Dickyji - Session 9

The session was introduced well and I easily understood the ideas for the day.

Stephen was very clear about keeping ourselves safe within the confines of the environment. He explained the space, that no food or hot drink should be brought into the performance areas and how to exit in case of fire. He also explained that we should keep our contribution to the piece within our own confines and abilities and also not to intrude into others space. This enabled all the group to understand how they should work together and the group were able to agree on how to work together taking into account these important elements.
(1.1, 2.2, 3.4)

Stephen set the day out to test the groups capabilities and boundaries. This involved a set of performance activities designed to encourage interaction and focus on specific movements and actions.
Feedback on rehearsals was given by both group and all in room. Overall this seemed to be extremely positive – for both my team and the whole group. Feedback centred on how the situations in the scenes related to our own experiences.
We followed the directors instructions in rehearsals using body sculpting exercises and this enabled us to bring the emotions learnt from this to the scenes. This was particularly important to the Caldicott position where faces can’t be shown but emotions demonstrated through bodily and facial actions.
(2.1, 2.3, 3.2)

The entire day encouraged maximum participation from me to the performance. From the beginning I found myself learning constantly:
Initially we were set a series of exercises designed to loosen up – this enabled me to understand the importance of losing inhibitions.
We then had some movement exercises – again these were fun and helped loosen up.
We were asked to present an object, share narrative and tell our stories. These all helped to understand how to perform in front of a group, how to express myself and how to relate to the group.
In the afternoon I contributed specifically by helping to design the scenes for the Mental Health and Relationship Behaviour elements of the film and presented these to the group.
At first I was quite nervous about performing but as the day developed and the team grew strong as a while I gained much confidence. Towards the end I felt very confident in performing.
I felt the entire audience reaction was extremely interactive and positive throughout the day, not just to me but also to each other. I felt the group worked well as an entire team, drawing strength from each others ideas.
In terms of feedback, this was very good. Stephen specifically said that he felt my attention to detail was very strong and the performance, especially in the body sculpting was very strong.
In terms of strengths and weaknesses, I felt I was strong on the scene design and presentation element but possibly a bit could have brought a bit more humour into the initial exercises.
(3.1, 4.1, 4.2, 4.3)