Tuesday lesson 1

Lesson 1:
Yoshi Oida (a member of Peter Brook's International Centre for Theatre Research) the invisible actor, throughout the lesson there was music playing in the background that lasted for eternity.

we started the lesson by taking five minutes eating fruit and relaxing then doing stretches that were ran by another classmate in the lesson.

Misorgi-Cleansing the room, our bodies and our minds.
We entailed on clearing the room and putting our bags and other objects in one section of the room so we had enough space for us to lay down in semi supine by cleansing the room it made it a more professional working space and there was little to know visual obstacles, before laying down we were asking to collect a plastic reusable cup and fill it up with water and have it by our side when in semi supine, while having our eyes closed we were asked to focus on our breathing and the music playing in the background. As we continued to focus on our breathing we were instructed to dip our fingers into water and to massage our eyes, nose, mouth, ears and our centre, the hara. This would help us ease the any tension within those part of the body and to spiritually clean us inside and out and prepare us to work.

Samadhi- Focusing on just one thing.

We were asked to find a space and close our eyes, we then were asked to clear our minds and join our finger tips together, this was a very difficult exercise because we had to only focus on our finger tips touching and how it felt, I also found it difficult because I get easily distracted so I found myself drifting and thinking of other things. I found this exercise very useful because it is a very good way to test your focus and even build up upon it.

another activity we did was to find a space standing, close our eyes and to walk, this activity was walking into nothing, the activity was explorative because we were discovering something we haven't before, scary because you're working with the unknown and it is to work on every sense but sight, by doing this activity i realised that i use sight more than everything as a result of this i found myself having to move very slowly and sometimes opening my eyes just to make sure i wasn't walking into anyone or anything, when i did have my eyes close i realised that ears are very important and i had to focus hard to know if anyone was beside me or if i could sense anyone.

we had a reflection time and sat down and discussed how we all felt about the exercises and how it affected us, before this we were talked about how Japanese actors do these exercises every time they are about to perform and this enables them to have great focus and it's a way of clearing your mind and being prepared to act because you will have good focus and your body is relaxed. we went deep into how us as humans don't focus on the things we do for example brushing our teeth, we don't fully think about it. one student said when doing the cleansing exercise she understood how it linked to experimental theatre and that it helped her focus on her body and realise how important our bodies are and how we should take care of it, cleaning our eyes made us feel spiritual because we can see beyond and clearer.  when walking around with our eyes closed after cleansing all of our senses heightened and brightened and her senses became more alert and better. also after the cleansing exercise someone said that it made them breathe better as they had a cold before so it was a big thing, finally another person said that the walking exercise made us feel like we were walking into heaven because it just felt like there was a path going on and on and on.

finally we created three sections in the room; 1. writing section where we either write a poem or story in response to the music we heard, 2. physical theatre section where we either made movement by ourselves or did it as a group and 3. drawing section where we drew anything in response to the music this exercise was very useful because it helps you focus on all the different sections of the creative mind, it does this by stimulating your senses, it made me think differently about what i was listening to because usually you just hear the music but when transferring what you hear onto paper you can get a real understanding of the music

Later on in our third lesson we started exploring the music that gives us joy, we were asked to make a chart of strangers responses to the song that brings them joy, we were given half an hour to collect our data and then we sat in the lesson and listened to some of their responses we picked up and discussed how that son could bring someone joy.