Leading and Following Exercise

We also did an exercise, in which we had to close our eyes and be led by our partner around the room. I was led by Sarah and they had to try and disorientate us, by turning us in circles, making us duck and go on tip-toe. We had to put our complete trust in our partner, which is just how the couple would feel in, "The Flea" having to trust each other completely.

We then swapped, so I started leading Sarah and as we were leading them we had to start describing in their ear a story. We had to whisper and describe a journey they were taking. I described to Sarah that she was in a long, dark tunnel. She couldn't see anything except a dot of distant light in front of her. There was a terrible smell and she was treading in smelly, disgusting, wet, slimy things on the ground. When we had to feed-back to the class, she explained that she felt really disgusting and started to worry about where she was putting her feet. I also made her duck through the whole thing, so she really felt like she was in a tunnel.

The whole point of this exercise was to make people realise how important their other senses are. We were considering blindfolding our audience for at least a part of our performance, so we were exploring how effective sensory deprivation can be, but also what it takes away from our piece and the limitations it could give us.