We work on 'disassociation' warm-ups in the mornings. Arm left, head right. In lines of 3, moving up the room, doing repeated movements that get more and more complex each time.
Then we work with an object. We begin by being in control of the object, and then at a certain point, we are there for the object. It surprises us. We go left, it goes right. We work on when to look at the audience, when to look at the object, when to look in the opposite direction. We practise The Fixed Point.
Then we embody the object. We become the Pepper Pot. We have to think about the conflict within this. It is a solid object, but it is full of pepper corns...how do we illustrate this with our bodies and faces? What is the texture/feel/density? Our partner manipulates the pepper pot and therefore manipulates us. We embody what we see happening in front of us. Our bodies move in ways we hadn't imagined they could.
We create landscapes and space using our gaze and our belief in this imagined world. We switch between manipulating the object and embodying the object. A small table becomes a desert, my leg is a mountain, my head is the top of a volcano, I am an egg rolling to the top of a hill.
We think about the logic of the object and the story we tell with it. About how what is obvious to me might not be obvious to you.
In just 2 days I have become obsessed. Eyeing up inanimate objects and wondering how I might become a pair of swimming goggles, a plug, a bottle of water. How might I move? What journey could these objects go on?
It seems to me that object manipulation and puppetry is at once sublimely simple and totally, utterly, mind bogglingly, complex.
We finished today with this very fun exercise: One clown wants to tell the story of Little Red Riding Hood (or any well known story). Their partner helps, by handing them objects as the story goes along. The storyteller must integrate these objects into their story. The objects have nothing to do with Little Red Riding Hood and the storyteller doesn't know which objects are coming or when. The clown tells the story with the same excitement and conviction as ever, except that now, Little Red Riding Hood has been handcuffed and is hiding from the police, and The Wolf is a private detective who rides a motorbike.
Fun game for a hospital room?
Hasta Pronto Palomitas x