Length: 2 hours

Done on 05.05.2018

Status Workshop - On Saturday

Hallo Rice Grains,

behind every interaction onstage there is an expression of status, whether it is conscious or subconscious. In our everyday life, status is also always present and it is important whether we choose to be aware of them or not. Having this awareness shapes more authentic and intrinsically compelling relationships onstage. It also provides us new insights into our behaviors and motivations and builds up new language with our scene partners. In this workshop we will explore status both as an observer and as a participant.

Beginners and experienced players are more than welcome!

We will meet this Saturday at 15:00 near the bridge at the Englisch Garten:

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Due to the Corona regulations, we will have a maximum of 15 participants and we need to log who comes. Reserve your place here:

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Because we are going to get into the present moment while playing the first games, please be on time. If you have flu or cold symptoms during the 3 days before, we will be thankful if you stay at home. Next Saturday and Tuesday there will be improv again!

Looking forward to have fun with you!

Source

• Touch the left knee of the partner: Players are in pairs. The right feet of each one stays touching the floor and the game is to touch left knee of the partner five times

• Walk around the room with different music which leads to different moods. We are at the street and we can decently dance but not exagerate

• Walk and catch: Everyone walks around the room randomly and choose another person but don't follow him/her. When the music stops we have to touch the choosen person and he/she has to stop on the place. Groups form when the music stop

• Alien Dance Party

• 1, 2, direction, 3, 4, 5, 6, direction: All players are standing in a circle. The first player starts counting “one” putting his hand on his left shoulder, then the player on this left says “two” putting his hand on his left shoulder, the third one says “three” puting both arms horizontal in front of him with the upper one indicating the direction. The next player says “four” with this arm on his shoulder (right or left depending on the direction). Then it comes five and six. For “seven” the player has to put his arms horizontal and decide with them who is next. After seven, the players start counting from one again. If someone is too slow or makes a mistakes he has to run around the circle. The goal is to generate chaos and accept our own mistakes.

• Samurai or Hi-Ha-Ho: On player says “Ho” and points with his hands formind a sword to another player. This one defends himself with his sword -pointing his two palms to the air - saying “Hi”. The two player on his sides cut his body with a “sword” saying “Ha”. Then he points to the next player saying “Ho” and using his palms as a sword
• Synchroapplause: You make eye contact with the player on your left and applause synchronously. Then he does the same with his left player. If you applause two time, you change the direction. You can also add an asociation word if the group is unconcentrate
• 3 Different Sequences with a cities, fruits and cloths (movements, drinks, food, animals): People are standing in a circle. First each person says a city and choose the next person without repeating until the first one is choosen. Each can mark that they are already choosen. Now fruits with a new random sequence are choosen. Finally cloths with a new random sequence are choosen. The first person starts slowly all sequence und each person has to listen to the fruit, city and cloth of the person before him and they continue the sequence with his fruit, city and cloths. Each person has to check that the next one received the word. Make eye contact and concentrate.

• 3 x different =Clap Snap Stamp
• Action Emotion Detail One partner starts telling a story. The second one can say:
  • Forward, the story must move to another topic giving more emotion
  • Colour: Give more details about the current scene
  • Emotions: Exagerate the feelings of the people or characters

I minimise ‘status resistance’ from my students by getting them to experience various status sensations before I discuss the implications, or even introduce the term. I might ask them to say something nice to the person beside them, and then to say something nasty. This releases a lot of laughter, and they are surprised to find that they often achieve the wrong effect. (Some people never really say anything nice, and others never say anything really nasty, but they won’t realise this.)

I ask a group to mill about and say ‘hallo’ to each other. They feel very awkward, because the situation isn’t real. They don’t know what status they should be playing. I then get some of the group to hold all eye contacts for a couple of seconds, while the others try to make and then break eye contacts and then immediately glance back for a moment. The group suddenly looks more like a ‘real’ group, in that somepeople become dominant, and others submissive. Those who hold eye contacts report that they feel powerful—and actually look powerful. Those who break eye contact and glance back ‘feel’ feeble, and look it. The students like doing this, and are interested, and puzzled by the strength of the sensations.

I might then begin to insert a tentative ‘er’ at the beginning of each of my sentences, and ask the group if they detect any change in me. They say that I look ‘helpless’ and ‘weak’ but they can’t, interestingly enough, say what I’m doing that’s different. I don’t normally begin every sentence with ‘Cr’, so it should be very obvious. Then I move the ‘er’ into the middle of sentences, and they say that they perceive me as becoming a little stronger. If I make the ‘a’ longer, and move it back to the beginning of sentences, then they say I look more important, more confident. When I explain what I am doing, and let them experiment, they’re amazed at the different feelings the length and displacement of the ‘ers’ give them. They are also surprised that it’s difficult to get some people to use a short ‘er’. There wouldn’t seem to be any problem in putting an ‘er’ lasting a fraction of a second at the beginning of each sentence, but many people unconsciously resist. They say ‘urn’, or they elongate the sound. These are people who cling to their self importance. The short ‘er’ is an invitation for people to interrupt you; the long ‘er’ says ‘Don’t interrupt me, even though I haven’t thought what to say yet.’

Again I change my behaviour and become authoritative. I ask them what I’ve done to create this change in my relation with them, and whatever they guess to be the reason—‘You’re holding eye contact’, ‘You’re sitting straighter’—I stop doing, yet the effect continues. Finally I explain that I’m keeping my head still whenever I speak, and that this produces great changes in the way I perceive myself and am perceived by others. I suggest you try it now with anyone you’re with. Some people find it impossible to speak with a still head, and more curiously, some students maintain that it’s still while they’re actually jerking it about. I let such students practise in front of a mirror, or I use videotape. Actors needing authority—tragic heroes and so on—have to learn this still head trick. You can talk and waggle your head about if you play the gravedigger, but not if you play Hamlet. Officers are trained not to move the head while issuing commands.

When actors are reversing status during a scene it’s good to make them grade the transitions as smoothly as possible. I tell them that if I took a photograph every five seconds, I’d like to be able to arrange the prints in order just by the status shown. It’s easy to reverse status in one jump. Learning to grade it delicately from moment to moment increases the control of the actor. The audience will always be held when a status is being modified.

One way to teach transitions of status is to get students to leave the class, and then come in through the real door and act ‘entering the wrong room’. It’s then quitenormal to see students entering with head down, or walking backwards, or in some other way that will prevent them from seeing that it is the wrong room. They want time to really enter before they start ‘acting’. They will advance a couple of paces, act seeing the audience, and leave in a completely phoney way. I remind the students that entering the wrong room is an experience we all have, and that we always know what to do, since we do ‘something’. I explain that I’m not asking the students to ‘act’, but just to do what they do in life. We have a radar which scans every new space for dangers, an early-warning system programmed-in millions of years ago as a protection against sabre-tooth tigers, or bigger amoebas or whatever. It’s therefore very unusual to refuse to look into the space you are entering. As soon as the ‘wrong room’ exercise becomes ‘real’ they understand that a change of status is involved. You prepare a status for one situation, and have to alter it when suddenly confronted by the unexpected one. I then set the students to predetermine the direction of the status change, and of course errors are often made. Someone trying to play low status may have to be told to smile, and if he smiles with both sets of teeth (an aggressive smile) he may have to be asked to show the top teeth only. People who want to rise in status may have to be told to turn their backs to us when they leave. Neither smiling nor turning your back is essential but it may help the student get the feeling. In difficult cases it helps to use videotape. A more complex version of this exercise is really a little play. I invented it at RADA when I was asked if I could push the students into more emotional experiences. It’s for one character—let’s say he’s a teacher, although he could be any profession. He arrives late carrying the register and a pair of glasses. He says something like ‘All right, quiet there, now then’, treating us as the class. As he is about to read the register he puts the glasses on, and sees not his class, but a meeting of the school Governors. He apologises, dropping in status frantically, and struggles to the door, which sticks. He wrestles with it and after about ten seconds it comes free. The actor feels a very great drop in status when the door jams. It takes him back to feelings he may not have experienced since childhood: feelings of impotence, and of the hostility of objects. Once outside, the actor either stops the exercise, or if he feels brave, re-enters, and plays the scene again and again. This exercise can turn people into crumbling wrecks in a very short time, and for actors who like to ‘pretend’ without actually feeling anything, it can be a revelation. One Scandinavian actor who apparently had never really achieved anything because of his self-consciousness, suddenly ‘understood’ and became marvellous. It was for him a moment of satori. The terrifying thing is that there’s no limit.

• The dictator and his assistant: There are two pairs. The first one plays a scene where the dictator gets angry (The coffee is too cold) without expressing any emotion. The second pair of players has to replay the scene showing emotion. (note: once Flo did this game without the theme of dictactor-assistant, which also worked very nice. Maybe the essence of this game is just the emotion play, with any kind of setting: first without emotions, then with a lot of emotion)
• Speech and Die: Four players are on stage. The moderator points to one of them using his arm, he starts talking until the moderator's arm is up. Then a second player continues the story. If one of them says “and” or “then”, they have to leave the game. There is competition in this game
• Storystelling with sounds: Two people play a scene while two players have their eyes closed. The scene must have less words and a lot of sounds. When the moderator applauses, the roles are changed and the second pairs must continue the scene as they image. Then the moderator applauses again, and the original pair comes back. At the end, the second pair must say what the topic of the scene was about
• Puppets: Two players are puppets, they can speak but not move. Two other players have to indicate them how to move but can't speak

Introduction

• Status in a row: The players stand up in two rows. One is for high status and the other one for lower status. Each pair of players face each others and play a scene with the status of their row. After the scene they go to the opposite row. In a second round the players choose the status and the audience guess the status and give a grade: 1 for lowest status and 10 for higher.
• High and low status at a shop: While one is the saleman, the other one is the customer. One has a high status and the other one low status during the whole scene. At the end, the public says if how the status was. The player decide together what is sold in the shop
• Hackordnung Pecking Order II (In German) The player with the higher status can only speak with the middle one, the middle one is the only who speaks with the lower one. They a bad boys and the public choose what the will do.
• Statuskette (In German) with many players with and without place changes. Who comes, has always a higher status

• Backwards Interview

The group enjoyed these games