On 3rd Sep, 2015, we had our third lecture on American Theater. We all had been told to come to the Staff Hall of the college. Well, we were there well before time and waited outside. Once we were allowed in, we discovered the Staff Hall to be reasonably spacious and comfortable. Ms. Asma Niaz took the attendance and demanded us to call out our names in a pretty audible and loud manner. she told us that she will be recording the entire session and asked if we were comfortable with it and almost all of us were fine with it.
After the roll call, we moved the furniture of the Hall to the corners on Dr. Erica Hughes' and Dr. Boyd Branch's instructions. Dr. Erica made us all stand in a circle and we all did some exercises with her. The exercises and moves apparently seemed odd to me but once I was into them I realized the fact that how these moves enabled us to be less self-conscious of ourselves and to let go of control and be more free and accepting. After this, we were told to move around the Hall at varied speeds, taking somebody as our defender and maintaining a distance from that person and then thinking anybody to be our enemy and to maintain a distance from her. After that we had to take our friend to an imaginary tour to our bedroom.
Then followed the part that I enjoyed the most; the huggy bear game. Dr. Boyd Branch told us that when he will say "Hug One" it will mean hug yourself, "Hug Two" means two people will hug each other and so on. The hugging partners were to be chosen randomly, whatever person you catch hold of. we all enjoyed this thoroughly. To me this activity was very very significant because it played a major role in breaking the ice between us. During the game we were frantically looking for partners, irrespective of the fact whether we know them or not. We immediately developed a level of comfort with each other.
That followed with yet another interesting activity. The last person we hugged became our partner for this game. We had to assume the roles of hypnotist and hypnotized to control the other person and after some time, the roles were switched. Dr. Boyd branch told us to make a perfect circle with equal division of spaces between us. We were asked which role we preferred to have, either the hypnotist or the hypnotized. Interestingly, some people said that they preferred the role of being hypnotized because in that role they had to just follow, while for others the hypnotist's role was better as it gave them certain control over the other person.
Finally, we all sat down in the same circle. Dr. Boyd branch told us to play improvisation game with a purpose to make your friend or partner look good. He demonstrated it as well. The idea was that one has to accept the gift with all positivity, no matter how useless or lame the gift was. Dr. Branch encouraged us to have some sort of physical connection while accepting the gift, like a high five or a hug.
According to me, all the activities that we did were significant in the sense that they brought us to a level where we were comfortable with ourselves and with each other. It developed a sort of familiarity and openness among us. We seemed to be more accepting and less aware of the differences. Thumbs up to our mentors, and ourselves.
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