Exercises for Rebel Artists: Pages 54-68

Ice Breakers

1. Trust Fall: "Begin by walking randomly across and around this space (with your eyes open this time), criss-crossing in between your colleagues while making eye contact. The aim is to repeatedly change direction and speed without colliding with each other. After a couple of minutes each person in the group begins to call out their own name clearly, slowly, one at a time and in no particular order. Immediately after shouting your name you should begin to fall to the ground stiff like a board, and those around you must respond instantly, and catch you before you hit the floor. Once your immediate colleagues have helped you “recover,” the next person will call out his/ her name and the exercise continues. The entire group is responsible for catching their colleagues before they hit the floor."
2. The Gaze: Every member in the group must pair up into twos. Once everyone is paired up the room should be quiet and each member will stair into the others' eyes. The goal is very simple: to be present and open , to express a basic existential message with your gaze that goes something like, "We happen to be here today, to coincide on this strange planet and it’s OK. We are here together sharing a moment in life and art. It’s a pleasure to be here with you."
3. Poetic Ethnography: "Begin by walking around the space and find a partner, as before, preferably someone with whom you are not too familiar, and who is “different” from you in obvious ways (race, gender, age, body type). Gravitate towards that person and intuitively discover if your desire to partner is reciprocated. If not, don’t take it personally and continue walking around until you find someone else. Partners should stand facing each other 2 to 3 feet apart. Decide with your partner your initial roles within the experiment. One of you will be the ethnographer and the other the specimen. Specimen and ethnographer are metaphors that describe your role in the exercise – the person in the role of ethnographer does not "perform" a scientist in the theatrical sense. Rather you are both your actual selves in this time and place, exploring each other as “human artifact”. This verbal negotiation should be kept as brief as possible. You will reverse roles on completion of the exercise. Once the roles have been established, certain basic guidelines should be articulated: ethnographers should try to be compassionate, sensitive, and truly open in their exploration of their specimen. In this process of negotiation of the borders of intimacy, it is important to be adventurous but always respectful. Ethnographers should not examine areas that may be considered taboo (i.e., breasts, genitals). If ethnographers examine areas that might still feel awkward or uncomfortable to the specimen (i.e., the feet, the inside of the mouth, the back of the ears, nostrils, knees, etc.), the specimen can simply give a hand signal for them to stop. The ethnographer will understand that the specimen is not consenting"
4. Human Puppets and Human Doppelgangers: "Try to partner with someone who is about your height. Begin with the exploration of your partner’s body as described in the poetic ethnography. At a certain point, after manipulating their body for a few minutes, return your partner (with his/ her eyes closed) to a standing neutral position. Now, stand behind him/ her and carefully press your torso and legs against the back and legs of your partner, your arms under his/ her arms so that the palms of your partner’s hands are resting on the tops of your hands. Slowly begin to transfer the energy and impulses of your movement to your partner’s body. In turn he/ she should collaborate by facilitating this transference of movement, becoming an active participant in the creation of an unusual choreography . Your movements initiate the movements of your partner. In a sense he/ she is dancing for you and responding to the movement phrases you are imprinting onto his/ her body. He/ she is your dancing doppelganger. The “human puppeteers” can eventually engage the entire body of their partner. You can move the torso, head, shoulders, and hips using your own hands to direct your partner. Make sure to engage their arms, legs, hips, and shoulders or for smaller movements the hands, fingers, or feet. Use your whole body to direct your partner. Occasionally you can check out other duets for inspiration. The “puppet” is an active participant and should never stop moving, continually reinterpreting and stylizing the movements and impulses given by their partner. Eventually, when you have imprinted at least four movement phrases onto your partner, we ask you to step away and move to the front of your human puppet and observe the movements you have created. Now you can think about how you might want to develop or change this movement."

Instructions found from:
Gómez Peña, Guillermo; Sifuentes, Roberto (2013-03-01). Exercises for Rebel Artists: Radical Performance Pedagogy (Kindle Locations 1090-1103). Taylor and Francis. Kindle Edition.