Wiz 26/4

In this lesson we went over the Laban Efforts with Liam and how we could use them within The Wiz.

Laban Efforts are efforts that are used in vocal work to link body and voice with one another to develop character gestures and physicality. We went through the main four categories which were weight, space, time and energy/flow and decided what we were as ourselves; I was a DAB which is when your light, direct, quick and free.

We then had to decide it for our characters however I decided that Dorothy has 2 sides to her as she changes within the story so I chsoe two her first half Dorothy is a FLICK. This means that means that her weight is Light because she is very feminine and young, her space is Indirect because she is rather lost physically and emotionally, she is quick with her time because she is young and determined to get home and her energy and flow is quite free because she once again doesn't know exactly where she is heading. To add to this the second Dorothy I said was more like me naturally and is a DAB, all the aspects are the same as FLICK expect her space because by the end of the story Dorothy is direct and knows where she is going or at least where she wants to go in life.

We did an activity in which we got put into pairs and had to watch each other walk in character and write how they were within the four categories, Bu was my partner and said that I was light and led with my feet which was what I was trying to do as I think for most of the sotry that is what she is doing also the silver slippers are a big part of her body language within this story as well as status, she also said that I showed I was lost with no sense of direction which was my aim and that I started off slow and got faster and more exaggerated by the end of it this was what I tried to do as I think it shows her emotional journey that she goes through in the story and she lastly that I had high energy and that I was free flow.

I think overall in this lesson I really improved on my characterisation physically regarding body language however I still need to work on distinguishing between the two sides of Dorothy to show more of a contrast I will do this by working on my characterisation in the changing scenes when I have spare time as well as in rehearsals.