:: Monday, June 2– Scene List 2::

Saturday May 10 – workshop 6
Tuesday May 13 – workshop 7
Saturday May 17 – workshop 8

Unfortunately I couldn’t make it to workshop 6 on Saturday 10th and workshop 7 on Tuesday 13th, because of sniffling with the flu and a clash in time with another project…. It put me out of whack a little with the progression of things but never fear I didn’t miss a thing….

I have just finished watching the video’s from both these workshops and I felt like I was there anyway…your energy radiated through the screen and you all look so good on camera. I can’t wait to see some of you up on the big screen in the film!

I think workshop’s 6 and 7 really proved who is serious about acting. It’s obvious you all want to be performers and that’s why you are doing this project, but it’s clearer now who the ‘serious’ ones are. I started to feel a little nervous though watching the video tape from these workshops because as I said, you all performed so well on screen and I know that it will be really difficult to cast for the film…you’re all doing so well and each and every person brings a different skill and perspective to each scene you perform. It’s clear that we’ll have to do some serious auditioning and I can already tell you it is going to be a ‘fully hard’ decision to make when it comes to, who plays what roles in the film….. In the end, I know we will all be happy with the outcome… I can feel it in my bones more so then ever – WE ARE GOING TO MAKE AN AWESOME FILM AND THE INTERNATIONAL AUDIENCE WHO WATCH IT WILL BE BEDAZZLED BY YOU!

Anyway I’ve back tracked a little but I want to say a couple of things about the workshop on Tuesday May 13…. It was actually a really interesting process to watch you guys at home on my TV, rather than be at the workshop space physically. I felt lik e I was getting to know you in a completely different light…. Because I am so involved and intensly watching every blink of an eye, every facial expression tell me something about you, and I’m listening to your voices to catch every word that comes from somewhere within you…. every week… I actually don’t get much of a chance to experience you guys as just ‘people’ with no connection to me and my work on the project. And, you know what, as ‘people’, you are probably the most interesting, dynamic, inspiring and unafraid folk I have ever worked with. It’s hard to put in words, how it feels to experience something that you are so ‘inside’ of from the outside… I know you guys get what I mean???

Listening to how you have personally evolved through your involvement in the project is simply beautiful…. "Since I’ve been coming here,I’ve built my confidence up…you all inspire me to come back here each week", says Ahmad.

And, then there’s Anthony who at the beginning of the workshops didn’t really seem to have much of an affiliation with other young Arabs and now after five weeks of seeing the crew only twice, he says… "It’s a real eye-opener. I haven’t experienced as much as you guys have in terms of the whole Arab thing…. It’s good to see what other young people from Arabic backgrounds experience that I don’t".

It is just so nice to hear this constantly, to see really solid friendships forming, to feel a rapidly growing sense of kinship and pride. You can almost smell the essence of solidarity and communal strength when you enter the room (and there’s been quite a few people who have visited the workshops to check us out who have had a similar reaction)… So far we’ve had Cinzia Guaraldi - Associate Producer on the project and one of the Producer’s of the spanish feature film La Spagnola, Kay Donovan – an ABC documentary maker, Alicia Talbot – Director of Urban Theatre projects and wait for it…… Nico Lathouris – dramaturg/ actor extroadinaire who’s now working on the next Mad Max film….you probably know him best from his work on the ABC hit series Heartbreak High. He left the workshop saying…. "This is really good stuff…really good"!

So that was Tuesday from my lounge room…. Before I knew it Saturday arrived and it was great to be back out at BYDS on a sunny South West afternoon. I missed you all heaps!

After a couple of warm up games with Claudia, TJ Steps up the pace and asks the crew to experiment with movement, physicality and emotion a bit more…. "I’m trying to get you to go back to the most essential thing that needs to be said – say just that and ‘do’ the rest… I want you to focus on the emotion in the scene…you know mostly in life we don’t explain everything all the time, we just show it", he says.

I should probably tell you that we are at a point now where everyone is fighting to perform first….there is definitely a sense of competition and there is no fear to step up to TJ’s challenge. The story’s peformed are based on a writing exercise we did at the beginning of the workshop…. ‘write about the break-up of a relationship…. Could be a parent or friend….Write about the moment you knew the relationship would never be the same’

We see some very silent scenes (the crew are only allowed to speak twice and they have to simply ‘do’ the rest of the scene and make physical/ emotional - the missing links. In the second round of these scenes, TJ gives the crew back their speaking powers and they flesh out some of the stories with more words now and definitely more action…. especially courtesy of Doaa – YOU GO GIRL!

She was fooling us all making us think she’s the shy type and doesn’t really have much to say…well HA! Doaa’s performance here was phenomenal…she picks up the phone and calls her boyfriend (Ali)… "I’ve got something really important to tell you – I need you to come over now". Ali arrives… "What’s wrong with you, you are always sooking about something…what is it now ha… oh I don’t care anyway I’m going" AND KABOOM – Doaa slips into her character like a feather sliding down a silk sheet….. seamless, spectacular, SPECIAL…real special. With her eyes piercing Ali’s, she says… "What do mean you don’t care…you sit back down now…I need to talk to you and you should listen…. I can’t believe you react like that…what if I was pregnant…is that how you would react". Ali keeps up with the "you’re a sook" line and Doaa keeps the tension there, not backing down. She probes Ali more and more. And then the bubble bursts. She takes a stance. Doaa stands up, stern, proud and completely unafraid to show her performative wares and she says this next line as if she were a jagged knife stabbing right through the centre of Ali’s heart, "Well if you really want to know – my Dad just died".

The tension circulated the room and hit each one of us slap in the face. We sat aghast, shocked, admirable and clapping for what seemed like a lifetime, because the scene was just so strong and Doaa took the lead beautifully – WELL DONE team – a great workshop.

Look our for discussion about religion coming in the next couple of installments…it came up today and has reared up both it’s beautiful and ugly head a few times already… how does religion affect/ enhance us young Arabs…you’ll be surprised. Look out for a hearty discussion on this one…it’s coming I can feel it!

:: Patrick 2:15 PM [+] :: ...