Class was fun fun fun today! Our warm-ups are getting a lot more intense than before! But it's LOADS of fun. I always look forward to going to drama because it's one class that I don't run the risk of falling asleep in.

For class, we started out by working on our posture. The activity that was involved was walking around the classroom with different postures depending upon what Ms. Weil told us. We all started in the neutral position, which was a straight back and our hands at our sides as well as our heads at a reasonable height. Ms. Weil called out different emotions such as happy, sad, confident, and bold as well as acting as a child and an elderly person. I found it really interesting how slight changes in posture can really give away the emotions or character or age of a person.

We also had partner performances during class. We were given five or six different locations to choose from, and we needed to create a silent scene and try and give clues to the audience of our ages and the scenario, but without speaking. Sydney was my partner and we acted out a scene in a café where we were two teenagers and we were keeping an eye out for hot guys. The audience got the idea pretty well and it was so much fun acting out the parts. Everyone else's performances were really fun to watch too.

We're going to begin the Movement Composition unit in drama now. Ms. Weil told us that our final performance for this unit will be a...movement composition. Yes. We're choreographing movements, or pantomimes, to a song in order to tell a story. We don't know the specifics, but then again, we just started the unit yesterday. More information to come later.

Yesterday, we talked developed our own silent scenes of a sport and try to help the audience guess which sport we were portraying. My group decided upon ping pong and we discussed certain things that were important to keep in mind while we performed: facial expressions and large, exaggerated movements. The performance went well and we all had a lot of fun with the choreography of it. The class as a whole also talked about things that are important to keep in mind while performing a pantomimed segment.

Today, we sat down and learned a lot more about pantomime. We learned what it was and how it is one of the first things that theater students must learn in order to progress quickly. Pantomime is when an actor on stage uses only gestures and their body to tell a story. It is a silent performance, but distinct stories can be told throughout the movement.
Another thing we discussed were two activities that are required for any serious drama student: fencing and dancing. They help in many different ways. The physical aspect: provides cardiovascular activity and improves physical fitness level, which is crucial for stage actors. They also aid in concentration and focus.

The last thing we did in class today was pantomime telephone. The game is so much fun to play and really funny to watch. The first person in a line makes up a simple movement composition and it gets passed down the line as best as it can until it reaches the last person in the line, who then performs the passed down composition to the first person. It was quite fun and we're continuing the game tomorrow as well as more notes maybe?

I can't wait until we do more with movement composition. :]