Boom Chicago Academy: Level 4 Short Form

Session 2: Emotion games

Coach: Katie Nixon

Sudents: Daan, Joshua, Susan, Ken, Mareika, Vaiva, Burt, Brian, Fabiola, Nicholas

Warmup

Stretch And Share

We have seen this before, but essentially everyone stands in a circle. Going round the circle one player at a time leads the rest of the group in a stretch of their choosing and shares something positive about their week. All the other players listen and do the stretch being led.

Song Circle

The players gather in a close circle. One player steps into the middle of the circle and starts singing a song with total commitment. It doesn't matter what song they choose, but it should be a known song and not something original. All the rest of the players must support the person singing: sing along, keep a beat, dance and provide support in whatever way they can. When the time is right (generally, as soon as the singer starts to show any sign of struggle), another player tags into the center and starts singing their own song. Players should keep tagging in to keep the energy high and confident. Eventually the facilitator should call scene.

Emotion Ball (plus counting)

The players stand in a circle. The first player holds an imaginary ball in two hands. This ball holds some particular, strong emotion, which the player must take on. The player takes the ball over to someone else in the group and passes it to them. As the ball is passed over, the new holder takes on the emotion of the ball (exactly mirroring the previous holder), and the person passing the ball allows the emotion to be passed with it so they return to neutral. The new holder allows the emotion to transform in some way before passing the ball and the new emotion on to another player. The players keep passing the emotion and allowing it to transform.

Once the players have a good grasp of the game and everyone has had a turn taking and passing the emotion, add a simple second layer where an incrementing number is passed around the circle. The first player points at another player and says "one", this second player points at another player and says "two", and so on. The point is to keep track of both the count and the changing emotion, being ready at all times to receive either.

Bunny Bunny

Nothing special. Just a fun ol' bunny bunny as we have seen before.

The Games

Emotion Room

The stage is divided into three sectors: one stage-left, one center-stage, and one stage-right. Each sector is given one emotion (take suggestions from the audience). Take a suggestion for a location. The players, two in this case, play out a scene based on the location. The game is that each player must always take on the emotion corresponding to the sector of the stage they are located in.

Notes for performing the game:

• There are different schools of thought on whether you should deliberately move about a lot so that you are continually changing emotion.
• Since the space is loaded it is easy to forget about space and object work. The scene works better if there are other objects and obstacles at particular locations in the space.
• Really switch the emotions hard at the lines where one emotion ends and another begins - make it obvious for the audience.
• Remember which emotions are where!
• I personally think it helps to get the emotions across to the audience quite quickly at the top of the scene, so starting by moving across the stage is a good idea.
• Play with the tempo of the switches.
• If two of the emotions are closely related, make sure to accentuate the difference between them.
• Keep your director brain conscious of where an emotion can restrict you in contributing to the scene. Make sure you don't spend too long in emotions like "confused" or "shy".

Gibberish Ding

Two players perform a scene, while another player (or the host) takes charge of a bell. When the third player rings the bell the scene switches from regular language to gibberish. Ringing the bell again releases the players from gibberish and back to regular language. Keep dinging the players into and out of gibberish. While in gibberish mode the players should lean on playing the emotions of the scene. When returning from gibberish there needs to be a response to whatever was said in gibberish, justifying and grounding the physical and emotional expression back into an understandable scene.

Notes for performing the game:

• When playing this kind of ding game it helps if the base scene is very grounded.
• You can use what is called 'indicating', where you use physical gesture to indicate what's happening in the gibberish. Think Charlie Chaplin rubbing his belly to indicate hunger. This is different from attempting to sign what you are saying, which defies the point of the game.

Oscar Winning Moment

Two players perform a scene. At some point during the scene, after one of the players delivers a line, another player (or the host) interrupts, repeats the line and prompts the player with "your Oscar winning moment!". The player then continues as if that were the first line of an overwrought monologue, of the kind that they show when announcing the nominees at the Oscars. At the start of the monologue they move to stand center stage, turn out towards the audience and give their best luvvieish performance. The player can use wild emotional rollercoaster, or tap into an exaggerated version of a stereotypical dramatic monologue. During the monologue the other player fades to the background; they can react gently and/or move slightly toward an upstage corner. Once the monologue concludes (20-30 seconds or so) the action of the scene continues. The host then looks for an opportunity to give the other player their "Oscar winning moment" so that in the scene each player has one.

Notes for performing the game:

• Try to give the monologue an arc and a button.
• Use the monologue to fill in details that are not yet in the scene, giving some history is the easiest example.

Notes

None