Evaluation

We've polished it all up, and did two run throughs. One for ourselves, and the dress rehearsal for our fellow students. We have added in a bit with a few of us saying I love you in different languages, or in my case sign language. We have also decided it would be effective to use tape and put it on our mouths when doing the physical theatre. The dance cards have been made and look lovely. They will be hung on a line for the audience to see whilst Alice is saying her bit about dance cards.  We also sorted out a lovely ending, after we do the sign language and everyone has joined in, we try to speak through the tape, making the sound muffled. I then rip the tape off and say tell me how you feel. Rachel rips hers off and says I don't know how. We then go into a final recital of our poem lines, Sarah has put us in an order. At the end, we do the bit where we try and talk but can't, and Gavin finally bursts out with 'I love you.' Then other people said it, and then finally we all said I love you together and the lights went out. I think it was a really moving ending, because it was built up throughout the piece, and finally we managed to say it.

I feel the performances went well. I was expecting there to be much less laughter and engagement from the audience in the evening show as our fellow students would understand what we were trying to do. I was right, but the difference wasn't as great as I was expecting. In fact the audience seemed to be quite moved and focused. This is a sign that the piece was successful. I really enjoyed performing in it. After watching Will's group I did worry that ours wasn't experimental enough, but it really was. Experimental can be anything. I felt so moved by it that I cried during the physical theatre piece, because I got so into it. I think it could have been neater in places, but in the end it was all really good.

Lesson 6

Today we put the whole performance together. We begin with the promenade piece, Harrison and James take the audience around past the people behind the glass, to watch the locker sequence, then up the stairs and down into the other hallway where they are split into male and female. Amaya then explains the speed dating process, the boys are taken through one entrance to meet the girls who will be sat at desks on one side of the curtain.Then the girls are taken to the other entrance where the boys are sat in the same way. The speed dating happens and we then go into the game show. After the game show I think we go into the waltz and then we will do the physical theatre, then the sign language then we still need to think of a nice way to end it. Not quite sure how yet. I think the show will be a success we just need to polish it up next tuesday.

Sign Language

I've been set the task of learning how to say 'Tell me how you feel' and 'I don't know how' in sign language.
To say tell me how you feel is easy:

'Tell me' involves pointing from your lips to your chest.
'How' is starting with your palms facing downwards and turning them out to face upwards.
'You' is a simple point.
'Feel' is running your middle finger up your torso.

'I don't know how'

'I' point at chest
'don't' is flicking your thumb from under your chin.
'know' is tapping your forehead with your fingers.
'How' as above.

Lesson Five

This week we created a game show. The game show is called She Loves Me, She Loves Me Not. It's about analysing text messages. Gavin is the game show's host because he has a great voice. Jordan, Alex and Phoebe are the contestants and Gus, Emily, Holly and Laure are the scientists. Nina is playing the guitair and myself, Milly, Catherine, Jesse and Tiffany wrote and sang the theme song.

She loves me,
She loves me not,
I can't quite tell from these texts that I've got.
She's driving me crazy,
I check my phone daily.
Thought I'd come on the show,
Just to give it a shot.
And I think she's really really hot.

This works as it fits in with the theme of not knowing what to say and how to say it.

Zach is playing the specimen and we have decided to name him Alfred Prufock so that the poem and character is a constant underlying theme. This will give the audience something to connect the scenes to.

We have also all been given a line in the poem, mine is:

'And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And a hundred visions and revisions.'

This is quite a tongue twister actually, but I think it's really beautiful and easy to connect with. We have all made up a little tiny scene to go with the line on our own. Mine involves just moving my arms and clasping my hands, but some people are using props. We will be positined up the stairs and along the corridor and the audience will walk past us after the locker scene.This will immerse them in the poem straight away.

Lesson Four

We watched the locker choreography today, it was very effective. The banging represented a heart beat and the way they all moved in time was interesting to watch. I think by making the piece promenade it is experimental, as it takes the audience on Prufock's journey. The waltz is still a work in progress! It will be fine, hopefully but at the moment we are all banging into each other a bit too much. Today we tried out some speed dating. This consisted of half the boys sitting at desks and half the girls sitting at desks, and the other half of us sitting opposite one of the opposite sex. The audience will be split into males and females and hopefully the room will be split in half via curtain. The audience member asks questions and the student will sit their silently, looking like they want to say something but can't. This is effective as an experimental performance as it stylisticly isolates the audience, and thus immersing them. It suppresses them in a way where they won't know what to do.

Our Own Experimental Experiences

The first piece I saw was Phoebe's group. They managed to immerse us in the piece immediately by coming out of the room and telling us there was no space at the shelter and we had to leave. This straight away gave us the message that we were homeless people and put us in role. They then rather aggressively pushed us into the room and yelled at us and this was immersive because it really made us believe we were homeless and made us feel bad. They shined torches in our eyes and spread litter around the room which set the scene. One thing I think could have been done without was the music. I think it wasn't entirely necessary and detracted ever so slightly from what was happening.

The second piece I saw was Gus' group, and there's was really exciting, again they immersed us straight away with Gus coming out with a moustache drawn on telling us what the plan was. We were then sent into the space, where the Great Escape theme song was playing. The room was pitch black and there was a strobe light which made the atmosphere Quite intense. Then we went behind the curtain, making it very claustraphobic, adding to the idea of us going through a tunnel. Catherine was shouting at us to get down, which made it feel intense and nerve-wracking. When we crawled on the floor they had laid down wet leaves, which was very uncomfortable but felt very real. I found this effective, one comment said was that the music choice may be too comical, and it may have been even better with something a bit more suitable to the mood.

The last piece I saw was the Asylum piece. This was incredible but absolutely terrifying. I should mention that I am terrified of the dark, and scary things and sudden moments, and everything really! They used space very effectively by huddling us all at one end of the blacked out room. And using a single torch light to illuminate the three people sat at the far end of the room. This made it feel larger than it was, and it was a scary amount of space, especially when they began to disappear as you didn't know where they went. Unfortunately I couldn't tell you about the rest of the performance because I had to leave the room!

We performed ours last. The idea behind ours was that the audience were campers on a scouts trip. We set it up to be immersive by having James and Asa go outside and tell them to get into a line, put on the blindfolds and follow the leader. The performance consisted of the boys telling a spooky story and us girls getting close to the audience, touching them, blowing in their ears etc. The blindfolds worked well as they forced the audience to rely on their other senses, i.e. smell, sound, touch. We put leaves on their chairs so they would feel like they were sat in the woods. It was successful in making the audience feel afraid, however, the story was completely lost because of the screams, I think we built up the climax too early, we should have told the story then done stuff to the audience. That way we could have engaged their imaginations better.

Lesson Three

In today's lesson we split off into groups and worked in different areas. One group will be behind the glass in the corridor trying to tell the audience something but there will be a physical barrier preventing them from hearing. This fits the poem as it is about trying to say how you feel but not being able to. It represents the internal silencing. Another group experimented with the lockers and using it for sound and it was a bit site specific, as the locker piece could be interpreted as writing a love letter at school. The rest of us learnt how to waltz, as we are going to research dance cards, which reflects summoning the courage to ask someone who catches your eye to dance. My partner is Gavin and at this stage we're pretty awful. Much practice is needed!!!