Blog post 5

This week started off with a full day rehearsal of '13'. We did a few warm ups and breathing exercises and then we jumped straight into the end of Act 1, the London clubbing scene.

Dancing like Rachel
Firstly, we all huddled together and listened to the music that will be played. We were then asked to start to feel the music and dance as your character would. Unfortunately for me, Rachel is so free and doesn't care about anything or anyone in the sense that she doesn't care what she looks like or what people think of her, which leads me onto the fact that her dancing will be huge and mad. The sense of freedom in her dancing really needs to come across because stereotypically people match hippies with weird and wonderful dancing; featuring movements of the hands and Indian-like. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VibqEWACdRo
This video is a dance that I relate Rachel's dancing towards. The dancers in this video fully let themselves go and let their bodies meet the music. The movements are all slowly performed and with meaning. Even though the song that we play for this scene is upbeat at times; Rachel would still dancing as though she's listening to her own music, in her own little world.
       
We were then put into small groups, me with Sophie, Soph and Kennedy as the girls group of clubbers. We had to create a small dance sequence of 16 beats to match the music. I came up with the idea of clinking our glasses, perhaps a little too aggressively to be sober.  Kennedy came up with the idea that we were all at the bar, in a line, and in a canon effect, fall onto one another spilling our drinks. Smashing the glass on the floor to the right, synchronised,and brushing the drinks off ourselves we spin out of our line. Soph and Kennedy towards the front, myself and Sophie to the back. The two at the front stumble and overact a high-five. Myself and Sophie stumble and do an over exaggerated punch towards one another ear, then leaning into each others shoulders; only to dance to the beginning line and repeat the sequence.
   At the start of the dancing, I found it hard to let myself go and just try and get the sequence right, but by the end I became more confident with what I was doing. I'm pleased with this because I'm not a confident dancer and always prefer dancing to a dance that I've practised and practised instead of doing freestyle.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmin5WkOuPw This is another YouTube link directing you to the Firestarter Prodigy , which is the song that was played for the club scene. The song is perfect for a club as it allows you to really rock out as it has a punk rock feel to it. This song also has a modern feel to it; which links to '13' perfectly.

Continuing to improve '13'
After the dancing scene was blocked and practised with disco lights, focussing on the centre of the stage, the music fades and the 12 lay down in the circle matching the beginning of the play. We then started a full lighting run of Act 1. The run was very successful and it felt really good to be working under the lights and the scenes that I was in were looking just as good, but I felt they all need to be rehearsed more to ensure we all know what we are doing.
When we got to Act 1 Scene 15, I was slightly disappointed because this was the scene that we blocked almost entirely alone and then when scene which I came up with the idea of the balancing the plate exercise. However when we ran this scene, it fell to pieces and resulted in some characters stood in odd places on the stage delivering their lines, instead of doing the blocked movements such as walking to the middle of the circle when confronting or quickly stepping out when Shannon enters.
The solution for this is purely to rehearse and rehearse, so we all know when and where to move to make the scene look neat.
I also felt that the protesting scene wasn't as good as the first time round because we were missing a lot of extras whom just came on stage to bulk out the crowd, the key to this scene working was to use a big cast which we lacked today.

Our task today was to block the big finale scene, Act Five, the end of the play. This scene includes, Rachel, Amir, Shannon, Zia, Mark, Holly, Stephen, Ruth, Edith, Rob, Martin and Sarah. I began the discussing process by pointing out that we all have our eyes closed at the start and then when the music stops we all open them, I came up with the idea that we are all sat in the 'sleeping circle' but sat instead of laying. We are all in frozen positions of what our characters would be doing, day-to-day. For example, Rachel and Amir stood together holding hands, with one hand on my stomach as earlier on they begin to discuss having a child; this shows the audience that they are still debating on the subject. Nikey then said that Shannon and Zia can be laying on the floor star-gazing. This idea was moved on, as Hannah suggested the 'Home/4corners' exercise. So in our characters we walked around the stage with other characters that they are mostly linked with. I suggested the keypad activity to start the scene but this wasn't tried out. Nikey then said we should all crowd around the block which has a strike of importancy, as its used throughout the entire play. Then as we speak we stand on the block; the circle around the block represents infinity and how John linked them all together and now they are close, and always together. we tried this but myself and others felt this was to predictable for the audience and also that some characters had short, snappy lines which would be too short to stand on the block say and then immediately step down.
           In the end, we hadn't come up with a clear idea. I think the main struggle was that because its such a long act, with no scene changes that we had the difficulty of blocking something that fitted the entire act. My personal task is to think over some ideas alone, and bring them to the others later on this week as we will be covering this scene again.

On Wednesday of this week, we carried on blocking various scenes from '13'. Our main focus was the last scene, Act Three Scene Eight. This scene slowly trickles in all the 12 as it starts unravelling all the problems that they each individual are suffering from. Karen mainly blocked this scene. In conclusion, the scene is similar to a domino effect. As one character moves or speaks, the other characters then go on to move/speak and so on. For example, Stephen collapses which is a signal for Sarah to begin praying, at this point Edith has to pick up the childs hand which then provokes us all to bow our heads and pray until a blackout.
 When doing this scene, the atmosphere was really tense due to the issues all the characters express to the audience or other characters. Most issues are left unanswered to keep the audience intrigued. During the scene, there is lots of small movements or reactions that will constantly be diverting the audiences attention to different characters around the stage.
             From experience of seeing various shows; I know that I prefer shows/performances that have lots going on on stage because I like to look at how, no matter how small the role is, they react to everything and how each movement is precisely planned. Which leads me on to say how much I love this scene because I know as an audience memeber I would fall in love with how each character comes on stage and moves (such as Rachel and Amir begin talking, looking away from one another then finish staring.) I feel this is now one of the strongest ensemble scenes in the play, but we will need to keep rehearsing it to ensure we all do our movements or entrances with precision in order to make it aesthetically pleasing.

We then had a Winchester Uni lecturer come in and speak to us about the courses on offer at the University relating specifically to drama/acting. John, the lecture mentioned a few drama groups, mainly based in London, who focus on Street art performances; these are the next step up from buskers. He mentioned a drama group called Punch Drunk. Punch Drunk was created in the year 2000 by Felix Barrett. They focus in the "immersive theatre" which allows the audience to choose what they watch and where to go. Audience members can follow actors around the 'stage' area. By 'stage' I am referring to one of their previous performances which was set in a large industrial factory; and the audience had free roam of the factory alongside the actors and other audience members.

     Another drama group, I didn't catch the name, that was mentioned to us was a group which performed Hamlet on a bouncy castle. The original Shakespeare play is set in a castle; and this drama group changed this completely and performed on a bouncy castle (image below) I think this idea is excellent! It shows  imagination and thought and makes the play different and interesting for the audience. 

I felt that the lecture was really useful and interesting; it helped me think about all the available oppertunities for drama at university or drama school. 

The following day we furthered our blocking process for '13'. I mainly focused on the split scene.

This scene is Rachel and Amir on the left side of the stage & Dennis and Ruth on the right; an insight into the fact that they are higher up and always right in their decisions etc. The set consists of just one simple block in the middle of both of the scenes. Both scenes begin with Ruth and Amir back-to-back on the block, both facing into their own side of the stage. Rachel and Dennis, mirroring each other, stand over- me over Amir and Dennis over Ruth. The scene ends with Rachel sat in the same position as Amir and Ruth just as she was at the beginning. 

     I had an image set in my mind of how the scene would be set out; but now that we've used the one simple block, I feel that this makes the scene more intense and allows the audience to purely focus on the actors and the split of each scene as it jumps back and forth. I felt that this scene was very successful and it just focuses all the attention to the fact that the scenes jump to one another constantly. We use large gestures, voices and movements to revert the audiences attention back to mine and Amir's scene, as do Ruth and Dennis for the same reason. This scene, for me, is good fun to perform because it feels like a game of tug of war; as each pair of actors tries to pull the audience away from the one scene and bring it onto the other. 

Progress:

I feel as though the rehearsal process of '13' is going extremely successfully. I feel like each scene is improving as the play goes on. 

The key to keeping up the progress is to now rehearse lines and scenes over the half term to ensure that we keep them slick and remeber each movement.