Performance class – Choral Work

[I put this on Facebook originally, but decided it was better off here.  I may have already mentioned the choral work, but I think this sums it up better]

Possibly the strangest theatre game I've ever played. Called "choral work," we stand in clumps and all try to follow each other. Nobody leads. If someone coughs, it's amplified into a mass coughing fit. Someone laughs, and everyone bursts into hysterics. A scratch turns into everyone fiercely itching, then scratching each other, then tickling each other.

I've been part of groups that start m

arching, bowing and chanting, turn to mosh pits, crawling and rolling. Today, my group howled like wolves and hooted like owls.

Now, take that, and add concepts of space: 'near' (not touching), 'skin' distance (touching), and 'bone' distance (a kind of boiling motion of everyone stacking on top of each other and falling to support others). Within the group, everyone tumbles over and around each other, losing sense of self into a mob of motion and contact.