Clips and Phrases

Its been a while since I wrote about swinging a sword, hell it feels like it has been too long since I took up a blade. The body starts to long for it after awhile, you feel this sort of tug on your person when you walk past a rack full of weapons.

The spring is when we start to build the fights that make up our summer shows. While many in our troupe are satisfied just going out and performing a quick improvisational fight, the really dedicated build their fights. A well built fight can dazzle the audience and push the performance beyond simple “guy swinging a sword”, into an amazing ballet of armor and steel. Now in order to build a good fight, you first approach it as a series of phrases or verses. Each phrase consists of a series of moves that you and your fight partner build together. Starting slowly at first, you exchange blows to create something that flows and looks natural. Once you have one solid phrase built, you move on. Creating a larger fight around it.

Tambo took some footage of Nedia (the surliest elf) and I doing just this. Here we are rehearsing the opening phrase of what should become a crowd pleasing fight. (11.6 MB Quicktime)