Welcome Natalie!
Second night of acting lessons, and Natalie joined us. She's kind of at a disadvantage, as the rest of us know each other, but we didn't get too weird on her, I think. Dan made her go through the exercise we did last week, and she rather handily got through it. Turns out she's already done some more advanced classes (scene studies, I think one of them was called) so she's not nearly so new at it as the rest of us.
Different exercises tonight, concentrating on our powers of observation and recreating in detail situations from our experience. We worked in two groups mostly. The first was to imagine a sporting event and simply go through the motions of being there. This one was hard, as I had no idea what was supposed to be happening. I tried to see what a ball game looked like, drawing on the one or two I had attended. With the idea that I was to "see" what was going on, I wasn't too dynamic, but I wasn't going to look to the side to see what the other two were doing. It was hard, because I had to come up with the action on my own, and there really isn't much going on at a ball game between hits.
After that, we sat and did a visualization exercise, where Dan described in great detail going to a hockey game at the Saddledome. Again, it was difficult for me as I've never been to one, and he was describing things inside the building that I've never experienced. Hard to fill in the blanks.
Then it was sit with eyes closed, and just listen and try to list all the sounds we could hear over a couple of minutes. We were in a pretty quiet part of town, but the building is old and noisy, and the occasional traffic noise was loud, as was the murmur from the rehersals going on downstairs. There was a surprisingly large number of sounds to hear.
Another exercise was to have a meal. We split up into two teams, and had to come up with an entree, side dish, beverage and dessert. This came easier, firstly because it was within my experience, and second because I was finally getting into what we were intended to do. Not a lot easier, though. I found myself still extremely self-conscious about it.
I ate the spaghetti, got some on my shirt (cuz I always do with spaghetti), ate the garlic toast, drank the wine, and managed the spumoni ice cream for desert. And we must have done not bad, because the other team got it. They did burgers and fries, and we figured it out too.
Then on the floor in a circle, which was a challenge for some knees (not Natalie, though - the curse of youth - someone else's, that is). Someone started in the middle (me) and was handed an object behind my back, and I had to figure out what it was. I had to use my non-dominant hand; that would be the left one for me. Then I closed my eyes, everyone else passed a tennis ball around the circle until I said stop, and the person with the ball at that point had to go into the circle to figure out the next object.
Minor excitement at this point: sliding out of the centre of the circle after taking a turn, I found a small nail protruding out of the floor. It could have been a staple, too. But it almost pierced my hand and tore my pants. Dan improvised a hammer out of a chair to pound it all the way into the floor (yeah, it was kinda awkward). We finished sitting in chairs instead of on the floor, in case there were any more nails sticking out.
Last exercise was to sit in a circle with someone in the middle. That person closed her eyes, we passed the ball until she said stop. The person in the middle picked a letter, and the person with the ball had to come up with six items beginning with that letter. He had to do this while the ball was passed around the circle again, and had to do it before it went around twice. Nobody got it. Caroline and I each managed five items once. The idea here was to ignore the passing of the ball and the deadline it implied, and just concentrate on the task we were given.
I found it a very challenging night, but a lot of fun. I'm not sure if it's easier doing this stuff with people you know; the biggest challenge is just to let go of the self-consciousness, and I think by the end of the night I was actually succeeding.
Different exercises tonight, concentrating on our powers of observation and recreating in detail situations from our experience. We worked in two groups mostly. The first was to imagine a sporting event and simply go through the motions of being there. This one was hard, as I had no idea what was supposed to be happening. I tried to see what a ball game looked like, drawing on the one or two I had attended. With the idea that I was to "see" what was going on, I wasn't too dynamic, but I wasn't going to look to the side to see what the other two were doing. It was hard, because I had to come up with the action on my own, and there really isn't much going on at a ball game between hits.
After that, we sat and did a visualization exercise, where Dan described in great detail going to a hockey game at the Saddledome. Again, it was difficult for me as I've never been to one, and he was describing things inside the building that I've never experienced. Hard to fill in the blanks.
Then it was sit with eyes closed, and just listen and try to list all the sounds we could hear over a couple of minutes. We were in a pretty quiet part of town, but the building is old and noisy, and the occasional traffic noise was loud, as was the murmur from the rehersals going on downstairs. There was a surprisingly large number of sounds to hear.
Another exercise was to have a meal. We split up into two teams, and had to come up with an entree, side dish, beverage and dessert. This came easier, firstly because it was within my experience, and second because I was finally getting into what we were intended to do. Not a lot easier, though. I found myself still extremely self-conscious about it.
I ate the spaghetti, got some on my shirt (cuz I always do with spaghetti), ate the garlic toast, drank the wine, and managed the spumoni ice cream for desert. And we must have done not bad, because the other team got it. They did burgers and fries, and we figured it out too.
Then on the floor in a circle, which was a challenge for some knees (not Natalie, though - the curse of youth - someone else's, that is). Someone started in the middle (me) and was handed an object behind my back, and I had to figure out what it was. I had to use my non-dominant hand; that would be the left one for me. Then I closed my eyes, everyone else passed a tennis ball around the circle until I said stop, and the person with the ball at that point had to go into the circle to figure out the next object.
Minor excitement at this point: sliding out of the centre of the circle after taking a turn, I found a small nail protruding out of the floor. It could have been a staple, too. But it almost pierced my hand and tore my pants. Dan improvised a hammer out of a chair to pound it all the way into the floor (yeah, it was kinda awkward). We finished sitting in chairs instead of on the floor, in case there were any more nails sticking out.
Last exercise was to sit in a circle with someone in the middle. That person closed her eyes, we passed the ball until she said stop. The person in the middle picked a letter, and the person with the ball had to come up with six items beginning with that letter. He had to do this while the ball was passed around the circle again, and had to do it before it went around twice. Nobody got it. Caroline and I each managed five items once. The idea here was to ignore the passing of the ball and the deadline it implied, and just concentrate on the task we were given.
I found it a very challenging night, but a lot of fun. I'm not sure if it's easier doing this stuff with people you know; the biggest challenge is just to let go of the self-consciousness, and I think by the end of the night I was actually succeeding.
posted by Kelly at
4:21 PM
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