Exercises For the Collaborative

During Monday's session we all took notecards and wrote down a word that reminded us of the Laramie project. On  the other side of the notecard we wrote a quote that someone from the laramie project said, or would be likely to say. Then we got into groups based on which note card spoke to us. From there we made i begin i end scenes that incorporated the word on the notecard. I formed a group with Caroline and we created a scene based on the word frustration. During the scene Caroline showed me something and I just acted like I didn't care about it, this made her frustrated so she started banging on the ground. Next we added another word from a note card and the line that was on the back of that card. Our new word was disappointed and instead of just being apathetic with what Caroline had brought I was now severely disappointed. The line that we added was “do whatever you want, I don’t care as long as it doesn’t affect me.” Next we had to merge the three groups to form one collaborative scene. During this I learned that when devising a scene you need to try a lot of different things out before you find one that works for the group. Also when combining scenes you need to look for overarching themes that connect to each other. For us this was power because in each group there is one person who had power and the others were weaker.

I think that we should do the exercise outlined in the Moment Workbook next week. One specifically that I want to try is a lighting exercise. First, each actor brings in a light source. This can be any portable light source, a lamp, Christmas lights, a lantern or a flashlight. Then everyone makes scenes surrounding these light sources. These scenes do not have to be narrative based, the only requirement is that you say “I begin” before you start and “I end” when you are finished to indicate the length of your scene. Throughout this exercise the actors should just be looking for how a light source speaks, and what it makes you think about. Next the moments are developed into more narrative based scenes. Throughout this stage actors should be exploring how you can use the light to interact with the audience, or be multi purposeful. After this add more people to the scene and see how that changes the scene. Then add different colors of light and see how the narrative is affected, the last two elements to add are props and costumes.

Another exercise we can do is to do the same thing we did Monday with a different stimulus. I think we can do this with a song such as A Thousand Years-Christina Perri, Just a Dream-Carrie Underwood, See You Again-Carrie Underwood, or Locked Away-Maroon 5.