Monday 8th Of September 2014 Blog Entry:
Synopsis Of Day:
Lesson 1 - Physical Theatre:
To begin the day we started with Physical Theatre, but rather than a large space environment we instead had a classroom one. This gave our tutor the opportunity to ask the whole tutor group what they know about Physical Theatre, be it from a historical standpoint or if they have had any experience with it. To begin with, our tutor wrote the words 'Physical Theatre: What is it?' on the white board and the whole group had to give answers to make one big mind-map at the end. Most of the group believed it to be a team working activity using physical actions more than words to create and describe a story and that it helps an actor push their own boundaries in performance. The group came up with many explanations as to what Physical Theatre is in their own perspective, below, I have included all the things that we came up with:
* Mime
* Use of Environment
* Engage the Audience more in performance
* Using our bodies to express/describe a story
* To promote Spacial Awareness
* To push an actors boundaries in performance
* For actors to act using more physical motions more than vocal
* To show an actors trust between others in the room
* To get an actor out of their comfort zone
* To present more emotion to a scenario
* To reform/reshape stress into movement
After presenting all of our ideas to our tutor as to what we thought Physical Theatre was, we then after moved on to another task which was to explain to our tutor the origins of Physical Theatre or more performance in general. Delving down history, we started at Ancient Greece where they had used masks to show the actors physical emotion during performance. This use of Theatre was used around 400 BC and since then has evolved over a large period of time to what we have today. After the Ancient Greeks, we had the Romans in 55 AD on wards, Comadia Del'arte in the 16th Century, William Shakespeare in the Elizabethan Era, which was also known as 'The Golden Age', since Shakespeare's idea of theatre made Britain become one of, if not, the richest country in the world at that time. All of these moments in history has greatly influenced what we call theatre today.
After discussing the origins of Theatre, we moved on to a video made by a very popular Physical Theatre group called 'Frantic Assembly', this video was titled 'Frantic Assembly: A Guide To Devising' which evidently explains what they devise as Physical Theatre which is what has made them become so popular. Whilst watching the video, we were all tasked to make notes on the words they use to describe their everyday activities which would later on help us with our homework on the origins of Frantic Assembly which we will all hand in next Monday.
Lesson 2 - Contemporary Theatre:
After finishing our Physical Theatre lesson, we moved onto Contemporary Theatre, this resulted in our group moving into the college theatre to begin the lessons task's. Going back to the video we watched about Frantic Assembly in our Physical Theatre lesson, we saw that during their time whilst rehearsing for plays, they also had athletic activities which involved the use of teamwork to complete. We began this lesson taking these activities and putting them to the test to see if the group can work together physically. The athletic activities Frantic Assembly were showing in the video were more or less Relay races, which involved 2 members of two teams to race against each other to a certain goal and tag the next person in their team. We had the same concept but instead of two teams we had three due to the large group of people we had which is 17. Throughout the lesson, we had completed four different relay races, below, I will give a description as to what they were:
* Relay 1: A piece of clothing at the other end of the room, we had to run around the clothing whilst touching it with our right hand and go back and tag the next person of the team
* Relay 2: Same concept as Relay 1 but before touching the piece of clothing, each competitor had to lie completely flat on the ground to the left of it before touching it and running back
* Relay 3: Run to the other side of the theatre and touch the wall and then go back to touch the piece of clothing with our left hand instead of our right, jump as high as we can before touching the floor with our right hand and then go back to tag the next person
* Relay 4: Same concept again as Relay 1 but this time we had to run around the piece of clothing and instead of tagging the next person we had to grab their hand by putting our own left hand through our legs, this happened until all people were conjoined together to complete the relay
Doing these athletic team working activities, in my opinion, really brought our group together more as we proved we can all have fun together doing something competitive and with the last relay becoming more physical since we were holding each others hands.
After completing the relay's, we moved on to a much more physical activity which involved the same group we had for the relay races. What we had to do was to create a physical performance of our choosing within a limited space within 5 minutes and then showing it to the rest of the group who will be the audience to each performance. After my group volunteered to go first, our tutor explained that each group would show their performance three times but each having a different song in the background, the first will be silent, second will be a more sad song, and the third will be more higher paced. For my groups performance, we had it so me and another member would be running from one side of the theatre to the other which resulted in our path reaching a dead end, this resulted in a group of three people walking up behind us and blocking our escape. After my partner had given up hope of escaping this group of three, I look back and charge towards them aggressively, this resulted in a slow motion moment where one of the three members grabs me and throws me onto the ground. This leads to my character to be kicked repetitively until my partner comes with a stranger after calling for help, this makes the group leave the scene after spitting on my injured body. After the group had left the area, I attempted to get up from the ground and realize that my left leg was broken from the kicking. My partner and the kind stranger gave me support and carried me off stage whilst I was limping. After our performance, we received feedback from the audience as to what we could have done to improve the performance overall. We had mostly positive reviews to our performance and a few things we could of done to improve it, for example, when my partner calls for help, one of the audience members thinks it would of been better if I had shouted "Please!".
After receiving our feedback and watching the other two performances, our Contemporary Theatre lesson had ended, but we still had some time to spare until the end of the day. This resulted in our tutor bringing us up to the college library where we were given a tutorial as to how we can access different parts of the internet for work at college or at home.
Conclusion Of Day:
After receiving this tutorial, my first real day back at college ended, I've had a lot of fun getting to know more about the people I will be working with for the next 2 years on this course and I hope to become better acquaintances with them in the future.
Wednesday 10th Of September 2014 Blog Entry:
Synopsis Of Day:
Lesson 1 - Principles Of Acting:
To begin the day we started with our first 'Principles Of Acting' lesson which was to teach us more about naturalism and realism within any given performance. But to start off the lesson, our tutor had instructed everyone in the room to stand in a neutral position which required us to slightly bend our knees and have our arms on our sides with the head facing forward. After achieving this, our tutor asked the entire group to walk around the room naturally pretending that no-one else is in the room. This happened for a semi-long period of time until our tutor had instructed us to all be able to stop moving at the same time with no notification. At first, this task sounded a bit tricky, but with high concentration and perseverance, we all managed to pull through and had the ability to all stop at the same time without any given notification.
When achieving this several times, we moved onto the next task which still involved us to stay neutral and walk around the room but this time, at some point, our tutor will give us a scenario that we all have to react to if we were placed in that situation in real life. The first scenario placed us in a strange city and we had to show how we would all react naturally to this given situation. I was simply walking at a much higher pace than normally as if I was feeling lost, and to go with that, I was looking around 360 degrees constantly to make sure I wasn't being mislead anywhere that I haven't been before in the strange city since you never know what might be round that imaginary corner. The second scenario involved everyone in the room to observe each other, but not to see if what they're doing is right, but that the scenario is that one of them may be a murderer on the loose and we all had to be cautious. For this, I was still walking at a higher pace than before but much more than the previous scenario, and I also noticed that at some points I would have little skips in my movement so I was moving that much faster to stay away from any of the potential murderers in the room. The third scenario involved all of us to imagine that we're all being held hostage at gunpoint and our tutor would see how we would react to this scenario since it's unlikely any of us had experienced it before. For this, I was sitting on the floor and I acted as if I had been tied up and I was trying to cut the duct tape/rope loose so I could possibly escape from the criminals. In this scenario, I noticed how much my breathing pattern had changed and that it was much higher than before. The final scenario required everyone in the room to think of a potential love interest and our tutor would see how we would all react to this feeling. For this scenario, I was walking around the room with my hands in my pockets and I was, at times, looking up as if I was picturing me and this female partner together and having a good time which resulted in me giving a little smile to show joy and that I'm happy.
After all the scenario's were completed, we moved onto a brief breathing/stretching exercise before moving onto the next task for today's lesson.
The next task, again, involved the usage of scenario's, but this time, we had a partner to perform with whilst the rest of the group shall be the audience to the scenario given to the pair. Whilst I was sitting my turn to volunteer in the audience, our tutor had explained the rules to how she should give the scenario's to each pair. She decided to tell one person in the pair what the scenario would be whilst the other person will be placed outside the room having no idea and to find out with the use of body language used by the other member since we weren't allowed to speak until our tutor says so to finish the piece. When it came to be my time to perform, I was the member to be placed outside the room and I had no idea what I was going to be walking into. When I got called in, I looked straight at my partner and immediately I could tell he was sad by the use of his body language. All I did at first was that I simply smiled and waved to him and he returned it but then after he fell into his sad moment. Not knowing what he was sad about and the fact that I couldn't speak made the scenario very awkward and that I didn't know how to act other than look around the space and at times I would look at my partner trying to come up with something to say to him. My partner was actually the first to speak and he told me if I remembered a friend named Alex. To this, I gave an image of me trying to recall anyone named Alex that my character knew and replied "Oh, you mean the Alex you went to primary school with?". My partner confirmed this and mentioned that me and him seemed to get along well, to which I agreed. Then my partner goes on to say that Alex had passed away from a car crash earlier on in the day. My reaction to this situation was difficult to decipher as I hadn't ever experienced this feeling personally in my life and I didn't know how to show it. Within a limited time for me to think of a reaction, I gave a deep sigh and after said the words "Oh my god..." and then go to say that I was going to meet with Alex in the next couple days to catch up since I hadn't seen him in a while and wanted to catch up. The scenario pretty much ended there and it was time to receive feedback from the audience. All of it was generally positive other than one person thinking that I wasn't giving a believable reaction to the friend dying. My tutor also picked up on this and asked me if I personally thought that it was a believable for me. To this, I replied saying that I had never actually experienced this scenario before and I had no idea how to react to it, which resulted in me thinking that it may have not been a believable performance but in the end I gave it my best attempt.
After the second scenario's task, we looked towards the whiteboard where our tutor was asking us what kind of words she was using to describe both of the scenario's tasks. Below, I will include the words we came up with and also a short description to go alongside to explain:
* Relaxed Actor:
- Stand in a neutral position and remain to be like that for the whole period
- Leave yourself open to everyone by not crossing your arms to create a barrier
* What If...(or more commonly known as 'The Magic If...')
- To be placed in a random scenario whilst in a neutral stance and perform giving realistic reactions
* Imagination
- Imagine the scenario given and compare to a moment that may be similar that actually happened to you in your life and bring in the same emotions to make the performance more believable
* Emotional Memory
- Thinking of similar emotions that matches the scenario
* Solitude In Public
- How the actor would react in public eyesight if the situation arises
After our tutor had written these points down, she brings up a Russian actor called Stanislavski who had used these words to create his own system of acting which is what is mostly used today by many actors around the world. This system of acting that Stanislavski created, which he simply called 'The System', has changed the way the world views performance and staging methods since the 19th century.
After a brief talk about Stanislavski's system, which was later going to be the starting topic of our next lesson, our first 'Principles Of Acting' lesson had ended. I had definitely learnt a lot from this lesson and throughout the rest of the day, I was still willing to receive more knowledge about Stanislavski's system and how he came to be.
Lesson 2 - The Historical Context Of Performance:
After a short break, we started our first lesson for 'The Historical Context Of Performance'. For our first task in this lesson, the group had continued to develop their knowledge on the well known Actor/Director/Practitioner Stanislavaski and his own system of acting which he refers to as 'The System'. One of the first things we had learnt about Stanislavski is that he created the famous 'Moscow Arts Theatre' which had made certain playwrights around the world become more popular by showing their plays there. One of these playwrights was a man called Anton Chekhov. Chekhov trained and worked briefly as a doctor whilst pursuing a Journalism career in his early life. By being a Journalist, Chekhov had published short stories in newspapers which had brought a lot of audience and through this he had moved on to publish full length plays. Unfortunately, Chekhov was not gaining much audience for his performances, it was so bad that only one person had arrived to watch one of his plays. This would of made Chekhov unhappy obviously, but just when he thought he had lost all hope and would have to stop writing plays, he looks upon Stanislavski's 'Moscow Arts Theatre' which had just opened to the public recently at that time. This gave Chekhov a unique opportunity to get in contact with Stanislavski and later on make a partnership in 1898. When Chekhov had joined The Moscow Arts Theatre, his plays had become so much more popular and by this happening, he had been recognized to become one of the leaders of naturalistic drama writing.
Naturalism was a big thing for Chekhov since it means he had wrote plays to mirror real life events with real people. Also throughout his plays, Chekhov's characters would have given a dramatic pause. Chekhov made this pause as a device to reveal truth in an actors speech, this pause was one of the most vital things to consider when watching Chekhov's plays.
After a lot of time putting down notes about Stanislavski and Chekhov in my notebook, our first 'Historical Context Of Performance' lesson had ended. I had learnt much more about Stanislavski and his system of acting in this lesson, as well as learning about Chekhov and how he became a much more popular playwright thanks to Stanislavski and his 'Moscow Arts Theatre'.
Lesson 3 - Performing Arts Business:
After my lunch break, I had returned with my group to another new lesson for this year called 'Performing Arts Business'. What me and my group may have done in this lesson is self explanatory, but we actually didn't do much work as I had expected for this first lesson. Instead, we had all partaken, as several teams, in a 'Pub Quiz' that our lecturer had made up and the questions for this quiz had much to do with the business behind Performing Arts. Some of the questions in this quiz had been a bit of a task to accomplish but my team had come second out of five teams so I think we did fairly well.
After completing the 'Pub Quiz' our lecturer had challenged us with, we received our first set of homework to complete for this year which has to be completed and handed in by next Wednesday. The homework was to complete a sheet that was to list our Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats within performance. We were also given another sheet titled: 'Five Year Plan'. For this 'Five Year Plan', we had to, in detail, complete sections of the sheet relating to what skills we have as an actor in performance and we also had to look ahead from college to where we would all be in the next five years. When looking ahead, we had to research three different courses from three different Universities/Drama Schools to help our decisions in where we may end up going after completing and receiving our final grade for Level 3 Acting Extended Diploma.
Having received this weeks homework, our first 'Performing Arts Business' lesson had ended. I learnt a mediocre amount from this first session since we did a Pub Quiz and not much was explained when the answers were given but I'm sure we would all become familiar in the next lessons we have for this year.
Lesson 4 - Developing Voice For The Actor:
Having another short break, we had come to our final lesson for today and this was also a new lesson called 'Voice For The Actor'. For this lesson, our first task was to split into three different teams and put together a word and the description of the word to help all of us learn about that certain word and how it will also help us develop on our vocals. This was an easy task for me as I know much about the voice work for an actor and I also had the chance to help educate my fellow actors as to why this will all help them create a voice ready for performance.
After completing this task, we moved on to some basic breathing exercises that will help us breathe more calmly either when we were performing or just in general day to day life.
After doing that we moved on to a sort of meditation exercise which required us to lie on the floor and listen to a peaceful set of music whilst our lecturer would give us certain instructions to help remove tension from our bodies as this affects our voice heavily. This meditation exercise had definitely helped me remove some unwanted tension in my shoulders which did, in my opinion, make me more lively with my movement and I could project my speech more when casually talking with my group.
Conclusion Of Day:
After doing this meditation exercise, our first 'Voice For The Actor' lesson and our day at college had ended. I had learnt much from this lesson about how to remove tension in my body to help improve my voice and I'm sure we will learn more exercises in next weeks lesson.
Thursday 11th Of September 2014 Blog Entry:
Synopsis Of Day:
Lesson 1 & 2 - Tutorial and Performance Workshop:
To begin our third and final day at college this week we had a task which had our tutor give us all scripts for a play known as 'Uncle Vanya'. This play was written by Anton Chekhov and we had heard mention of it prior to this session. We all had to divide into groups of 2 people (for me it was a group of 3 since there are 17 members in this group). When this was accomplished, we were all given a part of the script which gave us all different scenes, although some groups had the same scenes because our tutor wanted to see 2 different performances for the same scene to witness what 4 student actors can do to portray 2 characters from the same scene of a play.
My group had Act 3, Scene 1 of 'Uncle Vanya' and I was to perform as a character called 'Voinitsky' whom is Uncle Vanya but I presumed this must of been his first name. Our tutor gave us all time to get used to the scripts we had and to choreograph physical activity which will be shown in an upcoming performance to the whole group. When we performed these scenes, we did them in chronological order, so we started with the earliest scene and ended with the latest. My group was in the middle of all this when it was our turn to perform. The performance we gave, along with everyone else's, were average, of course it will get better once we have more time to develop our knowledge with this play and get more used to the characters we have to portray.
To end the lesson and day, we had a couple games to play which was to get us more acquainted, if we haven't already, with the whole group. I have already gotten to know most of the group at this stage so it was more fun to interact with them when playing these games.
Conclusion Of Day:
After a session of playing games, our final lesson for this week had ended. I didn't necessarily learn anything more from this lesson, but we all did walk out with a scene from a script in hand, and by having this script, I will look into more research about the characters and how they act towards each other to give a more 'naturalistic' and 'truthful' performance much to Stanislavski's 'The System' respectively.
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