Performance Workshop- Performance Evaluation 14/02/17

Performance Workshop- Performance Evaluation

On the 14th February we had our experimental theatre performance. From looking back at the show I believe the performance was a success due to the commitment, energy and ideas we put into the piece.

I think the show achieved most of the goals that we were aiming to fulfill by breaking the wall of shame and embarrassment and allowing ourselves to become honest and free. This happened by having the audience walk in at the point when we started our emotional learning. Personally, I felt that in that moment the majority of us felt very vulnerable to show people outside of school a short period of time all of us physically working and expressing ourselves in a way that they were not expecting. Especially when I decided to take the lead and start discovering myself. I felt this passion and connection that drove me to strip down my insecurities and show people who I was. And once I found that signature movement, there was a strong atmosphere and connection I made with the rest of the group once they all synchronised with my movements. It was a beautiful moment that the audience got to experience. There was no shame, but a sense of renewal and opportunity. Something I like to call the “rebirth” of the piece.

But if I could change one thing about this section would be that instead of us doing the drug dance and collecting an audience member then, we use the synchronisation to travel across the room towards the audience and make a moment of pause looking at an audience member then slowly reaching out an arm to ask for them to join me. And once they stand next to one of us, we teach them the moves. Then they can synchronise and travel back with us to continue the emotional flocking with everyone else. That would be a strong moment where the audience connects with us; they feel safe but also have the reason to start becoming free and honest with us.

In continuation, I would like to highlight another moment of the piece where shame and judgement was shut down, which would have to be at the point of the choral riffing. In rehearsals this was the point that we found difficult because we constantly lost the connection that made all of us feel honest and free. However, in the performance freedom, honesty and possibility was found and continued for a longtime because there was always something new happening and everyone was giving and receiving offers all the time. This moment really built up to something quite strong, that when the fire alarm broke out, even though we knew it was scheduled, we found it a bit annoying because we were so into it that we didn’t want to stop. Unlike the emotion learning section this moment had the audience mixed in with us and they were scattered everywhere, but in that moment I felt like they were never there. It felt like me and a group of peers just existing and exploring in a space and enjoying it.

If I had the choice of developing this section and doing it again I would expand the time of this section and continue doing it until the audience felt comfortable with it that they wanted to join in and express who they were. I would encourage more of the performers to interact with the audience in a way that felt safe and purifying because this show was meant to show how drugs affect  the mind and finding acceptance within yourself and within others, so if there could have been a chance where the performers spread their love and energy to the audience then that would be it.

A person that inspired me that night was Emily. When she took her place in front of us so she can discover, I found it the most memorable and truthful out of everything. This was because in rehearsals she wouldn’t really do a lot, mainly because she is disabled, nevertheless she did try her best. But that was a moment that was pure and honest. She did whatever she could to find herself despite the fact she has a disability. I found this inspirational and that was something that taught me a lesson about experimental theatre, about life and about myself. In terms of experimental theatre it taught me that there are different ways to explore and understand things that might not seem natural to the theatrical world. A simple form of physical could mean a lot to you, depending on where it was inspired from or who it was inspired by, it can also depend on the way you interpret it by reviewing it.

If there was one moment that I could change that would be the automatic writing bit. But would change all of it as it was a very intimate moment between the performer and the audience. However, during the performance this particular part went on for quite a long time which made it slightly uncomfortable because most of us were done with remembering and wishing, but never knew when to start the choral riffing so continued talking even though we didn’t have much to say. So if I could improve that section I would have told the performers to limit themselves to  2 memories each and wish for one thing then ask the audience member what they wish for. This be beneficial so everyone could mutually stop their conversations and continue with the show, instead of having an awkward pause.

On the whole I do believe the show was very successful and I would have loved to do it again. This genre of theatre (experimental)  was definitely my favourite genre to study because it opened my eyes to things I didn’t know about theatre or myself and I would love to create work like this again.

Sherene Jordan

Performance Workshop Notes 14/02/17

For this performance I am very confident with the order of the show and the physical activities we complete within the performance. I am confident with the monologue and song so I won't have a problem remembering it.
With a little bit of rehearsal and physical searching I will be fully ready for the show tonight.

In order to find the ergonomic flow within the choral riffing is by using the peripheral vision and letting go of our shame. Also knowing that we are going to be in front of an audience makes us feel unstable and closed up, but if we change our mindset to having the being apart of us and knowing that we are not performing but just being honest and free will allow us to connect with the ergonomic flow again.

What's the meaning of theatre?

Here is the formal definition of theatre from www.dictionary.com


Here is the informal definition to theatre from www.urbandictionary.com

Research

http://fresques.ina.fr/europe-des-cultures-en/fiche-media/Europe00064/jerzy-grotowski-on-the-notion-of-poor-theatre.html


https://vimeo.com/18608588

Most Useful Exercises Evaluation

The Useful Exercises Evaluation

These selected exercises or experiments have been quite inspirational and useful things when it came to making work for experimental theatre. I explain in more detail why that is and what I get from them and how they can be interpreted into performance material. The other exercises or experiments I have spoken about already in my notes but I wasn't inspired to create any work from it because I didn't get much out of it or I felt like it had little relevance to the mind, the effect of drugs or specifically the amygdala.

Below are descriptions on how to do an exercise/ experiment and underneath it has a person reflection. Depending on how much I got from it I put it in a particular colour so it is obvious how effective and useful the activity was in devising for the show.

• If it was very effective and useful then in would be in the colour green.
• If it was effective and useful to an extent then it would be in colour blue.
• If it was a little effective and useful then it would be in the colour red.

Meditation

• Originally meditating for 9 hours for 10 days. However, for educational purposes we meditated in silence for 30 minutes.

Meditation is a good exercise because it pulls you away from reality and makes you concentrate on living in the present. It draws your focus to your breathing pattern, this is meant to encourage you to disengage with your inner monologue (the voice inside your head) and show you a way to become relaxed, recharged and honest.

Connecting With The Sense Of Touch

• Closing your eyes and using your skin to connect with what’s around them.

Connecting with the sense of touch is a good exercise as it encourages you to disconnect to your subconscious routine and pay more attention to other human features such as your sense of touch. By using the sense of touch it makes you familiarise with things that you wouldn’t be able to notice from sight, smell, or hearing. This gives you a more extended look at the texture of something and this could inspire the show. Depending on what a particular texture makes you feel, it can be used and amplified to create an atmosphere for an audience member to experience. For example, it is was a soft and comfortable material such as wall, it could project a comforting and warm atmosphere. This atmosphere could make a person happy.

Contact Improvisation

• In partners we keep our eyes shut and make contact with our skin. Creating a sequence of non linear actions.

Contact Improvisation is a very good exercise. If we are looking towards showing the unconscious mind in action then this exercise would be good because it makes you forget about the people around you and makes you connect with yourself and the senses that you tend to not pay attention to. For example touch. The theme that this show needs to highlight and project to the audience is that we are representing drugs that affect the mind. Or in other words ‘the impacts of external stimulus.’ Using your skin to get to know external stimuli gives you a new and different perspective of thing than if you used the sense of sight, hearing and/ or smell.

Riffing

• A circle of simple and synchronised movements create an atmosphere of energy that get sent into the person in the middle trying to find themselves. They soon refine a movement and then someone goes in to copy the movement and then explores movements with them.

Riffing is a good exercise even though from an outside viewer the people do it may look a bit pathetic. However, it’s know that riffing can be very useful when searching for yourself or physically finding a story to tell. From taking part in the exercise, I can express that I have never felt so vulnerable yet so free when doing an in-class exercises. Being in the circle and having my eyes shut, I must admit I felt so stupid moving about, but eventually I let everything go and I let my body speak for myself. I accepted the energy from everyone else and built up myself esteem. It was a moment that was different, yet so beautiful with creativity, freedom, confidence and acceptance.

Choral Riffing

• The whole group start off with changing between laughing and crying. Then everyone follows their instincts and does what they feel is right. Then the actions combine into a group movement. Then the whole class merge with each other to create a class movement. Then someone changes the movement and the class does the moment making the leader disappear.

This is a good exercise as it makes a complete physical improvisation look like a ritual or a fluid choreography. This movement activity is great to put in the show because it releases any form of tension that existed before and breaks any barrier between every person. If someone just simply starts off something and everyone responds to it, it can become a very beautiful moment seeing something that was raw but yet have so much meaning and strong connection. Some things from this can inspire other ideas and evolve to a sequence of movements that can represent a feeling that you get from the amygdala or something that you have experienced can be interpreted with this activity.

Ganzfeld Effect

• We make a mask out of paper and cover our eyes with it. This allows us to only see the colour white. Then we lie down for half an hour whilst listening to a white noise or a very low base and then identify what happened to us individually.

Ganzfeld Effect is a good exercise mainly for the intention of gaining inspiration from the depths of your mind. It was relaxing, and interesting because I went through things that I never really questioned or thought about before. For example When I managed to get into it I started to feel this fuzzy feeling within my body. It wasn’t exactly pins and needles and I’m not so sure if it actually was the feeling of my blood rushing through my body because the feeling differentiated every few minutes. It was hard to say but that strong feeling I can only describe and relaxing and pleasurable. From staring at nothing for such a long time I believe I started to hallucinate things. I saw different colours in forms of steam/smoke that spread across my provisional vision and merged into shapes and other colours. I assumed that happened because my sense of sight became hungry in the need on seeing colour and the things around me or I saw theses things because it was a feature that simply occurred in my mind and whatever happened in my mind , my inner voice didn’t simply speak out like usual, as a matter of fact it used my sense of sight to project it right in front of me. I went further into analysing this as I thought that the colours could of represented how I felt and the smoke/steam was recreating the images from my memory/mind. This became a sort of inspiration that made me want to use this in my work.

Emotional Learning

• One person starts off a movement and everyone takes a moment to observe how to copy the movement and breathing pattern. Once learnt everyone closely crowds around that person and does the movement in sync with them. After some time the movement mutates into a personal interpretation and then someone runs through the middle to break that connection to start a new one.

Emotional learning is a very good exercise as you first have to find something that represents the fear or a memory that made you learn a lesson from it. This feeling of fear  becomes and instinctual movement that can easily be picked up by others and mutated into something a bit more personal. You revisit feelings and thoughts from the past that have helped mold you into the current version of yourself that you are today, and in some way you feel a sensation of pleasure and relief that you went through and learnt something- even if it was a fear condition experience. Theses moments can really fit into the show because an emotional atmosphere gets created once we all experience one person's feeling. The room becomes honest and power in a way that it encourages different experiences through one person’s outbreak. It’s a strong and beautiful moment when you just stop and watch one person and then others amplify it into something more. You can see it as a caterpillar (the memory/ past experience)  turning into a butterfly (something that makes everyone rediscover who they are).

Tick Tock

• We get into groups of three and one person is standing in the middle, facing towards one person. The other two have to be on their knees facing towards the middle person. The middle person has to fall forwards towards the person they are facing and be caught. The person who caught them has to push them back towards the other person. They continue doing this movement until you get a steady tick tock pattern.  When practiced well every group does it to create a synchronised tick tock action.

This exercise is good because  it had a sense of synchronisation that gave the room a sort of atmosphere. It made me think of the mind producing thoughts and ideas. This related to the fact that brilliant ideas are produced and perfected over time. And once the word time was highlight in my mind I realised that this activity could represent that, that time has an effect on our minds. So do drugs (good or bad) and once you are going through a drug phase time seems to slip by in reality, however, in your drugged mind you feel timeless or lime seems to elongate itself when you are not in full control of your mind. This would of been a strong image in the show that could represent the elongated or timeless effect that drugs seem to have. When everyone seems to rush about not paying attention to anyone and then suddenly the tick tock action happens for a while that creates this moment where people start to become anxious on when it will end.  It’s slow and steady and it feels like it’s been a long time, when in fact it’s only been a couple of minutes.

Performance Workshop Rehearsal Evaluation 07/02/17

Performance Workshop Rehearsal Evaluation 07/02/17

The Tester Performance

In today's rehearsal we had to perform to a year 10 drama GCSE class. This was weird idealism to begin with as they are not a full  class of theatre students so they  would not get the full concept of experimental theatre like a regular theatre student would. However, it would be a great opportunity to have an opinion of someone that doesn’t have any experience or understands the concept.   

Honestly from looking back at the performance, there were moments in the piece that were very beautiful and I could tell that the audience and the performers did enjoy it. A particular moment that was highlighted in this was when everyone was discussing what they remembered and what they truly wished for in life. Even though it seemed that the year 10s didn’t know what to  say or do they enjoyed hearing the positivity and matureness that came out of us. I believe my true feelings and thoughts came out thanks to the shut off of my amygdala and the sense of having no shame and a lot of freedom.

On the contrary, there were many moments were audience participation was needed and they were really against the idea of letting go their insecurities and joining us in front of their peers. This happened when they were meditating and some of them would open their eyes to check if everyone was doing the same. They wouldn’t want to come near us when we were riffing. They wouldn’t speak in the I remember and I wish section either. Theses negatives that occurred during the performance made me question if theses things should actually happen in the performance because if year 10s felt too intimidated to take part in this then other audience members might feel the same. But then I realised that even though theses things are the opposite to immersive theatre it’s still a good thing because we are targeting the parts of their brains that give the sense of alert and danger. The amygdala. The uncomfortableness made them more cautious of what’s going on and triggered them to feel something and do things to protect themselves, which is the result of an instinctual impulse.

From discussing what they felt after the performance it was clear that the year 10s felt extremely intimidated and scared. They had no clue what to do when they saw us do something which made them feel really out of place and not much of a regular audience member. Some said that they experienced things during the meditation that were not actually occurring to them at that  point, which is quite similar to what we experienced when we conducted the experiment before. Some felt very uncomfortable because during the pain and pleasure they had their eyes shut and were lying down so they didn’t know what was going on around them and all they could rely on was the sound of heavy breathing. At that moment we had to explain them that they were not supposed to be lying down with their eyes at that point, but realised it was our wrong doing by not telling them to sit up and watch. This small mistake made it difficult to do physical theatre around them and they didn’t know what was going on. So we came up with the solution to gesture them into sitting up and watching. On the whole the year 10s said that they understood some aspects of the show and that they really liked it, but from going through that experience they felt really vulnerable and weird so they wouldn’t want to experience it again.

In my opinion I think that’s a fair enough judgement because personally I feel like if I wasn’t used to immersive theatre or experiential theatre I would be quite scared to experience it more than one time. But I do truly believe that once you experience it and analyse what went on in your head you will begin to understand what it’s about and feel a bit more comfortable with it.

On the whole the tester performance wasn’t much of a failure. There are just some moments that need a bit of adjusting and solidifying other things to make it the best possible version this show could be.

Performance Workshop Rehearsal Evaluation 31/01/17

Performance Workshop Rehearsal Evaluation 31/01/17

In this rehearsal we devoted half of our time to run some experimental exercises to see if they could be incorporated into the performance and then spent the rest of the session devising and forming the whole show.

The devising was based on what we already tested out as experiments and creating something from it. Also we decided to put a ‘drug dance’ at the start to warm the audience up  to the piece. This ‘drug dance’ gives a physical aspect to what we looked at at the start of term. What are good and bad drugs? One movement is us holding a weed back and flicking it as well as our bodies to show that we are tempted by this drug to take it and that it affects us in ways that can control us, hence the flicking and flinching in our bodies. This forms into an imaginary piece of cheese that we observe then consume. This movement reflects on what we learnt about other objects that we can be stimulated and affected by. Cheese, pomegranate juice, music and many more things can change a person’s mood or perspective at the moment they engage with it. It is suggested and proved by scientific research that anything that can alter behaviour or emotions are considered as a drug. This reenactment of the drugs effect is shown when we are moving about making circles and moving our ams about. The music stops for a second to give us time to pay attention to the audience. Then the immersive theatre begins when the music comes back up again and we bring the audience into the piece.

Exercises/ experiments that we have conducted in previous sessions have been constructed and worked into the format plan of the performance.

• Improvised ritual (Choral choreography/ Riffing)
• Restrict the senses (Meditating/ Ganzfeld Effect)
• Monologuing
• Pain and Pleasure (Pain and Pleasure)
• Song- Be one in the technological age
• Look into their eyes
• Automatic writing (Speaking Inner Monologue- Sentence Starters)
• Choral Riffing (Choral Riffing)
• Fire Alarm

The parts that were inspired by exercises and experimentations are the ones that managed to have a certain relevance to the topic of drugs of the mind and specifically the amygdala. For example the improvised ritual section was was inspired by choral choreography and riffing. This is important because one person starts of the instinctual breathing. This instinctual breathing breaks down the barrier of fear and hiding and connects you to your honesty and your subconscious. You begin to pay more attention to you need of discovery through your senses other than using your brain to analyse something. This continues into riffing by doing things you feel is right in a small circle of truth.

The ‘restricting the senses’ section audience members have to lie on the floor in the dark. This aspect makes them vulnerable to free themselves up and know that no one can see them to judge them. In time their senses would play up in a way that they are not receiving any form of stimulation to keep them going. Therefore, things will happen to each of the audience members that will open up their minds- specifically the amygdala. The amygdala is accessed because the sense of alert or fear kicks for not being aware of what’s going on through sight, hearing touch or smell. The amygdala is researched to be the part of your brain that is stimulated by fear and danger in some other cases it can be stimulated by pleasure.

This bring me onto the pain and pleasure section because this shows the effects of fear and pleasure but all of it is formulated into three looped movements. However, this doesn’t give much to the audience as it is mainly a visual showing of how pain and pleasure feels for us. This doesn’t give much off other than an opinion. On the other hand, the audience can register in their minds a different perspective of what others feel like pain and pleasure are like and further their understanding of the subject.

The automatic writing section is inspired by the speaking your inner monologue (sentence starter) exercise because it is retrieving memories that are deep in your subconscious that not everyone can remember so easily. Sometimes we don’t need to go deep into the subconscious but say what we remember, even if it’s simply what we ate in the morning. This reconnects us with the audience and makes them feel safe and shuts off the amygdala part of their brains.

Finally, the choral riffing section is to make them feel uncomfortable to flair up their amygdalas and put them in distress. This is done by having a random burst of exaggerated laughing and crying fits and then move into an instinctual/ animalistic  play of movements. This will contradict the trust that we made earlier with the audience and make them feel in danger as they now don’t have a clue on what’s going on. This effect continues to amplify until the end.

Performance Workshop Notes 07/02/17

Evaluating the work
Artistic
Prof/ vocational
Clearly expressed judgements


Revelation
Positives
Working in very open and humble manner
Becoming more open and comfortable with contact improvisation and riffing because I created a layer of freedom and acceptance.

Consternation
Negatives
Working with no given circumstances
During emotional learning people were struggling to do physical movements.


Evaluate test performance 1 year 10s
Evaluate experiments
Tick tock balancing and drops turns into a tick tock sequence. This experiment didn't have enough meaning.
Fixed it by given circumstances and given it to imaginative depth.
Layer one fall game
Layer two everyone doing the hand raise in pairs
Layer three was doing a tick tock motion in  a group of three


Pain and pleasure
Empty peace of physical theatre but we extend the piece and when it repeats we bring it into life by living through the moment and putting instinctual breathing in it.

Is what we created theatre?
It is theatre to the extent that it is something you can experience, be apart of and gain something from it. You can explore the creations and things we have experimented and be encouraged to be honest yourself and draw something from it.

Term 3 Exercise Review 4

Term Three Exercises

Meditation

• Originally meditating for 9 hours for 10 days. However, for educational purposes we meditated in silence for 30 minutes.

Connecting With The Sense Of Touch

• Closing your eyes and using your skin to connect with what’s around them.

Contact Improvisation

• In partners we keep our eyes shut and make contact with our skin. Creating a sequence of non linear actions.

Riffing

• A circle of simple and synchronised movements create an atmosphere of energy that get sent into the person in the middle trying to find themselves. They soon refine a movement and then someone goes in to copy the movement and then explores movements with them.

Choral Riffing

• The whole group start off with changing between laughing and crying. Then everyone follows their instincts and does what they feel is right. Then the actions combine into a group movement. Then the whole class merge with each other to create a class movement. Then someone changes the movement and the class does the moment making the leader disappear.

Ganzfeld Effect

• We make a mask out of paper and cover our eyes with it. This allows us to only see the colour white. Then we lie down for half an hour whilst listening to a white noise or a very low base and then identify what happened to us individually.

Choral Choreography

• It is similar to the choral riffing because everyone gradually does a similar move however this is more looking at one person doing something and everyone else feeding into that movement to develop it going even further. Then someone doing something else and waiting for the rest of the class to respond.

Speaking Your Inner Monologue (The Dark)

• We all had to lie down and stare into pitch black. We have to disconnect from everyone and listen to our inner voices. And with what our inner voices say we need to repeat everything they say out loud.

Writing Your Inner Monologue

• We need to get a piece of paper and pen. We got two sentence starters to use so we can write what first comes into our minds in relation to those sentence starters. The sentence starters are ‘I remember’ and ‘ One day’.  The point is to continue writing what we think and don’t stop until the time is up.

Speaking Your Inner Monologue (Sentence Starters)

• Instead of lying down in the dark this time you are in partners and you use sentence starters to help stimulate thoughts. You continue speaking until times up.

Pointing Out The Obvious

• We get into partners and we both take turns to point out what we see from the other person. This could simply be describing their appearance. But the thing you can’t do is give your opinion.

Emotional Learning

• One person starts off a movement and everyone takes a moment to observe how to copy the movement and breathing pattern. Once learnt everyone closely crowds around that person and does the movement in sync with them. After some time the movement mutates into a personal interpretation and then someone runs through the middle to break that connection to start a new one.

Hand Raise Fall

• Everyone is walking around the space. One person raises their hand and says me and starts to fall backwards. Everyone has to prevent the falling person from connecting with the floor.  People that don’t reach them in time continue push focus towards the falling person by being on one knee and looking at them. The game expands by having more people drop at the same time.  And people can say ‘you’ to tell another person that they have to fall and be caught.

The Trust Fall Exercise

• We get into partners and one has to fall into the other’s arms. This could be done backwards or forwards. You take turns.

Tick Tock

• We get into groups of three and one person is standing in the middle, facing towards one person. The other two have to be on their knees facing towards the middle person. The middle person has to fall forwards towards the person they are facing and be caught. The person who caught them has to push them back towards the other person. They continue doing this movement until you get a steady tick tock pattern.  When practiced well every group does it to create a synchronised tick tock action.

Pain And Pleasure

• You get into partners and you sit back to back. You start to explore your partner with back on back contact. You evolve that motion into the technique of contact improvisation to search for three positions that resemble pleasure and pain. Once these positions are found you must loop it and live through these moments.

The Finished Monologue

You are conscious and so am I. When you are not conscious your body begins to shut down, your eyes roll to the back of your head and your brain becomes slower. When you are conscious you are aware of your bodily feelings like pleasure, pain, excitement and you retrieve autobiographical memories. So at this instant you and I are conscious of some aspects. But you are probably not aware of the touch of a chair, the subtle balancing of your body against gravity, a flow of conversation in the background and of some of your major life goals. These unconscious elements are as important as the conscious ones because they give us natural comparison conditions.