The Four Elements

Since I chickened out from today lesson I had a good opportunity to observe and take notes.
Here is a short summary of the 2 days of elemental studies we had so far:

The four elements have different centers in the body where the impulse of the movement starts from:

AIR: upprer side of the torso - chest, lungs, upper back and ribs

FIRE: under the navel - agnii chakra or fire center in yoga

WATER: pelvis - as seen in crossing the river excercise

EARTH: not as much of a center as a direction - down into the earth (we will come back to this)

We've been let free to discover our individual elements but all four have certain guidlines we need to be aware of.

AIR:

The most important aspect of the movement of air is that it is being pulled.
All movements of air is initiated from the chest, being pulled from the chest. Remember the excercises when we disect the undulations. Air fills all spaces, dare to be big and follow the movements with the arms as well (we have a tendency to leave them hanging)
Air definetly does not make loud thumps with the feet (be light and relaxed)
The movement of air is a constant flow, out of balance, one impulse after another involving the whole body (as in the neutral opening closing excercise and the movement lesson of yesterday)
As if the movement of air is a constant fall.

FIRE:

We had no specific notes on fire apart from the personal and group investigations.
We've been discovering different aspects of fire: matches, candles, grills, vulcanoes
(many of them had a feeling of epileptic seizure... Which is probably a good way to go since seizures start from the fire center)

WATER:

This was with Ruth as well as with Ole. Water is smooth. It starts at the pelvis, so let everything else follow the pelvis. This includes the hands and the head. The pelvis is being pushed and pulled as it moves in waves.

Also, let us explore how different types of water can change how you use your body to express it. With bubbly, freezing, boiling, or flowing water it all changes, you see. You knew that already, though, huh. Yuppers.

Ruth took us on an epic journey from the fresh water of a river (over the rocks and through tree roots and down a waterfall) to the salt water of the sea.

Water has very little resistence, which means it flows around objects. It is also somewhat continuous in motion, without pauses. So, keep it moving, bub!

EARTH:

Earth is grounded in its movement...obviously. Like clay, earth moves quite slowly and with a great deal of resistence. (It may help to either think of pushing and pulling your body through clay, or it may help more to think of yourself as an Ent from Lord of the Rings.)

Each time you move, it is uprooting yourself and then replanting yourself (either into the ground, an object, or another person).

We also climbed mountains in this way, not being people, but being the earth. You see, when you experience these elements with the mask on, it is like the mask is giving you a grand tour of these elements. It is showing you how they move and where they live (and who they love). Follow the mask without hesitation and with full confidence...and try not to bump into your partners on stage, please and thank you very much.

Holding hands,

Team Imre and David

SlowMo and Elemental Extasy

On today's MIME class we've been working with different speeds and levels...

Walking as fast as we can (still keeping the 'normal' walk), walking in slow motion, going down on and standing up in slowmo and walking while gradually going down with our knees and stretching up.

This was the warmup for further studies of the neutral opening and closing of the body.
We repeated the excercise from last week focusing on starting the movement from the center, moving together with the breathing and keeping the entire body in motion. Our specific task was to find in which parts of our bodies does this constant movement stop or break.

From this excercise we went on to the undulations back, fort and to the sides, working more with our bodies being lead by impulses f different parts, letting the impulse take us out of ballance, and let the new impulse lead the way again as we find our ballance again in a flow like manner.

We spanet the last minutes of the class practicing the chase.


With Ruth we continued the journey of the neutral mask, introducing the elements of water and fire.

At first we worked all on the floor individually exploring and incorporating the movements of the elements in different shapes and sizes. (Holy shit it was intense!) Afterwards we presented different aspects of elements for the class individually the in groups, without and with masks.

We've been reminded not to turn introverted, to go against the natural tendency of any expression focusing on the movements  body that head (the face and the focus) gets lost.
Having the mask on akes it really visible if the performer is turning inside or is giving the mask (being aware and communicating)

The day we rolled a lot

Ole's class

Acrobatics

This day we were starting acro like always with roling back and forth, then practise the shoulderstand.

We practised the stomach-one with walking into the others stomach. We practised the roles with stretched legs, then grab your legs and come all the way up. This role we comebined with the positing of grabbing your partners lower legs part and the back side and then roling into it like you would begin another role.

In the end of the class we practised jumbing around starting with sitting like a frog with both your hands turned up in front of you, and then turning the whole way around while you let the focus of your eyes be at a fix point in front of you all the time.

ending up with pair stretching. eg. have your legs in front of you, the partner pushes on your back. and legs out to the side, your partner pushes your legs further out while holding your arms.

Janusz' class

Exercises on the floor with the pelvis. Some of that we have done before. This time introducing the shoulders more. And the arms. some part of it contained roling the legs around in cirkles while you have your arms bended and they go the other way around, while meeting each others at the stomach area. When explained it is like: "ben your legs up in front of you and then move your amrs around and see how they can move together."

After this movement we were asked to getting up into standing position and back down on the floor again. I found that the previous exercise made the body go into a pace which made playful to get up standing.

Janusz' comment was something like" Give your nervesystem time to react to the changes that has occured to it."

After this we were dancing together in pairs. It was about letting yourself become inspired from the other person. The exercise starts with changing between who is moving. Let your body lead and follow the impulses. After the previous exercise we were moving very freely. At first the partner is just observing the movements of the other person and you change the dancing role after some time. You later extend it to dance at the same time and enduring influence each others' movements. After a while you change partner, which continued with about 4 different partners. The experiences from this exercise was for example that when we see other people move we get inspired to move like that to, and to try movements that our own body normally wouldn't have begun doing. It was also a liberating feeling to play like that in the dance. 


( last comment is from writer, aka. Signe)

The Power of Listening and Crazy Stretches

Hello Classmates of...would we be the Class of 2011 because we started in 2011, or would we be the Class of 2013 because we graduate in 2013? I'm pretty sure we're the Class of 2013.

Hello Classmates of 2013!!

Here are some notes I took for today's classes (28/9/11):

Janusz' Class

Theme: Listen

Some Quotes:

"Behind something silly is something serious."

"Move with gravity and work for neutrality." (in reference to the pushing each other exercise outlined below)

The Day:

Let's lie on mats!!!

1. Then, let's reach our hands toward the sky--which way does the palm face in order to reach the highest?

2. Now, let's reach our hands at 45 degree angles across our bodies (which of course causes us to roll over a bit--does the hip or the shoulder lead the movement?

3. Now it is time to push each other. One person stands neutral, the other person pushes them around with very specific points of focus.--See how you move whether you're pushing or being pushed. If you are pushing then please lead with your pelvis. Those being pushed please provide a little bit of resistence. Don't be completely relaxed and loosey goosey and don't be too dramatic about it (Kay and Imre!).

Finally, let's form a dance circle where we watch each other push each other around.

4. Sit and Chat. It is time to listen to each other. Just listen. No responding in any way, no noises or words, unless you do not understand something or something is unclear to you. This means shutting your mouth and opening your mind, folks.

That's it for Janusz' class. I had more quote of his in my head, but forgot them when it came time to write it down. I'm sure you understand.

Ruth's Class

Theme: Focus

-It's all about the FOCUS!!! The eyes are the tool of the Actor. You could almost call them the flashlight (I know, brilliant. I came up with this myself. Please hold your applause.) You see, if you are acting in a pitch black place (as we all know you would need to if Sam were performing, am I right?), then where your eyes look there is a beam of light that forces the audience to look where you are looking. Now, come back to the professional well-lit theatre we will all work at some day very soon and remember that where you look, the audience will look.

1. Crazy Stretches

a. One person sits on floor with arms raised above head. The other person grabs sitting person by the shoulder blades and pulls them up while pushing their chest out. Sitting person--BREATHE!!! Standing person--don't kill them.

b. The Arm Breaker. Welcome to Aikido. Pull person's arm laying on stomach over their head backwards. Place hand on back of lying down person's hand and push their arm up up up. Go slowly. Person lying down tap the floor when it's too much. BREATHE!!!

2. Swimming Move (one of Lecoq's 20)

Brings hands together in center and let them flow outward pushing out like you are doing the breast stroke and cutting your way through the water. Really imagine and see everything in the water as you do this, and work with your breathing!!

Then add the legs as you stand on one leg, slightly bend the standing leg and pump the raised leg, raising it to the side of your body......Clear? Didn't think so. Anyway, just remember tempo. Keep the speed in bursts--really fast and then smooth and slow while you bring it in again.

3. Library

Fixed point. Hold your finger somewhere in the air. Other person takes a book from that exact same spot. If you really wanna be crazy, then put the book back. I know...crazy.

Take 10 minutes to prepare a library as a group, then BOOYA switch a couple members of the group so that you are FORCED to listen to each other and watch each other. This is theatre, people.

Then be spontaneous in creating a library and create an event. (Let's try a fire. That sounds safe yet urgent, doesn't it?)

Thank you everybody. I know I missed some stuff...so add it!

Forever Yours Class of 2013

David Roby