Creating an ending to our letters piece- Daniel practical

17/10/14

During this lesson we decided to create an ending section for the two scenes in the letter performance. We decided as an easy transition from one scene to another we would do a dimming of the lights and a spotlight on the scenes that were performing.

After this we needed to go straight into the funeral scene and decided that we would mime cups and saucers as that is what we thought of when it came to funerals.

During the funeral scene we also decided that we would make three contact points with three different partners. One of these contact points that I have is with Chloe and as she is playing the character of a ghost I really show my facial expressions of being shocked and scared at the same time.

14/11/14

During this lesson we decided to go over 'Youth' and it was in this lesson that we decided that Chloe would not actually sing the song but she would just mime the song instead as the backing track was not that good and it wouldn't have made the scene that great.

After we did this we went over the cheerleading part in everything is awesome and made sure that we all knew what we were doing when it came to the cheerleader jumps and Ami doing her leaps and flips.

13/11/14

During today's practical lesson, Daniel wanted us to go over every single scene that we had created for our final performance.
This lesson consisted of us going over the beginning scene, FEAR, the letter scene, the funeral scene, the grotesque dance, bohemian rhapsody, youth, everything is awesome, brave heart, the chair scene and the final scene.
Whilst rehearsing every scene we tried to fix all the things that could be done better and change bits when needed.

7/11/14

During today's practical we decided to do a dance to a song called 'Youth' by the Daughters. The song is quite emotional and is a really beautiful song and I think it worked really well with the piece that we created.

For this scene we decided to have Chloe be the main focus of the scene by having her walk from the stairs to the centre at the back of the stage singing the song.

The reason we chose Chloe to do this was because she was the character in the performance that had passed away and we all thought it would be a very emotional and good scene if we did this.

As well as deciding on what Chloe was going to be doing we also decided on what we were going to be doing. Unfortunately I was off for this lesson so I was unable to be a part of the process of creating the rest of our parts in the scene but from watching the video on Facebook I can see what the class did.

As Meaghan, Tia and Ami are more of the advanced dancers in the class they had decided that they would be the ones to do a really overwhelming and beautiful dance whilst myself, Eleni and Katie would stand at the back and do slow movements and eventually going into the same dance as everyone else near the end just before the ending of the song.

As Hannah and Ellie were left out and didn't have a part in it as of yet the class decided to add them into it doing slow movements and then when the slow part of the song started they done their own little part which was very audience captivating as it was only them two on stage with the music and the audience would then be able to put their full focus onto the two of them.

grotowski

In this lesson we based our piece around the works of Jerzy Grotowski. The reason that we decided to do this was because we were studying Grotowski for our practitioner portfolio and we thought from researching his work his work looked very interesting and had a lot more of a violent and angry approach to it than the other practitioners.

 

In this routine, Tish decided to interpret his angry approach to it by using banging movements with our feet and also used the more insect like approach that he uses in his pieces by doing a somewhat insect crawl. 

 

 

 

Above is a video via our Facebook group which shows exactly what we did in the lesson.

Image of a girl

Below is the video from our groups Facebook which shows what went on during our practical lesson whilst studying 'The image of a girl':
https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=1486874074922469&set=o.1543422205881453&type=2&theatre

For this practical lesson Daniel gave us the stimulus of pictures and gave us the image of the girl. For this practical Daniel had us get into groups and create movements that interlinked into each other.
My group consisted of me and Katie and we done a more angry approach than everyone else because from this picture we felt like the girl looked slightly distressed so we decided to base our piece around that.

09/10/14- deciding on final piece (stimulus- letters)

During this lesson I was absent from college so was unable to take part in the lesson but the rest of the class have informed me that what they did during this lesson was they bullet pointed and created a spider diagram in order to think of ideas of what our class could do for our final piece.
Above you can see the pictures that I was able to access from our drama group's Facebook in which the class have came up with ideas of what would be good to do for our final piece.

element of relief

24/09/14

On my first practical of the week after coming back from being sick with Tish we started off with our usual warm up such as rolling our bodies up and down and flopping down so our hands are touching the floor etc.
What we done next is something that the rest of the class had done the week before whilst working with Tish while I was off college and this was something that Tish called the 'circle hop'. What the circle hop consisted of was the class getting split up into two groups and going on opposite sides of the room and one group at a time would hop into a circle and go around in circles a  few times to the beat of the music and then go back to their starting position in their corner of the room and then the other group did the same.
The next thing Tish had us do was to continue with the circle hope but add both of the groups into it and how we did this was by the first group starting off and then once they would get to a certain point within the circle hop the other group would then come in and start their sequence and the first group would go off and come back on again once it got to the point in which they came back on and done their sequence again.
The next thing we did was a dance phrase and it was based on the idea of an element of relief which included movements which expressed momentum. Whilst doing this dance phrase, each time we made the space smaller and smaller in order to show how our movements changed whilst in the enclosed space and it had an impact as our movements became smaller and less sharp as we did not have the room to intensely express our movements as we had done before when we were working in a larger and more open environment.
The last thing we done as usual was cooled down by taking nice deep breaths in and out and stretching and as we do in the warm up we done our flopping down to the floor and coming up very slow.
I enjoyed doing this piece because it was enjoyable and fun and we got to express something through movement and this lesson was probably the first lesson of doing physical theater that I actually felt comfortable throwing myself around the floor and letting go a little bit of the fear that I had of just doing something that I am not usually comfortable with.
For me this lesson taught me how much a small space can really effect how you perform to an audience, for example, if you are on a tiny stage and you have to do big movements but are unable to do so then the audience will not be intrigued as they would be if you had a larger space where you were really able to show off your big movements. This taught me that you shouldn't be afraid to use the space around you and if you have a lot of space then you should fill it because it can work really well when doing a physical theater piece as it allows your movements to be bigger and better.

Below is the video showing what we done in our practical with Tish:

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=10152366979321778&set=o.1543422205881453&type=2&theater

Newspaper article stimulus-Daniel practical

17/09/14, 18/09/14, 19/09/14
Daniel practical

On the 17th, 18th and 19th September I was absent from college as I was sick so was unable to be a part of the practical lessons with Daniel. Due to my absence my fellow class mates shared with me what they did on each oh the days that I was off to give me an insight into what I was doing and shared the videos with me to show me what they had done during the sessions.
The stimulus of the sessions were from newspaper articles and the class explored how using Steven Berkoff's techniques such as grotesque could make a performance more dynamic and interesting.
On the 17th of September the class done a piece based on the article 'One punch' based on a man who got killed by just one punch and what the class done was they based a scene around that article of the family of the man being in the hospital and being told that the man (their relative) had been killed. Instead of making the scene sad and emotional which is the typical way that a scene like this would be performed, the class decided to make it more grotesque and comedic by making the scene funny in the least harsh way that they could to make the scene differ to how others would probably interpret this specific article as a stimulus.
 On the 18th of September the piece that the class performed was more serious than the previous performance. First the class started by picking words from the article and showing the words and NOT the story in the article.


Below is the video from the class's practical on Friday:

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=1478164695793407&set=o.1543422205881453&type=2&theater


Below is the video's from the class's practical on Thursday:

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=1478152239127986&set=o.1543422205881453&type=2&theater

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=1478149792461564&set=o.1543422205881453&type=2&theater

4.48 psychosis by Sarah Kane- Daniels practical

12/09/14
Daniels practical- 4.48 psychosis

During this practical session Daniel improvised by making us use objects that had been left out in the drama studio from the class that had been in there previously to us. What Daniel made us do was pick one object that had been left in the drama studio and pick an emotion and then act on that emotion by creating a still image by using the object of our choice.
We repeated this step three times and but each time picking a different object to use as we carried out our emotions in our still images. Once we had done this Daniel added music and we done it all through from the very beginning going from one object to the other in the order that we had done it in. From doing this we realized that each and everyone one of us had created an emotion that was very lonely and tried to create a character in our minds that was alone and perhaps slightly depressed.
The next thing we did is we got given a stimulus by Daniel which was a piece called '4.48 psychosis' by Sarah Kane which was about self harm and we got into pairs and created a physical theatre piece to really tell the story of this self harm piece in the most interesting way that we could. For example, myself and Meaghan acted out the piece as if I was a very concerned but also a very stressed out mother and her daughter is the one that had been self harming. In this piece we tried to show that the daughter was very depressed, scared and wanted someone to talk to about how they were feeling and the mother was concerned but also very annoyed at her daughter but also with her self for allowing her daughter to do such a thing without her realizing sooner. In our piece we tried to show the elements of the characters being scared and distressed and we tried to create intensity by shouting.
Once we had come up with the pieces we then performed our pieces to each other and gave feedback.

Below is the preview of the script that we were given by Daniel in order to do our practical:

https://word.office.live.com/wv/WordView.aspx?FBsrc=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fdownload%2Ffile_preview.php%3Fid%3D721263957953544%26time%3D1413462529%26metadata&access_token=100006641356663%3AAVIZX0Mr4eqHyuH3jz1ApAeWSglvoQLAowUUBMPjVZqEDw&title=448+extract+3.doc

Orestes-Daniel practical

11/09/14
Daniel practical

For our practical with Daniel we used a poem/script as our stimulus and in groups of three we picked a specific part of the poem/script that stood out to us and that we found interesting as a small group and this is what our performances would be based on.
Once we had picked out the specific part that we wanted we then picked out the key words from our part which stood out to us in order to really interpret them into our piece to make sure we had a strong piece to perform when our time was up.
In our small groups of three we spoke through our ideas on how to make the small piece of poem/script into a good physical theatre performance. We had a discussion and done brainstorms and then experimented to try out of our ideas and to try and find a good contrast. During this stage I think I was a big contributor to putting things down to help with our ideas of the piece that we would create and I believe that some of the good ideas that were given I had a large contribution to.
Once we had brainstormed and experimented slightly on what we wanted to do in our groups of three we made a physical theatre piece based on our stimuli; using echo effect, levels, walking in different directions and whispering.
Once everyone's piece's were completed we watched each other's performances and gave feedback about the good things each of the groups had done based on their small piece of the poem/script.

Below is a preview of the script that we read in order to do our practical:

https://word.office.live.com/wv/WordView.aspx?FBsrc=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fdownload%2Ffile_preview.php%3Fid%3D281579518697457%26time%3D1413462577%26metadata&access_token=100006641356663%3AAVLTtdd6c1rjLh-z9y7Oaum_pmVLcKkt_XaFt_Bf7ZkABQ&title=Orestes.docx

Hand shaking-Daniels practical

10/09/14

Daniel's practical

First off to start our practical session with Daniel off we began by choosing someone in the room and shaking their hand and getting into a position whether it be simple or a mixing contrast between different levels. We done this exercise with three different partners all doing different positions using different levels but making sure we still had contact through our hands being joined together through the hand shake. 

The next thing we did was we partnered up again with our first partners and we both stood opposite each other on different sides of the room. What Daniel had us do during this piece to make it differ to us just getting straight into our positions was to walk slowly to the center of the room until we were stood very close facing our partners, circle around them giving them a slightly intense look and then walk away not looking at them. Afterwards Daniel changed it up by having us walk into the center of the room until we were closely facing our partners again, circle each other without the intense look and then walk away but slowly turning around as we walked away and then once we got close to our beginning positions at the opposite sides of the room then we would quickly turn around and meet each other in the center again and get into our position very sharply. 

We then added music to create intensity in the piece and we then interpreted the positions we made with our other two partners too and we done this by quickly and sharply moving to the places in the room where we had originally done the positions with each partner and eventually one the music was added it began to look like a good conflict piece.
 

Keeping contact with the floor-Tish practical

10/09/14

Tish Practical 

At the beginning of our practical session with Tish we started off the way we always do at the beginning of our practicals and we done this by doing a quick warm up before starting the proper session. The way we warmed up for our practical session was by turning our heads side to side and also up and down as well as doing body rolls by flopping down to the floor and then rolling back up slowly. 

The next thing Tish had us to do during our session with her was to use the floor as our friend once again which was interpreting what we had done in the last practical session we had her. The way we done this was by lying down on the floor with our arms out to the side of us and we began to spin our legs around to the opposite sides making sure that we kept our toes in constant contact with the floor. Once we had done three of the spins we span around until we ended up into a position where we were sort of kneeling on our leg from the side. Once we had done this we would swing our legs in front of us and put our arms out in front of us and move our arms forward and back to the count of four making sure we were going lower and lower each time. We did this step twice swapping the leg we started on.

Next we did a somewhat routine all together as a big group and starting from the corner of the drama studio we took four small steps forward and used the floor as a wall to move our bodies around in different directions. Once we had done this step we split up into pairs and repeated the routine that we had learnt from Tish one pair at a time until eventually we had all done so. 

To finish our practical session with Tish we ended the session by doing yoga. This was a really good and different way for us to cool down after a practical session and I enjoyed it a lot and would be happy if Tish finished with some yoga every practical session that we have with her.
 

Daniel's Practical- Still images

05/09/14

Dan's practical-

During our first proper practical with Dan he decided to interpret some of the work that Tom had done with us during his workshop the day before as a bit of a follow on. During the beginning of our practical Dan had us create still images but had us do them in a morphing motion to make the still images less sharp so it showed the gradual stages of the images that we we're creating. Whilst we we're doing these still images Dan tried to make us do images based on different emotions which he would tell us to do and then we would have to create a realistic still image based on that emotion. After we had done this stage, Dan decided to have us choose an emotion ourselves and then created there still images to show that emotion. Unlike the task we had done before we did not go into these still images in a morphing effect, instead we made these still images sharp and quick-changing. My first emotion I chose was frustration. I showed this emotion by using levels (sitting down on the floor with my head in my hands), frustrated facial expressions and the pulling of my hair. After we had done our three still images Dan had us change our emotion to one that was the opposite to what we had already done so I changed my emotion to happiness, again I used different levels and facial expressions to show the happiness throughout the still images that I was creating. 

Once we had done our still images Dan decided to have us blend both the still images that we had created with realism by having us pair up and create a piece by blending the two different styles. Each pair used juxtaposition (real and abstract imagery) to create a good piece. 

 

Tom's workshop

04/09/14

Tom's workshop-

During our second day in college we had Tom from RADA (Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts) come in and speak to us about his experience in RADA and why we should consider going to a drama school after college and why it has been a good experience for him. As well as speaking through his time in RADA we also got to have a workshop with Tom which was a really good experience for me as I hope to go to a drama school after I have finished in Cronton. During this workshop we joined up with the second year acting and performance students which was good for us to have other people joining us. Tom got us to focus a lot on being in the moment and being present in that exact moment in time. The first task that we had to do with Tom was to create actions from objectives, what he meant by that was that objectives are something that you do and the actions are acting on that objective to make you do that specific thing that you want to do. Some examples of creating actions from objectives that we did was pulling the curtains in the drama studio, sitting down on the chairs and fixing our laces on our shoes. After we had done this task we then went on to partner up in pairs and we hugged each other and then tried to focus on being in that moment and what we felt at that time.

after doing this we repeated it over again twice with two other partners. Afterwards we continued to create actions from objectives and then see how we would react and feel if our actions were getting stopped by someone else by them getting in the way or disrupting what we were doing. This made the task a lot more dramatic as I began to feel frustrated and this created tension and conflict in the task that had been set. After that task, Tom got us to lie down on the floor separated from each other with our hands beside us and our eyes closed to think about the moment we were in and clear our minds after the task that we had just completed and to give ourselves a positive mindset and make us focus on the moment. After we had got ourselves into a clear and positive mindset we then paired up and acted as though ourselves and our partners were joined together by a coil (one of us at each end) and controlling the coil ourselves by taking both small and large steps towards each other and away from each other creating very little intensity or a lot of intensity depending on the emotion that we were supposed to show for example wanting to be close to someone but are scared to get close to them would be shown by moving towards your partner in a slow motion and then taking large steps back very quick. Whilst we were doing this task we made sure that ourselves and our partners remained constant eye contact which helped to make the task more intense and the pace of our steps helped to make the task that little bit more dramatic and show emotion. After we had acted like we were joined together by a coil we hugged and held on to our partners to be in the moment and think about the presence, atmosphere and feeling with that person. What Tom tried to make us do during our workshop with him was to be present and block out the past and the future and that is what he continued to say all the way through the workshop to keep that thought in our minds as it gave us good concentration and focus and it also helped us to create a connection with the people that we were partnered up with. Another thing that Tom continued to say to us during the workshop was to 'see the person'. By this Tom meant to have a complete connection with the person that you are talking to and not just look at them and see them but actually see what they are feeling when you look at them. One of the things that Tom said to us during the workshop was 'I can hurt you and you can hurt me'. Tom used this to show the realisation of the moment we we're in and tried to give us the understanding that although we we're looking at our partners in that moment and thinking that we are only looking at the he created the intensity by saying 'by looking at your partner you need to understand that they can hurt you and you can hurt them so keep that in your mind' and this made the whole task a lot more dramatic and really made us think about how the person infront of us could have a negative impact on us. I very much enjoyed Tom coming in and speaking to us about RADA as well as taking his time to do a workshop with us because to me I think it has changed the way I think of completing a task and the way I think of performing with a partner or a group of people as I will now be able to truly be in the moment by creating a positive mindset for myself and not just looking at someone I am performing with but truly seeing them and going beyond. After our workshop with Tom I am hoping that our group is lucky enough to have more workshops with other people like Tom who can help us to become better actors.

Introduction session-Tish practical

03/09/14

Introduction session-

On our first practical session we joined up with Tish who is working with us to do our physical theatre piece. During our introduction session we focussed on weight bearing as this can be used in physical theatre to create a very effective piece. Weight bearing is a way of using weight to travel as a trust element from balancing weight and the weight that is being beared in physical theatre is the weight of another person. A way in which we put weight baring to the test was by partnering up and using each other's weight to get the two of us from one side of the room to another by using different levels and forces. What I noticed from doing the introduction session with Tish was that we used dynamics and travelling as well as the weight bearing to get from one side of the room to the other. The dynamics were used as there was a contrast and different levels of the movement we used which changed depending on whether we were moving fast or slow in the small piece that we had created to show the weight baring. The travelling was used as it moves us from one place to another and helped us to create contact improvisation.