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!