Box of emotions

Then we move on to some prep work.  We play ‘box of emotions’ where a box is full of emotions written on tickets and the participant blindly chooses and emotion and then has to enact it using only their physicality – the audience have to guess the emotion or discuss how the emotion is best represented if it is not possible to guess. Some of the emotions are harder than others. The differences between agitation and irritation for example are quite subtle.

This exercise encourages the performer to use only their facial expressions and body to communicate. However, we also find that status and position in space or in relation to objects also helps communicate emotion. Holiday pictures, couples camping in the 1970s, shots of scenery that are meaningless to anyone who wasn't on the trip at the time.

This exercise prepares the performers for the following day's workshop which will generate material that could feed into the performance.