Tuesday 1 April 2014

Working with Glyndebourne and Liverpool Street Station

So not last Sunday but the one before was like INCREDIBLE. As was today but today will come later..(O_o)
I'd been offered the chance to participate in a Glyndebourne Workshop which focused on Audition and Ensemble Technique and oh my goodness gracious me. IT WAS SUCH A TREAT. There were 9 of us altogether excluding the teachers (of which there were 3, 2 leaders and a pianist who was totally awesome) and I was the eldest of the participants there. We were placed in a cool little space with an incredibly high ceiling, yes, yes it felt rather vast.
We started off by playing a few warm up games and got to know each other a bit more.
Quick recap
We made narratives out of sound and entitled them 'The Farm' and 'The Desert' - 'The Farm' focused on the atmosphere of the farm and the animals. It gradually, just from the sound scape, painted a picture of the farmers checking on the animals - the sheep were in peril, the hounds came sniffing and then it ended with wolves howling.
The best. Truly the best.

'The Desert' sound scape created more of a lonesome journey of one person drifting in and out of a chant while he trudges through the Desert in an act to search for water and civilisation. One of which he encounters - not necessarily the one he needs most. Suddenly there's excitement and a tribal-like fiesta sound until he's somewhat executed or entranced by this tribe and the rhythm and tone comes down again and returns to this solitary, almost painful sound.

Yeah it was good. And then we played a game called Clint Eastwood where NO we did not pretend to shoot each other or mime wearing a Stetson BUT we did pretend to enter a s'loon (well cafe/bar/saloon). Basically, the game is like an improv wink murder except nobody does a really bad fake 'oh my god I need to scream at the top of my voice' death. The aim is to guess what you are. So example, from the picked persons perspective, you enter a room full of people who are all acting weirdly(?) and you've got gather from them, your story and who you are or what you've done. From the pickers perspective, you're given a brief by one of the teachers or leaders and then you group up or pick a character that you can be in this scenario and then give the 'pickee' I suppose, clues as to who their character is.

It was all very good fun. OOO and then there was the Liverpool Street Station song. I can guarantee you, this song will baffle you for about 10 minutes and then once you're getting your head around the lyrics YOU WILL NOT STOP HUMMING OR SINGING YES IT IS ONE OF THOSE SONGS. 

I'm really tired writing this so I humbly apologise if I sound a little dreary but it was a wonderful experience and I can't wait to audition in the future! 
Thank you Glyndebourne it was fab. 

Ta ta. <3

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