#devisinglogbooks
Text
Week 10: Devising logbooks ᕕ( ᐕ )ᕗ
6/01/2022 New year! Tim's class
Tasks:
reading through the script and putting everything together
We now have our first draft of our new script and casting list!
we got a schedule - the long one piece of paper (include pic)
talk about why we have 4 Alices since Caroline asked - is it just an excuser for everyone to be casted or is there a reason? (explain in my own words why Alices personalities are being show yadda yadda)
additional notes:
Add in Jade into the beginning of the duchess scene to bring in the baby as a transition from the previous scene
--- Spacer
7/01/2022 Caroline's lesson
Tasks:
Looking at developing movement scenes of our play - Focused on Alice running away and Quadrille dance (I have videos!!)
Process!!
We used Frantic assembly's 'round by through' exercise in pairs to help make and develop the weaving scene
- I was paired with Jade (include video)
- Talk about our process with making our little thing - we pretty much instantly had ideas and stuff
- Mention how this scene's Alice was missing from class today so we worked in pairs and assigned one person out of each pair for the Alice to learn their movement bit
Worked on quadrille dance after since we still had plenty of time
- Gave the dance a proper formation and structure and found music to add to it
- Rehearsed many times over - I filmed it since I wasn't involved in the dance since I'm the frog in this scene :D yay! froggy <3
0 notes
Text
Week 10: Devising logbooks ᕕ( ᐕ )ᕗ
9/02/2021
We just had a talk about costume today so I could do research over half term so it's pretty much prepared for when we come back
- masks :D
- colourful. Base type theme colour can coordinate with each of the characters
- everyone add textures to their clothing. Transitions can swap masks and clothing
0 notes
Text
Week 9: Devising logbooks ᕕ( ᐕ )ᕗ
2/12/2021 Devising day!!
Today was day when we used the dialogue only thing I did
when me nana and jade tried that complicite thing with the bodies for Tweedledumb and Tweedledee
Character work
- Groups split into two - Emi did this with lee <33 created the intro with Rabbit and Queen
Ensemble - played with physicality + controlled - noticing the audience + adds another level of how character would break 4th wall
.｡*ﾟ+.*.｡ଘ( ᐛ ) ଓ+..｡*ﾟ+
Evening workshop w/ max
Pan's labyrinth scene - developed scene by restarting the scene, we made a big tree out of people and Harry climbed out of that instead of him sitting on his own out of the centre of stage
Courtroom scene - developing the environment with sound scape - added volumes to fill space and made gibberish guys like muppets
0 notes
Text
Week 7: Devising logbooks ᕕ( ᐕ )ᕗ
19/11/2021 Morning class
Today we worked in the theatre instead of in the class upstairs and we split into groups to fill the gaps on scenes we had yet to look at in the book of Alice in wonderland! The group I was in decided to focus on the Duchess chapter! ଘ(੭ ᐛ )♡
Process!
We noticed that even though we have a lot of the material now, we don't know how to connect everything fluidly. Therefore, we decided to work on a possible transition from the previous chapter to this one to tackle this.
In the theatre, there were these arch windows that were out in the space. Seeing them sparked an idea in Joanna's mind so after receiving permission, we got to working on the idea. The windows were wheeled which she thought would add to the whimsical feeling of the original story.
We both decided to stand in place for two Alices; her being the one from the previous scene and me being the one for the chapter we're building on. We played around with ways we could spin the windows around so she could swap places with me. Throughout one of our attempts, Curtis had the idea of one of us exiting the same time the other entered. Joanna executed this idea by crawling under the space below the windows in time with me as if crawling through a gap in the wall. We went with this idea instead since it clearly shows Alice exiting and entering a brand new space in a way the children watching would easily understand
In the book, the description of the house says how it's loud and chaotic because of the chef in the kitchen and the loud crying of the baby in the Duchess' hands (get a screenshot of this bit)
I contributed my ideas on the staging of this section of our piece and I suggested we try to create the chaos in the book. I recommended that the Duchess (who was played by Nana in our group) and the baby (Lee) should be placed centre stage and the chef slightly off to either one of the ends of the stage as the 'kitchen area.' I also had the idea of recreating the noises the thrown pots and pans would make by the cast that's not involved in the scene to bang on the furniture or hit props for a short period of time to help set the atmosphere of the scene. When we rehearsed these ideas, I tried to show in my face and physical actions that the madness of the house was unsettling to Alice and she didn't like it, however she soon succumbed to their madness as soon as she interacted with the characters.
Another part of the chapter inspired me to create a method of bringing in audience interaction. This part was the lullaby the Duchess sings the baby to sleep. We improvised this bit when we showed back to the class, but I definitely feel like this would be great to develop in future!
.｡*ﾟ+.*.｡ଘ( ᐛ ) ଓ+..｡*ﾟ+
Second class
Tasks:
Create the 'building blocks' for our piece- Anne bogart
In this less practical lesson, we discussed as a group what the 'building blocks' of our piece are. The reason why we did this is to help filter our ideas to a fixed plan instead of vague suggestions.
The term 'building blocks' is sourced from Anne Bogart's 'Viewpoints book.' These block come in three categories which are:
Question
The question's purpose is to stimulate the thought of what we're trying to achieve out of the piece. What is the theme of the piece? What do we hope to get out of the piece? Who is the piece made for? The question is able to hit all of those points and will be what we will always come back to when we reach a tough spot.
Anchor
The anchor is what we are going to use as our main theme for the production. This is the energy that we want our play to maintain so we have the anchor so we can remind ourselves of this.
Structure
The structure is the way we format the piece. How are we going to tell the story? Our idea of the way we present the production is what this is for so we can make the rest of rehearsal process similar.
Below are the building blocks that we came to by the end of the class.
0 notes
Text
Week 6: Devising logbooks ᕕ( ᐕ )ᕗ
11/11/2021 Tom's lesson
Tasks:
Working with Dom on the chapter task!
Idea: thought we could play around with the deception of gravity of the chair as we tell the story
In this lesson, we were still working on our group projects. Since we already sorted out the introduction to our script on Monday, we were able to use this lesson to the fullest practically! ଘ(੭ ᐛ )♡
Notes for today
Puppetry with Dom - especially with 'You might as well say I see what I eat' section of the chapter
Could incorporate dance into it somehow - just a thought
To show the childlike nature between the Hatter and Alice, they could play kid games like patty cake
Once we completed creating the rest of the scene, we took a recording of it. The video is available on my Vimeo account here!
Process!
While creating the piece, Dom and I came across a lot of obstacles since we kept running out of ideas to try. I think this was just because of it simply being a morning lesson. The more the day went on though, we finally came to a clearer understanding of what we wanted to achieve. I think this helped us think of things easier.
For example, when Dom tried to portray the Cheshire cat physically, I did my best to guide him on how cats tend to move. We also received help from Tom with this.
I personally didn't know how to characterise Alice though. I pushed through it since this entire project was just so we had ideas; there was no set cast. I personally found it a little awkward and not very me since I don't relate much to Alice's mannerisms.
When we did this, I pictured Alice to be panicked and animated with her gestures. Reason being is because I always imagined the characters in Wonderland to go for the extremes when it comes to any thing they do and Alice being here for as long as she has been at this point must've taken this on herself.
I also felt like this vocally too. I very much wanted to explore my range and deliverance with the lines, but I didn't know how to achieve that without it sounding forced and artificial. While doing this, I kept going back to the way the traditional Alice would've behaved and spoke so I adopted words she may have used and a similar sentence structure. I think if others were to use this, I'd alter the script otherwise since constantly changing dialects and sentence structures might confuse the audience - even other actors.
I feel if I were to work on this again in future, I'd want to develop Alice's character to fit my personality more so it wouldn't feel so fake to me and I could have more fun with it! :D
.｡*ﾟ+.*.｡ଘ( ᐛ ) ଓ+..｡*ﾟ+
Tim's lesson
Tasks:
Continuing to work on our project
Viewpoints training - shape river exercise
did that viewpoints training thing focusing on tempo and duration
did this exercise called shape river - explain it n shi
To start off the lesson, we took part in a Viewpoint exercise called Shape river! The process of this exercise is that the ensemble would enter the circle they created one by one and use their body and create whatever shape their impulses push them to create in response to the music. I enjoyed this exercise because it encouraged me to do what I felt like doing without the fear of judgement. I usually think of how I can express myself with music all the time since music is a big part of my life as well. Being able to do this exercise allowed me to pretty much just be myself!
After this, we broke off into our groups again to continue working on our pieces. Since Dom and I were finished with what we made earlier by this lesson, all we did was continue to rehearse it over and over.
Once we were satisfied, we moved onto creating something else!! We looked at something from later chapters in the story of 'Alice in wonderland' and Dom mentioned how appealing 'The lobster's quadrille' chapter looked to him. I never heard of a quadrille before and neither did he, so we looked it up on the internet and we instantly had an idea to incorporate a dance section into the play!
We rehearsed the quadrille dance and used this video on YouTube as our reference!
.｡*ﾟ+.*.｡ଘ( ᐛ ) ଓ+..｡*ﾟ+
12/11/2021 Tim's class
Tasks:
Continuing with rehearsals
In this lesson we recapped what we made earlier today and altered a few things. Instead of using a chair, we substituted it for a block and this was the lesson that we came up with the idea of looping the end and the begging of our piece. We achieved this by adding the incorrect version of twinkle twinkle on the end of where the video leaves off. This is where we placed our puppetry idea! We made it that Dom is supposed to lull me to sleep and I pass out. When he is off stage, I wake up alert with my opening line directed to the audience. In order for the loop to make sense, we changed the opening to be me already in place, asleep and Dom's the one who enters the stage.
Once this was done, each group performed their work to each other and I took notes on our feedback and what I liked about others pieces
Feedback on me and Dom's performance:
Dom's physicality of the cat was well done; could tell he researched it
One person was always constantly moving which kept the energy up
The looping idea was really interesting
Transforming characters was well done - Dom shifting from the Cat to the Hatter
Block added another level
Progressively got darker and creepier
Familiar twinkle twinkle from the book added some vague form of comfort to the scene
Could improve the scene by exploring vocal ranges more
0 notes
Text
Week 5: Devising logbooks ᕕ( ᐕ )ᕗ
4/11/2021 Thomas' class
Tasks:
Read short version of Alice
Took notes of what we liked + discussed it
We didn't do much this lesson since we were mostly thinking of ideas today. Tom read the book to us while we took notes of any ideas we possibly had in today's lesson! ଘ(੭ ᐛ )♡
Chapter list - my ideas!
Chapter 1
Start with Alice and the rabbit. Make some kind of scenery of her innocently watching and following it
For the falling bit, do what Nana and Mia made up
Chapter 2 - gold key
The group could surround Alice as doors
✰Random thought; have a narrow section between the kids as a walk way somehow - use this for audience interaction!!✰
Enthusiastic butlers are presenting Alice the drinks (multiple ones to fill out the favourite foods; listing the flavours - she drinks them all)
Chapter 3 - pool of tears
Alice's bad math + geography would be a good way to make a joke somehow
Chapter 4 - mouse's tail
Narrate the mouse's story with physical still images
Chapter 5 - advice from caterpillar
Play with levels for understanding Alice's sizes changes
Make sure to include the contradicting
✰Random note: the story could start off more nice and by this point it could get more deranged and sinister✰
Chapter 6 - pig and pepper
People can be smoke around the duchess and child and cook - pepper could be random flashy hands!
Cheshire cat in the corner staring at Alice
Cat says the lullaby instead while everyone looks insane
This whole scene is weird and uncomfy like
Cheshire cat and Alice talk with what Joanna and Allana did - 'How do u know I'm mad Alice?'
.｡*ﾟ+.*.｡ଘ( ᐛ ) ଓ+..｡*ﾟ+
5/11/2021 Tim's class
Tasks:
Starting creative process of another mini project
In Tim's class, we began another mini project! This one was to help us separately come up with small scenes or ideas outside of class and share them in a weeks time. I was paired with Dom for this exercise and we immediately started to discuss possible ideas for something we could create! ଘ(੭ ᐛ )♡
Ideas that we had!!!
We could use mirrors somehow to help create the trippy and dazed feeling the story gives
Two Alices telling the story
Tea party chapter as the focus point!
I would tell the story and Dom would cut in to finish my sentences; catches me off guard. Turns out he was there too without me realising. Every time I ask about this, he explains
Start getting closer to the audience and walking around stage
After talking about possible ideas for a while, we eventually came up with some kind of idea for how to start the scene! We made sure to get this out of the way as soon as possible so we wouldn't waste too much time thinking about it later on!
Rough script idea (specific characters or who says what not decided yet)
'I have a story to tell! The most curious thing happened!'
'What?'
'(mention who's there)'
'(He gets them all right)'
'(confused but brushes it off) Anyways... We were having a-'
'Tea party?'
'Yeah!'
(Start talking about the tea party and stuff)
More ideas!
Alice could vent to the other about the Hatter and Hare (we temporarily switch to those characters)
Idea! For the 'No room, no room!' section, we could turn the chair we have sideways and sit on it (one on the legs facing forward and one on the floor but as if sitting correctly on the chair)
Target for next lesson:
Continue this for Thursday's lesson
Message Dom to talk about this in our own time so we use Thursday's time more effectively
.｡*ﾟ+.*.｡ଘ( ᐛ ) ଓ+..｡*ﾟ+
8/11/2021 - Open access with Dom
Me and Dom came in during our open access slot on Monday to continue discussing and to start working on our piece together! From our discussion today, we came to the decision that I'll play Alice and the additional character that she's talking to would be the Cheshire cat! We thought of this because it'd be fair to give the cat more credit since the group hasn't really thought of it's character much before. It also adds to the creepy element that we wanted to achieve since it's character is naturally unsettling.
Here's the first draft of our script that I have in my book from this session! We created and finalised the intro for our scene! ଘ(੭ ᐛ )♡
Introduction!
Emi is Alice, Dom is Cheshire cat (in addition to others)
Dom sitting on chair, Emi arrives excited
Alice enters. Cheshire is sitting on the chair
Alice: Oh dear, oh dear! I have the most peculiar story to tell
Cheshire: What is it you deem as 'peculiar' Alice? Climbs off chair
Alice: So, so much! Everything happened so fast! There was this house, but it wasn't like any other house and -
Cheshire: Okay, Alice. Compose yourself
Alice takes a deep breath before continuing
Alice: Apologies. There was a rabbit with a waistcoat, a contradictory caterpillar who I thought was very rude, A baby who was also a pig and I kept growing and shrinking
0 notes
Text
Additional week 4: devising logbooks
22/10/2021 Tim's class
Tasks:
Devise experimental short scenes/snap shots/stimuli with what we brought in
For today's lesson, we were told we had to bring in some stimuli to help create a short devised piece in small groups for 25 minutes. We've decided officially prior this lesson that our main stimulus for our piece would be the story of 'Alice in Wonderland.' I was paired with Leah and we used the image and chapter below as our inspiration! ଘ(੭ ᐛ )♡
During the process, we were told we had to use expressive gesture and feature some speech. Thankfully this chapter was heavily reliant on speech to drive the plot so we had plenty to work with. Leah decided to play Alice in this scene and I was the caterpillar.
Throughout the chapter, the caterpillar equivocates a lot which in turn confuses Alice and leads her to ask more questions. I represented the caterpillar's unpredictable and confusing nature more in my body than my voice. I achieved this by keeping my eyes fixed on Leah and circling around her and the stool we used to represent the mushroom. I also imagined the caterpillar to act very grand and mighty despite it being so small, so I represented this by taking large steps and performing every gesture in a stylised manner.
For most of the scene, I moved Leah around or she was at a lower level to me to indicate how intimidating and dominating the caterpillar seemed in Alice's eyes. We played around with switching levels to show the difference in Alice growing and shrinking and we did our best to keep in mind the fact that this scene could potentially have some dark edge to it like the class discussed the week before.
Feedback from the class after performing it:
contrast in characters was well represented
my caterpillar was good in terms of the fluidity in my movements - could tell I was a caterpillar
good balance with dialogue and movement
level play was good
0 notes
Text
Week 4: Devising logbooks ᕕ( ᐕ )ᕗ
21/10/21 Pecha kucha day!!
Talk ab emi one first!!
Today I performed my pecha kucha on DV8! Unfortunately, I couldn't get a hold of my video. So here's my script
Slide 1: Hello and welcome to my pecha kucha about DV8 physical theatre. In this presentation I will be discussing who they are, what they do and their history as a company. In addition to any other information I have found. Hope you enjoy :D
Slide two: The company was created in 1986 by Lloyd Newson. He directs and creates all his performances - minus one which he co-directed. Each performance focus on social, psychological + political issues. DV8 doesn't consist of the same performers - they always change
Slide 3: Considering this was founded in the 80s , I feel like I should draw some attention to it. Many reasons such as Margaret Thatcher being PM, cuts in funding for many things and the impact current issues had on the arts
Slide 4: Freedom of expression really started to surface itself. 'Out with the old, in with the new' attitude reigned and this was present in theatre. Topics like sexuality, mental health and racism were tackled via more abstract and even comedic means.
Slide 5: An example of DV8'S performances is 'To be straight with you' which is a series of verbatim movement pieces. Their main themes of this project is sexuality and religion, and the words are expressed through various movements.
Slide 6: In order to create this piece, Newson interviewed more than 85 people in Britain. He said, 'If you make homosexuality visiblie like race, like disability, like gender, it is extraordinary how unsafe most gay men feel'. In light of this, he felt it was necessary to talk this through this project.
Slide 7: Another example of their performances is 'Can we talk about this' which is yet again a physical theatre verbatim project. This series sheds light on the important, less spoken of issues such as islamophobia and immigration and forced marriages. In these performances, they highlight multiple famous public incidents and ongoing issues.
Slide 8: The physical side to these performances are simplistic and less 'in your face' compared to the previous performance mentioned. The actors more with more subtly and grace, bringing more of the audience's focus to the words rather than actions.
Slide 9: Shifting our focus back to Lloyd Newson, this man has won himself 55 national and international awards as well as OBE in 2013. His work isn't just based in theatre. He uses film, dance send text to his advantage. They all come together to discuss political and social issues and he tends to study psyche too.
Slide 10: Newson doesn't dare censor his work whether that be through text or actions, his performances are explicit in nature. This is because he heavily practices using verbatim text. The word means 'in exactly the same words as were originally used.' If people dislike the text, they can't really blame the director.
Slide 11: That being said, I tool the time to research and read some articles of DV8's performances. The next few slides will consist of a couple of them and why they felt the way they did.
Slide 12: The review by Judith Markell for the Guardian find them to be very impressive. They watched 'Can we afford this?' and they said the performers 'portray extraordinary, unsensational, sharp-featured personas' and enjoyed the diversity in the cast and story.
Slide 13: In addition, Lyn Gardner from the Guardian said DV8'S 'John' is a 'thrilling descent into madness' in 2014. They highlight the key moments they liked in the performance, however, they feel as if John's character lacked development. They thought this could be improved.
Slide 14: 'Left myself in tears of awe' said Hannah Goslin in their review about 'John'. Just like others, they said the explicitly in the topics DV8 explores like sex, identity and religion, is presented in such a beautiful format.
Slide 16: I personally find DV8 really cool. I really like the fusion of dance and acting in their performances and especially the fact they don't sugar coat anything they put on. I feel like this is necessary if we hope for progression as a society.
Slide 17: Their use of minimalism is interesting too. I find myself being really drawn to their physicality rather than what they're wearing or the space. I find it hard to take my eyes off them, which I think is their goal. To get the audience to focus on them, I believe they've successfully do this on many occasions
Slide 18: If I ever had the chance to perform with DV8, I'd do it in a heartbeat. It would be really cool to experience creating work through Newson's methods and seeing what comes out of it. Hopefully I'd be able to develop this kind of skill in future
Slide 19: In conclusion, DV8 id a phenomenal dance performance company run by a man who's devising skills are out of this world. One could easily keep up with DV8 by looking at their website, YouTube channel or Instagram page.
Slide 20: Goodbye :D
For the rest of the lesson, my classmates presented their pecha kuchas. The one's I liked and want to do more research on can be found in this week's research post! ଘ(੭ ᐛ )♡
0 notes
Text
Week 3: Devising logbooks ᕕ( ᐕ )ᕗ
14/10/2021 Thomas' class
Tasks:
Working with image prompts
Today we were tasked with creating a short piece using features of 3 of the image prompts given. Tom gave every group 1 theme along with 1 restriction. My group were given the theme 'Desire' and our restriction was no physical contact. The images that we chose are the ones that are marked!
Process evaluation!
As a group, we found the restriction hard to avoid because we each interpreted desire to be something that involves lots of interaction. We soon got to experimenting with the different images; we did the gold hand one first, thinking it had strong relation to our theme. Seeing as they were touching, we played around with how we could be over lapping our arms which developed into reaching for the person on the lowest level (Joanna).
With the second image, we decided to make Lee and Joanna's relationship more clear. Due to them responding to each other, I wasn't sure how to involve myself. The two of them took inspiration from this very image but as the extra body, I had to find relevance to be there. Through discussion, this is where the idea of an affair could be happening and I'm the homewrecker since every suggestion were ways I could potentially get in Lee's way or get upset when I see the two together.
For our final one, we decided to play with the levels again and took our inspiration from this image. The shocked expressions played well with Lee's reaction to Joanna and I on the floor. The also brought another level to the small story we created. Here's how it all looks together!
Feedback on our work:
Our theme was clear ≈ love (prompt was desire)
Intentions were clear
One with the most narrative
People loved levels + eye contact in first
Movements flowed well with our prompt
.｡*ﾟ+.*.｡ଘ( ᐛ ) ଓ+..｡*ﾟ+
Tim's class
Tasks for today:
Composition task 2!
Brainstorming ideas for our story
This lesson was a brain storm type lesson. Tim's read the class some twisted tales to help give us inspiration as we wrote our ideas. Here's all I did today and my plans for my story!!
.｡*ﾟ+.*.｡ଘ( ᐛ ) ଓ+..｡*ﾟ+
15/10/21 Tim's class
Tasks:
Practicing comp 2 things
Showing off pieces and discussing
The first thing we did in the lesson was recite our stories that we created for composition task 2! Here's mine :3
'I remember... I remember looking for her - my girlfriend. I... I remember the halls of the school. There were so many rotten, crumbling corpses that decorated the corridors as well as blood stains, bugs - bugs with the courage and confidence I wish possessed, inhabiting the space and countless debris lying everywhere. There were no lights to guide my way apart from the dull glow the moon offered; partially robbing me of one of my senses. My anxieties conjured horrid images of her crushed body underneath them. Her soul nowhere to be found and her limbs that were scattered around oozed her juices.
I soon stumbled upon a classroom. I remember bringing my head around the door frame and spotting a... A doll. This cute doll sitting on the window sill. Surely has seen far better days, but it was no less beautiful. It had eyes that chilled my bones and unfortunately cracks all over it's surface. I assumed it was because of the occasional animal, or maybe even that monster, tampering with it. What I found really odd though was the stains of blood in her golden hair and her frilly dress. Maybe the animals got injured from breaking it? That seemed reasonable...'
Feedback from performing my story:
The description of the school is very effective
Bug representation helped reveal Azula's true personality due to the comparison
Apocalyptic - think this would be a cool idea that kids might like
Storytelling was good
Polar opposite from Azula to me!
What did Emi think?!?!?! :0
I personally really enjoyed this exercise because I got the chance to write creatively - something I absolutely love doing in my own time! I instantly had ideas the day before and I wrote every single one down until I came up with some loose skeleton structure for my story. Unfortunately, it's incomplete, however, I feel like a lot can be done even with the short amount I got over night.
What are we getting from this?!?!??!
The whole point of this task was to help us gather some ideas for a stimulus for our devised piece. I spotted that we're all definitely aiming for a more creepy and sinister vibe with whatever we create which is evident in everyone's stories. There were so many wonderful pieces shared in the class today and I really believe we'll create something epic.
Here are notes that I made when the whole class came together to talk about what we found interesting. I would love to come back to this in the future and refine our ideas once we have more work done.
Ideas for stimulus and stuff :D :
- Going towards Halloween and scary vibes - a lot of our characters could connect to give it some kind of fun essence
- Use (e.g) Lee's character (toy), escapism via candy cane
- Taking fairy tales - familiar stories - and altering them/putting them together - existing stories are good to use as a foundation - E.g Alice in Wonderland
- In general, fairy tales hide darker meanings. Looking back at originals and so on
- Madness and insanity is cool
- Talking in rhymes and riddles are intriguing - Mia's character for her story
- twisted tales, could make scary shrek-like
- Harry's dinosaur - physicality was good
- Alice in Wonderland mixed with more horror moments like Annabelle (Lee's character)
- Don't *aim* to make it scary, make the atmosphere eerie
- About creating a world set in a certain time and place - time is important
- Characters can be more human - some will definitely need to to ensure relatability with the children
★Definitely want to bring in darkness
★Comedy elements 100%
0 notes
Text
Week 1: Devising logbooks ᕕ( ᐕ )ᕗ
30/09/21 Tim’s class
Today's tasks:
Examine historical context of devising
Explore image theatre
Lesson!
What is devising!?!? :0
Devising is a practice of collaboration. The technique of creating your own piece of performance in an ensemble. The earliest examples of devising can be found way back in the past. As early as Ancient Greek theatre!
In this unit, I will be exploring the ins and outs of devising techniques and it's history in theatre to aid me in creating a devised play with my classmates. ଘ(੭ ᐛ )♡
Firstly, we discussed as a group what we believed to be the most important skills were out of this chart.
After discussing this, it was time to get practical with a small exercise introducing us to image theatre!
Image theatre is the creation of a still image. As if taking a picture of something happening in a usual performance, we build character and atmosphere with our bodies and our imagination.
Our prompts for this exercise were:
Little red riding hood walking through the woods being watched by the wolf
An owl and cat lost at sea
Cinderella being mocked by her sisters and step-mother
Snow White and the dwarves eating dinner
Here's how it turned out!
Why you think we do this?!???? :0
I think we did this exercise to help us get into the stylised performance mindset so we'd be able to tackle the task of making a play more creatively. We're so used to sitting and discussing that we often do that. Not to mention our class is so imaginative so all we could ever do like that is take endless notes of ideas. An exercise like this motivates us to be impulsive and work collaboratively - especially since we have a 20 second time limit, and, if we really liked something, we could even save it for our performance!
.｡*ﾟ+.*.｡ଘ( ᐛ ) ଓ+..｡*ﾟ+
1/10/21 Tim’s class
Tasks:
Discussion - reading the Mackey text
Exploration of gesture
Lesson stuff!
We looked at this text about Mackey talking about devised theatre and it's history. You can find analysis of this text in Week 1's #Devisingresearch tag! :)
Developing gesture
For today's class, we explored the differences between expressive and behavioural gestures. We did this through creating a series of 3 still images per prompt. ଘ(੭ ᐛ )♡
What are those?!!!!? :0
Behavioural gesture - Reacting to/something more of a realistic physical action. Eg, punching out of anger.
Expressive gesture - More surreal, abstract and stylised/dance like. Eg, representing a bullet flying through the air.
Prompts for each type and what I did! ଘ(੭ ᐛ )♡
Behavioural:
Beanstalk <3 loved it!
For this one I decided to do a beanstalk growing. I liked this one because as soon as I thought of a plant growing, I thought of how they often spin, so I embodied this in my arms and legs.
Wolf <3 really loved this one!!
I did a stalking my prey and attacking it piece. I enjoyed this one because I love using my body in dynamic and flamboyant ways. So, instantly, I got to all fours and experimented with large shapes, varied levels and stabilising intensity. I feel this one may be my best one out of the whole exercise hehe. ;p
Pig </3 struggled :( espically with the bonus direction (pig in love)
I found this one challenging compared to the others because I wasn't sure how I could represent the additional bit of direction. Unfortunately, I ended up with nothing in the short time given to make something since I was thinking a lot, but watching other people present their ideas inspired me for future reference.
Expressive:
Cheeky monkey <3 think I did this one good too
For this one, I thought of a literal monkey and when people would often call mischievous children 'cheeky monkeys'. So I exaggerated the actions a typical monkey would do and stuck my tongue out for the teasing effect.
Power <3 Liked this one
For this one, I did a kind of elemental based set of images - this is what I was thinking of when I thought of power anyway. The show 'Avatar: the last airbender' and the grace within the movements of the characters inspired me heavily for this one.
How Emi find this exercise why is it useful to know these terms??
I personally enjoyed this exercise because it encouraged me to take some risks with my work and made me realise that sometimes little prompts like these can trigger something in my memory and gives me something to aim for with my work.
This exercise is effective in terms of what we're doing this unit because it's, without us even realising, guiding us to form some sort of stimulus for our play. Whether it be one frame we really liked and wanted to keep or a whole movement piece, we're already building something from nothing.
0 notes
Text
Hi! Welcome ☆ﾟ°˖* ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ
.｡*ﾟ+.*.｡ଘ( ᐛ ) ଓ+..｡*ﾟ+
☆What's this blog for?!?☆
This entire blog is here to hold all of my coursework for my HNC performing arts course!
And I'm talking everything!!!
Logbooks!
Research!
Links to essays and reviews!
Pictures!
Videos!
All the fun stuff <3
☆How to navigate my cool school blog :)☆
I will be uploading all of my logbooks here. Each unit will be organised by very specific hashtags and each week and class will be highlighted (Just like the subheadings of this very post!).
Example of the hashtags :p
#devisingclasseswithcoolteacher!!
#researchthingysforunit6
.｡*ﾟ+.*.｡ଘ( ᐛ ) ଓ+..｡*ﾟ+
Here are the hashtags that will take you to the specific areas of coursework! Type them in the search bar and enjoy looking at all the stuff~ :)
☆For unit 20☆
#Devisinglogbooks
#Devisingresearch
#unit20devising
1 note
·
View note
Text
Week 2: Devising logbooks ᕕ( ᐕ )ᕗ
7/10/21 Devising day for comp 1 :D
Today's tasks:
Creating devised work for Roald Dahl composition
Made more edits and got through first two pages
We were given the task to create a short devised piece in a group using one of Roald Dahl's revolting rhymes. My group was tasked with the Goldilocks story. In addition to this, we were given a list of requirements for our piece:
How'd u do?
At first for the three of us, we found it a little difficult as a group to start creating. We referred to the annotations we did on Monday after school with ideas that we had. We featured multi-roling, music and imitating furniture.
When it came to creating, we experimented with every idea we could think of to build on the piece. However, we had trouble with one section. For context, we decided that when the story described Goldilocks' 'crimes', instead of narrating them, we'd use that as a way to add in variations of stylised movement, still images, songs, etc.
The specific area we struggled with was when Goldilocks was eating the porridges. Since we wanted to stay true to the text and make her seem like a devious demon child, we thought bringing in mischievous actions such as grinning widely and sneaking around would be perfect, but we were stuck on how to execute the scene.
Tom suggested that we could add a moment of stillness when eating the porridge and gave us the idea of us all being Goldilocks at once instead of it just being one of us. Through further discussion and experimentation, we ended up with giving Goldilocks a very dynamic and impulsive persona which is a polar opposite to how she's usually described.
0 notes
Last Seen Blogs
leaphia
daydreaming
nurrohmanna2n9
Diamonds are forever
occultguardian
infinite imagination
vandalaart
VANDALA
ollisuu
Geez Guys Let Me Have A Turn Of The Salt Lick Cmon