23.09.2014

Michael Chekhov isn't exactly a new acquaintance for us, since we have explored his technique of radiating, but today we looked at other theories such as Moulding, Floating and Flying. These help the actor to be within the characters and be able to "translate their inner thoughts into an outer movement". We started working with these ideas during an earlier class, using a jacket and a stick or two with a small group to explore each way of moving by observing the way the jacket moves. Moulding is sort of a slower movement and imagining that you are moving in thick mud or imagining mocing in water helped a lot to create that heaviness to each movement. Floating, on the other hand, is a lot lighter and an airier movement. Flying is a strong, sharp and usually quite fast movement.

  We explored these techniques further by creating our names as a continuous movement. My names letter H E T A, do not feel very flowing to me, so it was a challenge for me make different kind of movements for each letter. I decided to use my whole body to create the letters, rather than just drawing them to the air with my hands and so create movements including my whole body. Then we were divided into pairs that we had to teach our piece to. After this we were then combined with another group that we did a full piece with, learning each others pieces and creating a complicit piece, using the space to our advantage and exploring different ways to make it more effective.
   We had to do this all in silence, which has been a common rule with a lot of our exercises. I personally feel it helps us as a group to focus, since we end up chatting to each other way too easy, taking the focus from the work we are supposed to do.