Laban Effort Work

I got an note in rehearsals today about the way I moved as Don  Pedro. "Don Pedro never runs, he's a cool guy, he takes his time". This made me take some time to work by myself on the way Don Pedro moves. I did this by playing around with Laban Efforts. I first of all thought about words that I would associate with the character. In the original text he is a prince, so I though about royalty, regalness a sense of majesty.

Light, Sustained and Direct. Glide. This was imdediately the effort I thought of and the one that was definetly best suited. Don Pedro doesn't waft about aimlessly, nor is he indirect, he is straight to the point, he doens't waste time bubmling about. He may be a soldier but leaves the real fighting to his men. This means he doesn't have to be rock hard, he can afford to be light and not bulky. He is consistent, you can rely on this man for anything. He is not staccato or flicky, he is constant.

With all this I decided to go into a room and just move about the space "gliding" going as abstract as possible, finding the effort within my own body. Once I felt I could identify with the feeling of glide, I then got into character as Don Pedro and started pairing some key words with the movement. E.g. "I will assume thy part in some disguise". This meant that I was now pairing the movement with text. I began to feel really rooted and comfortable with the way Don Pedro moved. This exercise was really useful because I now felt more rooted as my character and more confident with my movement choices on stage.