lesson 2

Today in rehearsal before we began to finish off the other half of the run through, we did a Yoshi Oida exercise, we started off by clearing the space, placing all our belongings and any item by the side so there was enough room for us as actors to perform. We did some stretches as a class which included side stretching, this was done by beginning to fill and balance the space; slightly squatting and tilting our heads back with our arms up and palms facing towards the ceiling, this position was allowing us to be open and make sure our airways were not squashed, following this while in the position we were instructed to start off on a note that is comfortable for us and then drop one note lower. we went around the space doing this for a while, this exercise was also effective because it helped warm up our vocal chords and strengthened them. Once we felt the space was balanced we started to adjust into warrior pose, alternating lunges from left to right, this then lead us into a low stretch and then into a press up, we tucked one arm under us and rolled so we were left on our backs, the next challenge was to put our arms and legs into the air and cross them together to create an oval shape and try to lift our body up from the ground, i found this part extremely difficult but nevertheless, i was determined to do it and even though it was painful it was a good stretch and helped me straighten my spine and helped me to work on my core, we did this for a minute and continued by lowering our arms and legs to the ground at the same time and rolling back onto our front and doing ''the cobra'', with this position i had to be very aware that my shoulders were not raised as i wouldn't be stretching correctly, we rotated our head side to side, we began to lower our body to the floor and transitioned into the prayer position, this allowed us to get our breathe back while also doing a stretch, we turned our palms facing up and slowly came into a kneeling position, where by impulse we came into a standing position and as a cast when we felt the time was ready, at the same time we jumped into warrior pose again. In general the exercise  really helped opened up my body and made my body loose to prepare me for rehearsal and make sure no where in my body was tense. We continued with the run through which was successful and fun because it was great to see everyone's creativity/ how they work spontaneously. One person that stood out for me was Francis who plays the character of every man because during the read through it almost felt as if we had been working with the script for a few weeks, she was very confident with her staging and used the space well, there were no parts that were rushed and she was able to engage me into her acting even though she had a script in her hand, she has really good improvisation skills and she has inspired me to go with the flow and not worry about the words that much but to get sense of the space and play around with it. We came together as a cast and discussed our thoughts; I felt that it was really good to do an active run through because it enabled me to understand the text more and enjoy it more as before I just read it and not really thought about how it would look on stage but by putting actions to the words it became apparent to me again why i wanted to be in the play and why i liked it . After lunch we came back to start devising our opening scene, we were asked to learn two songs 'Gods gonna cut you down' for this we stand in two lines facing each other stamping and clapping to the beat while Frankie, one of the everymen were in the middle and we were getting closer and closer following her still clapping and stamping to the beat and any time she would change direction we would follow in accord, until she was trapped in a corner, from there we came into two lines both facing forwards we we began to work on 'God's' entrance who is played by Sophia, angelic music was playing and when Sophia walked past us we would gracefully drop to the ground, from this we came together in a big circle and Ben wanted to try and devise the part before the party scene, he split us up into small groups to come up with a short silent movement about how society corrupts you as you get older, after Ben seeing all the small groups he joint everyones idea and made it look smooth. The second song he wants us to learn is ' I will follow you into the dark' which will be sang near to the end but in today's rehearsal we didn't devise that part yet. We then began to discuss the party scene, we all gave song suggestions which were: Bohemion Rapsidy - head bang, Feed em to the lions - moshing, Hey ya - shake it, In da club- groove, Drop it like its hot - groove, Crank em - superman, Mr Brightside, american idiot- scat circle, Jump around - jumping, cha cha slide- moves and Lethal Bizzle - pow. once giving the songs we finished the lesson by listening to all of them.

Targets; always stay motivated
have high energy
be committed