Where Theater Begins!

3rd September, 2015.

This was the second session we had with our instructors Ms. Niaz and the ASU Team which included Dr. Hughes and Dr. Branch. For this session we met in the staff house (informal setting) where Dr. Hughes made us walk around the room randomly choosing friends that we would walk closer to, or enemies that we had to distance ourselves from. Though at the time it seemed a bit silly to be doing so, by the end of the activity it had become somewhat clear as to why she had made us take part in that activity. As a fellow student in a later session also asked Dr. Hughes, and the main idea they agreed upon was to make the students more aware of their respective theater space as performers of that particular theater space. 

Dr. Branch then made us take part in an unusual game of 'hug a bear' which also furthered the idea of getting more comfortable with ones fellow actors in the theater space. He would randomly say 'huggie bear one' and everyone had to hug themselves, or 'huggie bear two' (any number basically till 10). Whoever was not hugging would get disqualified. 

Before the end of the lesson, The instructors discussed the importance of improvisation through a fun activity of giving and receiving a gift from one's fellow actor(s). The purpose of this activity was to teach us how to improvise as per a given situation. A good gift would mean a positive reply while a rotten gift could result in a negative reply and so on. For this activity too, the students had to form a circle so everyone could be an active part in every gift exchange.