Exercises

Milling

Milling is when you walk around the room going in and out between each other. Remember you should not be walking in a circle. Milling is then made difficult by changing the energy levels between one and five. Jacque Lecoq who came up with this exercise originally based it on levels 1 - 10.

1 - Slow (hardly moving)
2 - Lazy
3 - Normal
4 - Fast
5 - Frantic (controlled chaos)

You must walk through the middle don't just stay to the outside of the room and you don't have to walk straight on. You can go backward, sidewards, you can spin around. When you walk past someone you may want to have a small relationship with them and feed of their movement. Remember this relationship can still be going on even if they are on the other side of the room. 

This exercise is useful because it means that we are able to recognise different energy levels when needed and we also use it in blackout when we are shouting 'where am I' at the beginning of the play.

Fishers Exercise

Fishers exercise is when one person is chosen in the class and the rest have to copy their direction. You must all be facing the same way and if you can't see the person doing the movements watch others around you because they might be able to see. This may cause the movements to be in a ripple effect. The person who is leading should do all their movements slowly and they should not be too complicated. If the person can no longer be seen by anyone then someone else should take over so the exercise continues.

This helps us work together as an ensemble and use our peripheral vision so that we are able to follow the leader. We use this skill when raising our hands in a salute and a fist at the beginning of blackout. This is also used when people start changing into the dad behind kitty because they are all doing similar movements.

Waking up for the first time

Everyone should lay on their backs with their eyes closed. Then slowly people should begin to wake up but like it is the first time they have ever woken up. You should use the time to explore the floor, your hair, your clothing even your body because it is the first time you might not know how to sit up. You should also explore the room you are in, the lights, windows and space around you. Remember you do not have to copy others you may stay on the floor for the whole time whilst others could be a bit faster than you.

We used this exercise quite a lot in blackout when we were in the jail cell because it showed that we were trying to discover where we were and show that we couldn't remember what had happened because we were just waking up in this place that we did not recognise,