Organic Theatre Day (2008)

Saturday 31st May 2008, Prompt Corner, 11am - 5pm

Introduction

Led by Carolina Giametta Cordes, director of GROW <ref>GROW website</ref> and senior trainer at Bigfoot <ref>Bigfoot Theatre Company website</ref>, SLT's Organic Theatre day showed how games and character exercises can be used to great effect when devising theatre. Originally conceived as a training day for the teachers of our Saturday classes for children and teenagers, the course was opened up to adult members too. The games and devised pieces are shown below for reference.

Games and Activities

In roughly chronological order as played on the day...

Yes, Let's!

The whole group walks around the room in neutral position. The aim should be to walk in different directions simultaneously (i.e. not in a circle). The facilitator begins by shouting an activity, for example "Let's all ride a rollercoaster!"; the group responds with a shout of "Yes, Let's!" and proceeds to act out the activity described. Anyone in the group can then shout out a new activity ("Let's all be rock stars!" - "Yes, let's!") and the game continues. If any individual is uncomfortable with a particular activity suggested, it is up to him/her to shout out a new thing for everyone to perform.

The objective of this exercise (beyond being an icebreaker) is to encourage enthusiasm for performing whatever is asked and to break down self-consciousness in performance.

Kabish-Kabash-Kaboom

The group is divided into two teams who stand at opposite sides of the room. A "safe line" is drawn in front of each team, behind which no team member can be captured by the opposing side. The aim of the game is to capture members of the opposing team and to avoid capture by them during several rounds of play. Before each round, the teams collectively decide between them which of the following characters to play:

• GIANT (raise arms and shout "Fee-Fi-Fo-Fum!")
• WIZARD (extend right arm as if wielding magic wand and shout "Zap!")
• GNOME (go down onto haunches, squealing "Ninny-ninny-ninny!")

In a similar way to Scissors-Paper-Stone <ref>How to play Rock-Paper-Scissors on Wikipedia</ref>, each character can overpower one of the other two, but is in turn defeated by the other, thus:

• GIANT beats WIZARD
• WIZARD beats GNOME
• GNOME beats GIANT

At the facilitator's signal, the teams approach each other 3 steps at a time, reciting "Kabish-Kabash-Kaboom". When the teams meet in the centre, they simultaneously perform their character. The losing team must run back behind their safeline before they are captured by the victors, whose team they now join if caught. In the case of a stalemate, where both teams present the same character, they return behind their respective safe lines, wring their hands with the words "Mutter-mutter-mutter". The game ends when one team has captured all their opponents.

Key performance ideas here are cooperation as part of a team, observation, commitment and focus.

In Grandma's Footsteps

We played this classic playground game <ref>Grandmother's Footsteps on kefkefkef.com</ref> with a few twists:

• The Original version: One of the group is nominated "Grandma", who faces the back wall with a bunch of keys directly behind her. From the opposite end of the room, the rest of the group members approach Grandma to try to catch the keys. Whenever Grandma turns round to look at the group, everyone must freeze - if she sees anyone moving, they are sent to the back. The player who succeeds in grabbing the keys is the winner and becomes Grandma for the next game.
• Playing without Grandma: the game is repeated, but the group imaginges Grandma and decides collectively when she has turned round. Anyone who freezes too late must go to the back - honesty is important here. The focus remains the same, but the group becomes even more aware of the people around them.
• Observing the game - no Grandma and no keys: Half of the group sit at the Grandma end, while the others play the game as before - but with no Grandma and no keys. The observers should avoid being too near the place where the imaginary Grandma would stand. The focus remains the same, but the observers witness the concentration of the players as they attempt to outwit Grandma. As a further extension, the players were given free rein to do whatever they liked when reaching Grandma - join the audience, or even pull them into the game.

Aside from the competitiveness fostered by the game scenario, Grandma's Footsteps shows how a strongly focused group can be captivating and unnerving for an audience to watch. The undivided attention needed to play the game prevents players becoming self-conscious about their "performance", but at the same time creates a captivating scene. Many of us felt this had plenty of practical applications in performance - look out for it in upcoming shows!

The Name Game

The group forms a circle. The facilitator says his/her own name, making eye contact with a member of the group (Player A) and moves towards him/her. At this point, player A repeats the same process with another player (Player B), saying his/her own name and moving toward him/her. The process repeats with player C, etc, and once it has acquired a rhythm, the facilitator can begin a second round simultanously with the initial one, and a third and so on. The game is then repeated in several permutations:

• Player A makes eye contact, saying the name of the person s/he is moving towards (ie Player B's name) - the game continues as before.
• The game takes place in silence - each player must attract the attention and make eye contact with the person s/he is moving towards. When a large number of swapovers happens simultaneously, players inevitably encounter each other in the central area. We were asked to act out these encounters in different ways, layering them with different attitudes/emotions: shyness, politeness.
• Half the group plays the silent version while the other half observes. In this situation, the observers got to see the various means the players were using to attract attention silently - gestures, eye contact, body language.

Another exercise in self-awareness - and also of connecting with fellow players in a focused environment. The observation made it clear how this kind of game almost creates its own story, as relationships develop between players trying to attract each others' attention.

Tableaux

The facilitator shouts out the number of people required in each group and gives them 10 seconds to form a tableau on a broad theme in a cohesive fashion. Each time this is repeated with a different number in each group (players must join with different people each time) to create a different tableau. Initially, this was done with the following scenarios:

• Treasure chest
• Fruit bowl
• Kitchen

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Storytelling Arm-In-Arm

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Funky Chicken

Starting with the right wrist/arm, group members (vigorously!) shake out each limb to the count of 16, shouting "One! Two! Three! Four! Five! ... Fifteen! Sixteen!", before moving on to the left wrist/arm, the right foot, then the left foot. The process is repeated to a count of eight, then 4, then 2, then 1, after which the group jump in the air shouting "Funky chicken!"

This is a great physical and vocal warm-up and icebreaker, at the start of a session or following a break

Laban Movement Exercises

Laban <ref> Laban Movement Analysis on Wikipedia</ref>

Devising theatre

The Hero's Journey <ref>Wikipedia article on the Hero's journey, also known as the Monomyth</ref>

Gallery

Pictures to go here...

References

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