The piece I was working on with Frank really developed. We had settled on the idea that I shadowed Frank throughout the scene to represent that I was a constant thought of Frank. His entrance was mimicked by myself; in sync with his foot placing. As Matt stood, and spun as he put our his cigarette (foot spin) both me and Frank spun off, again in time with one another and sat. Throughout the scene we incorporated various movements as a pair.
To conclude, our piece ends and a new scene will hopefully begin with me stood in neutral, as Sophie enters on the other side of Frank. And I hope to create a very dance-like sequence that really portrays love and romance but lacking from Sophie herself.
Both being dancers: Hannah and Sophie's piece had really fluid movements and (almost) perfectly in time. However my favourite piece would be Nyakeh and Matt's dance scene. The portrayal of being both in love and gay really came across and I just fell in love with the whole dance. -I have some very talented people in my group, but the art of group work is using this talent and incorporating it all into our work at different stages... I think all three pieces have really developed and fit with our piece and storyline well.
Our task set for this week is to decide on an environment for our piece to be set in: I have gone for the idea of a councillor. Councillors jobs are to listen and dig into others lives and try to solve the 'puzzle' in which they live in. This is the perfect way to clearly, but not over-feed, the audience to what is happening throughout the piece.
The piece is to be opened with all six of us in a square (created by chairs) with plenty of spare chairs that surrounds us. I pictured a really abstract interpretation of people in waiting rooms. So, for example, when Hannah leaves to go to her appointment, we really over dramatise us watching her get up and leave. Also, to use the keypad effect but instead of numbers it can be texting (letters) So our heads, in sync, will be moving to the 'letters on the keypad' whilst talking the text out loud in a monotone voice: "I am in the waiting room". Other movements included in this opening scene will be people's thoughts as they're sat in the waiting room...
The scene changes to Hannah in the councillors office with the councillor there. She begins to open up, naturally, but similarly to films, it is faded out and renewed with a real-life presentation of it. So it's like she begins to tell it and we replace her talking it to us as an ensemble portraying it through movements. As we progress through the piece, we revert back to the councillor scene to clear things up for the audience and we return back to the ensemble representation.
Following on from our progression on Monday, we continued working on the 'secrecy' theme between all the linked characters. Matt put forward the idea of having our whole piece set in an office, with tables specially layed out: Sophie and Hannah at the back, Me then Frank, Nyakeh then Matt. As a birds eye view of this design, two pyramids are formed which represents the links between each character.( Later on, we scrapped the idea of the tables and to just keep the chairs in the same layout to make the office scene more abstract and less naturalistic.) We experimented with some movements on and off the tables to start with and then worked with a silent 10minute piece of 'working' in the office. Unconsciously, we made this extremely naturalistic with each character working, typing, getting up to the printer etc etc. Deborah took down some notes for this which will prove really helpful because we can now use these when we come to devising some more naturalistic, text-based scenes.
(We also took note on an experimental version of a nightclub scene.) Going back to the office scene however, I believe we can really develop on the 'missed glances' which is something Deborah noted down that she felt worked. The relationships and tension between each relationship is high so the missed glances between characters will hugely help us to portray this.
(We also took note on an experimental version of a nightclub scene.) Going back to the office scene however, I believe we can really develop on the 'missed glances' which is something Deborah noted down that she felt worked. The relationships and tension between each relationship is high so the missed glances between characters will hugely help us to portray this.
As mentioned before, we experimented with a nightclub scene. In which this is the environment in which we all met one another and coincidentally we all meet weekly etc. Immediately we noticed that the noise could be a distraction from what we are trying to portray and teel the audience. I automatically knew I didn't want to do the nightclub scene and this was something we all agreed on early on. On one hand I'm pleased it was suggested and we tried it out and on the other I'm just as pleased that we could come to the decision to 'discard' the idea- one of our group rules. This is all part of being a team and the devising project.
We then relocated to the large dance rooms and set off in our three pairs to create our movement sequences. At first, me and Frank found it difficult to start off as I think we we're too set on the idea that it had to be very dance-like; but after we conquered this herdle we created a short, but nice movement piece with features of guilt, love and a bit of holding back from both sides... I was pleased with how this worked out in the end, and our aim for the end of this week is to have created something with more length.
Thursday proved as a difficult day as we were approached with the fact that two of our members could be leaving... This immediately threw us off the railing that we'd just got stuck into. Our immediate reaction was that it's going to be really difficult for us to continue with the idea of the characters being linked etc with just the four of us. So we traced back our thoughts and settled with the interview scene that Hannah had previously mentioned. We were then informed that we will have Nyakeh for the rest of this term which means he will remain a member of our group; and I hope this is the same for Sophie. As tricky as this situation was today, it surprisingly helped us huge amounts. The thought of having nothing decent to perform and starting near from scratch set us all in a really good mind set. Today we got more practical work than discussing than we have done before; and the idea is definitely something we all agree on which had a huge effect on the work we did.
(We hope to have our full group for this performance, but with this new idea we can easily have one or two members less or have the full 6 of us)
We have gone for the interview-type piece. We haven't fully structured our piece yet but we have a brief idea of how it will be: We want all of the characters to be seeing a therapist. This therapist dies, and we are all interviewed as perhaps suspects. We open the piece with the interviews taking place with a twist. We open the piece with the ending and finish with the beginning. We are all sat in a slight semi-circle at the very front of the stage-like so... We will have a projection of the three questions, the first question being 'How do you feel today?' and in turn we all answer with one movement and a short sentence or word. The second question being 'What was your relationship?' The answers for these gave a bit more away for the audience but we tried hard ask the perfect questions. By that I mean we don't give anything away with what were asking them. And finally the third question 'Did you do it?.' With this question the audience can interpret it anyway they want but we end with Nyakeh's character answering the question with 'What have I done...?' Lights fade and we change straight into the next scene. Nyakeh's answer will make the audience believe that whatever has happened it was he who did it.
I think this opening scene is brilliant; it's so tense and mysterious and we have put the audience right in on the happenings and they can immediately begin to interpret and imagine what they wish.
Nyakeh's answer leads us straight into the next scene with Hannah seeing the therapist. This is a really short scene and it took them very little time to create to me looks like a really abstract and Physical Theatre sequence, already. Hannah enters and they shake hands, whilst spinning in, then back out again. They take their chairs and spin them. This is similar to how Billy Elliot does it in the stage production: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SuMNv8h4ONU I really want to include more of this in our piece because we can use it to represent a waiting room, being impatient, bored, over-active, too many things on your mind. It takes a lot of practise but earlier this week Deborah mentioned the councillors scene and said that we could make even the waiting room as abstract as we wanted; so using the chair spinning would really change up a predictable and ordinary scene. Whilst watching this scene in Billy Elliot I felt myself being drawn in by this unusual way of using/moving a chair and this is what I really want to capture in one of our scenes.
Frank being the therapist jots downs some notes in this scene, but he uses an actual notebook and pen. However, for this I want it really over-exaggerated and mimed. Again this is changing something that is ordinary to something that's unusual and abstract. We incorporated a little over-exaggeration today with the outstretched hand, to click the pen. But I think we can take it much further and experiment with it.
As a summary of this 'eventful' week; I feel as though the thought of two members leaving really boosted us. We agreed on an idea fairly early on, we discussed how we want it etc, and then got on a started some practical. And although we only have less than four minutes of a piece I feel like we will now be really determined to bring ourselves back up to speed and in a way, show others that we can do it. So in a strange way, members leaving or the rumours of them leaving has helped us hugely.
The idea we have now, is something I really really like and I can now visualise how it's going to be presented etc. So in general, although we are now at the start, I think we will get something that we are all pleased and confident enough to perform in the four weeks we have remaining. 'Bring it on!'
Frank being the therapist jots downs some notes in this scene, but he uses an actual notebook and pen. However, for this I want it really over-exaggerated and mimed. Again this is changing something that is ordinary to something that's unusual and abstract. We incorporated a little over-exaggeration today with the outstretched hand, to click the pen. But I think we can take it much further and experiment with it.
As a summary of this 'eventful' week; I feel as though the thought of two members leaving really boosted us. We agreed on an idea fairly early on, we discussed how we want it etc, and then got on a started some practical. And although we only have less than four minutes of a piece I feel like we will now be really determined to bring ourselves back up to speed and in a way, show others that we can do it. So in a strange way, members leaving or the rumours of them leaving has helped us hugely.
The idea we have now, is something I really really like and I can now visualise how it's going to be presented etc. So in general, although we are now at the start, I think we will get something that we are all pleased and confident enough to perform in the four weeks we have remaining. 'Bring it on!'
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