WENT TO LONDON!
That’s right! We went to
the Theatre Arts Programme Symposium at the Dominion Theatre! TAPS is a meeting
composed of IB theatre students from around the world, with teachers and IB
theatre examiners flying in to give master classes. Most the class went but
sadly Mary couldn’t join us. Henry and Halley did though.
We flew out on Sunday 7th,
and after much annoyance with British Rail, we went to see Zoonation’s “some
like it hip-hop”. It was absolutely
mind-blowing. It was a spectacle of interpretive dance, using dance and body
language to express emotions and speech (using a narrator).
Monday 8th was
the day we started TAPS. I was put in Lydia and Bekki’s group and we met our
ensemble leaders, Sherri and Anthony. Both were very energetic and hilarious,
and much time was spent holding my sides. They lived by one motto, which was
incessantly repeated throughout the symposium. “Momentum, energy, risk and
joy”. We went through a series of exercises, starting with perhaps what
contained some of the more memorable moments of the week, a game called “the
Bear game”. Now, the bear game is basically learning how stay absolutely still.
The game starts with two people playing bears, the rest play lumberjacks. When
the bears roar, the lumberjacks have to lie down and play dead. The bears are
then tasked with making people move or react. The ones who do not play dead
well are caught out and must join the bears. The point of this game is to
increase concentration but it quickly descended into mayhem.
In the afternoon, we had the first of our two masterclasses .This one
was on music. The composer who came in to talk to us made us recreate an
exercise she had done with other groups, which was to create a musical
piece, using voice and body percussion, from a simple tune. This was
great fun and helped strengthen friendships as we worked in small groups
for this exercise.
This was a brilliant ice breaker as it made us work with people we didn't know.
Throughout the week we
continued with more games and exercises, each made to develop our reactions to
theatre. Every night we went to see a different play, starting with “Oh the
Humanity” at the Soho theatre. “Oh the Humanity” is a
modern play, meant to reflect the desperation of regular human lives, using a
mix witty, eccentric, dry humour.
On Tuesday 9th, we began Taps in earnest. As well as studying verbatim theatre, we approached immersive theatre and discussed "Oh the Humanity" at great length. We also continued with the exercices and made notes on different names for things in theatre. This helped me a lot as I am new to theatre. In the afternoon, we had the second of our two masterclassses. This one was on immersive theatre. A man came in and talked to us about different kinds of immersive theatre and setting up games and exercises to improve our knowledge of immersive theatre.
Later, we went to see "One Man, Two Guvnors" playing at the Royal Haymarket. It is and adaptation from a Commedia Dell'Arte play called "One servant, two masters". It shares many aspects of commedia and farce and was a memorable night out.
Wednesday 10th was unfortunately the last day of Taps, and most of that day was spent reflecting on the play from the previous evening, which means we spent most of the day working on slapstick and farce comedy, which was great fun. After our prolonged goodbyes, we went for a quick drink in Starbucks before being dragged into Primark by Bekki and Henry.
After this we went to see "Damned by Despair", a very interesting play on the merits of salvation. It broke all sorts of rules in theatre but was a great watch. It was an adaptation of a play from the Spanish 17th century by Tirso de Molina.
On Thursday 11th, we went sightseeing in Westminster which was nice and then headed for the airport and home.
And so ended a fantastic trip, with lots of knowledge crammed into our heads and an untold amount of experiences to share. With hope we'll go again next year!
From left: Darin, me, Ben, Lydia, Bekki, Josh, Paulina, Elise and Tits (well Titziano really, but everyone called him Tits :))
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