The Three Musketeers- Week Two: Still Images!

Welcome back! It was week two for our Chameleons this morning! With more new faces amongst the group things were even more exciting than usual; plus we had Gaia, one of our fantastic AYC young company members helping run things today as Ben was away. The topic of the week was still images-creating physical snapshots of different scenes. Before that though there were plenty of games to be played. 

With the main focus of the week being physical; we made sure to include a lot of active warm up games to get everyone feeling ready to move about. We played a quick-animal themed- version of captain's coming, then moved onto moving like different animals. In this game the group have to move around like different animals, changing how they use their bodies to portray each one. Some of the animals featured; cats,  rabbits, rhinos, giraffes and lizards. 

After we have passed the break we took the group through some relaxing (and basic) yoga to make sure everyone was stretched and ready to get stuck into the physical work. Everyone seemed quite keen on the yoga-the room was nearly silent for a whole ten minutes! 

Afterwards the group were placed in pairs and had to create still images for a variety of different scenes. These scenes were a library, a beach, a school and a castle- each pair had to create something or someone different that they might find there. We had librarians, palace guards, musketeers and even some starfish! 

We then discussed the characters in the musketeers, both to introduce the new faces amongst us to the story and themes of the show and to remind everyone who was here last week what we learned. Once everyone felt familiar with D'Artagnan and the musketeers we split the group in half and set about creating some still images of different parts of the story. 

The still images told the story from the start to finish. It is a useful way to get the group thinking about how they can use a space to create a specific picture for the audience. It also gave the group a chance to build some teamwork skills, since this is the first time we have done any smaller group work this term. Some fantastic ideas were displayed- especially for some of the scenes with fewer characters. For instance- D'Artagnan meeting Constance included different background characters each with their own stories and traits- such as the market stall holders or the residents at the inn where he meets his nemesis Rochefort.

All in all it was a fun week! The amount of energy this group has is unlike anything we've seen before. So much creativity and such fantastic ideas. The still images this week were a good start to getting the group thinking about how things look on stage and what we might have to consider when creating the final performance! Next week we're moving onto some script and character work (and possibly giving out characters). There will be more physical stuff too so it should be tons of fun! Until then enjoy the usual rehearsal snaps!