Real Rehearsals

Description:
A couple of weeks ago, we have started rehearsing for the school play. This year's play is based on German Expressionism. The first rehearsals were basically games but the last ones have been aiming to start the play process.
As we have decided, we will focus on the acting more than on the production aspects of the play this year; so we have separated ourselves into smaller groups in order to start practicing. 
In these groups we have explored ways in which we could create characters through different  acting exercises. Each of us developed a character from the outside-in, making different movements to create several proposals for the character. We were asked to make a 10-movement sequence so we could know how our character would do some things: which we later had to perform.

Analysis:

Doña Coltilde - one of my 'nosey lady' stimulus

Doing the warm up and energy exercise helped us feel more relaxed and ready to work and feel the atmosphere. We were told to lay on the ground and feel the energy moving from our centre of energy which I believe it started at a different point for each of us and made it more personal. 
As the rehearsal progressed, we were able to start the creation of our characters by doing different movements and exploring diverse ways of walking. For example, I tried small steps first then bigger, or lighter and then heavier. This here helped us me realise which would help me more to build the character. 
The not knowing which characters we were already assigned for the play gave us the freedom of exploring ourselves without limitations or stereotypes. It allowed us to be the character and not only interpret it. Even though we didn't know them, we weren't allowed to create a subconscious idea of what are character would be and interpret it, but to be whatever character we were thinking of without restrictions.
To be more physically active, after exploring the different ways of walking and talking of the new characters, we were asked to say what was the idea of the character we were expressing: an age group and an adjective. As well as choosing an animal and a person stimuli. This helped me because I was able to inspire my character from these two visual images and ideas which made me more secure of in what direction I was going. And forced me to be and not to interpret.
While I was creating my 10-movement sequence I was asked to sit on a chair on top of a table. This at first made me think I was doing it wrong, but then I realised I was supposed to do my sequence sitting all the way. This changed totally the way I had the sequence planned but I was able to transform all the movements I did standing to sitting. Being on top of the table in a way immobilised me, so I couldn't do any further movements than from the chair and limited me in the physical or body expression. 
On the other hand, this made me work more and focus on my face expression, use of voice and upper body movements. I had to explore different voices to see which one would fit best to my idea of "nosey lady". I had to imagine a situation in which this character would be involved, and use my own ideas of how I thought she would react. For example, I portrayed my idea of how a nosey lady would react to gossip, I found out that I imagined this person enjoying it, as if it was her fuel, her reason of being. I thought of a situation that I had enjoyed such as getting good news or good grades, so I used this feelings to turn myself into the nosey lady enjoying the gossip. At last, we had to present our sequence and I realised I still have to improve and that we have a long way to go.

Squirrel - animal stimulus - I was guided by the posture
and by the fast movements

Connections:
Overall this rehearsals made me think of the previous rehearsals of the other school plays. On how we work every year in order to develop our own character. Of course this time it was a little different since we had to use our own emotions instead of just building a character and acting it out. Anyway, it reminds me of how different my characters have been on every school play. These rehearsals take me back to my first school play rehearsals and they are very contrastable. This time I see them from an IB perspective an it makes me more critical.

Also, I believe I can link this to all the theory we have been doing in class along these weeks. We have been studying German Expressionism, trying to have the conventions straight. This helped me to have background knowledge while building up my character with my own emotions. For example, I already knew that while acting I had to have wide-opened eyes and be exaggerated on every single movement I did: following the conventions of German Expressionism. I had the overall idea that it had to be creepy looking and Tim Burtonish.

Lastly, I can see a connection between the rehearsals and "Confesiones de Ana Correa". This is because they both involve the creation and discovery of a character. While Ana Correa narrates her OWN experiences of how she created her characters based on personal experiences and different people she knew; I can say that we are in that process she narrated of developing characters based on personal emotions but not on different people or characteristics. As she said on the play, 'to develop as an actress i to develop as a person' and I believe that this phrase applies on our rehearsals because were are now more mature and able to explore ourselves and push ourselves to the limit.

Reflections:
When the 'real rehearsals' started I can say that I have learnt that I should explore wider possibilities when building my characters. I say this because it took some time for me to get in the rehearsal mood. It had been a while since I wasn't involved in acting and I had to brake my barriers down. But once I had overcame this, it was much easier to develop my character.  As well, I was told that my new character was very similar to a 'Kabuki' one. This made me realise I had to make some changes, and that it wasn't wrong that they were similar in ways but that it had to differ. 
While rehearsing I was amazed at how at this time last year I was rehearsing to interpret a whole different character and learning how to do puppets; while this year I am gladly learning another style of acting completely different. I am just surprised at how each year we commit at making every single play so dissimilar to each other and with a contrastable style. This year we are learning an unusual style for us, and not familiar to the audience. We have our hopes up and we are putting a lot of effort so that the final product will be astonishing. We are deeply developing our characters so we have a well done result. This makes me wonder; is there a limit or boundary to which we should use our emotions in order to create a character? How far should we get? What are most important techniques during the process of developing characters that aim to be creepy? Was there any special occasion in German Expressionism in which the actors used other emotions than theirs? 

Doña Nelly - another 'nosey lady' stimulus