Looking back over Third Bite’s last year, we’ve done some fascinating workshops led by members of the group. We’ve all come to dance from different backgrounds with unique skills, and it’s been so interesting to explore and share them between ourselves.

In October and December Dianne Hancock, who has extensive experience of working within theatre, led us in two mask workshops. She gave us some background on the history and variety of masks in performance and brought in her own wonderful collection for us to try out.

We quickly discovered the magic of masks and we were all struck by their power to instantly create character and atmosphere.

“It was fascinating how the different masks created different behaviours in their wearers - louder or quieter, stiller or more movement.”

Dianne often spoke directly to the mask to provoke us to action and interaction, perhaps giving us a simple storyline to follow. Often with very little movement, and of course no facial expression, the characters “woke up” and took on a life of their own, they squabbled, teased, despaired, joked. The half-masks also allowed us to use verbal sounds, rather than words, to add to their characters.

“I felt like I had license to become someone else, like the mask protected me.”

And interestingly, the experience also showed us how we might explore the qualities we discovered in the workshop within our own performance work with Third Bite….