We all arrived and entered the rehearsal space, with a wall of mirrors at one end; just right for seeing everyone’s scared/nervous/excited faces surreptitiously. All dressed in appropriately comfortable clothing, we saw familiar faces and new faces and waited for what lay ahead. Yemisi, Jane, Betsy and Rachel introduced themselves and hinted at what fun things we would be doing.
We got going with some movement exercises, walking around with interjections of commands to “stretch, spread, say hello, change direction and freeze”. I used the ‘hello’s’ to explore different funny voices. We did name games for memory and explored space and intimacy. Paper was given out and we drew squiggles with our eyes closed. Then we passed these on to the next person for them to create a picture out of.
A good group task was to create a group drawing of a cityscape, real or imagined. The catch was that it had to be done in silence. Our group created a nice, pleasant city scene, which took a macabre twist when gravestones and dead sheep were introduced. It was said by one that life is basically not all roses and we need to remember that and another member of the group had had a bad day. Not in that happy place yet eh! Our city did have a giant watching over the little people below too though.
Yemisi asked us to think of London and we did a quick round of writing for two minutes about ‘The sound, smell and taste of London’ and ‘What London dreams of’. We then shared two lines from each and which turned into a lovely London poem.
After a break, we re-convened and got into 2’s and 3’s and thought about lines from the poem. We then had to devise three stills of three things we remembered from this. Lots of interesting shapes were going on all around. It was like a live art piece and looked lovely. Photographs, videos and mental notes were taken; the whole process was documented. The stills developed into movements followed by a showcase (insert here more nervous faces when asked to show these to the group!).
Pencils at the ready again. More drawing. We sketched each other’s silhouettes from the three poses we had come up with. There was then a mini viewing of these, in the Sum of Parts impromptu art gallery on the floor.
Movement, introductions, drawing with your eyes closed, drawing with your mouths closed and moving without inhibition. This was a fun and creative way to spend 2 hours on a Tuesday evening. See you next week for more!
Photos: Gigi Giannella
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