By Charlotte Hulme
An energetic warm up game of Stuck in the Mud got us running
around the space as if it were a school playground; one person was ‘it’ and
when they tagged someone their body became frozen in motion. To be released,
another person had to mimic their posture. We were instantly in our bodies and
darting around each other like Primary School children. A new person was chosen
to be ‘it’ and when they caught us our facial expressions froze. Grimaces and
shrieks solidified on our faces until another person mirrored them and released
us to run around again. A final instruction was to freeze and emulate an
emotion through our internal intention as well as body language and facial
expression. This was more complex and subtle to understand in another and copy
and, as well as the addition of another person being ‘it’, the room was soon
filled with statues. The game had come to an end but it left us more tuned into
the space and each other, ready for the session.
We began the session by each individually drawing a layout of our
classroom from either primary or secondary school. This task was surprisingly
challenging; despite some only having been at school less than ten or so years
ago and some of the younger members of group still at school, it was amusing to
note how little we could actually remember!
The drawings ranged from ‘typical’ classroom layout, desks and a
blackboard for example, to classrooms with play areas and different sections
for contrasting activities! We spoke about our memories of these class rooms and
then extended the exercise further by trying to remember where we sat in that
classroom and who sat around us (for example a best friend, a group of friends,
the position of teacher etc.)
Working from this, we split into three
groups and using eight chairs we had to each re-create our classrooms. We each
took it in turns in our groups; all of the classrooms differed greatly, with
some chairs being placed away from the main area of focus to show
exclusion/someone being left out. I used the chairs to resemble a carpet as
this is where I can remember sitting in primary school!
From this we began to work with the
transitions; our group had to do the activity but in silence. We’d each create
our classroom and then we’d place the rest of the group, one by one in their
designated spot in the classroom drawn from our memories. It was very effective
because the silence really highlighted the action and thus we could see when
someone was being bullied or when someone had no friends or when someone was
being ignored. For example, one member put four chairs at the front in a line,
two at the back and two in the middle, she then preceded to sit us down in the
chairs and she sat, excluded, in the middle because her recollection of this
particular time of her schooling was that she had no friends. It was a very
poignant moment. We extended the exercise further by all only standing when the
person whose recreated classroom it was stood up to leave and by keeping the
action limited to only the people who were interacting, everyone else froze.
It was interesting to watch how each of the
three groups worked differently. Group one for example carried out the same
exercise as our group but they had a running commentary throughout. For example
the person whose classroom it was would explain where they were, their age, the
names of the people surrounding them and a bit of a background story about
their time in this classroom. The other group also spoke during their
improvisation but what was most interesting was that this group in particular
were all of around the same age and in school or had just left school. This, I
felt, emphasised what we were seeing; it was perhaps a lot more truthful an
account and with their ages, it was a lot more realistic. However there’s also
something intriguing about watching adults re-create their school days,
humorous at times yet sad too when, again, we draw on memories that we thought
we’d forgotten and sometimes they aren’t necessarily fond memories of our
school days.
We ended the session by going back to what
we did at the end of the last session and working on this in more detail
whereby each group was given a
typical school-day structure written down from the perspective of a current
school student! We kept the same member as last time reading out the structure
and we made the improvisation very energetic!
