We began the piece with our duets/triplets which had been set up like an art exhibition, ours however being live art, so that the audience could walk around at their own pace. This was good because it allowed them to choose what they wanted to look at and gave them enough time to form their own opinions, giving them their own individual experience. The exhibition was able to show a range of different works and the contrasting themes of each piece, as well as how each group displayed them, meaning that the audience wouldn't become bored and if the didn't like one piece they could move on.
However I did think that each performance space could've been larger and more protected because many of the pieces involved some mess of paint, water or jelly etc. which was cleaned up properly and made the main space dangerous to work in. This could've also been solved with more efficient cleaning method between the transitions.
I found our triplet worked well because instead of being on repeat it was an endurance piece, meaning that each member of audience would experience it differently as it was constantly changing.
I thought that our class' piece went very well, expressing a clear theme of the nature-nurture debate as well as it being easy to follow. According to the audience they felt that they were clearly guided to wear they need to be, as there was always an actor ready to move them to their next position. I also found the humour was largely appreciated because all the topics had been quite serious and morbid, meaning that our representation of sperm fertilising the egg to the mission impossible theme tune offered them some light relief and kept them engaged.
In our piece I thought that the latex gloves helped to show our characters as scientists and showed the investigation into our debate. The head torches also helped to do this but I found they were an interesting way to light up the space. This lighting meant that some parts were in shadow at different points and it was always clear which I thought helped to represent the debate suggesting it is not a clear cut argument. However the head torches were unreliable, getting broken and having the batteries dying which meant in some performances it lost the full effect. So next time I would make sure that we have more batteries and head torches than need just in case. The transitions between when we need them switched on also varied and often having them fall off our heads suggesting that we needed more time to rehearse with them and focus as a group on what we need to do when.
I found it difficult to use the whole space due to where the audience was positioned but I felt that if we had certain moments could've been held for longer, creating a more poignant meaning. Specifically I found that the space could've been utilised better in the sperm bit because it would've given Malachi more time to move into position and let the track play for the full time it was supposed to.
I also thought that we needed to maintain a better focus because, although we'd managed to do this for the first two shows and most of the third, when someone forgot their line people giggled. I believe it was down to tiredness but think that even though it was near the end focus should've been withheld.
I thought during the piece when questions were being asked to the audience we projected well, especially during the first set of scientist question but I thought this was helped because it was high energy and enthusiastic. However when, at the end, we had to repeat the question is a sombre, thoughtful tone it thought the projection and energy dropped which meant the audience didn't witness the full effect as they couldn't hear what was said.
Overall I though the performance went really well and as it was experimental felt that it was better that we hadn't over rehearsed, keeping the acting and movement instinctive, making it better to watch for the audience.
When the entire performance finished I thought it was nice at the end when we joined together moving as one whilst performing boto. I found that it showed our discipline and focus as we were able to work together.
Saturday, 21 February 2015
Thursday, 19 February 2015
Workshop 6 - The Whole Year Piece
For this section we created a piece, that was later cut, that saw all seventy five of us simultaneously reacting to one stimulus. The idea was that we would instinctively, as a whole, react to an unknown stimulus question. However this was later adapt to asking one person and the rest of us instinctively following them.
To work instinctively we were asked not to think about what we were doing and just do which often resulted in physical movement that bridged on being unsafe, suggesting that although needing to not think there does need to be an awareness of your surroundings and the people around. I felt that with this element of danger and the hard extremes people were pushing themselves, it mirrored Artaud's ideas of "cost of the actor". I personally found myself getting incredibly tired afterwards and found that the more tired I became, the more instinctively I started to work as I couldn't be bothered to use my brain. It made my movements and reactions almost animalistic which I feel for an audience is much more appealing to watch as it appears natural.
I found that to begin I struggled to fully commit and work instinctively, but as soon as I began to relax responding to what the others were doing I stopped thinking and didn't fully remember what I did whilst we attempted it. I then really enjoyed it, feeling that I could truly express myself because I didn't have any worries about being self conscious and that I wasn't thinking. I also felt that some people tried to force an idea or movement on the rest of us, suggesting that we weren't all working as a team and not doing it for the audiences but for themselves because it didn't appear naturally.
At the beginning I found it was interesting as we all reacted as one to the different questions as it challenged us to become in-tuned with everyone else, which is incredibly useful within theatre. I also noticed how everyone, including myself, struggled not to be selfish and react how we please, as it progressed learning that we needed to react as a whole, almost waiting for the whole group's decision.
To work instinctively we were asked not to think about what we were doing and just do which often resulted in physical movement that bridged on being unsafe, suggesting that although needing to not think there does need to be an awareness of your surroundings and the people around. I felt that with this element of danger and the hard extremes people were pushing themselves, it mirrored Artaud's ideas of "cost of the actor". I personally found myself getting incredibly tired afterwards and found that the more tired I became, the more instinctively I started to work as I couldn't be bothered to use my brain. It made my movements and reactions almost animalistic which I feel for an audience is much more appealing to watch as it appears natural.
I found that to begin I struggled to fully commit and work instinctively, but as soon as I began to relax responding to what the others were doing I stopped thinking and didn't fully remember what I did whilst we attempted it. I then really enjoyed it, feeling that I could truly express myself because I didn't have any worries about being self conscious and that I wasn't thinking. I also felt that some people tried to force an idea or movement on the rest of us, suggesting that we weren't all working as a team and not doing it for the audiences but for themselves because it didn't appear naturally.
At the beginning I found it was interesting as we all reacted as one to the different questions as it challenged us to become in-tuned with everyone else, which is incredibly useful within theatre. I also noticed how everyone, including myself, struggled not to be selfish and react how we please, as it progressed learning that we needed to react as a whole, almost waiting for the whole group's decision.
Workshop 5/6 - Finishing Group Devising
In this lesson we finished devising the group piece, as well as refining and changing certain parts.
To begin we replaced the foetuses growing up, with a similar idea, however instead having torches on our heads and a sheet covering us to we explore the "newly found" movements of our body parts, predominantly our hands. This idea is to replicate an ultra sound scan because the dark shadows bare a likeness to the procedure. We hope to encourage some audience participation as they're asked to touch their hands across the sheet like a mother would whilst having a scan, giving them a more sensory experience which will help to keep them engaged and hopefully create a larger impact, causing them to think and evaluate the debate. Again the idea focuses on the nature side of the debate.
Next we also added in a short transition into the mother-son scene, where as foetuses we are seeing/using a part of our body for the first time before growing tall and pretending to play as planes. As well as being a helpful tool to guide our audience out of the performance space, it enforces the idea of childhood and how people's differing childhoods can change who they become; a key argument for the nurture side of the debate.
To follow the mother-son section, that we created in the previous lesson, our group split into two and we had to devise a short scene surrounding the idea of puppets, again highlighting nurture. My group focused on Will as the puppet, guiding him physically in order to represent how children can be brought up and encouraged to do/believe certain things. The physicality of controlling his body and movement, is an exaggerated literal portrayal of parental influence moulding a child into what they want and what they do. I found this to work really nicely because it enforced how easily it was to do what adults say and not do anything for yourself, just doing what you've been taught and not discovering anything for yourself.
After this, we used articles based around the nature-nurture debate to create short images/pieces, eg. 9/11, 7/7, Lee Rigby's murder, the Jamie Bulger case, GCSE results, homophobia in Mosul, Iraq, a blind man learning to ride a bike. We used the range of articles to explore both the good and bad results of nurture, trying to lighten the mood with the positive stories for the audience as they listen to the over head recordings of Michael Adebolajo, a 9/11 voice mail and a news report on GCSE results. We also wanted to suggest that the nature-nurture debate isn't just negative and showing them visually I thought the audience might find it easier to picture and relate. Tia, Mia, Shayde and I looked into a picture of the 9/11 attacks, with the victims walking from the wreckage coughing. We chose to to replicate this picture by bringing it to life through coughs and slight movement, because we felt that we didn't want to over play it, making sure that it remained respectful.
For the final bit we went back repeating the beginning formation, breathing in a more exhaustive way to fit the sombre tone of the piece. I found that this would allow the audience too reflect on what they had just watched and form a solid opinion on the debate. It also just have an solid ending which could then flow into the final group section.
To begin we replaced the foetuses growing up, with a similar idea, however instead having torches on our heads and a sheet covering us to we explore the "newly found" movements of our body parts, predominantly our hands. This idea is to replicate an ultra sound scan because the dark shadows bare a likeness to the procedure. We hope to encourage some audience participation as they're asked to touch their hands across the sheet like a mother would whilst having a scan, giving them a more sensory experience which will help to keep them engaged and hopefully create a larger impact, causing them to think and evaluate the debate. Again the idea focuses on the nature side of the debate.
Next we also added in a short transition into the mother-son scene, where as foetuses we are seeing/using a part of our body for the first time before growing tall and pretending to play as planes. As well as being a helpful tool to guide our audience out of the performance space, it enforces the idea of childhood and how people's differing childhoods can change who they become; a key argument for the nurture side of the debate.
To follow the mother-son section, that we created in the previous lesson, our group split into two and we had to devise a short scene surrounding the idea of puppets, again highlighting nurture. My group focused on Will as the puppet, guiding him physically in order to represent how children can be brought up and encouraged to do/believe certain things. The physicality of controlling his body and movement, is an exaggerated literal portrayal of parental influence moulding a child into what they want and what they do. I found this to work really nicely because it enforced how easily it was to do what adults say and not do anything for yourself, just doing what you've been taught and not discovering anything for yourself.
After this, we used articles based around the nature-nurture debate to create short images/pieces, eg. 9/11, 7/7, Lee Rigby's murder, the Jamie Bulger case, GCSE results, homophobia in Mosul, Iraq, a blind man learning to ride a bike. We used the range of articles to explore both the good and bad results of nurture, trying to lighten the mood with the positive stories for the audience as they listen to the over head recordings of Michael Adebolajo, a 9/11 voice mail and a news report on GCSE results. We also wanted to suggest that the nature-nurture debate isn't just negative and showing them visually I thought the audience might find it easier to picture and relate. Tia, Mia, Shayde and I looked into a picture of the 9/11 attacks, with the victims walking from the wreckage coughing. We chose to to replicate this picture by bringing it to life through coughs and slight movement, because we felt that we didn't want to over play it, making sure that it remained respectful.
For the final bit we went back repeating the beginning formation, breathing in a more exhaustive way to fit the sombre tone of the piece. I found that this would allow the audience too reflect on what they had just watched and form a solid opinion on the debate. It also just have an solid ending which could then flow into the final group section.
Monday, 16 February 2015
Workshop 4 - Creating the Group Piece
In this lesson we began devising our group piece, focusing on the topic of nature vs nurture.
The idea was to begin the piece with scientist figures asking questions about the debate. To symbolise that we were scientists we all wore latex gloves and spoke in random sounds and noises to represent the scientific jargon which would the language often by used by them. The language was quite abstract and animalistic linking to Artaud's idea of making natural instinctive work that truly represents human behaviour. However it can also imply the language that he created thinking that it could be used between actors to communicate.
The questions we asked ranged from:
Can the traits you are born with be influenced by the environment we live in?
Is sexuality determined by genes?
These helped to enforce the message of our piece straight away, encouraging the audience to consider our topic as they watch the piece, seeing how what we show them changes, differs or supports their initial views.
Next we focused on creating a physicalised representation of the reproduction cycle, starting from the moment of conception to the birth. Having the heaving breathing to replicate the sounds of a climax, paired with "Lets get it on" by Marvin Gaye, I found for audience members that as well as it creating some light humour, it may make them uncomfortable which gives the impression of Artaud's Theatre of Cruelty, making it a tense environment for them in order to heighten their senses. It also appears to an unsuspecting audience as rather grotesque because sex is often seen as a taboo, these kind of topics being something that Artaud thought theatre should address as many other mediums didn't.
Within this small section the cast becomes sperm, with tights over our heads and we proceed to crawl across the room to "fertilise the eggs" on the other side whilst battle-like music plays overhead. This part is my favourite bit because I find the idea incredibly bizarre and hilarious with the over dramatised version of something I deem as a relatively simple act, as well as getting to call myself a sperm. Although I truly like it as it an inventive way of portraying the idea, suggesting that it is a battle between sperm which is something I'd never thought of before.
This whole idea of reproduction was to also to show the side of the debate which suggested that humans are born with the genes that encourage their behaviour. Then the piece progressed and we moved on to include the idea of us all pretending to be foetuses, exploring their first times doing something; maybe opening their eyes, moving their limbs or standing. This then developed in to a sped up version of a child growing up to again highlight the instinctive behaviour we are born with.
However next we chose to focus on the mother-son relationship and how mothers mollycoddle and have a reluctance to let their children go. This I thought was done to enforce the idea that a mother has strong influence over her child and this can change a child's future attitude. We explored this through an alternate objective task which saw the mothers wanting to hold on to their children and their sons wanting to leave. For this we focused on "cost of the actor", having to push our limits in order to fully achieve the objective. Although against Troy, I found this reasonably easy to maintain my objective because he underestimated my strength and by the time he realised, I was in a good position to maintain my grip. As he struggled in my grasp I found it did become harder because his adrenaline started to kick in as he saw he wouldn't easily get free and personally I think that if I was an audience member this true struggle would be interesting to watch as it is believable and natural.
To an audience, the piece we have so far, I think, to piece focuses heavily on the effect of the nature side of the debate, suggesting that we have a biased opinion that we're trying to enforce of them. Next lesson I feel as though we need to include more of the nurture debate.
I do however think it shows how people are born with certain instincts, like immediately crying after birth or learning to walk and talk, implying that some part of our behaviour does come from nature.
I believe our piece is experimental because, although it addresses a political subject, it follows more of Artaud and Grotowski's ideas than Brechtian, and it certainly doesn't include any naturalistic acting, using physical representations of objects through bodies and over exaggerated behaviour instead. Following Artaud and Grotowski it looks into "cost of the actor" as well as including a range of physical movement and unnatural speech, therefore suggesting it is experimental.
The idea was to begin the piece with scientist figures asking questions about the debate. To symbolise that we were scientists we all wore latex gloves and spoke in random sounds and noises to represent the scientific jargon which would the language often by used by them. The language was quite abstract and animalistic linking to Artaud's idea of making natural instinctive work that truly represents human behaviour. However it can also imply the language that he created thinking that it could be used between actors to communicate.
The questions we asked ranged from:
Can the traits you are born with be influenced by the environment we live in?
Is sexuality determined by genes?
These helped to enforce the message of our piece straight away, encouraging the audience to consider our topic as they watch the piece, seeing how what we show them changes, differs or supports their initial views.
Next we focused on creating a physicalised representation of the reproduction cycle, starting from the moment of conception to the birth. Having the heaving breathing to replicate the sounds of a climax, paired with "Lets get it on" by Marvin Gaye, I found for audience members that as well as it creating some light humour, it may make them uncomfortable which gives the impression of Artaud's Theatre of Cruelty, making it a tense environment for them in order to heighten their senses. It also appears to an unsuspecting audience as rather grotesque because sex is often seen as a taboo, these kind of topics being something that Artaud thought theatre should address as many other mediums didn't.
Within this small section the cast becomes sperm, with tights over our heads and we proceed to crawl across the room to "fertilise the eggs" on the other side whilst battle-like music plays overhead. This part is my favourite bit because I find the idea incredibly bizarre and hilarious with the over dramatised version of something I deem as a relatively simple act, as well as getting to call myself a sperm. Although I truly like it as it an inventive way of portraying the idea, suggesting that it is a battle between sperm which is something I'd never thought of before.
This whole idea of reproduction was to also to show the side of the debate which suggested that humans are born with the genes that encourage their behaviour. Then the piece progressed and we moved on to include the idea of us all pretending to be foetuses, exploring their first times doing something; maybe opening their eyes, moving their limbs or standing. This then developed in to a sped up version of a child growing up to again highlight the instinctive behaviour we are born with.
However next we chose to focus on the mother-son relationship and how mothers mollycoddle and have a reluctance to let their children go. This I thought was done to enforce the idea that a mother has strong influence over her child and this can change a child's future attitude. We explored this through an alternate objective task which saw the mothers wanting to hold on to their children and their sons wanting to leave. For this we focused on "cost of the actor", having to push our limits in order to fully achieve the objective. Although against Troy, I found this reasonably easy to maintain my objective because he underestimated my strength and by the time he realised, I was in a good position to maintain my grip. As he struggled in my grasp I found it did become harder because his adrenaline started to kick in as he saw he wouldn't easily get free and personally I think that if I was an audience member this true struggle would be interesting to watch as it is believable and natural.
To an audience, the piece we have so far, I think, to piece focuses heavily on the effect of the nature side of the debate, suggesting that we have a biased opinion that we're trying to enforce of them. Next lesson I feel as though we need to include more of the nurture debate.
I do however think it shows how people are born with certain instincts, like immediately crying after birth or learning to walk and talk, implying that some part of our behaviour does come from nature.
I believe our piece is experimental because, although it addresses a political subject, it follows more of Artaud and Grotowski's ideas than Brechtian, and it certainly doesn't include any naturalistic acting, using physical representations of objects through bodies and over exaggerated behaviour instead. Following Artaud and Grotowski it looks into "cost of the actor" as well as including a range of physical movement and unnatural speech, therefore suggesting it is experimental.
Saturday, 7 February 2015
Workshop 3/4 - Duets/Triplets responding to Art from the Tate
In this lesson we began to create a triplet responding to your art work from The Tate Modern. In my group is Eloise and Ellie and after discussing pieces we liked from the Tate we chose a couple pieces to base our installation about.
INSPIRATION:
From these pictures we focused on the physical appearance of the artwork in order to create our piece.
We chose the idea of looking at three different types of mental illness: psychopathy, OCD and alcoholism. I believe we want to highlight these issues, bringing them attention and awareness to the idea that we can support these kind of people.
As there are three of us, each person is going to take a role as one of the traits, with Eloise symbolising psychopathy, Ellie being alcoholism and me portraying OCD.
For psychopathy we chose to have a character with split make up, one side normal and the other messy to show the difference between the difference between what we see on the outside compared to the inside of a psychotic person. Every time the messy side is faced to the audience, Eloise will pop a balloon with red paint in to symbolise their lack of empathy (this replicates medical tests that some people under go, with red light suggesting psychopathic thoughts). The popping of the balloons is heavily influenced by the shooting paintings, the knife used to pop them influenced by the other picture. This knife is used to represent the violence often associated with psychopaths, although it may not truly represent the deficiency.
Ellie's role representing alcoholism sees her sitting under the dripping paint collecting it in empty alcohol bottles, gradually increasing the volume of the alcohol that the bottle used to contain, this suggesting how alcoholics get worse as they progress.
My roles to imply OCD is to attempt to order the bottles and clean up the messy paint, signify the stereotypical characteristics of the illness. Also having half of my make up to appear as though melting, to show the inner melt down someone with OCD may have when things aren't as they want.
The performance will then run as a piece of live art, progressing as the time goes on, so that no audience member will witness the same thing. I think that it an experimental piece because it doesn't have a clear linear plot with no links to Stanislavsky or Brecht. It clearly links with Artaud's idea of effecting/shocking the audience due to it's violent nature and weird concept, therefore showing it is experimental.
Our piece relies heavily on props and what happens we do with them to represent our chosen topic so when showing to the class we explained the concept through the pictures below.
We also watched the rest of the class's pieces (pictures below).
In Esme and Tia's piece, I thought their use of shadow really helped to show their theme of hidden teenage exploration and the frowns up same sex couple still held be parts of society. The contrast of their two shadows made the images we saw confusing but that made it more inviting to watch and work out, although we all said that the two shadows needed to meet more often if they were to have a larger impact of their chosen theme on the audience. I found that contrast of their movements and the use of gentle music created a mellow mood, helping us focus on the piece. The use of music was a key feature of Artaudian methods, as well as the physical movement which helped the performance to show the experimental ideas this term is about.
INSPIRATION:
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| [1] Shooting Painting by Niki De saint Phalle |
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| [2] Spatial Awareness 'Waiting' by Lucio Fontana |
I was drawn to the beauty of what the violence of shooting created.
Eloise was drawn to the simplicity of something that appears so violent.
From these pictures we focused on the physical appearance of the artwork in order to create our piece.
We chose the idea of looking at three different types of mental illness: psychopathy, OCD and alcoholism. I believe we want to highlight these issues, bringing them attention and awareness to the idea that we can support these kind of people.
As there are three of us, each person is going to take a role as one of the traits, with Eloise symbolising psychopathy, Ellie being alcoholism and me portraying OCD.
For psychopathy we chose to have a character with split make up, one side normal and the other messy to show the difference between the difference between what we see on the outside compared to the inside of a psychotic person. Every time the messy side is faced to the audience, Eloise will pop a balloon with red paint in to symbolise their lack of empathy (this replicates medical tests that some people under go, with red light suggesting psychopathic thoughts). The popping of the balloons is heavily influenced by the shooting paintings, the knife used to pop them influenced by the other picture. This knife is used to represent the violence often associated with psychopaths, although it may not truly represent the deficiency.
Ellie's role representing alcoholism sees her sitting under the dripping paint collecting it in empty alcohol bottles, gradually increasing the volume of the alcohol that the bottle used to contain, this suggesting how alcoholics get worse as they progress.
My roles to imply OCD is to attempt to order the bottles and clean up the messy paint, signify the stereotypical characteristics of the illness. Also having half of my make up to appear as though melting, to show the inner melt down someone with OCD may have when things aren't as they want.
The performance will then run as a piece of live art, progressing as the time goes on, so that no audience member will witness the same thing. I think that it an experimental piece because it doesn't have a clear linear plot with no links to Stanislavsky or Brecht. It clearly links with Artaud's idea of effecting/shocking the audience due to it's violent nature and weird concept, therefore showing it is experimental.
Our piece relies heavily on props and what happens we do with them to represent our chosen topic so when showing to the class we explained the concept through the pictures below.
We also watched the rest of the class's pieces (pictures below).
 |
| Tia and Esme's piece of girls exploring each others bodies |
.JPG) |
| Miles and Will exploring blind paintings of heaven and hell |
.JPG) |
| Malachi, Troy and Soloman showing how attitudes to nudity have changed |
Nature-Nurture Debate
Article on the Debate:
http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/features/nature-nurture-and-liberal-values-roger-scruton-jesse-prinz-david-eagleman-neuroscience
I share similar views on the nature-nurture debate, believing that some people are born with defects that cause them to be horrible people, even though they've grown up in a loving home. For example Joanna Dennehy, who killed men for fun, grew up with a "normal" family (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-25669206). And the murder of Lee Rigby, who killers both came from respectable Christian families (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Lee_Rigby).
Although this can also work the opposite way round, coming from poor, maybe abusive, upbringings to do good in the world.
However I also believe upbringings can heavily influence the person you become, for example the Beckhams, their sons have all gone through modelling like their father. The Attenborough and Redgrave families have also had all members become a part of show business, suggesting that the children were heavily influenced by their parents careers.
http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/features/nature-nurture-and-liberal-values-roger-scruton-jesse-prinz-david-eagleman-neuroscience
I share similar views on the nature-nurture debate, believing that some people are born with defects that cause them to be horrible people, even though they've grown up in a loving home. For example Joanna Dennehy, who killed men for fun, grew up with a "normal" family (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-25669206). And the murder of Lee Rigby, who killers both came from respectable Christian families (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Lee_Rigby).
Although this can also work the opposite way round, coming from poor, maybe abusive, upbringings to do good in the world.
However I also believe upbringings can heavily influence the person you become, for example the Beckhams, their sons have all gone through modelling like their father. The Attenborough and Redgrave families have also had all members become a part of show business, suggesting that the children were heavily influenced by their parents careers.
Workshop 3 - Creating story through pictures
To begin the lesson we were given five random pictures and asked to create a short story from what you see. It wasn't limited by restrictions so everyone had their own take on what Sarah meant. Most people took the pictures on face value, using what they immediately saw to form the story but Sarah later suggested the idea to look in the background, look into the small detail in the pictures, because this can often lead to more interesting, unique and imaginative work.
I focused on each picture as a whole, not noticing small detail, and tried to create a linear storyline as I attempted to find sense in what was already peculiar. The question was posed to us that in experimental term, and theatre in general, why do stories need to make sense. For me I found this question interesting because I'd never really thought about it and found it difficult to not try and make sense of things. As humans in general we always need a definite answer which is shown science, which however suggests to me that within theatre and the arts, why should we have to comply to these ideas.
This idea also suggests that the audience doesn't need to fully understand what's going on, able to make their own mines up and create their own interpretations. It means that they have to work hard, as in my opinion theatre is not just for entertainment and to make people think.
The following task was also rather difficult because again Mia and I struggled not to put the pictures into a linear story line. (The pictures below are laid out in the order of our narrative.) However not being able to detach from this idea we chose to focus on our portrayal of the story. The two of us behaved like a tag team, bouncing of the others excitable energy which gave it an improvised and spontaneous feel. This also meant the speech was reasonably fluid and maintained a good energy to keep the spectators engaged, although I did feel that some of it may have been too rushed, leading to some mumbling but with some more rehearsal time it could've been perfected and less improvised. I did also feel that as it's experimental term there could've been a more inventive and unique way of doing it, maybe not giving the explicit story and causing them to make up their own minds.
Watching the other's perform their short stories was interesting because everyone had different ideas and the random stories combined with the movements made it all quite experimental, in some places incredibly weird.
An example of a comedic piece was the boys rap, which was predominantly funny because it was unexpected, however whether it would've been funny to an audience who didn't know them is another question. I personally find rap in play quite funny, especially when it's performed by people who wouldn't normally be rappers, although this is only my personal opinion.
I found the most interesting piece to watch/be apart of was the Chinese whispers, done by Eloise and Jasmine. I really like how it linked to their idea that stories get changed over time and I found I stayed engaged because I felt included and enjoyed the actor-audience interaction.
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| Mia and I's selection of pictures |
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