CAE - LIBERTY - A world of dreams?

Reading aloud exercise

Together with the director, the students read aloud a contemporary play "Un monde rêvé?" (“A world of dreams?”) written by Eric Beauvillain in 2007, which asks questions about freedom, the kind of society we want and how we can work towards a better world.

Movement and gesture exercises 

The instruction is to cover the space and then at a given moment to perform an exaggerated gesture, which the director asks them to define on cue. The students then form a chorus, with one of them standing back to suggest gestures/movements (arms, legs) that the others have to perform behind him, stuck together as a group, taking care that the group can see him and can perform the gestures and movements they have to reproduce.

Voice exercise

The students have to form a chain in the classroom, making sure that everyone can see them. Everyone thinks of a short sentence, adjusting the volume depending on the recipient's place.

Finally, the text "Un monde rêvé?" (“A world of dreams?) is divided between the students, in individual lines, in pairs, in groups of 3 or 4, or in choir.

At the end of the session, the students do an “Italian rehearsal” during which they do not "act" but speak their lines without using tone or rhythm, with their lines in hand, in order to memorise the different places and organise the movements to coordinate them.

A variety of exercises enable the students to work on their voice, their body in space and their place in a choir. The reading of the text, the distribution of the lines and the Italian-style rehearsal bring the group together, starting the individual work of memorising the text and initiating a dialogue between the students and the director on the staging of the text.