Photos from the dress rehearsal

You might want to use these in your evaluation to show some of the choices made  - annotate in detail, justify things you developed etc...

Final post

Well done for your final performance! It was excellent, I enjoyed watching the audience reactions! You certainly have lots to evaluate. Take a moment to check how you are being marked below...


D4 evaluate the potential of the work in artistic, professional and vocational terms with strengths and weaknesses clearly identified and judgements fully justified and thoughtfully expressed.


So...

EVALUATE - WHY? HOW? You need to talk about the piece as a whole and then some smaller moments within the piece. 

What were the strengths of the performance? How and why were they the strengths?

What were the weaknesses of the performance? How and why were they the weaknesses? 

Be THOUGHTFUL in your writing style, you must use Theatre vocab in your evaluation...

Has your view of theatre been developed through the experimental term? Do you like creating experimental theatre? 

Reminder of how you are marked...

YOUR LOG/FLOG/BLOG WILL BE MARKED BY THIS...

P4 evaluate the potential of the work in artistic, professional and vocational terms with recognition of the strengths and weaknesses of the work.

M4 evaluate the potential of the work in artistic, professional and vocational terms, with considered judgements about what worked well and/or less well.

D4 evaluate the potential of the work in artistic, professional and vocational terms with strengths and weaknesses clearly identified and judgements fully justified and thoughtfully expressed.

Hand in date!

Your hand-in date for completed log/blog/flog is:

Wednesday 20th Feb by 4.10pm ! 

Make sure your work is updated! All you should have left is your evaluation.

Tuesday 12th Feb

Please make sure that you are keeping your blogs/logs/flogs updated! They should have answers to all of the questions posed on here. You should have clear personal targets set and written comments on how you have met these yourself in the devising process. 

Questions for this week:

Q - What are the strengths of the piece? What things need to be developed further?

Q -What is your favourite moment and why? 

Q - What moment do you find most challenging and why? 

Q- How does our piece affect the audience? 

Q - What would Artaud like about our piece and why? 

Q- What have you learnt about yourself as a deviser?

Q - What have the challenges been of an experimental devising process? 

Q - If you were to grade yourself now for the process, what would you give yourself and why? (Refer back to the marking criteria in a past post)


PLEASE make sure you get your work completed this week as you have an evaluation to do next week before the hand-in on Wednesday!!! Check back on my blog for how you are being marked. 

Remember the blog is just not a diary - it is a source of research, critical reflection, picture and can be video footage! 

Things to remember for Monday:

Costume - something that looks sophisticated, yet easy to move in. You know the action you should be able to so in the outfit. 

Drinks - it would be useful if you could bring in some fizzy pop...doesn’t matter if it is the cheapest lemonade going, just saves me having to get everything. 

Torches - if you haven’t yet got a torch, then please do!

Devising - meet with your group to finalise your small piece...there is not time to do this on Monday, we will be putting the piece together and tidying it up not devising. 

Lines - learn your lines for the opening of the piece. 

Workshop 3 - 22/1/13

Today we explored two different approaches to experimental theatre.

Mask Workshop

Trestle masks

• What are the rules of masks? 
• What performances were successful?
• How can you tell a story with mask? 
• Why might mask be useful in our performance? How does it link to Artaud? 

Here are some photos for you to have a look at...

 

Forced Entertainment

Click here to go to Forced Entertainment's Website

 

We explored the Forced Entertainment show Quizoola. 

• What did we do?
• How did you feel when performing?
• How did you feel as part of the audience?
• How could we potentially use this to develop our piece?
• Discuss briefly why Forced Entertainment’s work is experimental, how do they link to Artaud?

Click here to read some of the ‘Quizoola’ script

We have started to work on the opening section...please run through what we did in your head so you don’t forget it. REFLECT on what we did so far. What does the opening section say so far? HOW is it experimental? What should we do next? 

You should come ready with ideas for Monday and Tuesday. You should have planned what your small group piece should be saying and have firm ideas of how this should be performed. 

Sound for the piece...

Here are some of the things happening in my head. These are some sound clips that I think will work and inspire the piece. Have a listen see what you think. Please either write some comments below, or on your blog. I will continue to add stuff as I am inspired...you should do the same...

White noise...

Machine noise - metal grinding on metal, there are some great sounds in the itunes library and I have some edited machine noise that I will share with you on Monday.

This track is by Jane Siberry. I have a different version that isn't on youtube - again I will share with you on Monday. I saw this as the opeing track, the club goers arriving. I will share the rest of this idea on Monday. 

Acid House 

 

Techno  

Sigur Ros

How are you being marked?

Please have a look at the below. This is how you will be marked for this term. 

Unit 1: Performance Workshop

Grading Criteria

P1 show a response to source material through research and practical workshops, recognising obvious possibilities as performance material

M1 show considered responses to source material, exploring its more creative possibilities as performance material with insight and attention to detail

D1 show a range of detailed responses to source material, in which the possibilities as performance material are explored in a perceptive and comprehensive manner

P2 develop and shape workable ideas

M2 develop and shape the most workable ideas

D2 develop and shape the most creative ideas

P3 perform with a level of skill appropriate to the chosen medium showing engagement with the material and communicating ideas to an audience

M3 perform with a level of skill that shows a degree of control in the handling of the chosen medium, degree of engagement with the material, communicating ideas to an audience in a focused manner

D3 perform with a sense of flair, confidence and assured control of the chosen medium, showing consistent focus and engagement with the material and clear and responsive communication to an audience

P4 evaluate the potential of the work in artistic, professional and vocational terms with recognition of the strengths and weaknesses of the work.

M4 evaluate the potential of the work in artistic, professional and vocational terms, with considered judgements about what worked well and/or less well.

D4 evaluate the potential of the work in artistic, professional and vocational terms with strengths and weaknesses clearly identified and judgements fully justified and thoughtfully expressed.

Workshop 2 - 15th January

Today has been incredibly useful to hear your thoughts/feelings/ideas about our piece. I will continue to work on drawing all of the things you expressed so we have some solid moments to start creating next week. Please keep coming with ideas, please keep coming with enthusiasm! 

Here are the things you need to reflect on/do, on/in your blog/log/flog!

1. Reflect on the two sessions that you had. What did you learn about Grotowski and Brook? How do they fit into the experimental term? It would be great to have some notes and a fact file on these two practitioners. How do they link to Artaud? 

A video on Brook:

A video on Grotowski:

2. Body over mind dance

Describe how you responded to the body over mind dance exercise. How did you feel and why? What did you notice your body doing? How did other people respond? What was the purpose of us doing this task? How does it link to Artaud? 

Here is the footage from the task - it is brief, however gives you a snapshot of what was happening in the room and the change in responses as the task continued...

First 30 seconds...

5 minutes...

10 minutes..

.

15 minutes...

20 minutes...

3. We read Artaud’s play....

Q - What was your initial response to this?
Q-  What did you think it was about?
Q - How were you able to relate the Artaudian ideas of theatre to his own work? 

The Spurt of Blood TRANSLATED BY RUBY COHN

CHARACTERS
A YOUNG MAN
A WET-NURSE
A YOUNG GIRL
A PRIEST
A KNIGHT
A COBBLER
A BEADLE
A PEDDLER
A BAWD
A HUGE VOICE
A JUDGE


YOUNG MAN: I love you and everything is beautiful.
YOUNG GIRL: [With quavering voice] You love me and everything is beautiful.
YOUNG MAN: [In a lower tone] I love you and everything is beautiful.
YOUNG GIRL: [In an even lower tone] You love me and everything is beautiful.
YOUNG MAN: [Leaving her abruptly] I love you. [Silence] Face me.
YOUNG GIRL: [As before standing opposite him] There.
YOUNG MAN: [In an exalted high-pitched voicej I love you. I am great, I am lucid, I am full, I am dense.
YOUNG GIRL: [In the same high-pitched voice] We love each other.
YOUNG MAN: We are intense. Ah, how beautifully the world is built.
[Silence. There is a noise as if an immense wheel were turning and moving the air. A hurricane separates them. At the same time, two Stars are seen colliding and from them fall a series of legs of living flesh with feet, hands, scalps, masks, colonnades, porticos, temples, alembics, falling more and more slowly, as if falling in a vacuum: then three scorpions one after another and finally a frog and a beetle which come to rest with desperate slowness, nauseating slowness]
YOUNG MAN: [Crying with all his strength] The sky has gone mad.
[He looks at the sky] Let's hurry away from here. 
[He pushes the Young Girl before him]

[Enter a medieval Knight in gigantic armor, followed by a Wet-Nurse holding her breasts in her hands and puffing because her breasts are swollen]
KNIGHT: Let go of your tits. Give me my papers.
WET-NURSE: [Screaming in high-pitch] Ah! Ah! Ah!
KNIGHT: Damn, what's the matter with you?
WET-NURSE: Our daughter, there, with him.
KNIGHT: Quiet, there's no girl there.
WET-NURSE: I'm telling you that they're screwing.
KNIGHT: What the Hell do I care if they're screwing?
WET-NURSE: Incest.
KNIGHT: Midwife.
WET-NURSE: [Plunging her hands deep into her pockers which are as big as her breasts] Pimp. 
[She throws his papers at him]
KNIGHT: Let me eat.

[The Wet-Nurse rushes out] [He gets up and from each paper he takes a huge hunk of Swiss cheese. Suddenly he coughs and chokes]
KNIGHT: [With full mouth] Ehp. Ehp. Show me your breasts. Show me your breasts. Where did she go?
[He runs out] [The Young Man comes back]
YOUNG MAN: I saw, I knew, I understood. Here on a public street, the priest, the cobbler, the peddler the entrance to the church, the red light of the brothel, the scales of justice. I can't stand it any longer!

[Like shadows, a Priest, a Cobbler, a Beadle, a Bawd, a Judge, a Peddler, arrive on stage]
YOUNG MAN: I've lost her: give her back to me.
ALL: [In different tones] Who, who, who, who.
YOUNG MAN: My wife.
BEADLE: [Very fat] Your wife, you're kidding!
YOUNG MAN: Kidding! Maybe she's yours!
BEADLE: [Tapping his forehead] Maybe she is.

[He runs out] [The Priest Ieaves the group and puts his arm around the neck of the Young Man]
PRIEST: [As if confessing someone.] To what part of your body do you refer most often?
YOUNG MAN: To God. 
[Confused by the reply the Priest immediately shifts to a Swiss accent]
PRIEST: [In Swiss accent] But that isn't done any more. We no longer hear through that ear. You have to ask that of volcanoes and earthquakes. We wallow in the little obscenities of man in the confession-box. That's life.
YOUNG MAN: [Much impressed] Ah that's life! Then everything is shot to hell.
PRIEST: [Still with Swiss accent] Of course.

[At this moment night suddenly falls on stage. The earth quakes. There is furious thunder and zig-zags of lightning in every direction through the zig-zags all the characters can be seen running around bumping into each other and falling then getting up and running about like crazy. Then an enormous hand seizes the Bawd by her hair, which bursts into flame and grows huge before our eyes]
HUGE VOICE: Bitch, look at your body!

[The Bawd's body is seen to be absolutely naked and hideous beneath her blouse and skirt, which become transparent as glass]
BAWD: Leave me alone, God.

[She bites God in the wrist. An immense spurt of blood lacerates the Stage, and through the biggest fiash of lightning the Priest can be seen making the sign of the cross. When the lights go on again all the characters are dead, and their corpses lie all over the ground. Only the Young Man and the Bawd remain devouring each other with their eyes. The Bawd falls into the Young Man's arms]
BAWD: [With the sigh of one having an orgasm] Tell me how it happened to you.

[The Young Man hides his head in his hands. The Wet-nurse comes back carrying the Young Girl under her arm like a bundle. The young Girl is dead. The Bawd drops her on the ground where she collapses and becomes flat as a pancake. The Wet-Nurse no longer has her breasts. Her chest is completely flat]
KNIGHT: [In a terrible voice] Where did you put them? Give me my Swiss cheese.
WET-NURSE: [Boldly and gaily] Here you are.

[She lifts up her dress. The Young Man wants to run away but he is frozen like a petrified puppet]
YOUNG MAN: [As if suspended in the air and with the voice of a ventriloquist] Don't hurt Mommy!
KNIGHT: She-devil!

[He hides his face in horror. A multitude of scorpions crawl out from beneath the Wet-Nurse's dress and swarm between her legs. Her vagina swells up splits and becomes transparent and glistening like a sun. The Young Man and Bawd run off as though lobotomized]
YOUNG GIRL: [Getting up dazed] The virgin! Ah that's what he was looking for.

4. We then had a discussion about the poem and some ideas for the Nerve Metre Nightclub. Make sure you keep a record of your ideas. I expect to see an annotated poem in your work! Discuss the ideas that the group had too!

Artaud Quote

“There is in every madman

a misunderstood genius

whose idea

shining in his head

frightened people

and for whom delirium was the only solution

to the strangulation

that life had prepared for him.”

― Antonin Artaud