Discovered on a bear hunt...
Firstly in the interests of honesty I feel I must say that the original inspiration for this blog wasn’t actually found in a Yew Tree session at all but in one of the classes I take for the West Yorkshire Theatre Dance School. The WYTDS includes the youngest group I direct on a regular basis and there are, in fact, occasions where I forget just how little they are…one of them was proudly announcing her imminent 7th birthday yesterday…
At present we’re workshopping the brilliant, “We’re going on a bear hunt,” and already the groups interpretation of it is pricelessly funny and adorably cute…however despite these worthy and distracting attributes last night I started to notice something quite fascinating…
Firstly some useful information…with a piece like this you run a little bit a considerable amount of times…layering up the ideas and the familiarity and the confidence until the ability to tell the story is enhanced and the words etc are embedded. So in the course of a workshop you see the same thing a number of times…as this process took it’s usual course I began to be aware of the impact variables were making on the casts performances.
This only works in obvious terms so for the next paragraph forgive the pedantic nature of my writing, and all the time remember were dealing with 6 and 7 year olds here…also remember that the entirety of the workshop is only 45 minutes long…
The impacts went something like this…cast member gets idea accepted and embedded into play or likes someone else’s idea that is accepted etc…performance upbeat and energized…cast member suddenly prey to some sort of physical need or discomfort…performance lethargic and uninteresting…cast member made self conscious by the production of a camera…performance stilted and forced…cast member distracted by…well anything really…performance utterly shambolic…
This inconsistency although understandable in actors of such a tender age isn’t only a problem for those under the age of ten…so my challenge to you, dear youth theatre member, is this…I want you to reflect for a moment…in your last workshop, rehearsal or performance what stopped you giving the best you were capable of…was it one of the above or something different and did you attempt to manage the variable or did you fall victim to it…because the answers to those questions could be key to the next step in your development as an artist…just a thought…
At present we’re workshopping the brilliant, “We’re going on a bear hunt,” and already the groups interpretation of it is pricelessly funny and adorably cute…however despite these worthy and distracting attributes last night I started to notice something quite fascinating…
Firstly some useful information…with a piece like this you run a little bit a considerable amount of times…layering up the ideas and the familiarity and the confidence until the ability to tell the story is enhanced and the words etc are embedded. So in the course of a workshop you see the same thing a number of times…as this process took it’s usual course I began to be aware of the impact variables were making on the casts performances.
This only works in obvious terms so for the next paragraph forgive the pedantic nature of my writing, and all the time remember were dealing with 6 and 7 year olds here…also remember that the entirety of the workshop is only 45 minutes long…
The impacts went something like this…cast member gets idea accepted and embedded into play or likes someone else’s idea that is accepted etc…performance upbeat and energized…cast member suddenly prey to some sort of physical need or discomfort…performance lethargic and uninteresting…cast member made self conscious by the production of a camera…performance stilted and forced…cast member distracted by…well anything really…performance utterly shambolic…
This inconsistency although understandable in actors of such a tender age isn’t only a problem for those under the age of ten…so my challenge to you, dear youth theatre member, is this…I want you to reflect for a moment…in your last workshop, rehearsal or performance what stopped you giving the best you were capable of…was it one of the above or something different and did you attempt to manage the variable or did you fall victim to it…because the answers to those questions could be key to the next step in your development as an artist…just a thought…
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