14-17.11.2008

Sylvia Toone's Workshops

In order to achieve our goals (first year students should interview immigrants and build a story in English; second year students should create a stage and screen adaptation of Macbeth in a Neapolitan setting), the three meetings with Prof Sylvia Toone (The Department Library, Santa Maria dei Barbuti and the University Theatre) have offered first and second year students examples of techniques and craft which help to build trust and memory, improvisational methods - which are supports for the actor’s individual talent.


First day - 14.11.2008 – The Department Library
The body has been at the centre of our exercises and discourses. The focus of concentration have been senses and their memories with consideration of individual responses and reactions.

The eye and simulation of watching a game.
The ear and simulation of hearing.

Group solidarity formation techniques:
1-8
Zip zap zoop (receiving and transmitting impulses)


Second day - 15.11.2008 – S. Maria dei Barbuti
(photos by courtesy of Michele Mari (C))

Trust in one’s body and in others.

One in the centre with his/her eyes closed and everyone pushes him again towards the centre

Mirrors in two

Sense of tasting and smelling


Third day - 17.11.2008 - University Theatre
(photos by courtesy of Michele Mari (C))

The third day saw the active and enthusiastic participation of a large number of students. Sylvia usefully repeated that a team meets on the basis of an agreement about a common task. Every exercise has to deal with a p.o.c., point of concentration. Students and teachers have focussed on touch memory. Two teams think about an object or a substance and then individually they perform the manipulation of that object/substance in front of an audience.
Sylvia made everyone concentrate on the body and then the body moving through cold and hot elements.

The second half of the lesson was devoted to the creation of a set up. A couple of actors had to perform, the first a WHERE - a location working with physical objects and the second a WHO - trying to establish a relation. In order to share with the audience the sounds and the pictures the movements on stage may take an upstage curve or a downstage curve

In order for the show to go on the improvising actor does not have to say NO and doesn’t have to ask questions, but the impulse has to be taken and continue with a YES AND…
And also you must remember that everything takes place in the moment.

Sylvia left us with one recommendation:
- everyone has to, for some minutes every day, consciously think what his/her eyes see, ears listen to, tongue, nose throat smell taste and feel, what the body touches and by what is touched…
and the most welcome promise:
...she will come again soon!