It will never cease to amaze me just how much I learn everyday here. It is almost like being a small child again and discovering the world. Here I am discovering the world of Shakespeare.
This morning we were broken up into 2 separate groups. Each group had 6 individuals. I was with Tom. The rest of my group is: Linda, Bob, Melanie, Hilary, and Jewel.
When we first got together we did a few warm-ups. I loved them. The first was called "Keepy Uppy" (Tom's cutesy name because he has a young son and finds himself referring to things in a cutesy kind of way). It is a game that most of us have played with a balloon. THe whole point was to keep the nerf ball up in the air with a single touch each time. We made it up to 22 consecutive touches before hitting the ground. Next we did 2 different rhythm exercises. One was simply to clap out the beat of our names. Example: Brit-tney Han-sen. Everybody in the group clapped out each name. We then put these names and rhythms to a walk, creating characters with each expression. Everybody tried each name. Lastly, we did an exercise in status. Using playing cards ace through ten. Ace being the losers and ten being God. Without looking at the card hold it up to our forehead and walk around noticing the interactions between "characters". After observing the reactions people have to each other we arranged ourselves in numerical order of what status we assumed we were. Some of us were right and others not so much. It was a great exercise to embody the essence of varying social classes.
Once we were warmed up we started looking at our scene! This was the best part in my opinion. My group is doing the scene where the Friar hashes out his plans on how to save Hero and then leads into Beatrice asking Benedick to kill Claudio. In a circle we chunked the lines into small groups and then translated it into our own words looking at why characters were doing and saying certain things. There were definitely a few disagreements about motives and such but all and all SUPER insightful. We haven't been told our roles yet and we only made it about half way through the scene, yet I felt like I learned so much about the characters and their personalities.
I am really excited to continue working tomorrow and getting deeper into the text and subtext of it all.
After scene classes we headed onto voice. I found this class to be SUPER relaxing and very educational as well. I am sure most of us have the problem of students dropping the ends of lines and so forth and this was one of the things that Charmian addressed. She talked about releasing breath through the end of each line and we practiced doing this with names, numbers, lines of plays and a beautiful poem. I loved it. It was like a relaxation and breathing class with a bit of annunciation and poetry. I wish that we had more time with each of these professors/practioners. They are all brilliant.
Now that I think about it, I actually don't remember whether we had voice or Theatre History lecture first. Not that it really matters the order. Our Theatre History lecture was very insightful too. Dr. Farah was a fountain of information and was able to talk freely without notes or references. Many of us took notes throughout. She even shared a few sketches and various other things for us to take back to our classrooms. She provided a wonderful basis for everything that the Globe is working on as well as the things that we are all attempting to teach.
The last chunk of our day was spent in the Shakespeare Exhibition. This is like and entire museum dedication to the wonder of Shakespeare, his works and the Globe. There was everything from scale replications to information about the society of the time. Very insightful.
Now most of us have had dinner and kind of retreated to individual areas. Some people are sitting around rooms and talking dorm style and some of us are catching up on writing and talking to loved ones. Tonight I have a grand excursion planned with Hilary to the depths of who knows where. I am hoping between the running, the long day and our evening walk that I might actually get to sleep the entire night through. I also hope that I am not going to be so tired I am falling over tomorrow. Only time will tell I guess.
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