Activity

CONTEMPLATION, MEDITATION, ACTIVATION

Number of participants

5 to 25 participants

Objectives

● To awaken the body and prepare for theatrical practice.
● To train attention to physical sensations that carry information about our emotional state.
● To foster concentration.
● To connect with the group.

Where does the activity take place within the process

Beginning

Duration

15 to 20 minutes

Material needed

Preparation

Prepare the room/space so that it is as spacious as it can be, without obstacles.

Step by step description

1. Ask participants to form a circle.

2. Ask them to find a comfortable pose (it can be on the floor, on a chair, on a yoga mat), but they should be comfortable in order not to move for 10 consecutive minutes.

3. Instruct participants to close their eyes, ask them to finalise their position and relax their body without moving it.

4. Explain to them that you will do a short concentration activity for 10 minutes (that you will count on your phone/watch) during which all will be silent and trying to gain awareness of their bodies, relax, empty their minds and reach a state of concentration and presence in the very moment. The goal is not to move, cough, speak, laugh or do anything and let the silence take over the room.

5. After the 10 minutes have passed, ask participants to remain with their eyes closed and without moving, explain that you will guide them to do a short body scanner to gain full awareness of the body state.

6. Slowly, start doing a mental scan of the body from the toes and feet, through the ankles, knees, legs, hips, bottoms, going up to the wrist, stomach, ribs, lungs and chest, fingers, wrists, arms, shoulders, neck and finally head and face. Instruct that if participants detect that some of these zones have tension or cause current pain, they can imagine all the energy collected to concentrate to this part of the body.

7. Once you have completed a full body scanner activity, ask participants to slowly open their eyes, look around and move on to the next exercise.

Closing up

You can reflect on the exercise asking:

● How did you feel during the exercise?
● What do you think it has given you?

Resources

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Comments / hints for facilitators

If you detect the need to express something from any of the participants, you can give them space for it, but this is a rather individual exercise that needs no closing up. If you decide to use it as a short opening ritual for every session which might work really well, you can progressively abandon the guidance for scanning the body and leave participants to do it themselves mentally.