Dialogue

Last week I wanted to work on dialogue. The morning was a bit frustrating, as half the group showed up late...without warning me. I am a habitual latecomer myself, but being on the other side, waiting, having prepared to work with a certain number of people is not nice. So please, if you're late, let the others know. Just a reminder.

So after a little erratic warm up trying to not let my anger disturb me, finally the rest of the crowd arrived, and we could start the work. We played with weight, giving and recieving excactly 10, 25 , 50, 75, 90 and finally 100% of our weight. This evolved into carrying each other across the floor while sounding wide aaahhs. Interesting exercise to feel how to negogiate with breath and sound with a big strain on the physical structure, and also to stay connected with everybody else in the room as we were creating a soundscape together.

We finished the morning with lanes and grid work. It was really nice to see how this work is evolving. Keeping the simplicity of the task, it's more and more clear how I make choices and when I make a deliberate choice or one that is in accordance to what is happening.

After lunch in which I indulged in Italian ham that made me sick later on (I'm still suffering), and Susanne shared pictures of her holidays in NZ that looked kind of fake ;-), we finally got to dialogue work.
First we all learned a part (either A or B) of the dialogue (an extract from Harold Pinter's play 'the Lovers'), then we applied viewpoints of voice to it:
PITCH; VOLUME; TEMPO; REPETION; TIMBRE , I forgot Silence.

Again as in working with voice purely this was a bit like swimming exercises without water but proved invaluable, first to experience the distinctions and later give you freedom in making choices. In the end we went into space a couple at a time and played with the dialogue in the space. That's were it got real fun and where we ran out of time.
I think we should get back to this at some point to have more time to play with all the elements freely.

Out for more tomorrow in Hasselt.