p u r p l e n e r g y

6th week: A week full of puppet making (yes, I have evolved from being THE disaster and shame doing the heads... to the PUPPET[body] MASTER according to Robbie) but the most important (and bloggable) aspect of my week were the two days of workshop that we had on Thursday 12th and Friday 13th.

I remember we did something similar a couple of years ago, and I think it was Diego who directed it in one of the school play rehearsals.
Of course, this time the exercise was much more complex and harder, but the similarity was that we had to start on the floor (in position A), and imagine that the air that we breath is ENERGY that enters our bodies, but specially energy that is deposited into our centre of energy, which is located near the belly button.

At the beginning of the warm-up , we had to imagine a colour for that energy, at the beginning, I tried to imagine my energy being colour salmon (just because it is one of my favourite colours).. but although I tried.. my mind kept imagining my energy being purple.. the same colour that I had imagined it a couple of years ago... I know this may not be extremely important for my 'learning process', but...

although this is all part of the imagination and playing with our minds,

 if we really concentrate and try to feel and imagine it, can we create more energy inside our bodies in order to start working or acting?
Can our imagination be more powerful than reality?

After visualizing and feeling our energy,  the centre of energy has to start moving and controlling your body, as everything that we do on stage must be controlled from that point.Your breathing must start emitting sounds (such as vocals) [and in this part you should be moving like a fish]

The third step of the warm-up is to use your spinal cord and explore it. Your body should start growing as if you were a plant, and your breathing should start emitting louder and stronger sounds (now using consonants for example)

Finally, warming-up each part of the actor´s body is not an easy task, you have to challenge yourself, explore what can you do, and what is a real challenge or problem for your body. Try your equilibrium. explore explore explore
Now that each of the parts of your body is warmed-up, the final part of the warm-up is to EXPLORE walking in different ways, positions, levels, intentions, etc., without forgetting that everything that an actor does must be connected to his/her breathing.For example...I cannot imagine "Las Brujas de Kókoro" from "Miyuki y los Tres Demonios" without their loud, strong and heavy breathing.

Breathing really is an extremely important part of characterization and acting.
It may sound "easy", but this warm-up demands lots of creativity and imagination, and a very high concentration, which are key elements that all actors need. Apart from, of course, knowing how to use the breathing and centre of energy to perform all the actions on stage.
The actor's body needs to be used as a TOOL


Does really using our centre of energy as a starting point for every action make a difference when performing?

Does the colour we imagine for our energy have a specific meaning?

Should we practice this warm-up always before creating a character or even a play? And would the colours of the energy be different for different characters?

If it was not me, but (my character) "Queen Mathilda from the 2nd scene of the play" making the warm-up, which would be the colour for her energy?