A bag full of red noses means one thing: it’s clown time.
Karen starts with games and movement to encourage the relaxed breath and soft focus that allows us to notice, be curious about, and react to our audience and surroundings. Putting on the nose – ‘the smallest mask in the world’ – is a way of giving ourselves permission to enter that state of openness and vulnerability. We start with just the ‘yippee!’ energy and are encouraged to ‘not do much’ – as an audience we realise the pleasure in seeing the clown in that open, vulnerable position, and keeping things as simple and unplanned as possible allows scenarios and interactions to emerge and develop organically.
More games to exercise the improvisation muscle:
– “What are you doing?”
– 1-2-3 Olympics (emphasises the importance of less is more, and how to embrace the mistakes!)
Manipulation, aka Juggling 101, with Simon starts with 1 ball, then 2 (1, 2, snap fingers) then up to 3. Manage 6 catches by some miracle but need to work on earlier and ‘flatter’ (not letting the ball roll forward out of my hand, and therefore travel outwards rather than upwards in a nice level arc).
Front splits on tonight’s stretching menu:cue warm-ups that make us all look like a herd of alien giraffe, agonising reps of quad-strengthening interspersed with hamstring/hip flexor stretches, and finishing with relaxing down into ‘passive’ front split as deep as allows. (Ow.)
New Tricks 