Week 1: Day 2
First day of timetabled classes today. The year is split up into four groups of twelve and we each had four 90min classes (in varying order). We in Group 1 had Movement first which was one I was nervous about. It was the most intense and focused workout I have ever experienced. I’m definitely going to need to practise!
After that was Improv. I was worried that we’d be thrown into the deep end and made to improvise whole scenes but luckily we’ll be building up to that. Today, we played a few icebreaker games, getting our concentration going and trying to help us relax into the idea of performing spontaneously. One of the hardest things we did was walking around the room pointing at things and saying they were something they weren’t. It was amazing that as soon as we did that, suddenly all the nouns we’d every known completely disappeared from our head. All in all it was an hilarious lesson.
After lunch was our first Radio class. I have been particularly looking forward to these as I love radio drama (I’m completely addicted to the Paul Temple series – look ’em up, they’re awesome!). We’d all brought in a monologue to read as requested and I’d chosen a new one (a speech by Moon near the beginning of The Real Inspector Hound) and the only really overtly comic one. We were given some feedback on the performances and then we were recorded. Mine seemed to go down pretty well (I’m planning to use it on friday to perform to the test of the year). The awkward bit was listening to ourselves back to the end. Looking forward to doing another one next week though.
Finally today was a Voice class which was mainly made up of intense breathing and posture exercises, preparing us to make the most of our voice in future classes. It was really impressive how much taller everyone seemed to get by the end of the session. Yet more exercises to practise then.
I think I have twisted my knee. I may well be limping into school tomorrow for classes in singing, sightreading, character and the much anticipated combat! G’night!
