Saturday, October 22, 2005
Saturday 22 October 05
11 –1.00 Met with the Limerick Youth Theatre.
I’m with the year 1 group they are learning theatre history – it’s learning through exercises and “doing” rather than pure paper/lecture learning although we are being given grounding in the history.
This week’s class was on Commedia dell’arte ( a type of comedy developed in 16th and 17th century Italy).The class began with a warm up exercise – was great as it definitely warmed me up to hanging out with a bunch of teenagers! We had to get into a conga line (I was on the end) and we then told the first person in the line was to break of and become ‘the fox’ the second was to be ‘the mother hen’ and the rest were her chicks – of course the juiciness chick was to be the last in line and they had to all protect me! It was hilarious and an ice breaker. From there we learnt about the various character types in commedia - the lover, the trickster, the hero, the fool and the mother, and the characters that come from them. Again it was learning through doing so we all had to take on the characters and learnt how physical movements and ways of holding ourselves could create a character. There was really no place for inhibitions – you just had to throw yourself into it. Although we were learning about a period in theatre history it was also a lesson in acting – not just for screen or stage but in life. I really felt a greater awareness of my physicality afterwards and also a greater willingness to run around, play games and let go. Honest to god who’s looking at ya?
I’m with the year 1 group they are learning theatre history – it’s learning through exercises and “doing” rather than pure paper/lecture learning although we are being given grounding in the history.
This week’s class was on Commedia dell’arte ( a type of comedy developed in 16th and 17th century Italy).The class began with a warm up exercise – was great as it definitely warmed me up to hanging out with a bunch of teenagers! We had to get into a conga line (I was on the end) and we then told the first person in the line was to break of and become ‘the fox’ the second was to be ‘the mother hen’ and the rest were her chicks – of course the juiciness chick was to be the last in line and they had to all protect me! It was hilarious and an ice breaker. From there we learnt about the various character types in commedia - the lover, the trickster, the hero, the fool and the mother, and the characters that come from them. Again it was learning through doing so we all had to take on the characters and learnt how physical movements and ways of holding ourselves could create a character. There was really no place for inhibitions – you just had to throw yourself into it. Although we were learning about a period in theatre history it was also a lesson in acting – not just for screen or stage but in life. I really felt a greater awareness of my physicality afterwards and also a greater willingness to run around, play games and let go. Honest to god who’s looking at ya?
# posted by Neva Elliott @ 11:53 PM 
