Lesson 1- Slimey Frog and The 7 Levels of Tension

Today we did two activities that explored and developed skills we could take forward when planning our pieces.

Slimey Frog- in this exercise you were given the sentence I am a slimey frog. However you weren't concentrating on the words, but instead looking at the noise and movement your mouth made when you said this sentence. It sounded strange; something which in this exercise meant you were doing it right. We also incorporated movement. However it wasn't a separate part and it certainly wasn't choreographed. By experimenting with your voice and the sounds it made your body flow as one to almost make a sound wave- noise and movement going up and down. When we said the sentence we moved forward. We repeated the sentence five times elaborating our voice and the sounds me made and making the movements more extravagant accordingly. We tried to experiment with different levels of both voice and movement. I think this exercise was extremely useful because in children's theatre pronunciation is a key element as the children need to to hear what you say clearly. Also the way we used different levels of sound brightened up our voices, meaning they weren't dull and serious, instead colourful and fun; a tone that would connect with our audience. As we had to let go of self consciousness and let our bodies be one with our voice it helped us understand the freedom needed on stage in a piece of children's theatre, as the combination of interesting body and voice levels, means more of a chance that the audience will stay engaged. 

The 7 Levels of Tension- these levels were created by Jacques Lecoq. The seven different levels were:

Jellyfish- letting your body completely flop. You have no control and let your head lead. 

Californian- he have slightly more control over your body- drifting more than falling.

Neutral- you have no story or direction. 

Teacher- walking briskly in straight lines, as if a teacher checking for problems in a classroom.

Is there a bomb?- walk around the room agitated and worried trying to look in every space to find this bomb.

There is a bomb!- walk frantically around the room avoiding people and working yourself up as you know that you will die any moment unless you find a way to disable this bomb. 

The bomb is going off!- you are to scared to move so you convert all your energy into standing in one place restlessly and uneasily.

I think learning and experimenting with the seven levels of tension was another good exercise. When performing to children, if you are all the same character with the same level of energy they will soon get bored. However if you all have different levels of energy/tension they will find the piece more engaging. However if you are doing level 1 or 2 you still need to do it with the same commitment as level 6 or 7. It was  a very successful exercise that also improved our transitions into different stages of tension which will help with the every changing aspects of children's theatre. 

What skills do you need for slimey frog and the 7 levels of tension?

• Don't be scared of looking bad
• Experiment and live in the moment
• Commit to discovery
• Don't think, feel
• Connect your voice and body- it's not words, it's sounds
• Have awareness of yourself and your surroundings- but non-critical
• 100% energy
• Don't over do it
• Be a complete artist- some call it singing, we call it noise. Some call it dancing, we call it movement, whether it's beautiful or not.
• Control your body and voice using the whole space.