Charlotte's blog: Unit 3 - Community arts project

Evaluation

On Friday 28^th April we went down to the Left Bank in Hereford to assist with the performance. We got to the venue at about 9:15 so we had time to prepare for the performance and for a brief of what we were going to be doing. Our job for the performances was to hand out headsets to the audience. For the first part of the performance, the audience did not need the headsets. We gave out the headsets once the audience came down the stairs. When we handed out the headsets, we firstly had to make sure that they were turned on and then we had to say to the audience “Here is your underwater headset and here is the volume control. If you have any problems please raise your hand”. From this point onwards we were able to follow the performance.

Overall I really enjoyed the performance. I thought that the performance worked really well.

Strengths

A strength of the performance was that it was very well thought out. The performance was about a stone sinking in the River Wye which runs through Hereford. They started the performance on the top floor of the building and moved throughout the rooms on this floor. There was then a break from the script and as some music was played, the audience were escorted down the stairs at which point the headsets were given out. Further on in the performance, the audience were escorted further down the building into the basement. This also symbolised that the stone was sinking further and further down the river. This was the last scene before all of the children came together to sing the final song.

Another strength of the performance was that we were able to hear all of the dialogue very clearly. This is because all of the dialogue was recorded previous to the performance and on the headsets we could adjust the volume to our liking. The idea of the headsets emerged from feedback from last year’s performance as the audience members said that they couldn’t always hear what the children were saying.

Another strength of the performance was that the costumes were very effective. The children were mostly dressed in black. Children playing the part of stones wore black hoodies with a white circle on the back. This meant that when they crouched down on the floor huddled up together, they looked like a group of stones. The children also wore headpieces and masks to portray their other characters. At the end of this blog are some pictures from the performance. These costumes were all really effective and looked great in the performance!

Weaknesses

A weakness of the performance was that it lacked fluidity in some places. For example, when the headsets were given out at the bottom of the first set of stairs, there was quite a bit of time in-between the 2 scenes. The atmosphere was kind of lost at this point. However, we did realise this problem once we had finished the first performance because audience members were just taking the headsets rather than waiting for us to hand them out. Therefore, for the second and third performance, we handed out the headsets before the performance started. This way the audience knew what to do with the headsets and there was a smaller gap in between the 2 scenes.

Another weakness of the performance was that it wasn’t always clear who was speaking. Because all of the audio was pre-recorded, the children did not need to learn the lines. This meant that because they didn’t have to learn the lines, they did not mime the words. This meant that it wasn’t always clear who was speaking at each point. It was only clear if the children were actually doing hand gestures, but this didn’t happen very often.

Another weakness of the performance was the headsets. During some of the performances, there was interference in the headsets. Unfortunately this meant that we couldn’t hear some of the lines that the children were saying. However, this is something that can’t be helped easily. The most interference occurred within the second and third performances. This may have been due to the technology being used several times.

Improvements

An improvement that I think that could have been made to the preparation for the performance was to apply for the funding earlier on in the process. Although they applied for the funding quite early on in the process, this wasn’t soon enough. They applied for the funding at the end of last year (2016) and didn’t hear back from the funders until during the Easter holidays. This meant that they weren’t able to buy props and costumes till around about a week before the project was being presented. It was a rush to get all of the props and costumes ready in time. We helped during this process to make the reed curtains and to print off the minnow’s eyes.

Another improvement that could be made is that the children could mime the words. This would then make it clear to the audience who was speaking on the recording because we were unable to tell who was speaking. This would then mean that the children would have to learn the words and also possibly add some hand gestures and body language to go with this.

Another improvement that could be made to the overall performance is the fluidity of the performance. The headsets were given out once the audience had watched the first scene without the headset. We then had to hand the headsets out at the bottom of the stairs. After the first performance, we realised that this wasn’t working and decided to hand the headsets out before the performance. However, the improvement that could be made is for clearer instructions. In the second performance, because the headsets had been given out at the beginning, the audience were unsure as to when to put the headsets on. If the instructions were clearer then the audience wouldn’t have been unsure as to when the headsets were needed.

In conclusion, I thought that the performance was a success. I believe that it achieved the aim of any community project which is to inform, educate and entertain. I believe it met this aim because I highly enjoyed it and learnt about the stone sinking in the river. Although I enjoyed all of the performance, I especially liked the leech’s song because it has a very catchy tune. Also, at the point of the song during the performance, the children playing the parts of the leeches wore black balaclavas with big lips. Also, the characterisation of the children was very good as they pressed up against the glass just like leeches would.

I think that overall the whole project was a success. The project aimed to entertain an audience within the community. The project was presented by children from the local primary school. Many children from different backgrounds attend the school as this is a mainstream school, however I did not feel that the audience were quite diverse as they could have been. The majority of the audience members were family or friends of the children who were involved in the project. I think for the project to have been more successful in engaging more members of the community it could have been advertised more and a lot more time could have been spent notifying the community that this project was occurring. Although I feel that that the project was a success, I think the success could have been bigger if there was a bigger audience and more members of the community engaged. The project also had the aim to educate and inform. I feel like the project did inform as it was clear that the project was about a stone sinking in the river and this was clear to the audience. I believe that the project educated the children involved in the project because whilst we were working with them, there were some parts which they did not understand and once we had told them what was going on, they understood it.