20/09/18 Blandine Martin

We joined groups with the Level 2 class and the Level 3 second years for a special lesson today. Blandine Martin, a mixed media artist, was present. She bought in some of the sculptures she has been working on and displayed them on a table at the front of the room. They were rather obscure but that's what made them so interesting. Our task for today was to create improvisation pieces inspired by her sculptures.

To warm up we did the 'This is not a book' exercise where items are placed into the centre of room, you can use them in any you want apart from their intended use. The items were: a tennis racket; a hula hoop; a glasses case and a board marker. I went up and chose the tennis racket. For my improvisation I used it as a baby. I started by softly rocking the ‘baby’ in my arms and shushing it. Then came the dialogue: “A baby, left on my doorstep on a cold Christmas Eve. All alone, with no one to care for him. No one to love him. How is he going to make it? He won’t make it alone, and he sure as hell won’t make it with me.” As I finished this line I dropped the ‘baby’ on the floor. This got an extremely strong reaction from my audience, they were all shocked. However, I was the only performer who received a round of applause, so I’m glad I took a risk. We did this exercise to prepare us for improvising with Blandine’s sculptures.

After our warm up we were given a chance to properly examine her work before our main improvisation task. The table was an abundance of unique objects that held potential for very engaging improvisations.

For our improvisation anyone within the group could go up and interact with the objects. Others could join in at any point. Creatively we had free reign however, the only rule we had is that we were not allowed to use the objects for their actual purpose. Taylor was already in the improvisation space before I came in, he was looking at the suitcase containing shredded newspapers. As I walked in I yelled “Tomas is that my novel?”. As the scene continued I discovered he had destroyed not only my novel but also my birth certificates and passport. At the height of the tension, a new actor was introduced into the scene. Diamante came into the scene trying to keep the peace and resolve the issue. However, our scene ended still within a disagreement. Most of the improvisations were comedic. I wanted to change the tone with my next improvisation. Taylor, Ben, Katie and I were going to get up and do a hostage situation, however the exercise was changed before we could do so.

For our new improvisation task, it was individual improvisation. When we went up we had to choose an object and tell a story with it, explaining its significance to us. This changed the tone of the improvisations very quickly from comedy to a more sensitive place. For example, Phil chose the box with crushed drink cans at the bottom but he presented it as his dead grandfathers music box. As he was the first person to improvise, the actors who got up after followed in his suit. The improvisations produced from this exercise all had a more depressing tone than that of of the last.

After we finished that exercise Rob started directing people, mainly those who had not gotten up previously. These directed pieces were a lot more abstract than the previous. They were all silent and open to interpretation. One piece was five actors underneath a cloth sculpture with another actor leading. They appeared to be some kind of caterpillar (?)  This was the final exercise of our lesson and concluded the day.

Overall, I did not think that this lesson was massively successful. Blandine clearly wanted more abstract improvisation containing her sculptures, but didn’t receive that from our first improvisations. She then had a private talk with Rob, he then stepped in and started directing us. This was no longer improvisation. If she told us what she would have preferred from the start I think the lesson would have produced more productive work. However, it was a good opportunity to practice our improvisational skills. It also was a completely new experience that I will remember as I have never worked with an artist before.