by Naomi Joseph

This week is the final week of our intensive and we have been gifted two Masterclasses. The first was physical theatre with Kat Joyce from Tangled Feet. It felt funny to me because I interned with Tangled Feet back in 2013. I had worked with the company for a week doing research and development for their project at the time and it was more desktop based research. I was curious to explore the physical practice of the company.

I like physical theatre but sometimes I do find it frustrating. Firstly because I am usually the smallest in the room so often get lifted up a lot! Secondly because sometimes it feels like there is a pressure to have the body of a warrior, as if it should be easy for everyone to be able to bend backwards and upside down whilst lifting someone else. Thirdly, I’ve had a few experiences where the exercises just seemed silly to me and so I decided not to commit.

I promised myself that this time around I was going to give it a chance.

Through the exercises we did with Kat I learned that my body is more than enough as it is. My body’s capacities and limits are equally interesting. Stillness is just as valuable as movement.

Kat iterated that knowing your capabilities as a performer and owning them, as opposed to being a blank canvas, is interesting and excites collaborators. She used the example of there something beautiful about a group of people dancing who aren’t professional dancers.

I learned about the importance of getting outside of my head. I get weighed down by the idea of finding a story straight away, I forget to trust and rely on my body to carry me through. It’s the over thinking and desire to make something good (what does that even mean?!) that lets you down.

Kat layered the exercises stage by stage to a point where what had begun as a simple contact exercise (A touches B,  B touches A etc) had turned into a gesture movement sequence which we repeated on loop to music. Kat then added suggestions to the sequences such as do the sequence whilst explaining the movements, do the sequence whilst speaking gobbledegook. It showed a way of exploring communication with different types of language: physical, aural, spoken but not scripted.

Kat was generous in relating the techniques back to how Tangled Feet use such exercises in their devising process. It provided a richer context and assurance that these exercises work. Maybe their uses differ between projects and individuals but they are made to be accessible for all.

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IMAGE: Tashi Baiguerra and Beth Watson play with cardboard and paper in a physical improvisation exercise. Photo by Amy Clare Tasker.