The truth is, it feels like we've always played this way and it's hard for me to recreate how we got here. But! I have just saved some notes from the shredder. I shall write what I can recreate:
January
Jam
Yay Boo
Happy Fixation
Animal Evolve
Same Character Scenes
Same Character Mobs
Guy on a Walk (what did that mean?)
Transformations in and out of words
Moving Tableaus - create a swarm of bees, ocean, flock of sheep, forest, graveyard, snowfall, crazy cat lady house, airport, fireworks display, old west scene, locusts attacking crops
Throwing Focus - with a ball, without a ball, sidecoached ("focus on Josh!")
Mirroring - pairs, groups, all
Follow The Leader
Character Switch - body focused
Dance Party Freeze
February
Round 1 - Pairs Morph into Scenes
Round 2 - Invent Constrast (deliberately step out)
Round 3 - Full Scenes that pop from morph back into morph
Playing With Shape - sidecoach soft/hard/angled/floppy/body parts
Ralph
New Orleans Game
Instant Beckett
Meditation w/ Object of Focus
Pass Morph like a Taffy Pull
Pure Morph (w/out scenes)
Taking Words Soft Walk
March
1 Hour of Silence
(12 minute meditation, space exploration)
Pure Morph
Walk in the Dark
Atlantis Quartet sat in with us.
[we have developed a rehearsal routine of meditation, to space exploration, to morph, to Beast]
April
Guest Instructor: Galen Truer on contact improv
May
Guest Instructor: Jason Ballweber on physicality
Monster Training
Amnesiac Game: Come in the room and you don't know anything but we like you.
The Best Trick In the World
Run/Stop Blankly
States Of Motion: Asleep, laid back, robot, blank, wait??, there's a bomb!, bomb's about to go off! Almost Kiss Game
Blob Game (break through to me)
Mirror Lead
Far Away/Close
June
Pounce Walk
Energies of Each Others
Principles We've Learned Along The Way
--> Hit it or quit it
--> Let go of the words, become them.
--> Give in to the morph
--> Experience the space
--> Take care of each other
--> There is always more
--> Noise makes it true
--> Be heroic
--> Name the elephant in the room, call it out
--> Use your soft clown baby brain
Notes from Stashwick on being comfortable with the morph
"Trust. See more, show more. To me it's about the connection to space. Feeling space push back. Shaping space. Shapes in space.
Abstraction only exists to get to the concrete...but abstraction is always interesting if it's not indulgent. It's taking the art for a walk with no particular place to go. Trust that it will get to a scene but allow yourself to be surprised by the destination by the use of abstraction. It truly makes it a group discovery.
Shape space, have that shape resonate, let it push back against your hand, face, leg whatever....the shape becomes an object, the object exists in a place, what place? Let it become concrete, discover who lives in that environment and holds that object. Be that person. Have relationships with the environment and other characters that inhabit. This can take fractions of a second or a half hour. Boom, a scene begins. Essentially it's the same principles that apply when freeze tag is played correctly and not for laughs.
Tell them to be in love with "not knowing". Tell them they can always get to a scene but to let go more in between."Fingerpaint" a bit. Audiences will be thrilled to watch things materialize out of the ether."
