April 16, 2015
Bertolt Brecht and Chinese Theatre
-Bertolt Brecht was a German theatre practitioner, playwright, director, and poet who lived from 1898-1956
-Lived and practiced as a communist, pacifist, and Marxist
-Practiced Epic Theatre, which was a theatrical movement arising in the early to mid-20th century from the theories and practice of a number of theatre practitioners who were responding to the political climate of the time through the creation of a new political theatre.
-Used many devices to portray a V-Effect (alienation affect), such as
-Gestus
-Breaking down the 4th wall
-Narration
-Singing
-Using harsh lights/bare and simple staging
-Exaggerated/obvious use of props
-Ruining dramatic tension (usually with humor)
-Visited Moscow in 1935 and watched a Chinese version of opera with a famous Chinese actor, Mei Lan-Fang.
-This was when he realized Chinese theatre used alienation effects and gestus
-Mei Lan-Fang played the role of a female, which confirmed what Brecht was already practicing: that actors can play any character and that the actor does not become their character, they merely represent it.
-Chinese theatre heavily impacted Brecht's play, The Good Person of Setzuan
-In 1936, Brecht wrote an essay analyzing the differences and similarities between Chinese acting and traditional Western theatre, leaning mostly towards Chinese acting theories and rejecting Western theatre
Jan. 27, 2015
Restoration Theatre
1600's-1800's (King Charles Stuart was restored to throne- theatre came back since 18 years)
Thomas Killigrew and William Davenant created new theatre ideas:
Dorset garden theatre (special effects and stage movements- 1671)
Percenium arch dividing fore stage
Side doors for actors to pass on and off stage
Moveable scenery upstage
Restoration plays were lavish and immoral by Puritan standards (strict, modest, gray)
Lighthearted plays: comedy became popular - recovering from Puritan unset
Romeo and Juliet rewritten to have a happier, funnier ending
Comedies: quick wit (being clever/smart ass), happy endings, situational humor, reflection of society (exaggerated)
Situational humor: poking fun at society, relied on mistaking identity, mistakes, etc.
audience knows what's happening but actors don't
Shaming rituals (public humiliation),gender reversal, seduction at court
Cock holding: married but woman cheats on you
Women were actresses and played roles of men as comedy
High heels started for men, therefore walking in an artificial way with canes and ruffles
Bertolt Brecht and Chinese Theatre
-Bertolt Brecht was a German theatre practitioner, playwright, director, and poet who lived from 1898-1956
-Lived and practiced as a communist, pacifist, and Marxist
-Practiced Epic Theatre, which was a theatrical movement arising in the early to mid-20th century from the theories and practice of a number of theatre practitioners who were responding to the political climate of the time through the creation of a new political theatre.
-Used many devices to portray a V-Effect (alienation affect), such as
-Gestus
-Breaking down the 4th wall
-Narration
-Singing
-Using harsh lights/bare and simple staging
-Exaggerated/obvious use of props
-Ruining dramatic tension (usually with humor)
-Visited Moscow in 1935 and watched a Chinese version of opera with a famous Chinese actor, Mei Lan-Fang.
-This was when he realized Chinese theatre used alienation effects and gestus
-Mei Lan-Fang played the role of a female, which confirmed what Brecht was already practicing: that actors can play any character and that the actor does not become their character, they merely represent it.
-Chinese theatre heavily impacted Brecht's play, The Good Person of Setzuan
-In 1936, Brecht wrote an essay analyzing the differences and similarities between Chinese acting and traditional Western theatre, leaning mostly towards Chinese acting theories and rejecting Western theatre
Jan. 27, 2015
Restoration Theatre
1600's-1800's (King Charles Stuart was restored to throne- theatre came back since 18 years)
Thomas Killigrew and William Davenant created new theatre ideas:
Dorset garden theatre (special effects and stage movements- 1671)
Percenium arch dividing fore stage
Side doors for actors to pass on and off stage
Moveable scenery upstage
Restoration plays were lavish and immoral by Puritan standards (strict, modest, gray)
Lighthearted plays: comedy became popular - recovering from Puritan unset
Romeo and Juliet rewritten to have a happier, funnier ending
Comedies: quick wit (being clever/smart ass), happy endings, situational humor, reflection of society (exaggerated)
Situational humor: poking fun at society, relied on mistaking identity, mistakes, etc.
audience knows what's happening but actors don't
Shaming rituals (public humiliation),gender reversal, seduction at court
Cock holding: married but woman cheats on you
Women were actresses and played roles of men as comedy
High heels started for men, therefore walking in an artificial way with canes and ruffles
Jan. 15, 2015
Renaissance Theatre
• 1400-1600
• The activity spirit or time of the great revival of art
• Church was against theatre
• Queen Elizabeth was a fan of Shakespeare: Elizabethan theatre
• Theatrical development took place in England, Italy, Spain
• First tragedy triggered
• End of renaissance: beginning of Protestant reform
• Plays written in old English
• Stages were inside (circle shape)
• Candle lighting
• Audience was very in touch with the actors
• Advanced backstage
• Actors all still male
• Actors got a lot of profit and were not low-lives
• Express themselves with big gestures
• Not much stage guidance
• Comedies, tragedies
• Concepts were not mainly political
• William Shakespeare
• Michelangelo
• Leonardo da Vinci
• Age of discovery with in areas of intellect
• Big leap into modern theatre
• Melodramatic theatre in plays, stories were very creative
• Play writes were trying to discover who we are as humans/not religious
• Doctor Faustus: play by Christopher Marlin, sacrilegious: character wants to become better and more successful - invokes power with devil- makes a bargain with him (theme repeats itself throughout history) sells his soul to the devil, what should he do?
• Church didn't like this idea or the play writes because they told people they could think for themselves
• From pageant wagons - indoor theaters. Presented on tennis courts
• Queen gives money to develop theatre
• People are paying for tickets to see plays
• Teared seating, rich people: box seats, poor: groundlings
Dec. 12, 2014
Middle Ages Theatre
- colorful & varied (full of life and contrast)
- theatre was not grey ad monotonous
- “unclassical” form of expression
- often given a low rating in the world’s theatre forms
- There are 3 types of medieval theatre:
- Mystery Plays were based on scenes and stories from The Bible and were often performed together in a series called a cycle. Depending on the cycle, the series could take all day, or span multiple days.
- Miracle plays: Instead of Bible stories, they dramatized the lives, the legends and miracles of Roman Catholic saints.
- The main character in a Morality Play represents all humanity: Everyman, Mankind, Humanum Genus. The theme of every Morality Play dealt with the struggle for salvation – What can man do to be a Christian and save his soul? The main character must make a conscious decision against temptation to be saved, thus showing the free will of man. It's the universal battle between good and evil. Vice versus virtue. Which will mankind choose?
- early medieval period: from the fall of Rome (late 5th century until 10th century), drama was dead- killed by the pagans and Christians of late antiquity & romans lack of interest in drama
- ancient greeks began producing plays in the 5th century about religious ceremonies
- reached its height with the tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles, & Euripides and the comedies of Aristophanes
- Dramatists: Plautus (254-184 BC), Terence (c. 185-159 BC) - both wrote comedies & Seneca (c. 4 BC-65 AD) - wrote tragedies
- Seneca’s plays were most likely never intended to be performed but were written as closet dramas (meant to be read rather than performed)
- Plautus and Terence- performed during the days of the Roman Republic but became less popular after the Roman Empire (performed only occasionally after the reign of Augustus)
- Poetics: Artistole defines drama as the “imitation of an action.” but romans preferred types of drama that involved action without imitation
- theatrical productions included music, dance, circus acts (juggling and acrobatics), gladiatorial combats, animal fights, and during times of persecutions, shows that included feeding christians and other enemies of the state to lions and other wild animals
- Pornographic and pantomimes were imitations of actions and improvised with little written script
- people who participated in productions were drawn from the dregs of society (worthless) actors were known for loose morals, they could not vote or hold political office and had a social rank compared to that of slaves or prostitutes
- gained more prestige after the Empire was established
- Theatre became an important part of the emperors method of holding on to power by giving people bread and circuses-drawing attention to actual problems
- 198 AD: Tertulian, Christian writer, wrote an essay De spectaculis forbidding people to attend theaters and circuses
- religion was said to be a replacement for secular entertainment
- after empire became christian- theaters remained open, clergy were forbidden to attend entertainments, laymen could not attend on sundays & religious holidays, no christian could become an actor, government continued to finance performances
- theatrical productions slowly died out: instead was story telling/singing, pantomimes and folk rituals, reading drama written in Latin, etc.
- for years, drama that was performed by actors who impersonated characters was dead
- reintroduced in western europe in the 10th century as a part of the liturgy (a form or formulary according to which public religious worship, esp. Christian worship, is conducted.) for the Eastern Mass (part of religious observances) reborn as a part of the most joyous and triumphant day of their liturgical year
- Pageant wagons: trains of religious plays, go around to different villages and stop and become a stage (where idea of upstage and downstage came from)
- Used to spread religion because people were illiterate
- Everyman: play by an unknown author, common ordinary person is an Everyman character (audience can relate to), trying to figure out the world and how they should live: devil makes an appearance
- Church banned theatre and got rid of it, then church brought theatre back to educate and inform people of the topics of the Bible
- Connection: reenactment of Jesus being born, reenactment of passion plays: story from the bible of Jesus being put to death
Middle Ages Theatre
- colorful & varied (full of life and contrast)
- theatre was not grey ad monotonous
- “unclassical” form of expression
- often given a low rating in the world’s theatre forms
- There are 3 types of medieval theatre:
- Mystery Plays were based on scenes and stories from The Bible and were often performed together in a series called a cycle. Depending on the cycle, the series could take all day, or span multiple days.
- Miracle plays: Instead of Bible stories, they dramatized the lives, the legends and miracles of Roman Catholic saints.
- The main character in a Morality Play represents all humanity: Everyman, Mankind, Humanum Genus. The theme of every Morality Play dealt with the struggle for salvation – What can man do to be a Christian and save his soul? The main character must make a conscious decision against temptation to be saved, thus showing the free will of man. It's the universal battle between good and evil. Vice versus virtue. Which will mankind choose?
- early medieval period: from the fall of Rome (late 5th century until 10th century), drama was dead- killed by the pagans and Christians of late antiquity & romans lack of interest in drama
- ancient greeks began producing plays in the 5th century about religious ceremonies
- reached its height with the tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles, & Euripides and the comedies of Aristophanes
- Dramatists: Plautus (254-184 BC), Terence (c. 185-159 BC) - both wrote comedies & Seneca (c. 4 BC-65 AD) - wrote tragedies
- Seneca’s plays were most likely never intended to be performed but were written as closet dramas (meant to be read rather than performed)
- Plautus and Terence- performed during the days of the Roman Republic but became less popular after the Roman Empire (performed only occasionally after the reign of Augustus)
- Poetics: Artistole defines drama as the “imitation of an action.” but romans preferred types of drama that involved action without imitation
- theatrical productions included music, dance, circus acts (juggling and acrobatics), gladiatorial combats, animal fights, and during times of persecutions, shows that included feeding christians and other enemies of the state to lions and other wild animals
- Pornographic and pantomimes were imitations of actions and improvised with little written script
- people who participated in productions were drawn from the dregs of society (worthless) actors were known for loose morals, they could not vote or hold political office and had a social rank compared to that of slaves or prostitutes
- gained more prestige after the Empire was established
- Theatre became an important part of the emperors method of holding on to power by giving people bread and circuses-drawing attention to actual problems
- 198 AD: Tertulian, Christian writer, wrote an essay De spectaculis forbidding people to attend theaters and circuses
- religion was said to be a replacement for secular entertainment
- after empire became christian- theaters remained open, clergy were forbidden to attend entertainments, laymen could not attend on sundays & religious holidays, no christian could become an actor, government continued to finance performances
- theatrical productions slowly died out: instead was story telling/singing, pantomimes and folk rituals, reading drama written in Latin, etc.
- for years, drama that was performed by actors who impersonated characters was dead
- reintroduced in western europe in the 10th century as a part of the liturgy (a form or formulary according to which public religious worship, esp. Christian worship, is conducted.) for the Eastern Mass (part of religious observances) reborn as a part of the most joyous and triumphant day of their liturgical year
- Pageant wagons: trains of religious plays, go around to different villages and stop and become a stage (where idea of upstage and downstage came from)
- Used to spread religion because people were illiterate
- Everyman: play by an unknown author, common ordinary person is an Everyman character (audience can relate to), trying to figure out the world and how they should live: devil makes an appearance
- Church banned theatre and got rid of it, then church brought theatre back to educate and inform people of the topics of the Bible
- Connection: reenactment of Jesus being born, reenactment of passion plays: story from the bible of Jesus being put to death
Dec. 10, 2014
Greek Theatre
• Dionysus: god of wine
• Worshipped in the wilderness
• The festival of Dionysus- attracted large audiences (15-20,000 people) & theaters had to be built
• Had to hire singers, poets, and dancers
• Theatre was in the shadow on the temple on the slope of a hill
• Theaters were where the people sat
• Orchestra was where the people performed, where the modern orchestra usually sits.
• Skene: at the back, represented a building, was basically the back-stage
• Paraskene: where the actors mostly performed
• Hundreds of theaters were still built
• Actors were all men
• Dionysus breaks hierarchies
• Stood for positive release of breaking down boundaries
• Politically important
• Athens was the worlds first democracy
• Heavy eye makeup
• Exaggerated eyebrows
• Chorus were narrators usually
• Chorus started to represent greater community
• Plays started to differ from Dionysus and started to talk about what was going on in Athens (politics)
• Quite dramatic because they needed everyone to hear (15,000 people)
• (Greek) theatre originates with religion and ritual
• Aristotle- The Poetics (one of the first texts about theatre, how it should be performed)
• Comedy: person going from lower status- higher
• Tragedy: higher status-lower
• Stated that time frame should be together (unity of time)
• Suggestions to actors and how they should act- type of characters
• Discussed structure/design
• Tragedies: Aeschylus, Euripides, Sophocles (Oedipus Rex & Antigone)
• Comedies: Aristophanes, Menander (The Birds, Clouds, Frogs)
• Satyr Plays: still evident today
• Centered around satyr (half goat-half man: rude, arrogant, filthy, hyper-sexualized, drunk, smelly). Satyr plays are (rudely) humorous, bawdy (sexual), poking fun of society- Simpsons, SNL, South Park
• Greek theatre w/ masks: can't face sideways, always must face the audience & use their voice/body to convey emotions
• Oldest Greek theatre we have is by Aeschylus (language is grand- metaphors, only 2 or 3 actors)
• Oedipus avoids his fate by stabbing his eyes out
Greek Theatre
• Dionysus: god of wine
• Worshipped in the wilderness
• The festival of Dionysus- attracted large audiences (15-20,000 people) & theaters had to be built
• Had to hire singers, poets, and dancers
• Theatre was in the shadow on the temple on the slope of a hill
• Theaters were where the people sat
• Orchestra was where the people performed, where the modern orchestra usually sits.
• Skene: at the back, represented a building, was basically the back-stage
• Paraskene: where the actors mostly performed
• Hundreds of theaters were still built
• Actors were all men
• Dionysus breaks hierarchies
• Stood for positive release of breaking down boundaries
• Politically important
• Athens was the worlds first democracy
• Heavy eye makeup
• Exaggerated eyebrows
• Chorus were narrators usually
• Chorus started to represent greater community
• Plays started to differ from Dionysus and started to talk about what was going on in Athens (politics)
• Quite dramatic because they needed everyone to hear (15,000 people)
• (Greek) theatre originates with religion and ritual
• Aristotle- The Poetics (one of the first texts about theatre, how it should be performed)
• Comedy: person going from lower status- higher
• Tragedy: higher status-lower
• Stated that time frame should be together (unity of time)
• Suggestions to actors and how they should act- type of characters
• Discussed structure/design
• Tragedies: Aeschylus, Euripides, Sophocles (Oedipus Rex & Antigone)
• Comedies: Aristophanes, Menander (The Birds, Clouds, Frogs)
• Satyr Plays: still evident today
• Centered around satyr (half goat-half man: rude, arrogant, filthy, hyper-sexualized, drunk, smelly). Satyr plays are (rudely) humorous, bawdy (sexual), poking fun of society- Simpsons, SNL, South Park
• Greek theatre w/ masks: can't face sideways, always must face the audience & use their voice/body to convey emotions
• Oldest Greek theatre we have is by Aeschylus (language is grand- metaphors, only 2 or 3 actors)
• Oedipus avoids his fate by stabbing his eyes out
Marriage Proposal Table | |
File Size: | 480 kb |
File Type: | docx |
Oct. 16, 2014
Immediate Theatre
• Based on personal experiences (Peter Brooks)
• Theatrical bc it's common reality (which is lost when the production is finished)
• Common reality: during the performance, all people involved all have the same experience
• People are drawn to theatre due to the immediacy and closeness to reality
• Relationships: director/subject/designer
• Designer: ideas/understanding of play can evolve at same rate (if director is designer)
• Peter Brook did his own designs
• Relationships: actor/subject/designer
• Actor: actor must be comfortable and shoes great skill with friends but director must find qualities in him to work with professionals
• Blind leading the blind: director might see different/weird energy with actors
• Peter Brook doesn't use written plan to work w actors- he must see how they flow first
• Relationships: actor/subject/audience
• Audience completes the production
• Audience can cause change in the scenic contexts
• Ex: girl had love for partner- in rehearsal the love and emotion was real but girl got nervous in front of audience so the audience can only feel an awkward vibe instead of love and the scene might change
• Everything appears different to directors
• Can only classify as immediate theatre after you watch it and see how you feel
• People are looking for something, which is found in immediate theatre (not deadly)
Sept. 4, 2014
Dr. Augusto Boal
• Born: 1931 in Rio De Janeiro
• Died: 1999
• Brazil in 1930s- extreme contrast between wealth (still happening today)
• Boal was born into this life and told to become a chemical engineer but he went to USA to study theatre at Columbia
• Returns to Brazil and WWII has ended and Cold War was beginning (communism against capitalism)
• USA came to Brazil to spread capitalism so Baol became interested in diff. forms of theatre
• Talk back: audience can talk to actors/directors about play
• Baol saw separation between audience and actors so was interested in intertwining the two- came up with idea to give audience member to become part of the play by helping a character etc.
• Usually the actors that the audience helped were oppressed/ had an obstacle
• "Does anybody have an idea on how this character could overcome this obstacle"
• Spectators would just provide assistance
• Improvisation
• Next, Boal invited spectators to come on stage and act (spect-actors)
• In Brazil, people didn't have a voice and now they did so they could make real change (financial oppression, worker oppression, violence) come up with solutions
• Made plays about how government oppressed people, word spread and other theatre companies started doing the same thing but the same time USA was influencing politics in Brazil
• Brazil wanted to vote on a communist party but USA saw it as a threat and went into Brazil and influenced military -> military took over and they felt threatened by Boal and arrested him multiple times, beaten and tortured being exiled to Argentina
• While in Argentina, wrote down ideas of theatre in a book called "The Theatre of the Oppressed" (style of theatre) talked about how you can make change through theatre
• Theatre activism
• Boals ideas came from his friend, Paolo Fierie's book called "Pedagogy of the Oppressed"
3 main Boal Techniques:
1. Invisible Theatre: when the protagonist character chooses to deal with a problem or situation in a way that would like to do in real life. This is often done in a public place. Therefore the audience is also mostly unaware that the performance is going to happen. Improvised scene becomes reality.
2. Forum Theatre: the characters on stage are presented with an unresolved problem. The audience is invited to offer suggestions and it becomes a kind of competition between the actors and the audience to come up with the most effective solution and bring the play and or the oppression to an end. The result of this is the pooling of knowledge and experience. While solving the problems at hand they are 'rehearsing for life' (Boal).
3. Image Theatre: this is when the actors on stage with minimal amounts of speech involved. The image they create must be powerful enough to stand on its own, it MUST be 'true'. This is so that the audience can easily relate it to their own lives and therefore learn from it. Movement, music, and ensembles are used to make it more powerful.
• The Rainbow of Desire: everyone has many layers, not just single sided. Easier for audience to relate to them
• Boal toured in early 1990s to train theatre practitioners
• Many theatre companies use his techniques today to influence change
• Empathy is a crucial thing in his theatre
Sept. 16, 2014
Holy Theatre
Performance that is closely associated with religion
Brings out the truth
Reality deeper than everyday life (read actor from the inside out)
Modern equivalent to classical tragedy
Don't want to present "invisible theatre"
Connects to theatre of betrayal
Exchange between audience and performer
Theatre of the invisible-made-visible
Shows human consciousness, dreams, states of being, ghost,
You will hear what one actor is thinking (on behalf of other actors words)
Explores and focuses on problems
Takes abstract things and makes them more concrete
Desire for something that's not there (mind, thoughts)
"A happening may be spontaneous, it may be formal, it may be anarchist, it can generate intoxicating energy"
No real in between of how to view holy theatre
Transcendent experience: all elements work together in conjunction with audience. Actor becomes one with its character
Holy theatre can be deadly theatre (if you fail to look critically at what is going on)
Ideal holy theatre is the opposite of deadly theatre
Everyone has this transcendent experience, leave the theatre a different person
Theatre of the Oppressed - Forum Theatre - Worksheet
1. What is “Forum Theatre”? Where, why (what were the circumstances?) and because of whom did it begin?
Forum Theatre is a type of theatre created by practitioner, Augusto Boal. It is part of what he calls "Theatre of the Oppressed". It was created in Brazil during the time of the US military intervening in Brazilian politics and it was made to give ordinary people a voice and to teach them how to change their world.
2. Define the following terms with regard to Forum Theatre: “model”, “spect-actor”, “Joker”
A "spect-actor" is an audience member who is allowed to have their input in a play, in which the actors must go on with said idea. The joker is one person in a production who acts as a narrator, telling the audience what is going on, and why, also it's the person who let's the audience members have their voice in the play.
3. In what way is Forum Theatre a theatre of dialogue rather than a monologue?
Forum Theatre is more of a dialogue because the spoken word is not being spoken to an unknown person or audience, it is spoken to either one person in the audience or the whole audience, but because they're so involved in the production, the words connect to them more.
4. What purpose does the warm-up serve in Forum Theatre and how does one use it effectively at the start of a Forum Theatre workshop?
EVALUATE AND REFLECT ON YOUR GROUP’S FORUM THEATRE PERFORMANCE
5. Was your performance a realistic performance? Focused? Seen, heard and understood by the audience?
In my opinion, our performance was very realistic, maybe not the exact way that it was portrayed happens in everyday life, but the sexualization of lesbians and the hatred towards gay men. Our scene was very focused, but I think that our audience did not understand what we meant, or did not feel comfortable with it, therefore could not come up with solutions to the problem.
6. Did you continue to play the same character during substitutions, yet respond in believable ways to the changes introduced by the spect-actor?
Our spect-actors substituted for us, so they could portray their ideas to the best of their ability. We always kept the oppressor in our play, and the oppressed would be substituted.
7. Describe what happened during the forum? What possible solutions to the conflict were tried out by the spect-actors? Were they realistic? Did the main character (protagonist) achieve his or her goal?
There were many solutions, such as walking away, or getting the oppressor kicked out of the bar, or calling the police. There were also suggestions of talking it out with the oppressor, which didn't work very well. The solutions were realistic, but none of them worked very well.
8. What were the strengths of your Forum Theatre experience as a whole?
9. If we did this again, what might we do differently in preparation for the Forum Theatre experience?
I think our topic was good, but seeing the country that we're in, it may have been a better idea to do something which our audience can relate to more. However, I believe that our audience could be more open-minded and touched by our forum theatre.
10. In looking at an actual performance event, what might we do differently in facilitation and during the model and subsequent substitutions to improve the experience?
I think our group could have made the scene a little less obvious, so that people could have their own interpretation of it. Also, we could have had more ideas in our heads as what to do if the audience had no suggestions.
August 14, 2014
Performer Bio
To be honest, my abilities in theatre are quite limited. When I have done acting, I try to put my all into it, but I have got no clue about practitioners or stage etiquette or any of the logistics of theatre. My knowledge extends to stage directions and that's about it. I have gotten good recommendations from my past drama teachers saying that I should continue, and I believe that I should, and I am. My abilities to be a well-developed actress are still pending. I have no interest in doing lighting or stage management. In all honesty, I do not like watching something take place in which I created and get no credit for it. I like to be the center of attention and I like to get credit for what I've accomplished. Attention requires confidence, which I have, depending on the circumstance.
My confidence can be lacking. Depending on the size and contents of the audience, I can be myself, which is outgoing and confident, or I can trip up and make mistakes and go red in the face if anything goes wrong. For example, if I'm performing in front of a small audience of friends I can be the most enthusiastic performer you've ever seen. But if I'm in front of large crowds, even if there are a few people in the crowd that make me nervous, I might mess everything up. I'm hoping to learn how to cope with such downfalls in the next two years, and I am confident that I will.
I do have high expectations of this class. I want to learn a lot and be able to inform others of what I've learned, but I also want to show them. I want this class to teach me how to speak or dance or sing (probably not singing) in front of large audiences, which is required in any field I want to go into in the future. On the other aspects of theatre, I would also like to improve. For example, knowing the logistics and directing of productions, and learning about different types of theatre techniques.
Today in class we did an exercise in which one person guided the other around with just the movement of their hand. It was kind of a weird peaceful experience. I felt very in touch with my partner, Angela S. I felt a bond and a trust with her. I thought at first that I would feel like a dog following its master, but it wasn't that way at all. I felt very at peace and I wasn't focusing on anything other than watching and following her hand movements. We also did another experiment in which you had to lock eyes with a partner at all times. For me, it didn't feel awkward at all, like it should have in a real life situation. I've noticed nowadays that nobody ever looks you in the eye, and I'm guilty of that as well. I'm looking forward to more activities and experiments we have yet to do in this class, and I do think that I'm going to learn a lot more here than I will sitting in a classroom listening to a single person talk for 7 hours of my day.