​We have had a long-term relationship with The Nepal School of Social Work, starting with our first Make Do Tell Project back in 2014. Creative practice, including the visual and preforming arts, are integral to their curriculum encouraging their students to think out side the box and try new things not within their comfort zone.
 
They also have been urged to develop leadership skills that gives them the confidence to implement new social practices in their community This is very hard for students who have been through their schooling, in a very old fashioned method, studying by rote.
 
I was working with first year students, only a few months in the course. Few had performing arts experience, so a drama class was something very new for them.  Thus when I met them at the beginning of class their apprehension was palpable.
 
We started with basic games that are tried and true ways to break the ice.  After a few minutes they could not help them selves and the laughter exploded.  The simple idea behind these games is for participants to loose their nerves and find the pleasure in playing, rediscovering what they would have done as children.
 
I divide the students into groups   and I get them to create one animal per group. They only have a few minutes, so they learn to work co-operatively very quickly. They have to come up with something; good bad or indifferent and then show the rest of the group.
 
I then ask them to walk around the space leading with different parts of the body and notice if they feel different. For example feeling more confident, if they had their back straight and chest forward, or shy with their chest in.
 
We worked on projecting the voice so they could be heard clearly without being dependant on a microphone.
 
This leads to status games. Status is a huge social issue in Nepal and India. The cast system is of course very prevalent, causing entrenched discrimination.   The role- play improvisations that continue after the movement and voice exercise are able to reflect issues such as master and servant, teacher and student, wife, groom and mother –in-law They end the workshop rehearsing and then showing skits that shine a light on them.
 
The students   found the workshop very enjoyable and liberating. I hope it gives them some confidence in working with their communities.
 

As part of the drama class , the girls at the UNATTI home decided they would like to create some of their story books for the stage. They started with well know children   stories, such as Three Little Pigs and  Cinderella. These were done well , but we were more interested in them creating stories from their Nepalese folklore. With a little encouragement they came up with some beautiful stories.


What was more impressive was watching them work together. As there were about 14 , I divided them into two groups and they had about 40 minutes to recreate the story.  The older girls in the group tended to take the leadership role , deciding how it should be done, but always giving the younger ones a go, never leaving them out. I stayed out of it as much I could, I encouraged them to project their voices and taught them a little about staging. That is it. I let their imaginations fly and the results were impressive. 

At this stage they have performed the  stories for each other their house mothers and Anne and myself. The next step is for them to perform for their wider community.  

While running  workshops in vulnerable communities we have been asked to work in the local schools. They   have been in  Jainabad Gujarat, a village  near the salt pans,  in and around the brick kilns in the Kathmandu Valley, as well as a school in Bhaktapur. These schools provide children with a basic education to about year eight. They have very few resources and the classrooms, are very basic with bare walls and very old desks facing a blackboard. They remind us something out of a Charles Dickens novel. 

As they have no, or very little access or understanding of   the performing and visual arts, we have often started the program with an impromptu performance, that I begin when putting on my clown nose.  It tends to happen at a school assembly where  we are first introduced. As the students do not know who we are and what we are doing there,  It is a great way to break the ice. 


I improvise around a few themes, around a “park-bench”. Simple routines such trying to read some else’s newspaper  or falling asleep on someone’s shoulder.  I am always trying to sense the student would be willing to perform with me,  looking out for that  individual who may have the  desire to have a go on stage. There is always someone.  The students love watching one of their own. After a while I encourage them to perform with each other, and I step back and watch. When   a teacher accepts an invitation to perform, with a student as happened in Jainabad, it is pure joy for the audience.


At the community school in the brick kilns, UEMS, the organisation we were working with, are trying to raise awareness of basic hygiene, washing hands, and  brushing teeth. I was asked to   perform on this theme. The first student who performed with me was hilarious, and totally  took over the stage. It was then very easy to find other students to get up and perform. It is rare for students to come up with their own ideas, but in this tiny school in the back blocks of the Kathmandu Valley, we found some raw talent 

 The girls take more time  to perform, but we always insist that they have  a chance at getting up in front of others, and make sure the boys give them space to do so. At this school there were two girls that were particularly  good.  They  managed not to copy what I did, but made an improvisation of their own. 

This is always a great way to start in the schools, and the students become excited at what could happen next in the workshops. It shows to the students that learning fun.

The children come to the art centre, which is a backyard of the
manager’s home and chemist. It is a small courtyard with a gutter running
through the middle and a studio at one end. We arrive before 10:30 to find a
core group of children preparing the space. They at first sweep the yard then
lay down straw mats and pieces of carpet to sit on. They attend to the tasks as
if it is a ritual and they take ownership of their space, their arts  centre.

We start the class and children continue to stream in.  They range from around seven years of
age to may be fourteen or fifteen. Some of the older kids bring along their
younger siblings who they are looking after.  On some days we have had up to 60
participants.

 We tend to start with drama games; the games create laughter and
the ice break, putting everyone at ease. They also help kids cooperate with each
other and create a group.  
 
When working in countries where language is an issue, mime and
movement, is a useful starting point, to focus on simple exercises and a way to
develop the imagination   Working in groups, and using their
bodies, they create places and buildings around the town, including local   temples, and the neighbourhood well.  
 
At first the  children find it very hard to concentrate for more than a couple of minutes at a
time and we have to always find ways to keep them engaged. Many of them, the
boys, in particular find it near impossible to focus. At any opportunity they
try grabbing for things from each other and trying to hit some else. We begin to
understand how hard it must be living on the streets. We feel they want to learn
but it takes both Anne and I with the local translators, to keep them on task 
 
Over the weeks things start   to improve.  In drama we repeat a  number of the movement and mime exercises, and as they feel they are beginning   to master what is required they are starting to enjoy the process. In turn when   working in groups we notice much more cooperation.  
 
Role play starts with miming  the day to day activities we see around   their town. The potters at their
wheels, the weavers, the streets sellers the sweeper, farmers picking crops, and
the men and women who carry enormous loads on their backs.  
This leads to improvisation between different characters in their  community, including   food
sellers and customers, students and teachers. They particularly like the school
scenario, with the bad student and angry teacher. They improvise in Nepalese,
and although I do not understand, I can tell they are committed to the scene, as
they are able to create laughter, with their audiences. It is great to see their self-confidence and their confidence in each other  grow.


 
    
 


 
 

I have   been spending some of the last couple of months in Swan   Hill  Victoria running workshops at Swan Hill   Secondary College and Swan Hill Special School  preparing for a street theatre
performance at    The Fairfax Festival.  We  are working on the themes of the drought and the nearby lake,  Lake  Boga. It in corporates  improvisation mime and movement.

The   neutral mask is a training tool for actors that was developed by the acting
teacher Jacques Lecoq at his school in Paris France.  The
aims of the mask are many. It is to for the actors or students discover more
about themselves, to loose inhibitions and in doing so extend themselves
physically emotionally and creatively, by playing the mask.   
 
The  Neutral Mask has no expression. It is a full mask with no open mouth, thus it
does not speak. An actor wears the mask they stand on stage in a state of  relaxed readiness. The mask demands a sense of stage presence.
This is termed as   playing the mask  In  other-words one cannot  walk about stage with the mask on as if they are wondering around their living
room. The mask demands focus for an actor.  Every gesture an actor makes on stage  becomes significant  
 
Early exercises are how to present you on stage.  Actors with the mask on   look ahead. That is their action. We ask them to do nothing else. We observe
them, that is, how they stand. Do they stand with their weight forward or back?    We look for signs of how they may be feeling. Do they feel nervous or happy? Do
they look scary or sad?       

They start on a journey of discovery. It is a journey about their feelings, their emotions and how they present themselves to an audience. 
Through their stillness in wearing the mask students are feeling exposed,  and their feelings are revealed. Their uniqueness is opened up.  
 
Other early exercises in self- discovery include 

Waking   up and seeing the sea for first time. How do you feel when you see something,  i.e. the sea for the very first time? In playing the mask actors cannot act out
feelings simply play the moment?  
Meeting   another person for the first time. The  main philosophy in these exercises is   less is more. That is the less you and try and explain through gesture as you
  have a mask on the more you tell. It is a joyous experience watching   participants discover the mask.  
 We  than use the mask to explore, through movement, the elements. In other words
they move as water fire earth and air.   The students do not try and show  us the elements. We are much more interested in   the imaginative, physical and emotional
reactions of the students when moving as the elements colours, materials,  objects and finally animals.  
 This is the   key for an actor to create characters and imaginative situations. The mask is a  strong starting point in the creative life of the actor.  

The  commedia dell’ arte tradition dates back to 16th Century Italy. 
It has had a significant influence upon clowns, circus, physical comedy
puppetry, comic theatre and then film and television. It has influenced writers
from Shakespeare Moliere and Goldoni. 

Commedia  was improvised around a tight structure of stock characters.  They
included Harlequin Pantalone La Capitaine and Brigella. 
The scenes were on themes of everyone’s concerns including money, love
and death. They were about the hierarchy  that mirrored society at the time  time. It was satirical mocking the upper classes including doctors 
landowners and soldiers.

The Characters
Harlequin was the hero of commedia. He was very much the everyman
that audiences could identify with . He was the servant class character, who would always try to
do their best, but always failing. However he would not dwell sentimentally,  but would be ready to meet another day with purpose. 
 

Brigella   is Harlequin’s portly friend who  hates working loves eating and would always get into to trouble,   and tells  outlandish  stories to get out of trouble and blame
others.   
  Pantelone   is very, very  old but highly energetic. He is a very rich master of the house who is paranoid  that his money may be stolen. He is also very fond of young women who he would  love to bed, but of course the detest him.  The servants would always be hatching plans to steel his money.

La   Capitaine. He was a soldier to claimed to be a hero at war , where he fought of   the enemy army single handed, But would really be frightened 
of the smallest  thing. He would believe that everyone   especially women would love him but no one did and would often mock him.  

There were many other characters are many variations of them all. 
 

To play  these roles actors wore half masks. In wearing the masks actors have to
improvise with a strong physical passion. It was played facing the audience,
there was no attempted at having a fourth wall.   

Actors  have to be much more aware of how their body moves when working with masks.
There no extraneous  movement when working with masks.   
There is  no complex motivational journey for the characters to follow their wants and
desires are very black and white.  
It was very theatrical in style and    incorporated many theatrical
disciplines, including mime, acrobatics and slapstick. 
  
We don’t   need to learn commedia for the sake of it, but it reminds us of our roots and
traditions and what work well in theatre. When  I worked on this 
form of theatre of theatre I always been reminded of a number of all
slapstick vaudeville routines, the puppets of Punch and Judy  and
the silent comic films of Chaplin   Buster Keaton  and others.
Not that any one of these brilliant actors studied commedia, but it is in our
European theatre culture, it is part of us.    

In   having commedia as part of an actor’s training, it is an opportunity for
students to loose inhibitions, play big passions with and strong archetype
characters, whose motivations are clear and simple. By having an understanding
of commedia helps when rehearsing a farce or a Shakespearean comedy.