Unit 6 - Performance workshop

Tuesday 4^th April

For today’s lesson, Dinos came in to have a look at how we were progressing with our ideas and to help us in creating our piece further.

To start the session we carried out a warmup. For the first activity we imagined that we had a pebble in our hand and we threw it up into the air and it floated just above our eye line. We then walked around the room pretending that the pebble was balancing there. This activity helps our concentration and focus. We then carried out another activity called ‘here and there’. For this we found a spot in the room which we liked and called it ‘here’. We then found a spot in the room which we didn’t like so much and called it ‘there’. We then thought about the transition between these 2 points.

After the warmup, we sat down in a circle and explained to Dinos what ideas we have had since the last time that he came into college. We thought of a performance description and individually said what we thought the performance was about. After explaining to him the ideas that we have come up with, we showed him all of the scenes that we have come up with so far. As we performed each scene, Dinos gave it a name and then pegged it to a bit of string which acted as a washing line.

For the start of the performance we had an idea that all five of the characters would be sat on a chair in front of the back wall. Each character would have their own section which would have objects on it which would represent their character. For example, my character may have 2 different sets of clothes to represent that my character has split personality disorder. Each section of wall will represent the characters flat within the block. The first scene consists of the clapping rhythms that Callum showed us a few weeks ago. The tension will build and build until it suddenly stops.

The next scene comes from an idea that Dinos gave to us which was the grid. We had the idea of walking around the grid and acting as if these were corridors in the block. This then leads to the lift scene where we do the psychical theatre. After this scene, we then broke off to do the scenes that we created in the last session which were the scenes based around one character but there was someone else in it too. I am in Danielle’s scene as I am playing the doctor and she is the patient. In my scene, I am in a butterfly enclosure on a date with Callum’s character, James.

After a short break we discussed some further ideas that we had for the performance and other material that we could create. One idea that Dinos had was that the slaps and claps at the beginning of the piece act like the sound of the lift going up the building. Another idea that Dinos had was to change the order of the scenes slightly. Instead of starting with the slaps and claps we could start with the grid scene. This is why he used the string as the washing like, so he could take the scenes off and rearrange them. However, these are just ideas and nothing is set in place yet.

The last scene which we practiced was the stuck in the lift scene. For this we thought it would be a lot more interesting if the scene was done in the dark. The scene starts with the lights on but then as the lift breaks down, the lights go off and every so often they come back on. In-between the lights coming on, there is dialogue between the characters and movement which includes different levels.

My target for the next few weeks is to start to think more in depth about my character and do some research into split personality disorder.