Character Factory Workshop
At Brown University
September 2024
Overview
Free your mind, throat, and body! String together words! Release a character from deep within! An improvisational movement and acting workshop.
Outcomes
Drop into one’s own body, get acquainted with the bodies and eyes of the fellow participants, get comfortable moving and speaking in front of each other, in order to become comfortable performing and “releasing personalities” in front of one another.
Structure
We start on the floor in a dark room imagining all of the bones in our bodies, even in our feet and behind our eyes, to be made of seaweed “twisting and untwisting” in the sea. (Accompanied by the sound of deep water flowing.)
We come to our feet and move through the space gently observing the feet of our fellow participants gradually moving faster until we meet each other's gaze.
The group splits into two, observers and observed, the observed start to name things out loud that they see which are adjacent to the material thing (ie. A window could be a fish tank. A wood grain could be a snail) faster and faster, louder and louder. This practice helps us warm up our vocal chords while stimulating a free association part of our brains.
Participants then engage in improvisational movement while music plays. The music cuts and the performer then speaks in stream of consciousness while pantomiming. On and off.
The groups morph into one. Movement prompts are given to the performers to interpret themselves such as “turn left and go around” or “three steps forward, hop over.”
The workshop ends in a group performance using these phrases in a collage-like structure.
We finsih in a circle and share one word from our stream of consciousness and end on reflections.