by Naomi Joseph

When I was at school I loved drama. I used to get this bubbling restless feeling in anticipation of the lesson. Whenever we were set a task I was up and running, bursting with ideas. I could just feel myself come alive.

I confess it’s been a little while since I have felt like that. When you take your passion and try to turn it into a career, sometimes that passion can get lost in the midst of trying to find funding or collaborators or maybe even accepting that your interests might have changed.

Today I got that feeling back again.

In Open Space, I took part in a session of sharing different techniques for creating work. Practises ranged from free writing and improv exercises to movement techniques. I discovered new practitioners and was inspired by my fellow Intensive participants.

After brainstorming we jumped to our feet, eager to get started. Amy Clare Tasker facilitated an exercise which she had learned from directors Thomas Murray and Kristin Rose Kelley, who in turn had learned from Celeste Miller. The exercise freed us from creating a character from the off and instead forced us to focus on the facts of a story. For inspiration we took an article from the Metro about the use of drugs in prison and the resulting consequences that had been mass-enforced on prisoners.

As a group we agreed on the objective facts of the situation. We then picked 5 facts each and (without revealing them to the group) chose a gesture to represent them. We then put those gestures together to create a short sequence.

After getting the gestures into our body, we then spent five minutes free writing. From our free write we created four short sentences to narrate our movement sequence with. Each individual interpretation was so stunning. We gleaned perspectives from characters who were prisoners, guards, and the family of the imprisoned. The actions were both abstract and natural, accessible yet not quite of this world. It was touching, funny and beautiful. We could easily use this as a foundation for a larger performance.

This exercise not only gave me the time and space to experiment, play and create but it also enabled me to really notice the talents of my peers. It felt fantastic to share the session with likeminded people and to be inspired by them too.

---

IMAGE: Amy Clare Tasker and Naomi Joseph participate in a physical theatre exercise led by Tashi Baiguerra.