First Impressions - 8th January

To kick off the creative process for (IN)VISIBLE, we got introductions out of the way and started with some basic drama exercises. One exercise I worked on was a leading and following exercise, I wanted to get the performers used to each other and their ways of moving. It was interesting to see how the leaders would use the space around them and how the followers use their bodies to travel across the space. In turn, there were plenty of narratives that appeared and developed from watching these performers experiment with a simple drama exercise.

After some discussion and observation of leading and following, we moved on to quickfire still images. I asked the performers to physicalise their thoughts when they heard specific words such as passion and doubt. I was very intrigued to see the performers have different ways of physicalising thought. While some went emotional memory, others went for physical. This lead to a discussion about Stanislavsky and his preference to physical memory.

When looking back at the previous workshops, it was easy to make connections to presence verses emotion in this rehearsal. With presence simply being defined by how bodies move through the space, emotion is wired through connections not only between performers but also within the performer-spectator relationship. Using exercises similar to the ones we did today, I intend to look further into the link between presence and emotion.