Day 3

July 18
All Present. Guest observer, Steve Boyer from Asheville.

We began with breathing and stretching. Some joint limbering and "brain gymnastics." Tongue twisters and articulation exercise. Placing the voice in the nose and dropping it into the mouth. We explored the resonance of our voices in the room. Performing under pressure: looking and gesturing arount the room. We added words and speech. We added "drilling": saying as much as came to mind about one point of focus - and "Streaming": flowing from one point ot another continuously. We created word landscapes incorporating simile and metaphor. we played a word-making game and invented stories to define the new words: coopomdee, gammalectric, princk, mayalulululu, and wandom. We played with persona in the form of character masks. we listened to the changing personae of the storyteller. Sandy bravely read aloud her Dr. Seuss according to the masks.

Key points: limber and stretching of the body and breath must also include the mind. Be conscious of thinking and giving meaning to your articulation exercises (tongue twisters tell tales!)

We can benefit from exploring the full range of motion available to us in body, breath, word, thought and feeling.

Our body is only part of our instrument, the surroundings complete our instrument. How does the room or telling area, support your voice and story?

A charismatic image can inspire fresh and original thinking as we saw in your responses to the masks.

Practice performing under pressure in small ways: challenge yourself to think quickly, make swift choices, jump in!

Storytelling is thinking out loud - try to close the gap between the thought and the action.

As we approach the end of our week's reading assignment, notice how "Speaking Story" is put into practice with our text and speech work. Begin now to explore the second text, Tell Me A Story, connecting with Yashinky's suggestion that "it's important to realize that you are building on a foundation you started creating in childhood."