week 4

We started this week by working on our Trio Performance, For our piece we decided to perform our piece on the floor instead of at a table and have our bodies interlinked and twisted as we felt this would add to the animalistic side of our piece as well as making it look even more disgusting and highlighting the greed of the people. We also decided to eat the food in slow motion making our movements long and twisted. Again we did this as we felt it made the piece even more surreal for the audience to watch and the exaggerated movements of us eating were even more disgusting to watch. One of the pieces of feedback we got was that the piece could be performed in a paddling pool, we have taken this on board and have decided that we are going to fill the pool with food and have us within it, this is practical for the space we are working in as well as more visually dynamic for the audience to watch.

When watching the pieces one I liked was Ursulas Group. Theirs explored the theme of cannibalism and I think their facial expressions and movements made the piece really engaging and made them look almost dehumanised, communicating their message further. To improve i think they could push their physical actions even further to communicate their message and make them even more twisted and possibly salacious.

This week we also began work on our whole class piece. To do this we did exercises such as 'yes lets'. This was useful to me as it allowed us to work as an ensemble and modify our ways of performing individually so we could work as a whole. It also tested our ability to respond quickly and to improvise. We also looked at creating work from observing objects, for example a plastic band. I found this really interesting as the movement gave us an immediate stimulus to work from, it also meant that we moved our bodies and came up with ideas that we wouldn't normally. As a class we all created very similar pieces that showed the plastic bag that all involved suspension in a way we couldn't create through having planned it.

For our piece we are taking stimulus from Rene Magritte's works, for example 'The Lovers'

I think having our faces covered on stage will look really effective and dynamic, and by combining it with us all moving as a whole it dehumanises us as an ensemble, meaning if we were to create work from objects we represent them even further. The message of this painting in the cloths having no meaning also goes with what we have been talking about this term and how an audience 'make meaning' for example, when we all looked at this painting we immediately assumed there was a reason behind the covered faces. 

Devising

This week we worked on an exercise using 5 pictures looking at how they can be used as stimulus to tell a story. I found this exercise showed me how much detail you can take from a picture, not only visualy but also theme and atmospheres. Some of the images we were giver were of places and others were of objects, for example a char or a clock. The objects were interesting as people viewed them in different ways, some saw the image of a clock and included it in their story as the actual clock, others saw it as a representation for time and used the image to suggest 'time passing'. I think this is interesting in looking at how two people can take two very different meanings from an image. Once again supporting the idea that 'audience create meaning'.

We also looked at devising groups to create an experimental piece. having done this previous exercise helped me when choosing an image to work from as i looked at images from two different perspectives.

Our stimulus :

We chose this sculpture as we wanted to explore the themes of greed and gluttony. The sculpture explores the idea ' In this country how many people have the utensils, but starve because there is no food?' We wanted to take this question and highlight the divide between people with and without food. Our idea for our piece is very simplistic in just having 3 people sat at a table surrounded with fast food, sweets, chocolate etc. to show the animalistic nature of humans and greed we want to have the 3 people stuffing their faces with all this food, almost forcing it down their throughts. We think showing people eating in such a disgusting way will represent the ugliness of greed. this piece is also easy to do for a long time and we wouldn't have to reset anything, instead just have enough food to continue. 

Research : 

25-34 year olds on adverage sre spending £2,626.92 a year on fast food. 

Mcdonalds meals sold each year in Uk : 1.05bn 

£1m is spent everyday on Dominos Take away

I think this images captures the main idea of our peice and shows our interpretation on the origional sculpture. The dependency we now have on these food chains, and the lack of understanding we hold to the ever growing food crisis in the rest of the world. 

TATE.

LOUISE BOURGEOIS (1911-2010)
BORN FRANCE, WORKED USA
PIECES: 
Ode a Ma Mere 1995
My inner life 2008
The stretch 2006
What is the shape of this problem? 1999
MATERIALS:
Etching on paper
Letterpress on paper

I found myself drawn to Bourgeois work, The abstract pieces provided me with an ability to take my own meaning from each and understand them all differently. I loved the simplicity that came with the lack of colour and I feel pieces such as 'my inner life' fascinating in their approach to such a large topic.

Theatrically I think her work would allow me to create a piece that explores the human mind and its complexity. I also would love to take the twisted way she draws and use this to affect my physicality and nature.





SCULPTURE 
ARTISTS: 
Terence Koh - untitled (a new world order lies in a golden age)
Rachel Harrison - XLT Footbed
Subodh Gupta - Everyday 2009
MATERIALS:
Glass, wood, bronze, gold leaf, resin.
Wood, polystyrene, cardboard, cement, acrylic paint.
Stainless steal, marble base.

These three sculptures were all in the same room in the gallery, They all captured my attention and made me question their meaning. The sculpture Was the one that left me the most confused, i was mainly drawn to it because of its structure and I thought this would be an interesting shape to take into a devising process. I also thought it seemed similar to a 'cabinet of curiosities' and i therefore thought it may work in our piece.

With the next piece I liked the idea of having the cord Incorporated within the sculpture and it made me question why is art restricted? this idea of being behind a barrier is something i think we would take forward in devising a section and not being allowed to let what you're trying to express out.

The last sculpture stood out to me as it wasn't something I could understand when looking at it. The actual themes it is exploring was really cleaverly presented I think and the material created a cold surrounding to the topic.

'The Spurt of Blood'

http://spurtofblood.com

In class we looked at the play by Artaud 'The spurt of blood'. I think the piece is fascinating in the way he describes this abstract world surrounding the characters. The 'stage directions' are more like in depth description of events and images.

In a group we worked on staging this section of the script :

[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]



We chose this section as we though it was not only one of the most challenging but also it allowed a large amount of creative freedom for us to work with. We took the line 'night suddenly falls on stage' in a very literal sense and had a representation of night as a character falling from having been carried. We did this as we felt it would work well with the very abstract section that follows as well as linking into it. The fall of the 'night' character was what we used to spark off the earth quake and we then proceeded into making the 'zig zags' using our physicality. I feel what we produced in such a small space of time was successful however I do think as a class we all could have pushed ourselves further to create much more thought through performances. 

week 1 - 6th Jan

Alphabet box - allows you to create a movement using a structured format.

This exercise tested our focus, memory and ability to create a sequence. I found the exercise useful as it showed how easily we can create a set of movements that flow together, as well as this changing the tempo whilst working on it not only tied into what we had been working on in our warm up but also showed how important pace is. For example, performing the section slower made me think further about how each part of my body was moving and what quality my movement had. Contrasting to this the fast pace made my movements seem much more desperate and the qualities were much lighter.

The use of music when performing the work, I think, was a much larger influence on the audiences take on the piece than on the performers actions. For example, the slow song played with group 2 created a much more meaningful and sad atmosphere within what the audience were watching. However, for me as a performer I didn't seem to register the music when I was performing and was more focused on where my next letter was. I think this suggests that audiences almost look for a meaning when watching a piece and we could see in the class that people had formed stories and characters whilst they were watching.

'How do we make meaning?'

As theatre makers I don't think we can 'make meaning' I think the meaning to a piece is either always there or non existent and left open to the audience. An exercise like this emphasises to me how theatre can come from anything and doesn't have to be made with a clear intention of 'making meaning'. Furthermore I believe this exercise showed how a meaning can be different to each person in the audience and how little influence a performer can have over what the audience take from a piece.

'Does a piece of theatre have to have a meaning in order to be effective?'

No, theatre allows complete freedom to both an actor and an audience, their are no rules that suggest what should and shouldn't be done/said. Therefore I believe that meaning doesn't make a piece successful instead the experience and journey an audience and performer go on is what does. Abstract work that is left open to interpretation can be just as effective as a play that portrays a 'meaning' in the way that it still gives the audience something to think about or question.