Rehearsal Day 2

Right on to second day of rehearsal.

A couple of us had arrived early to practice of course, just to ensure that we weren't late. Day two was all about movement. Purpose of this was to nimble ourselves and get us prepared for any action command that is thrown at us by the director or movement director.

But before that we had a half hour session with breathing master Dominique Lonchant, the breathing guru. While not many or any theatre groups out there practice on breathing, here for the KLPac production we are trained to concentrate on our breathing. As an actor, our voice and body are the most important things to us, so naturally some exercise to loosen it up is necessary. One important accessory you will need for breathing exercises...

A pillow! If not say hello to bruises on your shins and knees.

Moving right on after breathing exercises, was the movement exercises. The movement director wasn't around so we were left in the very capable hands of our Dance Captain. Starting first with some warm up and stretches which I think some of us wanted to die, from not being used to stretching a lot. And even worse when we had to do a side split (or as far as one can go) and go down with your forehead touching the ground... Yeah we could cry! When Laks told us to relax... you should have heard the sigh of relief from the entire cast. Hahaha.

I have to say, we did a lot of rolling. The two words stuck in my head now is "Pink Paper". lol See there is this pink paper stuck on one of the pillars smack in the middle of Studio 5, which we all use as our focus point. So imagine this.. We are all walking around and then suddenly we are to stop and look at the pink paper. Then shift our head to the clock at the back of the class and then pink paper again.. woohee.. and then clock and then pink paper..

Pink paper clock pink paper clock... aiii - there's a purpose for all this and it is great practice for testing how sharp we are. Back to the rolling..

Our captain, was teaching us how to roll... so we had a lot of rolling on the floor, which concludes with us using our thighs a lot. Along with our butts being very very strained. Roll to the right.. now to the left .. oh wait pink paper clock.... roll right, left.. pink paper clock... pink clock... roll right.. left... you get the picture :P

It was personally fun to see how some got confused :) Which is alright actually because the cast we have - some are new to performing arts and some have been doing it for a while. It's a learning curve and what a fun start it is.

Let's see what happens tomorrow!
yes.. we have rehearsals tomorrow.. :P