depending on which section they were in. I like this exercise because it makes use of different levels (baby crawling on the floor), speeds and tempos (a slow old grandma/grandpa) and the way they hold themselves differs completely. 

A variation of this is to get everyone to stand at one side of the room. They have one minute to move to the other side of the room, starting as a baby and going through all 'ages', arriving at the other wall as a very old, slow person. 

We then ended with the same activity (giving them a setting and characters each) but with emphasis on WHO they were, using the skills they'd acquired from the day's lesson. 

Our 'How to show setting' lesson is my favourite. We started with them walking around the room until an appropriate level of focus was attained (!), then they were told to all go to the cinema together. The main thing to look for here was that they all looked in the same direction at the same screen, and sat in rows. Then we could work on other things such as are they eating food? If so what? And what kind of film are they watching?  They would then leave the cinema together and go various other places, like a restaurant, a train, a supermarket, the beach. If we didn't think they were portraying it well enough then we could clap our hands and get them to freeze, whilst going and repositioning them until we were happy :) 

We also did the 'photograph' exercise. A photographer wants to take a picture in various contexts, so the students have 10 seconds to arrange themselves and then freeze. Examples are a wedding photograph, school photograph, party, etc. 

Finally, we did a lesson on 'Facial expressions'. Some of the students are very shy about using their faces so we played with masks - students put on an imaginary mask which gave them a new facial expression. They would then adapt their bodies and movement to fit this face and interact with each other. 

We would also do various basic emotions (happy, sad, angry, in love, scared) and stood in a line they had to change their faces as Clara moved her hand past their faces. 

I created a game to encourage them to elasticate their faces a bit more. It involved half the room being statues - in a park, or at Heroes Square in Budapest, or in a museum. When I clapped my hands they would become statues with a specific emotion that I would say - 'scared statue', 'ugly statue', 'in love statue', ' brave statue', 'angry statue' etc. The rest of the students would walk around and try to make them move/laugh by pretending to be, for example, Chinese tourists taking pictures and walking around speaking 'Chinese' and talking about/ laughing at the statues. I like this exercise as it incorporates different skills, such as concentration, balance, stillness, facial expression, body language, creativity, focus.. and so on! 

We are now in the final week (some groups are doing setting this week, some are doing faces) and next week is half term already! 

Autumn workshops will be taking place in clowning and singing/dancing before we go and enjoy a spot of travelling around the beautiful Eastern Europe! 

More pictures of students

Pictures from lessons

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!