Evaluation of Final Performance and Trio

Final Piece and Artistic Achievements

As part of our final stage of rehearsal, we did our group pieces to the rest of our year group and took it in turns to watch each others to give each other the experience of performing to about 40 people. I found this very interesting, as although we all had  the same stimulus - the Cabinet of Curiosities - all of the groups  pieces of work were incredibly different. Each performance had strengths and weaknesses, and to me, some were more effective than others. There were massive differences stylistically, and our group was the only group that relied solely on our bodies - the other groups used head torches and scarves as a crucial part of their performance. In this respect, I think our performance was the most impressive, as the other two pieces used visible props to move their story on which I thought was quite effective but not as impressive as actors altogether forming a piece physically. Upon watching the other group's performances I was slightly concerned as to how the piece would be put together and whether it would make sense to an audience. During the real performance, I was surprised at how well-received the piece was and how cleverly it slotted together.I think it worked purely because it was based on the 'Cabinets of Curiosities' where random objects were put together, and I think this left a very spontaneous feel about the piece. With the stimulus being the only thing that linked the pieces together, there was the opportunity for the pieces to be completely different, which they were. I think that the piece made great artistic achievements and personally, I have never done any performance like it before. I definitely believe that there was a unique quality to the performance that will stick in the audience's minds, and which they will not forget, as I will not forget performing it.

Level of professional execution

To an extent, I think that the professional execution of the piece was good. When we performing the piece, each time we did it I felt there was a commitment to the piece from all of the actors which made it very enjoyable to work in. As the audience were immersed in our piece, I didn't know how people would react to being around their friends and family but when performing, everyone was highly professional in my opinion. Something I did not think was professional was when we were backstage everyone kept talking loudly which negatively distracted the performers on the stage. If it was more professional, people would have just stopped talking until the end of the performance. Personally, I tried to remain silent but did get distracted at certain points, which is something I need to work on. Another thing that was not executed very professional was after the first group of trios, the people in our space did not clear up the jam they had left on the floor, meaning it was very sticky when we went to perform there shortly after. This negatively impacted our trio but thought on the whole, there was a good level of professional execution of the piece.

Evaluation of Trio

I thought our trio went quite well. We were able to adapt the piece from when it was not received very well in the first performance. We thought that as our piece was mainly physical, people lost interest and may not have got the clear message we were trying to portray. I thought that the mainly physical aspect to our piece is what made it experimental, as each of us were representing different groups in society. We changed it to say who we were representing more in the piece and allowing us to improvise if we wanted to - going and interacting with the audience that were walking past by talking to them and questioning them about our piece. I thought that we took a risk by making it mainly physical as after doing it for 15 minutes on loop in three performances, we knew we were going to be tired and that this may impact our performance. However, the adrenaline kicked in and I believe we were able to do our piece justice, hence why I think that overall for the second two performances our trio worked well.

Cabinet of Curiosities

The main parts of the lessons we have been doing have been concerned with 'Cabinets of Curiosities'. These were what came before museums in Renaissance Europe and were a collection of random objects from all over the world. They were typically put in one room and were for people to walk around and look at the objects, as many people would not have been able to travel abroad to see these things at the time. People were shocked and amazed by what they saw and the 'cabinets of curiosities' had great interest in them.

Below are some images of traditional and contemporary 'cabinets of curiosities'.

I found the lessons we had interesting because of the historical significance of these cabinets of curiosities. As the pieces were inspired by pieces of artwork that we saw at the Tate Modern and which inspired us, I found it very exciting to explore how we could get the message of the piece of art across to the audience in a physical way, like Artaud practised and directed. The piece of art that I suggested and which we ended up using as our inspiration for our group piece is the picture on the left, of a newspaper being scribbled on. The smiling televisions painted over a rather sinister news story show how the media and television reports mask the brutal truth of the story. Also, the writing being scribbled over just leaving the picture means that the reader will just get a snapshot of the story rather than getting the truth. We found this message very interesting as a group and thought we could get some good work out of it.

The process of devising that we followed was formulating a question based around the art and then answering it through physical improvisation. Our question was, 'who says what is important?' We thought that this left us a lot of space to really explore the topic but were slightly concerned that the vagueness of the topic would leave us with little direction. Our piece evolved greatly once we began devising. We began by using a large wire frame and pushing letters through it which Leanne, playing the Media, censored by pulling them out and scribbling on, then giving them to the audience. We felt like something was missing and continued to devise and develop for hours and several rehearsals before we came up with the idea we are going forward with. Our final piece is purely physical, with very little spoken language. We have a series of still images depicting dominance - the media's dominance over the government and the media and the government's domincance over the people. We link these images with movement, with everyone's objective being to write on a piece of paper and get their point of view across. However,  as the Media is the strongest power, it always wins.

The Commission

The Commission for our piece is:

"To give audiences experiences they wouldn't normally have. 

Building experimental theatre experiences with narrative at the core. We will tell tales by putting people in the middle of stories and giving them the option  to actively or passively watch as the story comes alive around them.

Think about what it means to be an audience member within our show?

We must be careful not to provide a passive experience like being in a gallery. Over dramatic experiences can sometimes get in the way. It comes down to narrative; a sensational scene should never be used for the sake of it, only when it adds to the story. That's why action films with an unnecessary amount of explosions are never that great. It's the same with theatre – sometimes people get away with giving enough of sensational experience to cover up the fact that there's no story. I disagree with that. Brook's hypothesis of theatre operating through "freeing the dynamic process". A question of emancipating, and not fixing, the human's instincts.

Work with the point at which the impulses of one conjoin with the impulses of another to resonate together.The exercises and improvisations facilitate a tuning of the theatrical ‘instrument’ that is the actor’s being, in addition to a circulation of "living dramatic flow"  in the actors as a group. The theatrical ‘miracle’ is produced afterwards, in the active presence of the audience."

My response to the Commission:

I find this an interesting read, and definitely a challenge to put into practice. With the stage we are at at the moment - close to the performance time, I need to keep referring back to the Commission to ensure that I am on  track with the performance's purpose. If I were to write a Commission for the piece, I think I would write the same thing, as the crux of Experimental theatre is creating an experience audiences would not normally have. I think the part of the Commission that I will struggle with most is creating a strong narrative - I feel that with our trio, there is the potential for the audience to miss out on the narrative and I think it will be difficult to maintain a strong narrative as time goes on, because it is very physical piece and I think I will get tired. To avoid this, I have been working on my personal fitness and stamina, and we have been refining our trio to make the chance that the audience do not understand the narrative aspect to our work very slim. The part I think I will most easily achieve is not creating a passive experience for the audience as I am finding it increasingly easy to enter into the atmosphere of the room and really connect with what I am doing. I hope that this will create another dimension for the audience and will help me to develop as a performer. I can definitely tell that the skills I am refining from the stimulus of the Commission are applicable to the other pieces I am creating at the moment and I will work to keep this up. As our group piece centres so much around emotion, I know I need to be entirely involved in the piece, and not 'act' so much as 'react' to what is going on, to make a believable and truthful performance. If I do this, I am sure that the 'theatrical miracle' that the Commission talks about will be achieved. I believe that the Commission for the group piece has allowed me to develop as a performer and think that it is wholly appropriate and achievable for us when doing our group piece.

Lesson 5 - 10/2/15

This lesson was slightly different to the lessons we have had in the past. We began by warming up and rehearsing our group piece in our classes. The order of our piece changed, showing how it is a piece in progress and is always being reformulated to create the best version of the performance possible. I found this quite tiring both physically (as we kept running through the piece) and mentally (as I had to be on the ball all the time to remember the changes that were being made and the notes I was being given). Overall I thought my general participation and effort levels in the group were good, and I was focused fully on getting through the piece and envisaging what it will be like in the real performance. I thought I could have worked slightly harder and taken on board more of the notes if I had written them down as I was going along - I think that note taking in general is something that I need to work on, as I remember them throughout the day but tend to forget some after a longer period of time.

After working on our class pieces, we came together as a 75-strong year group and began to devise our whole group piece around stimulus questions. The first steps of getting the work were very similar to what we had done in our classes - working first on our breath, then expanding on our bodies' natural ergonomic movement and transferring this to a partner. I really enjoyed this section - working in partners yet all the partners being part of a large group. However, I found it quite uncomfortable to improvise due to the confines of the space. The  very limited space was good for experimenting with proxemics with one another though and we played with being touching to being on opposite sides of the room but maintaining a connection with one another. I was surprised at how easy I found this - even when my partner was at the other end of the room, I was entirely focused on him and we worked together very well.

The main part of our piece came from being individuals within a group. We were posed a very ambiguous question and we had to answer it with purely physical movement. I was very sceptical about this, and was sure that it would not be very productive with 75 people all trying to work together. I was proved wrong - as with every improvisation there were many bland bits but moments of technicolour also. Below are some of the 'success criteria' that we came up with as a class for how to create an emotive piece and my interpretations of these criteria - what they mean to me:

• Make discoveries - allow yourself to be free and not held back by anything.
• Don't talk to yourself - instead interact with other people and ensure that you are making and accepting offers from other people.
• Respond to each new movement and moment - when working as an ensemble it is critical that you are always aware of what the others are doing.
• If you feel it your response is right - if your body tells you to do something, go with it and try to get out of thinking about what movements to do that will impress the audience; it is often much more impressive to do instinctual, honest movements.
• Be aware of others - safety is very important when working in a large group; be careful and cautious of other people, do not try to hurt them and be aware of how you may be hurting them.
• Focus on your breathing so you work with your instinct - if ever you feel stuck or completely lost with a question that is called out, go back to the breath and feel how it moves around the body.

By following these criteria, I think this will make the piece alive - especially referring to the breath, as getting 75 people to breathe in time with one another and be in sync with each other is something very special that work will come out of.

 

We were then asked what it feels like to be a part of the piece. I said that it felt like for some people it is clear that working in a big group empowers them, whereas for others it seems to swallow them up. This made the piece feel uncomfortable and chaotic to be a part of, whereas it should be freeing and controlled, yet with a sense of unpredictability and opportunity. I don't think we will ever get to this state of being completely harmonious with one another purely because people are in different mindsets, but it would be amazing to be a part of something close to that. Other people said that they felt claustrophobic and disjointed because people kept pushing - I agree with this fully as we were in a huge clump in the middle of the room which should have been ironed out, allowing us to be more creative.

From this very helpful group discussion, we decided to refer back to the success criteria and really hone in on creating an honest and beautiful piece. We tried it again with one person standing up and finding an answer to the question physically, then transferring slowly to the rest of us and the results were much better than when we did it the first time. It seemed less like a cluster in the middle and people were not on top of each other - everyone seemed much more free and it was much more enjoyable.

I think that if we achieve what we had at the end of the rehearsal in the real performance, it will be a very interesting spectacle for the audience. I hope that we will not get caught up in the middle of the room, and I know that I have a responsibility as part of the company to prevent this from happening and maintain a level of honesty. I think it is a huge risk to not choreograph or stage anything for the conclusion of our piece, and one I cannot say whether it will be a good risk or not because it is improvisation that will happen on the day. I have never had a level of spontaneity filtered into a performance before, and is something I find quite daunting yet exhilarating. 

Tate Modern

In order to get inspiration for our trio pieces, we visited the Tate Modern art exhibition centre. I am not very artistic person, and do not usually enjoy going to art galleries so was slightly pessimistic about the trip. However, I was pleasantly surprised to find that there were several pieces of art that I could find a deep meaning to, and which spoke to me in terms of getting inspiration for theatrical ideas. Below are the five most inspirational art pieces that I came across and why I liked them.

Title of art piece: Condensation Cube

Artist: Hans Haacke

Materials made of: plexiglass, steel and water

Themes of piece: nature, simplicity, serenity, control,  beauty, entrapment.

Why it inspires me: There is an overlap in form between physical and biological systems. I think it is very clever how something can be static, yet moving at the same time. Haacke wanted to create something inanimate and animate, and this is a clever way of allowing the spectator to witness nature happening in a controlled, scientific environment, which is what I really like about the piece.

Potential ideas for theatrical works: minimalism, butoh, portraying human innocence in its most raw form, not created to impress.

 Title of art piece: Méditerranée

Artist: Ellsworth Kelly

Materials made of: oil paint, wood

Themes of piece: experimentation, dimensions, clash, harmony, discord, repetition, vibrancy, perspective.

Why it inspires me: I love the way that depth is played with and how “any colour goes with any other colour”, as the artist wanted to demonstrate. I like the idea of something becoming different based only on perspective, and how things go naturally together without human intervention or over thinking.

Potential for theatrical work: a still image that reveals different things when looked at from different angles.

 Title of art piece: Untitled

Artist: Nam June Paik

Materials made of: acrylic paint and pastel on printed paper

Themes of piece: distortion in the media, experimentalism, true vs false, sugar-coating real stories, injustice, shallowness, anger.

Why it inspires me: This piece is again very minimalist but portrays an important message. The childlike paintings over the newspaper of smiling television screens suggests how that the true messages that need to get through to the public are distorted by the media and the power of television as a disseminator of information. It suggests that the real stories are overwritten by the things that people ‘want to hear’. I have found this a common issue in contemporary society and think this piece of art symbolises it perfectly.

Title of art piece: The Bigger Picture

Artist: Colin Blakemore

Materials made of: canvas, wooden frame

Themes of the piece: paradox, harsh reality, minimalism, intensity, anger, passion, violence against nothingness.

Why it inspires me: There is no disguise here - all that is displayed is a canvas locked in a frame with a slash in it, exposing what is behind: nothing. The sheer minimalism that this piece contains is very interesting to me; the idea that an artist can make such a bold statement from so little on a canvas.

Potential ideas for theatrical work: acts of violence revealing that we are all the same underneath and all have the capacity to be evil. Possibly involving masks?

Title of art piece: Burn Hole

Artist: Henk Peeters

Materials made of: scorched plastic

Themes of piece: space, time, human intervention in the world, destruction, hatred, passion, anger.

Why it inspires me: This piece strikes me as being a representation of our solar system,  yet shows how we are so small in the grand scheme of things; the white of the paper is much more dense than the scorched plastic. The fact it is scorched perhaps shows how human intervention in the world is ruining things, destroying the natural beauty until it will cease to exist.

Potential ideas for theatrical works: something to do with human destruction - the themes of anger being the cause of pain and suffering in the world,

Lesson 4 - 3/2/15

Today's lesson was mostly rehearsal and devising for the final performance.

One of the most important things that I picked up from the lesson was that I need to commit to improve every lesson. The philosophy of devising that we are working with is using instinct to devise so there is an instinctual feel to the end performance. From this, I am keen to get a connection between my body, the space and each other. This is something I feel I have achieved in the other two terms and really want to replicate this term in rehearsals as well as the final performance. 

Another aspect of performance that these sessions are helping me with is "playing" as a form of improvisation. In the past I think I have been stuck to the idea that rehearsals and devising techniques can only come from direct ideas and a stimulus, but this term I have come to realise that this is always the best way to devise. In class, we have been devising particularly 'soup' by just playing with one another and being bodies existing in a space together having fun and experimenting with what we can do. I have really enjoyed playing and am astonished at the amount of good work that comes from it - movements that may not have materialised the way they did if they had stemmed from 'an idea'. I think at the start I was not very good at this, and was slightly self-conscious but am getting better the more I do it and the more stimuli I have.

In the session today, we began by warming up (something I am getting better and better at and feel I would be able to do by myself now) and I worked hard meaning my body was relaxed and alert, ready to work. After the warm-up we began to do an exercise which we named '180 push hold'. We had to walk around the space, then our teacher would either shout out '180' (where we would have to turn around 180 degrees), 'push' (where we would have to push the person nearest to us hard and then move on) or 'hold' (where we could have to get the nearest person to the floor and then once we had, move on). I found the 180 part of this exercise relatively easy and found I had good concentration and was able to make the turns very sharp. At first, I kept bumping into other people when I turned but I managed to develop more spacial awareness as the exercise progressed. The hardest part for me, and the part I feel I was worst at was the 'hold' section because I am slight in stature, and found that I was simply not strong enough to pull anyone to the floor, no matter how hard I tried. I also found the 'push' quite difficult because of the same reason, and when I got pushed by others I found it hard to stay on my feet. I think to improve this I need to work on my physical strength and agility so that I will not fall over in the real performance.

After we had done that activity, we watched a video clip of Auschwitz and the horrors that were committed from human to human. A part that particularly stuck out to me was dead bodies being thrown on a pile, something that disturbed me a lot. We used this image and the exercise we had just done so that if someone was pushed over or pulled to the ground, they had to stay on the floor. Unsurprisingly, I was pulled to the ground almost immediately and the people who were left standing dragged all the 'dead bodies' onto a large heap. I found it difficult to be limp when people were dragging me, as it was painful to be pulled across the floor, and it was instinct to tense my body. I managed to overcome this though, and found it much less painful to be limp which surprised me. It was a very shocking emotional experience being put on a pile of people, and the mood in the room was very solemn due to the harsh reality of what we were re-enacting. I thought that this was a very Artaud style of working, highlighting the brutality of human nature by showing a disturbing scene and could see how it related to experimental theatre.