Gecko Residency Performance

After much excitement and anticipation, our cast, made up of Year 10 and 11 Drama students hosted a sharing, following their participation in a bespoke and unique residency with internationally renowned physical theatre company, Gecko.

Known for its innovative and visually striking performances that explore complex human experiences, Helen Baggett, Associate Director of Gecko, spent time working with our ensemble for two full days last weekend. Helen took them through a catalogue of Gecko’s techniques, culminating in their collaborative showcase in our Seckford Theatre on Monday evening. Through a reflection and Q&A session at the end of the sharing, the audience were invited to express their thoughts about the creative processes onstage, and pose questions to our performers.

After a brief introduction from Helen about the company, and her role within it, the task of hosting was passed over to our talented cast. They introduced each section themselves, giving the audience an idea of what they were about to see, along with a brief outline of the creative processes they engaged with on the way. Below are the introductions they wrote, and delivered throughout the sharing.

An Introduction to the Residency and ‘Preparation’

Marina – Year 10

This weekend we have taken a deep dive into Gecko’s creative process of devising physical theatre. Through games, creative tasks and discussions, we have explored many different elements of Gecko’s way of working. We have worked quickly, moving from one chapter to the next whilst banking everything we’ve learned so far.

Personally, I had a fantastic time, it was a great experience and I think we will all take something away from this workshop to use in the future.

Bay – Year 10

This evening, we are opening the doors to our creative processes to give you an insight into what we created over this weekend, and how. Between each piece, we will introduce and explain what it is you are about to see and the steps we took to create it. This is less of a production with a definitive start and end, but more so a showcase of everything we achieved in just 48 hours.

Annie – Year 11

Gecko use the word ‘preparation’ instead of ‘warmup’ as this is a time to prepare our minds as well as our bodies. At the weekend, we did a preparation at the beginning of each day to focus and get into our ‘Gecko Zone’. We talked about athleticism, generosity and focus, changing our mindsets from rational to creative, whilst using our full body. As a group we felt this connected us, bringing us together as one.

An Introduction to Emotional Physicality

Cleo – Year 11

For this part of our performance, we wanted to explore emotional physicality. We learnt that our breath, posture, eye contact and gestures are key to explore emotion. We started by walking around the stage exploring ways of using our body and playing with the space around us. Using a specific emotion, we created our own physical phrases. We then fused a few individual phrases together to create a sentence of movement. We split into two groups, and made some decisions about timing, spacing, and order.

Ella B – Year 10

Next, we adapted this sentence of movement upon receiving ‘Secret Instructions’ from Helen. These instructions encouraged us to use the space, and our bodies in both pedestrian and non-pedestrian ways. The pedestrian meaning ‘normal’, what you might see people doing in their day-to-day lives, and the non-pedestrian leaning towards the abstract, expanding our artists’ palettes to feature shades we haven’t considered previously.

Phoebe – Year 10

Through this exploration of the ordinary and extraordinary, along with different emotional prompts, we further developed this sequence of movement. The contrasting scenes you are about to see were carefully thought out and can be interpreted in many different ways, a classic Gecko ideology. Our ‘Secret Instructions’ consisted of directions such as ‘make your movements big and slow’ or ‘make your movements small and fast’. The result is three distinct pieces, all using the same original movement, which we will show you now.

An Introduction to Object Manipulation

Amelia – Year 11

On Saturday afternoon, we started exploring object manipulation and an introduction to puppetry. We discussed bringing objects to life and used oranges to introduce us to this process.

Toby – Year 11

The orange is an object we are all familiar with, something we see sitting in a fruit bowl, something we just snatch, peel and consume with no thought. We, however, took the time to really observe our oranges, to build a connection between us and the object. We then moved with our oranges exploring a range of interactions, fixed points, moments of breath, stillness, and rapid movement. Personally, I found this movement freeing, almost an escape from the outside world.

Max – Year 10

Following on from this individual exploration, we were put into pairs, and given simple instructions to help us create a duet with our oranges. We were encouraged once again to explore these objects in an extraordinary, non-pedestrian way, finding experimental ways for our oranges to be animated.

Will – Year 11

Next, we swapped out the oranges for everyday objects, working these new additions into our existing duets. Despite not having an emotional steer for these duets, our thoughts and movements began taking on powerful stories, accompanied by music.

Amelia – Year 11

Our next experiment featured these everyday objects grouped together, which we worked with in new groups. These grouped objects created an environment which revolved around one protagonist. We began by making a freezeframe of the environment, or the room, and then we made the room breathe using our objects.

Toby – Year 11

This experiment took inspiration from Gecko’s production of The Overcoat, a dark narrative following one protagonist, where objects in his life become animated. They physically move and breathe around him, enacting a extraordinary connection between himself and his environment, which we have tried to emulate with these three scenes.

An Introduction to Journeys

Ella E – Year 10

On Sunday morning, we explored the theme of journeys. We had a discussion about what a journey might be, and how people go on journeys for lots of different reasons. We used suitcases as a starting point for our next creation of movement, playing with journeys within the simple context of getting from A to B.

Seth – Year 10

Following this chapter of ‘serious play’, we formed groups that were directed to create a journey across the stage. We were given four words to include in this journey: Swoop, Reach, Look Back, and Breath. We were given total freedom over where to use these words, our pace, and our use of space. Such vague words triggered many different responses, so each journey became totally unique.

Izzy – Year 10

We used the skills that we built up over the past two days to create these journeys. We investigated different ways of performing these journeys as an ensemble. We experimented with entrances, staggering each group’s performance, and all performing at the same time. This encouraged us to consider our pace of movement, and taught us how to interact with other performers in the space. You will now see these two versions, depicting the theme of ‘Journeys’.