We started off with a Jacques Lecoq exercise, where the top half of your body
hangs over the legs, imagining there is a sheet of glass in front of you, you
roll up pushing out the knees, hips, chest and nose so that they touch the
piece of glass until you are standing straight.
Knees: We then
repeated this roll down and up but stopping at the point when the knees are
touching the glass. We took this stature for a walk around the room and we saw
what characters were created by the physicality. I immediately created an older
more hunched character as I had the top of my body still rolled over, creating
a slightly weathered element to my character. This made me consider her
back-story and previous life that may have been difficult or just had to work
had at getting what she wanted. My character also had a lower status as she was
so introverted and almost seemed to shy away form the world, this made me think
of the old ladies who become so scared of leaving their homes because of the
media and how the world is portrayed to them. Other people created different
characters such as one person straightened their back but still lead from their
knees, this created a character that was of a similar age to mine however the
straightened back and having her head raised gave her character a much higher
status than my characters and gave her a snobbish, looking down on people
element.
Hips: Again we
rolled down and when we rolled back up we stopped at the moment when the hips
were touching the glass and we started to explore what types of characters were
created through leading with the hips. I had my pelvis thrust out and so it
felt natural to lean my to half back as much as possible. This created a very
relaxed posture for my character and I had the feel that they didn’t care much
about what was happening around them and this gave them a slightly higher
status because they seemed unaffected by the world. I also went for a male,
very “laddish” type of character as I felt he was being lead by the penis,
combining this with the casual attitude coming out of the physicality I felt I
created a quite popular, sexual confident chap. It was very interesting to
watch the other characters that were created and the small differences in their
physicality that changed the intention of their character. For example another
character was also a male and being lead by his penis in a sexual manner
however instead of having a relaxed, laid back upper body, he was hunched over
and wringing his hands. This gave the character a much more creepy and sinister
feel and implied that he had bad intentions sexually within him. Instead for
going for a male character someone choose to do a female and by simply placing
one hand on her belly and one on her back she created a pregnant woman.
Chest: This time
when we rolled back up we stopped when the chest was touching the glass and
walked this character around the room, developing and exploring their
characteristics and what was created. As my chest was sticking out I created a
confident, sensual female character and the breasts are quite a sexualised part
of the female form. It made me do a more feminine walk, crossing my feet and
wiggling my hips to highlight the other assets of a female. Also because I was
very upright, as a result of my chest being pushed I felt very powerful as a
character and that I had a lot of confidence and looked down on people. This
power and confidence was mirrored in the male take on sticking the chest out.
The character became very proud and puffed out like a cockerel demonstrating
his status and his masculinity. This one was driven more by his own appearance
and pride to have confidence, where as the men with their hips out were driven
by the sexual wants to have confidence.
Nose: When
rolling up this time we stopped at the nose touching the glass and explored
what types of characters were created when they were being lead by their nose. Again
I went for an older character and hunched the rest of my body but kept my nose
up in the air, as my head was up and open I was of a higher status than my
character that I created with my knees. Also this character moved around a lot,
twisted their head to try and smell out what was happening and what they could
see. As I live in a village this character reminded me a lot of the older
members of my community who like to be nosy and know everything about other
peoples lives. Other characters that were created were very high status as they
had their bodies kept straight and with good posture, with this as well as the
nose being pointed up into the air it seemed to created a very stereotypical view
of posh people. It looked as if they were looking down on everyone around them
and were disgusted by people who were lower class than them.
This was really useful because it showed us how
different types of characters can be created from the same bases of being lead
by a certain part of the body and how more detailed characters can come to life
by the simple things you do with the rest on the body, such as moving your
hands. It also helps to see and acknowledge the stereotypes of different
characters and then decide whether to follow them to present a certain group of
people or to go against them to show a slightly more interesting and real
character. This exercise also tied in really well with looking at Berkoff as he
would use this to see where a character was lead from and how this defined a
character or not and what it said about them. Also he works a lot with
exaggeration and this exploration of their physicality allows an actor to connect
with their bodies and to see how different characters could be exaggerated with
their physicality’s to create a grotesque version of them.
As I have said Berkoff works a lot with exaggeration
and he uses the scale of 1 – 10, 1 being the smallest and 10 the biggest, to
explore the characters exaggerated and under-exaggerated and see what affect
that has on them and the situation that they are in. We did an exercise where
we had to go through eating a certain meal; first we did it at 5 – naturally. I
choose to be eating spaghetti bolognaise and we had to go through it a couple
of times to get a set routine and then we started to play with the scale. As
the scale went up the amount and size of the food got bigger and as a result
our reactions to the food got bigger as well. When we were going up through the
scale I saw my spaghetti getting bigger and this meant that I widened my feet
so that I could encompass all of the food. I also made the movements of turning
the food onto the spoon bigger and had to use two hands when I got to 10 and
had to physically crouch and turn my face upwards to lower it all in. I feel
that this created a much greedier character as I was really tucking into the
food and it was getting more and more open and grotesque, because of this there
was an off putting element to the character as they were so messy. The
physicality getting larger created a more animalistic and boisterous character
in the way that they ate. However when we started to go down the scale my
physicality became a lot more insecure as it was very introverted and turned
inwards, with my face down I felt that a more timid and shy character was
created compared to the larger numbers on the scales. I felt quite suppressed
and very conscious of what was happening around me and never really comfortable
in what I was doing. This exercise was really interesting to see what changed when
you played around with exaggeration and what types of characters are created
when you push them to one extreme or another. It also really engaged my body
and made me aware on my physicality and how that affected and changed
characters and what was happening on the inside as well as on the outside.
We
then extended this exercise with a partner and put the characters, which were
created, into a situation such as a restaurant. We had the characters separate
from each other and one was large on the scale with the other small, then we
introduced another character who we both greeted however the greeting provoked
the characters to swap positions on the scale of exaggeration. I started off
being an 8 or 9 on the scale and I was really digging in and eating my food
manically, as if I really enjoyed it, then when the third character came in and
I greeted, I moved down to a 3 or 2 on the scale. I made this move purposeful
by having an emotional attachment on the third character of fancying them and
then being embarrassed of how I was caught eating and that making me shrink
into myself. Where as my partner started eating in a really small way, showing insecurity
and low self-confidence but when she was the third person she lit up and became
more exaggerated and her motivation was of being really good friends with this
person and them giving her confidence. I thought that this exercise was really
useful because it showed how people and characters can be affected by others
and how that can change their confidence or attitude inside them and
consequently affect their outside physicalisation. It shows how important
reactions are when action and how your physicality can tell a lot to an
audience about how the character feels or how someone makes the character feel
and it can build and explain relationships between characters.
No comments:
Post a Comment