Taking Flight, Literally – Student Company

Thu 25 Oct 2012

Taking Flight, Literally

We open with a survey. “Give me your honest opinions, please.” After that scary moment, we jump straight into exploring the space remembering what we had learnt.
And what had we learnt? Awkward silence as no one dares to speak first. Awareness of the self, others and instruction. We should be full of concentration and confidence. We also engaged (because this shit is more real than playing) in a round of ‘Zip’, no instructions for the new folk, we jumped straight it. A new move was introduced called ‘Piz’. I’d love to tell you what this is and keep track of all the ‘Zip’ moves, but I have a feeling Tid would kill me. A quick session of ‘Killer Tick’ to refresh our memories of people’s name and the real stuff began.

This week’s theme was ensemble. The sessions before have had us working as a group of individuals but this time, Tid was to teach us how to complement each other and work as an ensemble. This began with exploring the space and naturally coming to a rhythm, a unison. This lead to a march, maybe deep down we’re all soldiers. But Tid lead us away from that route, encouraging us to find joy in the rhythm. It is not about the rhythm getting louder or faster, but maintaining it and keeping it alive. Once people started to be a little kinder to their feet (especially those without shoes), a clap was introduced and it had to be passed around the group.

At first, this clap was in time with the beat of the feet. Again, are our bodies searching for conformity and regularity? Tid really upped the ante by encouraging claps to be passed on an offbeat. Once the steadiness of the clap began to be broken, the group started to appreciate the beauty of the rhythm. The stakes were continually raised as travel and multiple claps were introduced, reining in all the skills we had learnt; ensuring our moves are clear, keeping focus and awareness of the claps around us by making eye contact. These games are the play, the production, keeping high energy and focus at all times.

We moved onto an activity that commanded our voices. This was called ‘Running Voice’. One person began with a sound, an elongated sound that could be sustained. The rest of the company rushed to them and complement the sound. Like the rhythm activity beforehand; this was built upon. We had to find an audience, let the sound develop, create a rhythm. And then a scary bit, maybe scarier than the survey: Running Voice and Flying. Quite literally, the person that began the sound would be lifted by the rest of the company as they all sang along. To ensure that everyone was playing fair, once you’d started a round, you were not permitted to start a second time. And just our luck, the six foot new guy hadn’t started yet; you could sense everyone’s muscles crumble at the sound of his voice. But we did it anyway because that’s what we do at the Lakeside Theatre Student Company, take chances and look a little bit silly TOGETHER.