iO Level Two - Week Two

Class started off this week with all of sitting on the stage in a circle and playing the same name game we started off with last week. Susan is determined that we learn each others names in this class (and it's working very well too) cause as she says so often: once you know people's names you can start to care about them.

Next she broke us up into pairs (well actually she told us to go stand next to the person in class we knew the least about and those were our pairs) for a series of mirror exercises. We started off with the basic mirror exercise where one person leads movement and the other person follows - then the leader switches - and finally in theory no one is leading and no one is following really, the pair are simply moving as one (honestly about 75% of the time I ever do this - and Susan even mentioned this though used more profanity - one person does a lot of leading at the end - though I've had a handful of experiences where it was actually really great give and take and it really felt as if no one was leading we were just in the zone, which rocked...this wasn't one of those times).
Next we had to begin speaking and moving at the same time, still in pairs and then the exercise really got kicked up a notch.
Susan picked two pairs to stay on stage and had everyone else sit down. The two pairs on stage were then told they were going to do a scene where each pair was a single person (they had to mirror each other the whole scene, talk as one, move as one - say "I" not "we" - etc). My pair was in that first group - we ended up cobbling a shoe (at least that's what the action we were doing was in my mind) the entire time and talked like we were addressing a retarded child. Susan had us do it again this time having us talk faster and faster - much better when we thought less about mirroring each other and actually just did something.
Each pair did two scenes which ate up a good chunk of class time and each time the quicker the pairs simply either started doing an action or speaking - the better the scenes went - even if words were messed up - they simply became new words that Susan made sure were repeated since: Repetition turns wacky BS into facts.

After each scene we would talk about what happened a little bit then moved on.
A few very important ideas came out of those discussions:
Don't worry about finding the "appropriate" object in an environment (Some of the best examples of this can be found in the UCB sketch show from comedy central - note if you haven't seen it, go buy the dvd or download the episodes the Time Machine episode from season one is a near perfect Harold turned into a sketch and filmed minus the group games - in one episode, Bucket of Truth, a couple is being shown a house which has a Hot Chicks room among other weird things inside it).
Specifics Are More Fun for Everyone
Arguing comes a lot from Frustration
Taking is just as vital as Giving (just try not to do either too much).
And probably a million other things I wasn't fast enough to write down.

After this exercise we ended with doing individual truthful monologues based on a themes Susan gave us - and then had time for a few scenes based off some of them.

We took away from this class these bits of advice (along with the ones above):
The "Game" is just any pattern
You're Doing everything on Stage for a Reason, So Don't Drop it
It's an Evolutionary Art, once you master something you'll fine more to work on
Fear the Safe Zone - that funny thing/bit/character/voice/walk you've "mastered"- the place where you say I'll take risks tomorrow.
Always take Risks! Challenge Yourself!
Fucks ups (mistakes) are Good