Final blog

Evaluate the transition of the final stages of the process into performance, paying attention to strengths and weaknesses encountered by the company.

Throughout the process the company had been told many times that we should only move if it felt right and there was a reason as to why we were moving. “.. making performers question how they engage in making work… seek movement with intention and purpose. What are they/we trying to communicate?” During the process it seemed that many of the scenarios changed often as the weeks went by. A lot of people fell into the trick of moving because it looked pretty but after being reminded about moving for a reason everyone’s scenarios began to slip into place. During the performance there were still slight changes to some of the work, for which I believe that the body had taken over and everyone was feeling what they were performing rather thinking about it.

Once everyone had started to rehearse in costume, that is when everyone seemed like they had started to come together and really connected with their characters. When an actor is in his/her costume it changes the way your move or hold yourself. It can even restrict you from certain movements, so it is most important to get to grips with your character in costume.

“To understand and achieve the physical feeling of a character, the actor must rehearse in costume, ersatz though it may be. Corsets, pointed shoes, high heals, skirts – all will cause the character to feel and move in specific ways.” (The Articulate Body; 2002: 33)

Once the company were moved into the theatre space it was as if we had all come home. It was our space that was made for our characters and this alone seemed to infuse more life into the performance and the characters.

However, being in the performance space was exciting but also a little bit nerve racking. This in itself has an affect on the performance or characters. Their nerves make them feel different emotions so slight actions or directions may change. This also includes nervous fiddling. Some people tend to mess with their clothes or hair in a performance when the are nervous which can be dangerous as it projects a meaning to the audience which they most often don’t realise and it is learning to control this that some people may have found difficult.

“Every movement has a value.. as a result of the dramatic need. A fleeting gesture of the hand or a wondering of the eyes reflects a thought or emotion specific to the given moment. The physical manifestation of a moment must be precise and articulate” (The Articulate Body; 2002: 51)

Evaluate the growth of the performance over the three shows, with particular emphasis on your own role within it.

During our time in the Arena we were to perform Fractal three times. Performing this in the theatre alone would change our work and create something more powerful. This was due to having an audience in with us. It would be the first time that people outside this group would be witnessing the piece. But they wouldn’t be just any people. There would also be friends and family. So, depending on the day that the company members had friends or family in was the performance that they wanted to be best. This would change their journey weather it be a slightly different reaction, movement or just more emotional.

throughout all three performances there were changes to my own journey. As we moved from one performance to the next, I found my journey getting more intense and emotional. This, in turn, sparked off gestures or tiny movements that I had never used before. For example: when Leanne climbs over my back I originally just stayed in the same position. Frozen. But in the performance I found myself reacting to her every touch. It was only as simple as me looking up or closing my eyes but it made the piece feel much more alive then it had previously.

I found I was so in the moment when performing in front of an audience and I let my body and emotions run away with me. This was evident, for me, by the fact that I was so lost in my journey that I never noticed the audience were there during the first performance.

Part of what helped me to become so focused was the warm up prior to the performance. It helped m to concentrate, get rid of any silliness in my mind and focus on my character and the journey I was about to take 100%. The character warm-up that we also underwent before the performance helped my to connect to my character and for the first time made me realise that I should be more emotional and more upset about what was happening. For me, this was the drive for the changes in the actual performance.

My family had come to see the second show so I was determined to make that one the best so far. I was a lot more nervous because I knew I was being watched by people who I wanted to impress and this anxiety I felt drove more emotion into my character.

At one point I was worried that I was going to make a mistake. This was apparent when Shona’s cup got kicked right off stage and I caught a glimpse out of the corner of my eye. On the inside I felt distracted and once I had stopped thinking about it I realised I was in the middle of the ritual and couldn’t remember where we were at. However, it seemed that without thinking, my body knew exactly what it was doing. This is because “the body-mind is always in operation” (Zarilli, B, P. (1995). P. 87) This helped me get back into the frame of mine about what I was doing. “It is perhaps easier to relate rhythm and sound to movement.” (D. Callery: 2001; 148) which may have been why I was able to continue and no lose pace ad focus.

By the third show I knew fractal was coming to an end and so far I had improved my performance each time and seeing as this was the last performance I was determined to push myself as far as I could go. I pushed myself so hard that I almost cried. I was determined that my character was not the crying type so when I almost broke into tears I was very shocked. But I did not let this unusual feeling affect the performance. I allowed myself to feel hat was there and channel it into my movements, which later, in the women’s section, turned to anger and I found myself being more aggressive then I had been so far.

Comment on the effectiveness of the blog as a reflective means of charting your journey through the entire process, which began in Septemeber 2007.

I have found the blog to be very useful. At the beginning of the year it was a good way of finding out how other people felt and I as able to get an idea of how the rest of the group felt. This helped me not to feel alone because often I found some of my insecurities and misunderstandings were the same as other peoples, so it comforted me in a way. It was also useful to see how Paul and Royona felt about each lesson. They used the blog to guide us from week to week and opened up my mind in a way that wasn’t done in lesson and could only be done on m own.

Overall it was a very good way of being able to communicate to one another and keeping our memory and imagination about the process that we were going through alive. Also, we were able to express ourselves on the blog in ways most probably wouldn’t in lesson. It was a useful tool for learning, remembering, understanding and being able to sort out our own thoughts and feelings on things that had been bought up in lesson, including keeping track of my own personal journey.

http://www.dv8.co.uk/about.dv8/LN_butterworth.html
Dennis, A. (2002) The Articulate Body
Callery, D. (2001) Through The Body, Routledge.
Zarrilli, B, P. (1995) Acting (Re)Considered, Routledge.