For our first rehearsal/meeting, we began by walking the space. A casual stroll, with no pre-determined direction, just walking. Then Kali asked us to pay attention to if we were making eye contact with our fellow performers or just walking around staring into space. Whatever we determined lead into the next exercise, which I will call, “The Social Butterfly vs. The Awkward Turtle”, in which we had to either, make as much eye contact with anyone we could or avoid eye contact at all cost. The ones, who chose to be eye contact-aholics, had to find the ones who didn’t want to be looked at, and try and get them to look while they desperately tried not to. After this we played a game we’ll call “The Friend and The Foe.” We were asked to find a “friend,” someone in the group that we would follow as close as possible while we walked the space as before. Alas, for every friend there is a foe, so we would also choose a “Foe,” and keep our “friend” between us and the “foe” as best we could. Since everyone had a different friend and foe this became exciting and chaotic, until it finally came to a halt and we examined how well we did. Then we were asked to choose another “friend” and “foe,” and instead of keeping our friends close and our enemies far far away, we had to follow them both while positioning ourselves at equal distance between them to create a triangular shape. We finally converged into a cluster of human triangles and moved on to the next exercise: “The Untouchables.” The group dispersed from the triangle cluster to form a new geometric shape, the circle. We went around the circle clarifying everyone’s name, because in this game the name was everything. To start off the game, you had to choose a partner by saying their name aloud then you and your partner would simultaneously jump into the air landing sumo style and grunting to begin the chase. The person that called the other’s name would then proceed to try and catch their chosen opponent. Unfortunately there was an unknown force field keeping them from being able to touch each other. So while the aggressor attempts to “catch” their opponent, the opponent moves to try and trick the aggressor into touching them. Then once the opponent decided they were ready to become the aggressor, they would yell out a new name, and the process would start again. After a few minutes of this, we were asked to begin adding character choices in our movement. So once our opponent was chosen, we would “reach into the ground” and pull out a distinctive character and embody them. At this point everyone was asked to join in and chose a side and embody the character of that person as well. This being a full body, intense exercise, we followed it with a shake out to loosen ourselves up a little, then went into a follow the leader type exercise where we would all dance around the space, then if someone decided to stop or lie down completely, then we would have to stop as a group until someone else decided to start again. Once on the floor a few times, it was a unanimous decision to remain there for a while, so we took the time to do some floor stretches and body movement exercises to cool down from our previous games. After getting good and stretched out, there was time for one more game, so we were up on our feet again and ready to go. The final game of the evening I’ll refer to as, “Hot or Cold,” where one person would volunteer to go to the “sound proof booth” while the rest of the group decided what crazy activity they wanted the volunteer to do when they returned. An example of this would be: Go pick up umbrella, walk to center stage, open umbrella, and twirl around. Once the final decision was determined, with very specific details, the person would be asked to renter the room. Now, here is where it gets exciting, the only way the volunteer would know what they were supposed to do when they re-entered, is by receiving claps from the “audience” when they got closer to their destination or physical activity. The louder the claps the closer they were getting to the desired place, if the claps stopped they would know they were doing something wrong and try something new, and so on. After a few rounds of “Hot or Cold” we all dispersed to eagerly await our next rehearsal. - Kayla
