Debbie writes:
Today 7th June 2013: We did movement of seaweed on a chair and built on the sounds of the sea - it was good.
We made a lot of noises and copied each other.
We did a game like flocking where you have to follow a movement of a leader, this was good beacuse sometimes we didn't know who the leader was.
Then we went onto a game where you had to guess who was leading the sound and movement of the flock.
Today we worked with Itta Howie and Mel McCree. We explored body movement and our voices.
In the last mime session we put what we had learned into making a short scene. Actors mimed slowly, exactly and with confidence.
See the video of the scenes.
Eve: "What will you take away from these mime workshops?"
Mike: "Stretching"
Penny: "Using creative imagination."
Beth: "Thinking of detail. I want to do the miming in our performances - to be more precise."
Dan: "Thinking before doing"
Mike: "Excercising before going on stage."
Paul: "I want to do more miming"
After a warm-up and preparing our bodies for performance we practiced mirroring in pairs. One person in the pair had an object and the other person had to try to copy them exactly.
What have you learned?:
Beth: "To make movement slow"
Mike: "Its good to do excercises before we go on stage"
Beth:" Take your time, be accurate, precise & exact, so that the audience know what you are doing"
Mike: "The massaging helped me to relax"
Penny: "We've been exploring, going deeper into visual drama and thinking more about what we are doing"
Today we practiced physical theatre. Paul said: "Being in your body, feeling comfortable, strong, not nervous with readiness. It was relaxing - we were in control."
We glued the words we wrote onto boxes and peices of foam.
We went to the Side by Side Symposium to meet other people who dance, make music, paint, draw, act and do other creative things.
Everyone at the event split into smaller groups to do workshops. We made music in the workshop me and Maude took part in.
At the end all the groups came back together and talked about how we work together with other people and what is important to us when we do this. We came up with a list of ideas to help us when we are working together and making art.
Our stimulus today was a question, the city we live in and ourselves.
What do you want to say to the city?
We looked out of the window of Hamilton House and watched the life of stokes croft and wrote what we wanted to say to the people out there.
We then found an image for our text and projected that image with the words and performed with the words and images.
Our place - Stokes Croft as stimulus for writing.
We were asked to paint a picture with words: What can I see?, What can I see and how do I feel?, What can I hear? and What I imagine I hear.
This is what we wrote:
Today we have been exploring the idea of found text.
Examples of found text:
Subtitles on a foreign film, banners, postcards, tickets, T-shirts, clothes labels, shopping lists, stamps, on DVD's, trailers, titles - movie credits,
letters, lorries, money, petitions, posters, graffiti, food packaging, tattoos, signs, plaques, labels, dance score, emails, house names.........
Watch this video.
The result of our first day of experimenting.
Today is the first day of our workshop week.
Firstly we agreed how we would like to work together for the week.
We have started building a word wall which we will add to each day. We are collecting useful words that will help us make performance.
So far we have explored how we start writing with different stimulus.
This week Cori gave us a taster of things to expect in our February workshop week.
We had a little play with an OHP to find out what we could do with it. Cori showed us some shadow puppets that she has made and then we made our own too.
So our creative brains have started to bubble with ideas and get excited about working with Cori and Natasha.
Happy new year! And what a year it is going to be for the Misfits Theatre Company.
We have plans afoot for our intensive workshop week in February. The company will be working with two artists Natasha Machin (Performance Writer) and Cori Bona (Designer & Pupeteer).
The artists will lead us through a week of creativity and fun where we will explore new ideas and ways to enrich our practice. Together, including the actors, director and project manager (myself), we will play, try-out and experiment.
L.O.V.E at the tobacco factory. Shakespeare's love poems brought to life through physical theatre.
Here is what people said:
Dark, forbidden.
Using body language to get the message accross.
Dance movement - good sequences
Gothicity, mystery.
I liked the actress crying - it was moving and showed depth of emotion.
I think we should explore emotions through dance movement in our work.
Dark and nasty.
Strong emotion, passion, dark desire.
Shocking.
It went too far.
I liked the words.
The Misfits Theatre Company perform to the public at conferences and public events. We want to get better at making performances so we are finding new ways and getting new ideas to act.
I went to see a show called Subtext where the actors danced and moved, they told the story with their bodies. I thought it was excellent!! So we are hoping to do dance and movement in the Monday group, so the audience don’t have to follow the words or concentrate on lots of long lines that may be difficult to follow for everyone.
Some great photos here from the performance at the Rhythm of the Night.
Re-live the joy!
Photos by Kamina Walton.
Hello everyone! We've been really busy.
Some of you might have seen the African drumming and dance performance at the Rhythmn of the Night on the 18th October.
If you didn't, here is a video clip of the rehearsal.
We are going to post up more pictures and we're going to make a video that shows the hard work that went into learning and rehearsing as well as the performance.
Back soon!
Now you can see the animation made by the Misfits artists. Read More to view the movie!
We went to see the 'Superpower: Science Fiction in Africa' exhibition at The Arnolfini. This is the third part of Maude's review in 3 parts. Read More and Click to listen.
We went to see the 'Superpower: Science Fiction in Africa' exhibition at The Arnolfini. This is the second part of Maude's review in 3 parts. Read More then Click to listen.
We went to see the 'Superpower: Science Fiction in Africa' exhibition at The Arnolfini. This is the first part of Maude's review in 3 parts. Read More then Click to listen.
Anniversary — an act of memory, Act 40: a recitation from memory of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
Some time ago now Colin and I took part in Acts of Memory at the Arnolfini. Here is a link to artist Monica Ross' website for more information about the project.
Yes that's right we were very lucky to watch our animation on the big screen at Aardman's private cinema. Artists who created the film 'Tales from the Funkadelic Ferret' and invited firends sat in the luxury of the cinema to see their efforts in all it's glory!
We had our own awards ceremony for all the creators and people involved in the project.
We also had a tour of the studios and met animators who work there.
On Saturday March 3 of this year, me (Nicholas Pain), Colin & Eve of The Misfits Theatre Company went to The Bristol Old Vic to see “The 9 Lessons of Caliban” in the afternoon. The performance included local actors who work in The Firebird Theatre Company & one of those actors is our own Daniel Bryan from the Wednesday group. The performance lasted about an hour from 14.00-15.00 hours even though we were told it would last an hour and fifteen minutes.
On the 15th & 16th March some of us went to Embrace Create Connect a conference about Arts and 'Learning Disabiliites'.
Performances, workshops, art exhibitions, film screenings, music, discussions and presentations.
Beth describes:
It was the final day of the animation masterclass on Thursday 29th March.
Today people recorded the voice overs for the story narration and the voices for the characters. Max and Sam were impressed with people's acting skills which made the process go smoothly and was alot of fun!
Photo credit: Hugo Glendinning, Forced Entertainment
The Inspire Us Blog will tell you what we've been doing with the Grants for the Arts funding.
This money means that we are able to see performances, go to exhibtions, take part in masterclass workshops and many other activities to inspire us.
If you follow the blog you will hear about what we are making happen, what we have learned, what we have made and our thoughts for what next. All this means; we have the opprotunity to grow and develop creatively as a company.
People were dressing their characters today. They look brilliant. We don't want to give too much away now - so that you can be surprised when you see the finished animation! But here are some of the things people said today:
