A Full Week with Mark Hill

A whole week of physical theatre, complete.

This week has definitely been one of the more physically challenging, yet extremely fulfilling, weeks I’ve had in a while. I’m pretty sure my muscles have grown at least 3 inches in each of my thighs, but, mostly, I’ve gotten so much more closer to our theatre group than I think I could’ve possibly have gotten in such a short period of time. As I have mentioned in previous posts, this workshop has helped me allow myself become more vulnerable in front of this group in particular and encourage myself to stop being so self conscious.

Mark taught us several important points to physical theatre:

• -       Spatial relationships
• -       Body Shapes
• -       Architecture

Out of these three, the one that enlightened me THE MOST was the idea of really taking into account the architecture of your performance area. Mark’s story (about the play he went to see that had the beautiful doors open at the beginning of a performance only to reveal an audience member that was late) was so… understandable… for me. I never really thought of the stage as having such an impact on a performance until I heard that story. It gave me a whole new view on performing spaces, particularly the Lyso center (which I’ve performed in 3 times now) and all the surrounding areas. I can’t really explain it, but before this week I’ve always thought of stages as just stages, but now I see so much potential in everything around me, and to think that what I see is only a small fraction of it.

Another thing we learnt with Mark Hill was the Suzuki method of Actor Training by Tadashi Suzuki. We were taught a slow walk (which I can’t remember had a name) that needed a lot of focus and effort from the core of our bodies (abs, thighs, butt, etc.). With this, we did an exercise where we acted out scenes in which we were to walk past our ‘enemy’, choose our weapon (on the spot), turn, kill our enemy using our weapons, and then we were to act out our deaths very slowly. I found this exercise tiring because of the constant control over my core, particularly with the dying part. I had to think hard when it came to choosing an interesting weapon to use (I was being a bit of a perfectionist with this part), but overall this exercise was so much fun! It was definitely one of my favourite out of all the ones that we did.

On Friday, when we actually started getting into Butoh, Mark taught us about isolating each of our body parts and having different images for each of our body parts (like wings on our arm, chicken legs, snake spine, hair flowing through a river, etc.). When spent 15 minutes of class performing this exercise as a class with music and a single spotlight, and it literally felt like 2 minutes. It was INCREDIBLE how quickly that time went by. I found myself kind of stupid at first (especially with making my face into an old tree) doing these kinds of things in front of Mrs. Moon and Mark, but once I got into the frame of mind that everyone else around me is doing the same thing, and Mrs. Moon doesn’t care about what stupid things I do, I found myself getting into a somewhat of a meditative mode. All I could think of was a blank, white screen and the images that Mark said playing out on the blank screen in front of me. It was a surreal moment for me. I wish I could’ve been an audience member watching our class perform this activity, and I definitely wish to do it again.

I’ve done things this week that I’d never thought I would have the courage to do, or even the physical ability. It has also shown me a whole new side of theatre that I knew was there, but (if I may be completely honest with my immense ignorance) didn’t really care to learn about or thought was that important. But after this week, and watching the Pina Bausch movie last week, I’ve found a whole new love for physical theatre and have found myself wandering what I will do with my life after having dedicated so much time into it in such a short period.

I’m really sad that Mark Hill couldn’t be with us for longer than a week, because there is so much more that he could teach us, and that we can explore with his guidance. I know for sure that, after this experience, I am going to force myself into trying more forms of theatre rather than the bog standard plays and musicals. This workshop has definitely spark an interest and almost a young love for alternate forms of theatre and it just makes me even more glad that I’m taking this class so that I have a chance to explores these things and become more aware of all that is out there.

There’s one more thing I want to add.

I am so incredible thankful for this week with Mark Hill. As I have mentioned over and over again, this past week has helped me so much with not only becoming more physically fit, but also getting over my self-consciousness and just throwing myself into things. Mrs. Moon pointed out this week while I said a quick hello to her that she had noticed how I started getting more involved in these workshops than I usually do and I’m so thankful, also, that she pointed this out and made me realize it myself. I couldn’t say a proper goodbye and thank you to Mark because of the lame fact that I had to catch the bus home (although now, I wish that I had just stayed a little longer to say bye). I just wanna throw the BIGGEST thank you at Mark Hill and I really truly hope I get to work with him again.

This week has been a huge honour and learning experience for me.

Thank you so much Mrs. Moon for giving us the chance to do this. <3

Emma