Tableaus

Working towards our Wayang Kulit (Balinese shadow puppets) project, we worked with Tableaus.
Tableaus are frozen scenes often with interesting and meaningful poses. The four aspects we need to bare in mind with tableaus are Balance, Line, Mass and Symmetry/Asymmetry.

Balance: Literal balance and Visual balance. Literal balance is the balance between each other and Visual balance is the balance as a whole group.
Line: Is it static (unmoving)? or is it dynamic (moving)?
Mass: It can be the positive mass (in) or it can be the negative mass (around).
Symmetry/Asymmetry: is it informal or formal?

We were introduced to this with tasks; With our bodies, we head to form letters, numbers and objects. For example, the letter 'C', the number 11, a flower pot etc...
Once we got the hang of the frozen scenes, we were given a harder task (working with the whole class (5 people)). We were to create a tableau based on a theme, and our chosen theme was "loss". As a group, we exchanged ideas and the majority seemed to prefer the idea of the "loss of somebody dear." Our tableau was set at a funeral.
We had one person (Sophia) to lie down in the middle, three other people (Maria, Mei and Sara) to kneel behind Sophia at a wide semi-circle, with Mei in the middle and we had one person (myself) to stand at the back (in the middle) to be the priest.
We tried to balance the stage as you can see in the description above. We also worked with levels, to show relationships and status as well. The three kneeling down obviously were close to the person who died. So their level is closer to the level in which Sophia was at, as opposed to the priest who has high status in a church or other sanctuary of the sort.

Tableaus can be used in productions or shows to show an important scene. It also allows the audience to let the plot "sink in."