5

Clowning. 

During lessons we did a lot of work on clowning as we wanted to include a sibling rivalry in our piece, which was relevant to to the story of 'Alice in Wonderland'. An example of clowning is the comedy duo Laurel and Hardy who we spoke a lot about in class and used as a sort of stimulus to create our own comedy duo pieces. 

Before actually splitting off into a duo we got into small groups and explore 118 type characters- as they are a more modern take on clowning and uses a lot of the same slapstick as Laurel and Hardy. These pieces also included lots of violence and mime. 

My group did a lot of work in unison as we were competing to become models. We started out as friends but we got more and more angry with each other as we competed more and more. We had to practice being violent in a smaller space and worked out our reactions. As they had to be very exaggerated and almost like melodrama. 

In new groups we added a grotesque take on it. Focusing on the artuad element. Me and my partner created sibling rivalry during a game of tennis; in which we ended up dramatically slaughtering each other which our teacher really like as it would freak out the audience out. 

In conclusion, clowning was on of the most enjoyable lessons because it taught me that comedy can also be very dark. Also, since I had never been taught clowning before it was interesting and the skills I learnt helped me in my final performance with Ffion as we opened the show. It was also a very easy going way of opening us up into the dark subjects included in experimental theatre.