Students enjoy stage combat
Students at the Belton Freshman Center learn how to do stage combat during their theatre class.
Chloe Jackson, Reporter
March 26, 2010
Filed under Student Life
Students enjoyed a break from their regular acting class structure in Joshua Turk’s Freshmen theatre class this week. The students learned a unique type of acting, called stage combat, which is unique to the syllabus of Belton’s Acting classes. The acting class teacher, who is also involved in the production of BHS’s theatre department and Debate & Forensics, introduced Cliff Turner to the class, also known as “Doc”, who is brought in each year to give the students a taste of how to do stage combat.
After being introduced to the rules of stage combat, including body control, vocals, knap sounds, pace, imagination, energy, and most of all safety, students headed down to the gym for tai-chi warm-ups and practice.
Turner said that the key to stage combat is safety and without the safety element, it would just be fighting.
” Keeping everybody safe is the most important thing. If people aren’t safe, it is just combat. It’s only stage combat when everyone is cooperating, communicating, and controlling themselves”, said Turner.
The goal of stage combat is to make it look identical to actual combat, minus the bruises and actual contact. When the students finally get the hang of stage combat moves, which include cross punches and parrys-which involve the use of sticks and simulate sword fighting- they are allowed to get into partners to create scenes for their final performance at the end of the week.
Freshman Emily Watts says she likes the fact that they are able to act with others while performing stage combat.
“It’s a lot more interactive,” said Watts.
Although students may see it as simply a fun and exciting break for regular classes, learning stage- combat is great for feet and arm coordination.
Freshman Jedrick Fossati says that he class is more exciting while learning stage combat for a few choice reasons, which involve the use of sticks.
“It’s more interesting because we can play with sticks”, Fossati said of the class during stage combat week, referring to the sticks used for swords during their practices. He also added that it gives him something to look forward to at school.
Overall, students looked forward to this week for good reason. But although the students love doing stage combat, they should be careful on school property for fear of being written up for fighting, since the skills look so realistic.
Freshman Alyssa Winters sums up the week well, stating that she liked the activities and they were entertaining.
“It was a lot of fun and I loved it!” said Winters.
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