Drama
My expectation torwards the drama workshop honestly weren´t too high at first, regarding the course wasn´t my first choice. I expected hours and hours of learning dulled texts of an old fashioned, english play and acrobatic elements didn´t sound interesting to me at first either. How cool could it possibly be? Now, looking back at an amazing week and experiences, I can fortunately say all my expectations were rubbish.
It all started at the second day of the week with the busride to the university nearby, where we would be teached in some sort of gym. A mixed crowd of european pupils from several diffenrent countries got on the bus, having a first talk to each other. In the first part of the week, drama and dance were taught together by the schools´ drama teacher Greg and two other professional theater actors. The workshop began with learning peoples names with simple games. The next step was to gain each others´ trust for the acrobatics used in the upcoming play. We were supposed to make „Trustfalls“ (one person let´s himself fall, another one catches) in games like „Bodyguard“ where two persons have to catch another one, who falls over randomly in any direction on purpose and also a game simply called „Falling Over“, where everyone walks around the hall untill somebody shouts: „ (persons name) falling over!“. The others are supposed to support and catch him or her. Luckily nobody hurt themself that day. The miscellaneous group got to know each other and started growing together, especially when chatting with the strangers at lunchbreak on the corridors. The lessons went on with theaterelements like Molding, Floating, Flying and Radiating taught by the two actors and we started to loose first timidity. The first three were diffenrent ways of moving on stage like as if the air would be made of mud, so you had to move in slow motion, or as fast and quiet as possible. Sounds crazy? It was, but you didn´t know anybody, so why care? Radiating, the most weird thing at first sight, was explained to us as a fire burning inside your chest. You could radiate on something or somebody by concetrating that fire on it. These elements of acting were uncommon at first, but everybody participated and it was fun to do something weird like this with 20 people you have never seen before. After everybody lost their restraint, we started with the acrobatics. It wasn´t what i suspected it to be. We started lifting each other up with different techniques and positions. You were supposed to climb on somebodys back while he´s standing straight or stand on someone´s upper legs while he leans backwards and holds you. I can´t really describe the figures we practiced, but we were all really impressed what we are able to learn in that short time. In mixed groups we practiced harder and harder positions and got better and better. Together with the theatermovements we created litlle choreographies in small groups, which were interpreted by the others and got a first insight what it means to get a whole play working.
Concluding I can say, that my fears of a boring, strict play were completely misplaced. The workshop was an impressive experience i will definately not forget. It was so much fun finding new friends from different countries and grow together to become such a succesful team. I recommend every grade below us to take the opportunity to participate an the next ROTA-exchanges.