Project Workshop Class Monday 24th September 2018
What Did We Do?
In today's workshop we explored how to create a story by walking in different scenarios. We began by simply walking around the space in neutral, and then added elements in like walking in the rain, running for the bus, and being chased. I was then paired up with Leah Bradshaw to create a 4 piece movement telling a short story. We started by walking in neutral, and then caught sight of each other, becoming very happy. As we walked around the mood suddenly changed, and we were caught in the rain, then found ourselves on a beach struggling to walk through the wet sand.
We then worked on 5 degree abstraction; developing a series of movements that increase in abstraction by one degree each time we perform them. My story was about going out to get a birthday present but getting on the wrong bus and ending up lost. I started by making simple movements like waving, and then developed them into abstract movements.
What Did We Learn From This?
I learned how to use movement without dialogue to effectively tell a story, and how to make simple movements abstract.
What were the strengths and weaknesses of your approach and process?
I found it difficult making my moves more abstract than they already were, because I felt like there was nothing more I could do with them. I then moved past it by watching how other people used their initial movements, which gave me some ideas of my own.
Project workshop Class Tuesday 25th September 2018
What did we do?
We watched a short video explaining Laban movement.
Me and Nehemie were then given the chance to create our own Laban movement pieces. We were two contrasting people; I did the hard moves, and she did the soft. We were paired up again to develop our stories from yesterday and put them together, including some of the Laban movements. I worked with Ella and we combined our pieces to create this:
Project Workshop Class Tuesday 2nd October
How did you work with your partners to develop your trio?
I worked with Leah and Rina. We sat down and brainstormed ideas for out scenario, and then narrowed them down to what our performance is now. We knew it had to be based around a party, so we wrote down ideas for different party scenarios and ended up with a children's party. Rina played the role of our mother, who mixed up the adult's drinks with the children's drinks.
We knew we needed to limit the amount of dialogue we used, so we only spoke 3-4 lines to make it clear to the audience that we were children. We added in abstract movements to show that we were intoxicated instead of directly saying it.
We developed a movement piece centred around a party to the song 'Oops Upside Your Head'. It consisted of us moving simultaneously and then going into our pieces.
Acting Classes
First, we warmed up by playing two truths and a lie, doing tongue twisters, and vocal exercises. In our acting classes, we studied the first three paragraphs of the Greek play,Medea. We read the intro through punctuation mark to punctuation mark to get a feel of it.
Once we had read and understood what was going on, we went off in groups and split the text up. I worked with Ghazal, Rina, and Sonnah on the first half of the text. First we split up the lines and read them through, making sure we knew what we were saying.
The next week, we worked as an ensemble and put our sections together, working out movements to fit into it.
It was really important that we worked together to communicate the piece and allow the audience to understand what we were actually talking about. In order to be a successful performer, you have to learn to work as an ensemble.
Induction Performance Evaluation
My own performance:
Preparation- I think that the rehearsal process for all piece went quite well. We left enough time to clean each piece up before the day, and we were all very focused and sensible about it. Throughout the process I learned to use less dialogue to successfully deliver a easily understood acting piece. I encountered a few problems during this process; One of my classmates decided to not show up for any classes a few days before the performance, so we had to find a way to quickly replace her. Me and Ghazal were also not in for the final rehearsal for the Wicked piece, so we found a way to incorporate ourselves into the part of the dance we missed without ruining the atmosphere.
Strengths of my performance included the ability to work under pressure, communication with the audience, and adaptability. For example, the lights in the theatre were shining in every direction, and were incredibly bright. We had to quickly adjust to them in order to perform successfully. We also had to adapt to the missing girl in our routine. Performing in front of your peers is sometimes not an easy thing to do, so we were under a lot of pressure as what we were doing was considerably different to everyone else’s performances. Not everyone is interested in our work, so we had to try and make the audience feel warm and welcome, keeping eye contact at all times.
Projection was definitely an issue. In the Wicked piece, it was out of our hands as the backing track was way too loud, but in the acting pieces we underestimated how much we needed to project, so some of the dialogue was lost. We didn’t do a tech run of the Medea performance, so next time we definitely should in order to polish absolutely everything that needs polishing.
Overall, I believe it was a good performance and we did our best, but it could have been better.
Level 2 Acting:
The level 2 acting students performed a devised piece called Identity. It was all about what makes you you, and how you know who you are. I thought this performance was extremely strong in every way. The first girl in the black dress projected well, made sure the audience could understand every word she said, and left us hanging on. The emotion in her voice made her performance very believable, which is crucial in devising as sometimes it can get very unrealistic. She spoke about not fitting in, and asked a lot of thought provoking questions such as “What makes me, me?” which kept the audience thinking. They included a lot of real world issues like bullying, and dealt with them with ease. A lot of the audience could relate to this, which made the performance all the more real. A real stand out moment for me was after the husband and wife scene, when the boy gave his monologue. The audience really hung on to his words, because he spoke raw truth. The way the audience reacted showed that he really communicated with them. A couple people were corpsing, which ruined the atmosphere as there was nothing to laugh about, so that could be an improvement for next time. Overall, it was a strong, relevant performance.
Finally, watching the audience react to the performance made me realise how different performances gain different reactions. For example, if you were at a music gig, you’re not really paying any attention to the lyrics, you’re just moving along to the music because you like the sound of it. At a play, you have to listen in order to understand it, you can’t just watch. They’re both pretty different.
Learner Declaration:
I declare that all the work submitted for this assignment is my own work or, in the case of group work, the work myself and other members of the group in which I worked, and that no part of it has been copied from any source. I understand that if any part of the work submitted for this assignment is found to be plagiarised , none of the work submitted will be allowed to count towards the assessment of the assignment.
Bethany Doherty
15/10/18
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