Syndication26 Nov 2008 - 11:02:22 pm
Warming up for Greek Theatre
I can't remember all the games we had for warming up. The one I loved the most was to walk around the hall with classical music playing on the background then to dance as much as we liked to it, but using the entire space.
We had ones for voice projection that were exceptionally useful. We had to say a line and cross the hall saying it, but when we got to the middle we had to change the volume, either increase or deacrease. The we had to repeat but running, whispering, walking very very slowly and shouting....
We worked a lot on big gestures: melodrama. We had this 'Dramatic Death Game'. Have you ever played detective? Well, one person is assigned as the detective, by a person that's not playing, and another is assigned as the murderer, but only these two people know their roles but are unaware of each other's roles,do you get the point? Everyone sits in a circle and has to keep conscious of all that's going on. The murderer will blink to every individual, one by one, but in this game, when a person is blinked at they have to simulate an overwhelming dramatic death. While the deaths are occurring, the detective has to be attentive at who's blinking and when the murderer is discoeverd, or the detective's killed, the game's over.
We worked a lot will plastic balls. We stood in a circle with two balls, a pink one and a blue one. When we threw the blue one we had to say blue, but when we threw the pink one we had to say the name of the person we were throwing it to. We had similar ones like having to say your name when you received the pink one or your name when throwing the blue one. All of them had the basic objective of improving coordination and voice projection.
To work with dialogues we held a long rubber stick, each person holding opposite ends and we had to say our lines, whilst one person conducted the stick and the other followed holding the other end. It's all quite hard to explain. A simpler one would be to basically run in circles saying the lines out loud in order to get the energy pumping through our bloodstream!
We also worked our concentration and perception. A person had to mak a noise, predetermined by the pair, and walk around the hall making this noise. The other person, already dizzy from being spun around and with his or her eyes closed had to listen to that noise, detect it and follow it around wherever it went.
To work our self-confidence we were made dizzy once again and with our eyes closed we had to walk in what we thought was the direction of the circle we had previously arranged ourselves in.
You see, all of them, whether similar or different, had purposes in common: to make us get used with the idea of Greek acting, which is rather different from ordinary theatre. We need loud voices, overacting, big gestures, coordination, and a good idea of the common roles, such as the chorus. One of our exercises to work on being part of the Greek chorus was to read aloud one of the lines we were given from Medea, as if reciting a poem and interacting with the audience at all times, with many gestures and clear articulation.
We had ones for voice projection that were exceptionally useful. We had to say a line and cross the hall saying it, but when we got to the middle we had to change the volume, either increase or deacrease. The we had to repeat but running, whispering, walking very very slowly and shouting....
We worked a lot on big gestures: melodrama. We had this 'Dramatic Death Game'. Have you ever played detective? Well, one person is assigned as the detective, by a person that's not playing, and another is assigned as the murderer, but only these two people know their roles but are unaware of each other's roles,do you get the point? Everyone sits in a circle and has to keep conscious of all that's going on. The murderer will blink to every individual, one by one, but in this game, when a person is blinked at they have to simulate an overwhelming dramatic death. While the deaths are occurring, the detective has to be attentive at who's blinking and when the murderer is discoeverd, or the detective's killed, the game's over.
We worked a lot will plastic balls. We stood in a circle with two balls, a pink one and a blue one. When we threw the blue one we had to say blue, but when we threw the pink one we had to say the name of the person we were throwing it to. We had similar ones like having to say your name when you received the pink one or your name when throwing the blue one. All of them had the basic objective of improving coordination and voice projection.
To work with dialogues we held a long rubber stick, each person holding opposite ends and we had to say our lines, whilst one person conducted the stick and the other followed holding the other end. It's all quite hard to explain. A simpler one would be to basically run in circles saying the lines out loud in order to get the energy pumping through our bloodstream!
We also worked our concentration and perception. A person had to mak a noise, predetermined by the pair, and walk around the hall making this noise. The other person, already dizzy from being spun around and with his or her eyes closed had to listen to that noise, detect it and follow it around wherever it went.
To work our self-confidence we were made dizzy once again and with our eyes closed we had to walk in what we thought was the direction of the circle we had previously arranged ourselves in.
You see, all of them, whether similar or different, had purposes in common: to make us get used with the idea of Greek acting, which is rather different from ordinary theatre. We need loud voices, overacting, big gestures, coordination, and a good idea of the common roles, such as the chorus. One of our exercises to work on being part of the Greek chorus was to read aloud one of the lines we were given from Medea, as if reciting a poem and interacting with the audience at all times, with many gestures and clear articulation.
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