"Let's Get Physical" - Saturday, 11th April 10:00-12:00 p.m

This first workshop for our physical theatre was very enriching, I must say. After being told that I should bring a towel and change of clothes and "it might get dirty", I already started getting scared about what we would have to do for the workshop.

When we first started the workshop, the instructor said "Okay get into two lines and do a forward roll and a cartwheel." There were many gasps from us, because most of us could not do a forward roll or a cartwheel, including myself. However, we carried on with it even though we could not do it properly. We tried! Our efforts were commended by the instructor, but we told that we were too "noisy". He then went on to explain how discipline is important in doing physical theatre, and how we had to be focused on the task given.

Next, we got into a circle and discussed what we knew about physical theatre. Physical theatre is basically the use of the body, and how the emphasis is not placed on speech. We were then asked to each come up with 3 exercises that would improve our fitness. We had to show them to the class, and most of the comments given by the instructor was that our exercises were "dead". We had to be constantly in motion, and have life in our exercises.

After that, we did an exercise whereby we had to follow the instructor's tempo and beat. This was rather difficult, as our movements had to be exactly the same as his. For example, when he steps into the circle, we have to step into it at exactly the same time, and when he quickens or slows down his pace, so should we. We were also told to watch the sounds we made, for example, the shuffling of our feet. We had to move with as less sound as possible. The instructor was constantly shouting remarks such as "LATE!" AND "TOO NOISY!", which were rather intimidating and I felt quite stressed out. The next round of this was done not by the whole class. The instructor started off first, then he looks at someone and "invites" the person into the circle. He did this either by smiling at you, using his eyes, or gesturing. It was quite hard to tell if he was inviting you, therefore for the first time we tried it out, no one moved into the circle because we were unsure. But after awhile, we realised what we had to do and followed. Even if we were unsure if he was inviting us, we had to go by our instincts.

Overall, this session was quite exhausting due to all the running and moving, but we learned important lessons useful to physical theatre such as focus, having "life", and using our instincts.

-Mel :)