Lesson 2

On Wednesday Ben taught us the opening scene that starts the show. Ben called this the Hakka dance which is a traditional war dance that is performed before battle to show their power and to scare the opposition. In today’s society lots of rugby’s team like to use as a way to warm up. 

This is a rough map of the opening scene that I made after the lesson:

I personally love the opening scene and I think it will be amazing in the show. When the audience walk in we will be a lying down all squashed together with our eyes staring out to space. I like this because it is a strong image for the audience to walk into and creates the of theme of death which is a huge part of the play. Another element I like is when we are all moving around like magnets ( we called it) and Sybil ( who is playing Lavinia) is getting people out of the circle. This is a really simple transition but still looks really cool. Another part I really enjoyed was us doing the synced hand movements. As I am left handed I personally found this part quite difficult because Ben wanted it to always be done with our right arm however I eventually got the hang of it. Again, I think this bit worked really well because it was really simple and easy for us to be in time with each other (and it felt quite good to get some aggressive out) . The third part the movement worked well was when we came to a squat position, but with a flat back and we have to slap our thighs, chest and then our arms need to be in air.  This third part is at the end of the open scene which works really well because it’s as strong as the beginning and is kind of showing the audience that' the cast are neither a live of dead' because looked dead at the beginning.

For a first run though of this I think it went really well and we did so much work considering the time we had. Even though there were some elements that worked we do need to look more at the transitions. The ones I think we need to practice are when we are forming circle and when we are coming out of the circle to form a V shape. These are two big transitions that need to be a lot sharper and dynamic. I understand that these transition are hard however we need to make them look easy. The next part we need to work on is when we put the mud onto our faces. This bit can look really good however we just need to do it all at the same time for it work. This is an easy however with 18 of us doing it at the same time , it will be quite difficult. In my opinion what will make it quite easier is the mud part to have a sort ripple effect from front to back. As the cast are positioned in a huge V I think this will be easier as we only need to see what the people around us are doing and not what Katie is doing because the people at the back  of the V will find it hard to see especially.

Finally, I think the rehearsal went really well as the class listened and contributed to what Ben said and did which made the lesson go really fast and for us to get a lot done. I think the reason for this was because Ben gave us about 20 minutes to warm up which I think everyone found physically and mentally helpful. To improve people just need to come on time to lesson as some people were five minutes late.