Theatre Festivals and Conferences I have Loved

We have to pace ourselves!  This was a marathon day  We had a warm-up to help us with alignment and to get us out of our heads -- or to connect the head and body more effectively.  Then we moved around the room to various prompts in groups, while the other group would sketch our movement - not sketch us, just the movement  Interesting, freeing exercise.  Then we cut up the paper we had sketched on and investigated the attributes of the paper.  We shaped it and commented on what we observed in each other's 'sculptures.' We re-shaped it and discussion, then we made it into a puppet and experimented with the movement, the breath, the focus, and the thought.  Several of us became very attached to our puppets but most 'cut the cord' when we combined two puppets into one and experimented with its breath, focus, and movement.  This exercise was based on the process of Gary Friedman, who has done workshops in puppetry all over the world.  It really gets to the essence of what puppetry is all about.

 
I'll have to post the rest of today's adventures later.  Tomorrow promises to be even more rigorous.