Take One!

As a birthday gift my boyfriend D kindly enrolled the two of us into the Victorian College of the Arts 'Introduction to Acting' weekend intensive course. We started and finished the unit (aka class) last weekend. I absolutely LOVED it. Red carpet here I come!

During the course introduction, our "tutor" Koreen told us to bring a lot of water and to wear comfortable clothes over the next two days as we will be doing a lot of running around. This caught me by surprise - actors run?

The course was held in a small gymnasium. It was supposed to be a hot weekend and it was predicted Sunday would be 38 degrees. It was 7pm and the room was still hot from the day. Every student winced when Koreen informed us she would not be turning the air-conditioning on as, "it's better for your muscles if you work in a hot room". *Cough*, excuse me?

Throughout the weekend Koreen guided us through a variety of games. Most of them required at least one partner. The class was made up of some interesting characters. We had a 17yr old whos mum had enrolled him, a senior tradesman, a teacher, a woman currently writing a PhD in Psychology, an "emo", a few non-so-interesting people and D and I. All-in-all a good mix.

Some of the activities included: "Pass the Clap", which was something like hot potato except clapping from across the room; "Sound Tennis", in which we mimicked playing tennis with our voices as the "ball"; "Follow-Leader", where we touched fingertips, maintained eye-contact (a bit creepy!) and lead/followed our partner around the room; and "Gibberish", where we conversed with nonsensical sounds. At one point, and to our shock and horror, we had to give our partner a massage - we all snickered our way through those!

On Sunday we took on role-playing. I somehow ended up as a ditsy cheerleader, though I was an excellent one (Um, *rolls eyes*, I guess!). Our last assignment involved text, where we rehearsed a few lines from Shakespeare whilst playing follow-leader. In the end it became clear how the games related to the stage.

As silly as it felt sometimes, it was exhilarating to be free to be a child, an egg, a cat, a salesman, a ballerina; to be the colour white, to be sad, enraged, whatever or whomever you could be, or wanted to be, without judgment. A priceless gift.

Acting 1 here I come!