Performance

On the whole i am extremely happy with my performance and my rehearsal ettiquette and everything that this task challenged me to do. I believe that my duet in the exhibition was effective and portrayed the message we intended it to. I heard a lot of reactions from the audience & whether they were good or bad, it still created a reaction which is what me, Mateus and Oscar wanted. I think it was a thoughtful piece which really got our message across in an artistic, creative and original way.

Looking back at our rehearsal period I think, our group (Sarah's group) as a whole, worked really well together. We all listened well, took direction, and worked off one another as an ensemble very well.  I believe one of the reasons the performance was such a success is the fact our peice had been devised early on so we had time to develop, polish and rehearse. This way we all felt confident with what we was performing and didnt feel nervous that anything would go wrong or that we would forget anything as we had rehearsed it enough times. Personally, I feel i was actively listening throughout the rehearsal process and therefore listened to direction to enable i was performing the right way for this context and portraying the different emotions and actions we were to perform.

I think we created a really thought provoking piece that was intriguing and enjoyable. Despite the audience not necessarilly understanding the narrative, they definatly would have understood the theme and i think that on its own can make a big impact, but this only allowed there to be more room for discussion and interpretation but due to the piece being experimental, it is good that the audience had to do some discovery work themeselves.

However, i do think that the safety of the audience members was at risk during our performance, despite us moving audience members I still think there was a good chance that one of our audience/cast members could have got hurt especially during the 'Holding On' mother/daughter segment. But I do believe we tried our very best to get them in a safe proxemity so they would not get hurt.

I found this performance physically and mentally demanding. The fact that we were performing at 3 different times on the same night really tested us. It really put 'Cost of the Actor' into action as we knew that however tired we was, we could not stop, we knew that the show must go on and we must persevere if we wanted a successful performance.

This performance really did challenge me and it taught me how being at one with your own thoughts before going on stage is so important. For me, it is imperative i am in the right frame of mind before going on stage, i cannot be having a conversation with anyone else or allow myself to have my mind in a different place. For me to be happy with my performance and emotionally and physically 'in it' I need to prepare myself, by myself before going on stage. If i don't, my performance will lack truth, energy and committment and i think that was shown in some moments of my performances. 

In the final segmant of the Cabinet of Curiosity (the whole year 12 theatre strand) I felt quite confused and a little nervous about what exactly we was doing. I knew what i was meant to be doing physically but mentally i didn't know where it was meant to be at. I like how it brought ALL the cabinet of curiositys cast together as one but I didnt really understand the meaning of doing what we was doing. Which in some ways, didnt matter as it is experimental, but it is in my nature to know why i'm doing something, what my objectives are, especially with acting but experimental has taken me away from that slightly which in some ways i liked as it is fresh, exciting and not something i have studied before but definatly without a doubt, took me out of my comfort zone! (Which i am really quite happy about!)

Lesson 6

All 75 of the Year 12 theatre strand joined as one to finish off our 'Cabinet of Curiosities' piece along with all of our duets/trios of live art and each of the 3 groups individual 15 minute experimental pieces with one big piece as one.

We are basing our whole group piece on Quizoola by Tim Etchells - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7naFehT5DEM - I was a little unsure after the lesson on what exactly the term 'Quizoola' meant so i watched this video which really clarified it all for me. In this the audience can ask the actors on stage any question about anything, the actors are often in clown make-up and the answer to the question can be a serious response, a funny response or even an insane response. Anything goes and nothing is really wrong.

Our teachers had decided that the questions asked to us, we will have a physical response to:

We got into pairs and the first question was 'what was the last thing that made you laugh?' My partner was Georgia and we both seemed to find the answer in eachother, we would often rest on one another showing the relaxation and happiness we felt when laughing at the thing that made us laugh and we often found ourselves genuinally laughing at the thought of 'the last thing that made us laugh' which made our movements truthful. I cant remember exactly what I did but i think that is the point as you are meant to be channelling that emotion, not really thinking too much into it which is what we both did. I liked working with a partner on this question as you could work off whatever movement they was doing and could find that answer within eachother which really made it feel real and not forced. 

We then moved on to the more 'challenging' part - all 75 of us had to create a 'sunset' - we had to collaborate with eachother and work off/with multiple people. We all worked together and at first we did tend to communicate vocally instead of phsically which goes against the task but nonetheless we did create a picturesque image of a sunset using our bodies and despite tending to use vocal direction off one another, we did work as a team and as one.

We then created 'ocean waves' a lot of people ended up 'whooshing' and really creating the motion and senses of an 'ocean wave' some others preffered a more abstract version of it and some others created the emotion that a person would have in response to an ocean wave. This time, we all worked less vocally but instead listened to one anothers bodies.

After this, our 3 teachers then chose 4 people to stand at the front and they were all asked a question - we then had to act their answer out in movement, whether we showed an abstract version of their answer or a literal representation of their answer was up to us. Some people didn't take this task very seriously and wasnt as emotionally and physically involved as others so the concentration and energy in the room had a slight dip.

Lesson 5

In todays lesson we recapped the whole piece that was put together last week, went over any confusion and polished up any messy parts. 

We then got into small groups and had a picture with a story behind it (ours was a picture of a muslim man being pushed off a building for being gay) and we were told to devise a short piece that will be entailed into our big group piece. There was 5 of us in our group, i am standing on a block whilst Olivia and Kim look asif they are trying to push me off though Jasmine and Josh are holding my legs back (it gives the impression that i am in the wind about to fall) i then fall into Olivia and Kim who place me down on the floor. In unison, we all then got into a prayer position. I think this was subtly powerful and showed how society can be extremely cruel and inhumane though you do have people who will step forward and help.