Mask Workshop

To start off the mask workshop we had a short introduction to what we can and can’t do when performing with masks in order to maintain the illusion that masks provide, these included:

• DO NOT touch the mask
• DO NOT put on/take off the mask in the view of the audience
• DO NOT speak when wearing a mask
• DO NOT turn to the side when wearing the mask
• ALWAYS face forwards
• Use the rule of “clocking” to help the audience understand what you are trying to say

 

“Clocking” is a technique in which we use when wanting the audience to understand what we are trying to get across when not aloud to speak. This skill can be used in mime, silent movies, masks or any other time when no sound is required. After being introduced to the art of masks, we were told to improvise a small piece including both characters with masks and characters without, which would be shown at the end of the lesson. We started out by thinking of a story line that we could use in the piece, we decided on doing a scene on a train. It would start off with two masked characters already on the train and then an unmasked character (which was me) would come on and act as if they were late for an appointment. The scene would then progress from there, with different characters masked and unmasked to give us the final scene of one of the masked characters has a gun. After performing this, we realised it wasn’t to the standard we needed so we collaborated and thought up another idea. We came up with the idea of doing a piece that took roles in different social statuses, such as kings, queens and peasants. We came up with the idea to have a story which would be like a children’s fantasy story, we came up with the title “There’s a Dragon in the garden” and we unfolded the story from there. We had a king, a butler, two cleaners and 3 knights, all of which were a mixture of masked and unmasked. For another improvisation we did a scene in a doctor’s surgery, which involved 2 doctor, 2 secretaries and many patients; this was made up on the spot and I feel at this point we were getting to a high standard with the art of masks. After we did our performances  we had to create a presentation on how masks were used in different eras, we chose the eras: Ancient China; Medieval/Elizabethan; Ancient Greek; and the Italian Renaissance. We would each choose one of the eras and research it and put it into the PowerPoint presentation. When finished with our research we presented out findings to a group of year 8 students, they found it interesting but were getting restless towards the end due to the amount of facts they were being told.