Try humming and breathing at the same time. Easy? Thought not!

I'm yet to decide if I have enjoyed this week (17th - 21st September) or not

Also had great success at a Theatre Versus Oppression Charity Walk

So, Monday (17th) was the lesson which I enjoyed least about this year.It was an Artaud Masterclass run by Maria (just to be clear, it not that I didn't like the way she was teaching us she did a great job!) just the exercises we had to do I really get thus meaning I didn't enjoy them. Me and Georgia had to stand opposite each other, close our eyes , and hum in unison with each other and feel a "connection" between us so we both raised our hands at the same time. The humming had to be continuous and develop and become louder and more prominent. Not only is it impossible to hum continuously (due to the fact you need to breath) but also humming and breathing don't go together. Take a second now to hum and breathe at the same time.......No easy is it? Then with people watching us randomly hum, distracts you because you can hearing laughing, which causes you to laugh and then ends the exercise with no conclusive results. We then went onto the numbers game where we had to count up to 20 as a class without creating a pattern or saying a number at the same time. We later tried to explain how we know when to say a number as if it was instinct. For me I personally feel that we were lucky. By the end on the lesson we began to explain religion and it's similarities into Artaud (rituals, symbols, language not needed) due to the fact that Maria didn't know excessive amounts about religious ceremonies we focused on this for the remainder for the lesson.

Tuesday (18th) we continued with our development of Artaud and Religion, and began linking certain parts of ceremonies into Artaud. Such as the candle lighting, the no need for language, the kneeling, sitting, standing, and how it is cleansing almost like an Artaud play. Then we went onto talk about emotions and where for us do they emminate from our bodies we were given 5 emotions to think about: Fear, Anger, Love, Sad and Happy. I said that personally fear comes from the stomach, sadness from the shoulders, love from the chest, happiness from the legs and anger from the hands. Then came the difficult part, we were lined up and we had to act out the chosen emotion given to us by Mr. F. Each time emphasising it more and more from the person before you. Again not my favourite exercise but all the same I did it and understood it, however I can't help but feel that emotions differ from person to person as we mentioned in class for instance someones anger may be throwing things whilst another is a quiet anger. Just confused me slightly, but I am sure I'll learn more as the term progresses.

http://neosurrealism.artdigitaldesign.com/
modern-surrealists-art/artists/xartist-GeorgeGrie
/surreal-paintings04.htm

Friday (21st) was a sit down lesson where we began to learn about the importance of dreams and the dark reality that surrounds all human beings, and that maybe our dreams and nightmares show more of who we are that our concious minds. We also made links from Grotowski and Artaud in the way we had with Religion and Artaud. To round of the lesson we began to look at surrealism in the Arts (the example we were given was Salvador Dali's "The Persistence of Memory") in which we commented it appeared to break reality and come from a land of dreams. We were also given the task to research surrealism and find an image that explains it, and for me this image is what expalins surrealism the best for me due to the fact that it breaks all the norms, it is something that is almost unimaginable due to the fact it bends all realms of our "physical living" reality. It blends in the realms of dreams and nightmares and is almost completely imcomprehendable.

Good news people! Today Saturday (22nd) a Theatre versus oppression sponsored walk took place in the local forest area and managed to raised over 700 euros for TVO. It was great and fun filled and and we are all very happy that so much money has been raised in support of TVO. There were teachers and students from school to help this charity and it seems like it was a massive success! Just look at that t-shirt!

An interesting week for me, loved learning about everything. Not enjoyed putting it into practice.

Richard #1