One of
the things I wanted to tackle while on this EVS was my stage fright. Theater is one the things I love most, and
no matter what role you play in this art form, be it director, actor, or
producer you will, at one point or
another, have to face some public speaking or public exposure. Some time on
the stage. And so far in Maribor, I feel like I’m making progress with that.
The
workshop took place at Vetrinjski Dvor, an interesting and cozy space for all
sorts of artistic events. The days were sunny so we ended up using the patio to
work on our final performance.
The 3
trainers complemented each other very well. Each of them brought their
character into their work.
The
exercises were gradually intense – first, getting to know each other, to become
comfortable with each other, mostly using our bodies and emotions rather than
our words. We’ve then done some exercises meant to show us, in practice, how
first impressions can deceive (a particularly telling one was when we had to
form two groups, without communicating in any way, just according to who we
thought would prefer drinking beer over drinking wine, like warm climate rather
than a cold one, is introverted rather than extroverted etc.).
Little
by little, we got more accustomed with performing in front of an audience, with
expressing emotion, with not judging ourselves as much when exposing ourselves,
with getting into the skin of a character.
The
final part was building a small forum theatre performance based on a specific
oppressive situation that we chose. We split into two groups, each with a joker
(a sort of a facilitator, with specific attributions such as presenting the
situation, warming the public up, making it familiar with participatory theatre
and facilitating the spect-actors’ contribution at the end). We had two
performances, one per each group. One spoke about class differences and
poverty, the other one about heteronormativity, the ‘normal family’ and other
oppressive, conservative expectations and pressures one’s family inflicts upon
its members.
We’ll
continue to work on the performance, so…maybe more on it later!
by Ioana Sileanu
