Lesson Analysis 22nd January

Today we started with doing Quad warm ups, where we lined up in three rows and jumped in unison with our rows but on different counts. This type of warm up got raised our energy levels and got us motivated in preparation for our lesson.

We then went through stylising he pedestrian movements for one of our characters, pairing up with our double cast member to decide on three key movements. As we focused on our character Jane, our first choice was the action of flicking our hair off our shoulder, as this portrays her classy yet quirky personality. We also used a hand gesture of writing on a clip board which is because she is in a smart secretary-type uniform and has a check-list of appointments in the actual play ("I'm getting hijacked at.... 6). We lastly chose to do one twirl with our arm extended upright, which reinforced her feminine and fancy manner. Throughout these movements we locked a large smile and held an upright posture because her character always stays positive and enthusiastic, despite her involvement with the story, and must keep her 'professionalism' up by her polished body language.

Next, we had to then develop our movements as well as add more to make a short motif. We exaggerated the hair flick, repeated the writing gestures which were done in a fast pace, gently plumped our hair slowly, again slowly twirled out, 'strutted' forward in a moderate speed as well as reach out across with our arm. These developments helped emphasise and make each character's movements more contrasting to one another.

Our chunks of movements were then choreographed together, in which the double cast for each role would perform their motif in the centre. At the end of their phrase, they would become still until the next people entered and spun the previous people out of position to replace. As we performed over background music of a song by 'Cocorosie', it became very atmospheric and connected well to the aura of the play.

Afterwards, fixing on Act One, we individually chose a page of lines that were between Lisa and our character (Jane), entwining our developed movements into the lines. For example, I chose to use the hair flick gesture when saying "Because you told me". I chose this because I felt Jane would have said this with an undertone of 'Don't undermine me', and the hair flick represents that.

Overall this lesson beneficial as it made us consider the natural motions of our roles by embellishing quite basic movements to fit better with that character.