26/09/14

APPLE STIMULUS 

In today's class, we found out that our stimulus for our first show in our second year is an Apple. 

At first I found this quite basic, as you see apples all the time and I eat one everyday so I was not too struck on this idea as I take basic things like this for granted, as do most people I would think. But as we started to visualise what an apple means to us personally and what it means and represents, I realised that an apple is much more than just a fruit you eat everyday. It has a lot of symbolic meaning and it has opened up a lot of ideas in my mind and we all wrote down on a piece of paper individually what we felt an apple symbolises, or what our apple looked like as we all bought in our own apples. We began to free write and I was not really thinking in depth about what I was writing I was just writing  down anything that came into my head. Here is what I wrote in today's lesson: 

Adam and Eve- Biblical meaning 

Tree of life- family free

Purity, health, cleansing, natural, nature, free, positive, life, innocence 

Gravity- Isaac Newton- science 

New York- the big apple, why is it called this? I believe New York is seen as the big apple as it is full of life and opportunities and is there for people to take for beneficial reasons 

Life- love- poison- hate- evil 

Ying and Yang- red and green apples symbolise different meanings 

Red- poison, temptation, desire, evil, manipulation, witches, Snow White, taking

Green- healthy, good, pure, giving, happy, positive, wholesome, sweet and sour 

Sphere- mars, earth, planets, the moon

Herbalism- cleanser, a symbol of good health, given to people out of kindness 

"An apple a day keeps the doctor away" - detoxing, vitamin C 

Night and day- again referring to ying and yang 

Sunshine, grass, gardens, nature, rain, refreshing 

Bruises- an apple bruises just as humans do and apples have imperfections on their skin just as humans do. They rot from the inside out as humans do when they die- this is kind of dark but it was mentioned in class and I agree with this comparison. But mainly I view the apple to be a positive symbolism for life and rebirth. 

Exercises we learned today in class were very influenced by YOSHI OIDA- "The invisible actor" he believes that theatre is rhythm, and has a beginning, a middle and an ending which in his words is called "JO HA KYU" 

He believes that your energy comes from your CHI. And that actors need a rhythm in order to help show emotions to the audience. We did a warm up which he believes in, which involved moving from side to side breathing and making the infinite 8 sign. It was very relaxing and as we did this we repeated the word "Shay" it was calm and allowed your mind to be focused on what you were doing and not what anyone else was doing.