It's half term!!! Well, not for us, we are still here and our Chameleons were hard at work again on Saturday as we continued to develop Peter Pan! There was a lot of physical theatre this week and we had a lot of fun. Apologies now for the late post; we had another event on Saturday which consumed the usual blog-writing hours of the day. Anyway, let's jump in.
The focus this week was on creating some of the more physical scenes of the show. We kicked off with some nice relaxing yoga stretches and some shape making. This week we went even more abstract than normal and asked the chameleons to become different embodiments of elements, such as fire, water, rock and wind. Their task was to become objects that these things made them think of. We had some fantastic creations; from fearsome monsters to calm, flowing rivers. The chameleons are proving themselves to be excellently imaginative physical performers.
After that we went to work on the forest scene. In this famous scene, John and Michael accompany the lost boys on an adventure through the forest. We wanted to do something creative with this scene, but also wanted to see what the group did when given the task of creating it, so we took them on a semi-guided journey as a group in a game not dissimilar to follow the leader.
The chameleons had to stand together as a group and whoever was at the point of the group was the leader. They had to walk and the others had to follow them, walking and moving exactly as the leader did. When we said to stop, someone else would take over as the group leader. The walk started off easy, but then the group encountered several obstacles in their path.
First it was just thick bushes and vines blocking the path, but the obstacles soon became harder and harder to overcome. A sea of thorns saw the group crawling along underneath it. A huge river saw the group leaping from rock to rock and balance on logs just to stay dry. At one point there was even the sounds of a monster chasing them; which they had to swing across a large canyon to escape. Eventually the lost boys found their way out of the forest; looking a bit more weary as a result! All had fun and it was great seeing how the different leaders responded to the tasks we gave them.
After that the group separated. One team went to work on Captain Hook and Mr Smee's first scene together while the second began work on our spectacular mermaid dance! The chameleons were very open-minded as we created the dance (and patient, as we had a chair standing in for Wendy this week). We talked about how we thought mermaids would move underwater and experimented by swimming around the room to music. This built up into thinking about interactions; how could we show the mermaids interact with Wendy?
The girls made some incredible work and it was a delight watching them devise a scene completely based in movement. The fun part was definitely watching each other be mermaids and experimenting with how they could all move to represent the graceful underwater beings.
When the group reconvened we shared our work. The scene between Captain Hook and Mr Smee was very entertaining. It is clear that our chameleons are coming to grips with their characters and are excited to play them. Everyone was eager to give positive feedback as well, which was lovely to hear!
So with that another week has come to an end. We are so thrilled with all of the work that the group has put in so far and are excited to see where the show goes next. We are actually on half term next week (even we have to sleep sometime), so are back in a couple of weeks! Until then; have a nice half term! As usual, here are the pics:
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