Stanislavski Exercises 2

The exercises we did today were:

• We had to sit on the floor and listen to the noises we heard around us. At first we tried to only hear the sounds in the room, then out to the corridor, out to the road and then back to the room. This is useful when acting as can help get you concentrated, teaches you to only focus on what you're doing so not to be distracted by the other sounds around you and also could be a way of staying in character so not being distracted.
• We also got into pairs and had to study each other and then had to close our eyes and give a description of the person and answer a question.
• The one person then also had to copy the other whilst just sitting normally and then when walking around. This showed us that when you are doing this compared to the other exercise you are not analysing as much detail as you have to think about what you're doing too and its hard to get things in exactly the same time.
• We were also given numbers and maths signs and had to create an answer to the sum using people whilst hopping and waving. This showed how concentration is hard when doing two things at once.
• We also all sat in a circle and had to imagine something we owned in our hands. We then had to describe it when asked and really look at the object to pretend that it really was sitting in our hands. Like me, most people chose an object from their bedrooms however I found this quite difficult as I kept imagining it in my bedroom rather than in my hands. Despite this, I found it quite easy to imagine other people's objects so this exercises was a good test of our imaginations and our describing skills.
• Finally, we had to close our eyes and think of a really sad moment then Sally and Rachel said how they feel and acted it.They acted it really well as you could see they really felt it and they also made me feel sympathetic. We then thought of happy emotions and i had to act it this time. I felt happy was actually a lot harder than sad as I think some of the sad feelings are still there but unless its recent i don't think the happy ones are. This technique is good to use when acting however can be a little too depressing so you need to snap out of the character quickly after.