The love drug

Wednesday evening 9:15.
Phew I made it.
Twas a bit of a struggle at points.
Why Mark, why?
Good question!
With a one word answer.

Vin.

After class several of us went to the Halequin bar to have a drink and relax, now don't ask me how but several hours Dan and myself found ourselves in an impromptu lock in. Our french host drinking pastisse and Dan and myself on the vin rouge.
I still managed to get about 9 hours sleep but drunken slumber never quite recharges the batteries.
I'm 33 surely you would think I would have learned that lesson by now?
Obviously not.

And so today was a tad touch and go but I made it.

Movement was really interesting for me today. A little insight into how games can be used to stretch the actors range and develop his physicality.

No stretches or silk work today, non, today we played.

Beginning with Cat and mouse/hug tag to get the heart rate up, there was such a charged energy in the room especially when Claude introduced 2 and then 3 cats. It was hilarious.
Next-dodge ball we were encouraged to use our whole body in the throw and to really try and dodge the ball, when it matters the body does many strange and wonderful contortions, then the beginning of the session that really got me thinking about game as an addition to movement training. Claude had us walking round the space, he would tap someone, that person would do an action with a sound and we would all have to copy after a while this changed to animals, suddenly we are up pretending to be ostriches, down for sheep dog and cats, even lower still for snakes, leaping on someone else's back to play a giraffe, rhythm changes to pass from sloth to orangutan and more.The body warming up and developing without the serious nature often associated with "movement". This continued on when Claude put a line of blue mats at one end of the room and a second line at the other end. We were to imagine that the room between the mats was ice, so as soon as we walked onto it we slipped over, curious how much of a banging and crashing the frame can take when the body is soft. Immersed in the game we don't think about the possibility of injury or have any fear of throwing ourselves about the space. Once we had all crossed the space, we had to go back again, this time across hot coals. The third time we had to swim across a river filled with piranha. And then try to swing across the same river on the silks, me and 99% of class were pranha feed, only Justin made it across.
Finally we had to sit on a chair that was very slippy and again practice falling to the floor.
Keep the body soft seems to be the secret.
I think that tomorrow we learn how to fall backwards in a chair safely. I'm looking forward to that.

Le Jeu.
Pretending to be in an advert for a fine whisky for the men, Chanel no 5 for the ladies. Among us were actors suitable to advertise bleach, danone yoghurt, perfume in a kibbutz and adverts against drinking.

Sinicca asked what if you are not comfortable playing beautiful, if you prefer playing ugly, Philippe said something like she had fun and she has pleasure on stage that it is not that he thinks she is not beautiful that he kicked her away but that in the exercise her movement was horrible.

He is trying to get us to move beautifully on stage, graceful under the lights ready to show the audience our piece of our soul.

Clown

Costume update for those of you who are interested.

Christine gave me a pair of blue and white maternity pyjamas which I am wearing in class. The genius idea of stitching my own has been postponed for a few days, I'm going to speak to Carmen about it tomorrow to see if it is still possible ( apparently she is a costume designer so she will tell me if it is a total catastroff)even if she says no est posible then I'll still give it a go.
I really want them to work.

todays exercise
2 clowns enter to introduce an inaugration (?)
They have been to see Monsieur Marcel who frquents the cafe de la post. Apparently every cafe has a genius, some cafes there is a rugby genius, in others a legal genius, and monsieur marcel is a clown genius.
Ahhh my little one, if you want to do an inaugration it is not easy. not easy at all. An inaugration has poems and song.
Ah thankyou Monsieur Marcel. and with this knowledge the clown goes to make his inaugration.

I tap Mia infront of me to see if she wants to work together, she is dressed as the wife of the chief of the village in Asterix and me as Obelix could be a good couple.
We get up and walk behind the curtain, a quick glance at one another and then Boom boom boom on the drum and on we go, circling round and round as the music plays, it stops. Mia has a rolling pin as a prop and we both start doing something bad with the rolling pin. It gets a couple of laughs but I think these are just from friends who sympathise with us being in the shit. We end up holding hands just as monsieur G bangs his drum and tells us that what we did was bad. We ask for a second attempt, he was feeling generous today and with the feeling of being bad he let us go a second time, we did okay.
Philippe used us to teach about major minor, I made a bit of a boob, I said something like "ladies and gentlemen now Mia will do a back flip. Mia looked confused. great! and here was my mistake, in fact she will do a double backfli..... "Non, you have just given her major, we are with her now."
I clenched my fist and watched Mia. I need to realise when I have handed the game over. This will come I'm sure I need to be more complicit with my partner.

Mia carried on, "Yes I am going to do a backflip but first I need to warm up, Mark will now warm me up."
Brilliant thankyou Mia I'm in major again, what will I do here?
My mind goes to the rolling pin and I think about using it to warm her up, before I know what is happening I am breathing on her as if she is ice cold hands and patting her arms... laugh. Brilliant, I carry on. more laughs, okay we could have a game here.
Philippe stops us.
Damn.
He asks Mia why she isn't playing pissed off?
She says that she tried it yesterday and it didn't work.
He winds her up in french. She gets pissed off and bites back, suddenly there erupts a lot of laughter from the audience and big laughs from Monsieur.
After a few minutes of exchange between them he tells her that she has to kill the charming swiss that she wants to play, that it is no good for her clown. That they don't love her like that
I liked playing with Mia, I think we could come up with something good, her clown is pissed off whilst mine is an energetic optimistic idiot.
The contrast here could be good.

But what I did learn or at least what I have found before that can be fruitful is to put your partner in the shit, And now Mia will do a backflip. I have given my friend an offer, a gift, something for them to play with.
And here was another lesson for today, the relationship between the clowns is more important than the number.

I think I see that, for in the relationship is the humanity, the number could be anything, sure there are good ideas for numbers but "2 idiots on the stage with complicite, and ahh we think something is coming."
Fantastic!

My idiot, (apparently I have an idiot face)I can't quite tap him here yet, but I have been succcesful for a few minutes in previous workshops so I know it is possible, and boy what a feeling that was, to love and be loved by the audience, it's in my veins and I want it more.
The love drug.
Help me to find it again Monsieur G.

Monsieur Gaulier's quote of the day.
"When you enter as clown you have to think how am I going to work with this audience? How am I going to make them laugh?"