The start of our journey as

a HND company has been

a very fulfilling and
promising experience.
Having known the majority
of the company previously,
it has been easy to settle
into the company and start
to explore each others
skills. Having pre-planned
timetables has given us the
opportunity to truly explore
all areas of our craft.
Workshop Leadership was
a daunting task for me personally, as
I am not naturally able to take
command of a room as myself. We as the HND
company were leading Workshops for the new 1st
Year Actors. Naturally, a lot of the Actors arent
accustomed to how workshops work because they
havent been apart of many extensive workshops
during their time at the Miskin. It was certainly a
challenge to be able to keep the Actors focused on
the exercise at hand. A lot of the Actors havent
grasped the idea that being apart of a Workshop
means that you have to approach it with an open
minded attitude, not a narrow minded attitude.
Being ignorant towards an exercise shows that
you are not willing to explore new ideas, which
ultimately effects your overall development as a
SOMETHING CREATIVE
THIS WAY COMES

GAMES & EXERCISES


- Oi, Take It, No!
- Extreme Bang
- Eastenders Game
- Buying In
- Flocking
- Shoe Game
- Cat & Mouse
(19/09/2014) (WAYS OF SEEING)
Credited: Google Images
Performer. It seemed that once they realised the outcome of the exercise
that they wondered why they even questioned the exercise in the first
place. This being said, I found myself lacking the ability to take control of
the room during an exercise that I led, and I did find myself feeling very
insecure at times. I plan to build on my ability to project a sense of
authority when leading an exercise. This exercise truly made me realise
how much I hide behind characters when it comes to addressing an
audience or a group of people. Its almost as if I can access the attention of
an audience whilst portraying a character, but I cant access their attention
as myself. I think this has taught me how insecure a lot of Actors must be.
Some Actors have to live in the skin of another person because they dont
feel secure in their own skin. This Workshop exercise as well as similar
exercises practiced with the 1st Years has allowed us to explore their skills
and capabilities. I have found that they seem to be a very raw and honest
company. I am already picturing what types of Theatre they could produce
together.
I think its extremely beneficial and crucial that we practice and develop a
lot of skills throughout the week. Working with Text brought insight into
new Plays that we may not of been aware of. I especially found that Text
analysis is not just optional, but crucial when it comes to Acting.
Discovering what sections of the text need emphasis changes the whole
dynamic of the dialogue. Practicing this will help the honesty and truth
emerge from the text. I believe that every Actor has to bring some kind of
truth to their performance.
Introducing classes in Voice, Physical Skills and Dance has made the
week feel very diverse and engaging. As a Performer, Voice is something
that has always been a weakness of mine. The thought of singing felt very
daunting, however, I enjoyed how there was more of a sense of unity
during this particular session. I think Voice sessions like this will be very
beneficial for any big ensemble shows that we are apart of, such as
musicals. This weeks session in particular, made me realise that singing as
an Actor isnt necessarily about hitting every note or singing perfectly, it is
more about emoting to the song and bringing character to it. Physical
Skills seemed like a session that would fit more inside my comfort zone.
This particular session surprised me because it focused more on physical
clarity inside an improvisation scenario. I found this to be something that I
had never explored before and it made me realise just how important it is.
During improvisation you need to be physically clear about your intentions
so that the other Actors in the improvisation can feed off what you are
doing. Its obvious that the key to any good improvisation is for the
audience to be completely oblivious to it. If an Actor is not clear during an
improvisation, the pace of the improvisation runs the risk of falling flat,
which will then read to the audience that it is in fact a failed improvisation.
This session also made me realise just how broad the planning of an
improvisation needs to be. You have to have a clear visualisation of what
atmosphere you are in, what it looks like, what it sounds like etc. From this
session, I take away the fact that I need to have expanded and detailed
insight into the scenario set during an improvisation. Moving onto the
Dance sessions was something that I looked forward to. Dance is
definitely an aspect of Performance that I am naturally accustomed to.
Although this session didnt necessarily focus purely on Choreography, I
still found it extremely beneficial all the same. I found the cardio and
stretch part of the session to be extremely vigorous and physically
demanding. However, I felt determined to push myself further and better
myself as a Physical Performer. I plan to take full advantage of these
classes because any Actor who works in Theatre needs to be physically fit
because the work is very physically demanding. I look forward to seeing
how my stamina and flexibility improves over the next couple of weeks
and months.

Briefly starting our Ways Of Seeing process has made me feel very
excited and determined. I appreciate this kind of process because of how it
allows the Actor to explore their creativity to its full potential. I also find
the production process to be extremely engrossing just because of how
collaborative it is inside a working company. Our image offers so many
possibilities and interpretations that it seemed almost hard to decipher
what kind of piece we wanted to create. I could understand why the
particular photograph had been chosen, because of how ambiguous it is. To
me the photograph could be interpreted metaphorically or literally. In
metaphorical terms it could be seen as depicting isolation or segregation
(from the feather and the orange lights on the horizon). Or like two
different atmospheres, one being very light, natural and gentle (the feather
on the sand), and the other looking very warm, united (all the lights
together), yet also being slightly mysterious (with it being out of focus).
The colour orange can be a warm and welcoming colour, but can also be
the colour of fire, which ultimately destroys things. We decided to start
brainstorming our ideas as a company and began making spider diagrams
of words we personally envisioned when looking at the photograph. I
suggested the idea of creating our own physical pieces inspired by our
chosen words from the spider diagrams. I feel our decision to use the 4
Elements(Fire,Water, Air and Earth) as a starting point has allowed us to
still explore with different ideas, as the 4 Elements can be interpreted
differently as they are rather ambiguous. I look forward to seeing how
creating and showing our physical pieces moves the work on. I feel we
have a lot of strong ideas, but the next step is just finding away to bring
them all together in a logical sense.
This week, I feel I have discovered a lot about how important it is to be
open to all different aspects of performance (Voice, Dance etc.), as they all
coincide with each other. I feel I am becoming a much more creative
individual as I am starting to feel inspired by visual imagery and I feel I
can now see things from a range of different perspectives.