Diary: Day 5 - 26/04/13

We were given the task of using a room in the school to create a short devised piece – using the techniques we have been practicing over the past few lessons. So for the first lesson, we worked with Steve to learn a little about contemporary dance – making some simple movements look closer to that style of theatre, rather than being very naturalistic. We then moved into the gallery theatre to create the piece. We liked the idea of using acting while the audience walked into the performance space, and we also liked the idea of using the different levels that the seats created in the room. So we began the piece standing on the tables (three on each side) and each of us reaching across and striking a pose. We had decided to base the piece on violence because we were performing in a school and a lot of fights/arguments happen within schools. The audience would then walk up the stairs to sit down as we all retract from our poses and walk down onto the floor. We then each did an action to represent violence – Jay and Joe breathing heavily, Millie and Stevie stamping their feet and Dave and I were pounding our fists. We all then turned in and screamed at each other – again representing the violence. We all decided on three words to shout at each other, the last word being “Outside” – again showing the arguments that people have leading to the violence happening ‘outside’. Finally, we all turned back around and headed back to our original poses – showing that nothing has changed and people are still violent. I thought the idea was very good and I loved the way we all ‘bounced off’ each other to create the performance. However, I did not like my performance today as I came out of character when Dave and I said the wrong lines. Next week, we will be focussing more on the main performance and settling on a venue to perform in – hopefully starting to create the actual performance.