a primer on basic warm up to get ready for the act

a very interesting video for narrative intensive performances and how to gear up for them. Additionally just trying a muscular exercise within vocal muscles by saying each letter for alphabet (in a language that floates your boat) should be of a great help. then try inducing shades of character in the way u pronounce your syllables, ask a co-actor to see if the emotion comes with sound. try speaking with substance in your mouth (water, marbles) to see which muscular groups are changing.

Another interesting exercise is to map a sound and its opposite sound to a high/low body movement that may symbolize it and match it with a similar expression. For example the sound aa the the base and ee as the opposite sound and match it with a movement of rise and fall of your shoulder and face. add to that the emotional extremes of happiness and sadness and as you move from the maximum of aa to minimum of ee you also travel in terms of emotions and movement. a great loosening exercise.

street play primer- deconstructing a street play

a street play is not so much about getting into the character as it is about getting the collective behind the message. So the first and the MOST IMPORTANT THING- everyone in the team should relate with the message.

having said that its not that easy, people laying the play need to understand the political stance of the play and why is the group taking that stance, politics is central to the narrative and hence its understanding.. once that is built and the motivations of each character is understood lets get down to the other part.

next step is to do a play reading few times and get comfortable with the script. then start deconstructing it. a street play proceeds formation by formation, the way a play has scenes a street play has formations, but there is more to formation than this. formations are symbolic, and this idea can be used much more beautifully. since characters are not frozen (except maybe generally the narrator/sutradhar)Start working on formations first, work on walk, on building the attract street grabbing personalities that you have to become.....to build that refer to multiple acting session tips before and after this post.dressing up as a group in one getup suited to a streetplay genre will do good.

next layer is sound, sound from the movement, sound from body (yell, thump, clap) it should synchronously move fluidly with physical movements as if choreographed., take the ambiant sound into account, a passing train, traffic signal, vehicles honking....integrate that into narrative... make that a part of telling the story....next is the added sound ( a dufli, bucket, metal, guitar-though its uncommon, banging plates etc)... treat all these carefully and think before adding/ subtracting them

last layer is the spoken work- the tehen
street play scripts clearly can be divided into three segments -
rhythmic- singing,
internal narrative- dialogues/ character statement/introduction
interactive narrative- interacting with audience and talking to them(beyond the sutradhar's wordings)

approach and build it layer by layer and showcase when ready....here is one excercise video from suzuki's methods that might be helpful. Also adding to the list of videos is some live performences of street plays.

getting into act -1 the actor's wall/ layers in actor

always ask for an actor's brief from the director.

age, height, stature, habits, geographical belongings form the first layer
family background, marital /relational status and situation forms the other
the overall problematic, motivation for the character to be in the story and do the things he/ she does form the third layer
the story forms the fifth layer
scene forms the sixth( look for the act and break it down into small sets, find reasoning to move from one act to another) look for stance and mood of the scene.
composition of the action - are all guys high pitched, is the overall scene balanced, is it giving you the reaction it is supposed to give.
Movements form the seventh layer, the movement of muscles required to execute the scene , emotions behind these movements....overall body movement in stage from one location to another.
Voice projection forms the eight layer...tone, pitch, accent and clarity
Dialogues form the ninth and the last layer.

create a wall with all these details( use post its) observe actual people, take snaps/ recordings, live with them if possible to empathize  with them and understand the characters in detail. dont give in to generalization and study surrounding/ supporting situations and environments. have videos if any....and then build up the act. make this wall visual and easy to refer. can also have a playlist of the songs for the character to help you get into one.

rhythm with breath- movement

as a group start inhaling and exhaling together while sitting . work on the beats variate it 1 bps, 2 bps (1/2), 4  bps(1/4), 8 bps (1/8), 16 bps (1/16) and 32 bps(1/32). you can also use a percussion instrument such as some kind of drum to time the movements together. once this is mastered, plan rhythm patterns  and physical formations. execute formations with breathing rhythm as the background music.

bring complexities with rhythm patterns on one layer and formations on another. try playing with assymetry in formation. create firm memory of moves and movements.

muscle tension and relaxation

Either wrap a wet fabric around or use a sandbed. lie down on the ground with your back facing the surface and your belly up. look at the impression you have made on the ground . the areas not touching the ground have tensed muscle(also account for body's curvilinear surface, some parts will never touch the ground). keep working on relaxing the tense muscles so that they can refresh you faster and get you ready for the act soon.

repeat with belly facing the ground.

lie down again with back facing the ground. start concentrating on your tows and chanalize body energy there. can u feel muscles warming up, can you contract and expand them using tension and relaxation....keep moving up and getting sensitive about your entire body muscle group, in the process learn to isolate them and flex only a fixed set of muscle groups for one movement.

external/internal mobility

ask the actors to sit still and start finding their calmness centres. ask them to ponder over the idea of internal/ external mobility. shifting their attention between the chaos going inside of them reflecting about what they are feeling inside and then shifting that attention to outside listening and seeing whet is happening there.

walking- space awareness

this exercise will help the actor tune his muscle memory, marrying it to the mental/ physical space that he is in right now.its a group exercise and ideally done in numbers upwards of 8.
decide if you want actors to imagine the space/mental space.

for a mental space , you ask them to start walking, ask them to walk faster breaking any mental patterns they are making during the activity, ask them to cris-cross. ask them to imagine a crouded space yet a private one (railway station, airport/ football stadium, any public space),
change that to a public yet community space such as college campus where people will identify and greet each other.keep changing the space from most intimate to public, from authoritative to relaxing, from sanitized to chaotic and ask people to get sensitive about how the space is dictating their behavior.

you can repeat this exercise in groups of two where one person is blindfolded while the other person guides him. its interesting to see how the small group dynamics work out within the constrains of space when the faith and responsibility become the obvious roles in a given situation

for the physican space excercise its good to get blindfolded and feel the space in terms of textures, sounds , people. and then start claiming your own by motion, jumping, dancing, being fearless.

change motion with claps you can bring pauses such as sit, stand jump which sync up with clap frequency ( one/ two/ three).

taking feedback from actors as the session ends