Unit 4: Performing Arts in the Community
During this unit our theatre group is participating in a community arts event that will take place at several locations throughout our area.
The festival strives to increase interest and engagement in the performing arts by hosting a variety of activities that represent the region's social past as well as modern living. To inform our work as a member of the firm, we will need to conduct our own research into community performance and practise. We'll then collaborate to come up with ideas for a community performance production that matches the festival's goals. During the preparation and performance of the piece, we will collaborate with the company to apply a variety of creative abilities.
Conduct a thorough study of community performance methods. Primary exploration in workshops and other practical activities, as well as secondary research, should be part of our investigation. And it provides a review of the essential characteristics and practises of community performance, such as the goal and emphasis, themes, venues, and clientele.
Citations based on comparisons and contrasts, individual practitioners' examples, and performance projects Describes the social, cultural, and economic benefits of individual initiatives, as well as how community needs were satisfied.
Monday 13th September 2021 - Friday 22nd October 2021
(6 weeks)
We did some research from September 13th to October 22nd to assist construct a rough acknowledgment of the possible components or thoughts that the research skills are the capacity to discover answers to a specific problem by examining information and sources. This study is critical for me as a performer so that I can be customer-centric rather than product-centric in my thoughts, for example. Making decisions - Audience research may assist me in prioritising how best to satisfy their requirements, as well as determining who to target, how to contact them, and what to give them. Analysing my audience in this way will assist me in discovering knowledge that I may utilise to establish common ground with the people of our audience. The uneven allocation of speaking time between the speaker and the listener is a major feature of public speaking settings. Which leads to how I was able to accomplish this.
Each week, our teacher would assign a task or homework to be completed that was related to the current topic of our performing arts session. For example, in the first few weeks of being introduced to unit 4, we were required to research local community groups in our area and answer what? who? when? where? and how? questions in order to develop an understanding of what possible similarities we might encounter when we begin to unravel performance ideas for our upcoming performance. And all of the tasks/homework that were generated were to aid in the completion of our task 1 assignment, which was due on Thursday, October 21st.
https://coulsdonac-my.sharepoint.com/:w:/g/personal/skb_coulsdon_ac_uk/Eb4jb6M1tIVAnOp7lu94M_MBssxUizhyFiRCkXHmhIAu7A?e=GvO2Lp
The link above is a attachment of a word document about Tash Marks, a local community practitioner, Director, and Producer Synergy Theatre Project: The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama. She worked as a facilitator of creative projects in primary, secondary, and student referral units, focusing on encouraging and assisting young people in creating content that allows them to exercise their voices through creative techniques and practical activities. She then worked as an assistant practitioner for prison playwriting projects and ex-offenders' collaboration with Creative Support on a video project with Camden Youth Offenders Services. They give back to the community by allowing anyone, regardless of financial or other restraints, to participate. Tash creates a supportive environment that intrigues and comforts the participants, allowing children to reshape their future and gain experiences to further their goal of gaining a career in the theatre industry by encouraging young people to feel accepted regardless of where they are from or what they are going through. And organising charity events to raise funds for the initiatives so that they may expand their reach and promote at workshops all across London.
Because of the established activities that were accomplished by homework, I was able to become more organised and have pieces of work to support me as I progressed through the next chores in this unit 4 assignment. It also allowed me to explore the local area within this community and discover things I didn't even know existed, as well as the fact that there are active practitioners trying to make a difference in a small local community, which provided a rough sketch of the possible factors my group will need to consider, particularly in terms of who our target audience might be.
By gathering this information, I am able to develop new ideas or stimuli for my performance, ensuring that both my audience and I am satisfied. Great performers possess the will to prepare to win over and over again, which helps to reduce fear, worry, and defeats. You have a slim probability of success if you are unprepared to confront a problem. "By neglecting to prepare, you prepare to fail," as Benjamin Franklin put it. I immediately began pondering because opinions are crucial in shaping our ideas. Reading is also beneficial since it allows us to learn about other people's perspectives and views. If we don't read about other people's beliefs, we won't be able to come to our own conclusions. Ideas are also crucial. Without ideas, growth is stifled, change is stifled, and much of human evolution comes to a halt. So, as soon as we were allocated groups, I began chatting and mind mapping ideas before to our performing arts lesson so that we could immediately begin extending our ideas from the ground up, allowing us to begin rehearsing early and do some trial and error both practically and theoretically.
Monday 25th October 2021 - Friday 29th October 2021
(Half Term Break) (9 days)
I opted to Compare/Contrast Old/Young over the half-term break because there are numerous similarities and distinctions between senior individuals and young adults. The elderly appear to be more entrenched in their ways. They also appear to know a lot more about almost everything. Young adults, on the other hand, appear to have a far more expansive perspective on life. This is mainly because, if you listen to the elderly, many of them become smart; but, many others (like with music choices) appear to remain stuck in their youth, despite the fact that they all believe they are knowledgeable. They don't appear to notice how the world around them is changing. Because the world is changing so quickly and knowledge is so easily available, and us as young adults are much more adjusted to technology then they are. I did this so that I could learn more about how to successfully grab people's attention and ensure that they were comfortable with and understood the show that my group would put on for them. Knowing the age group makes the process of developing a performance much easier. This made it much easier to have a solid sense of where the performance would take place and what the performance's overall goal would be. This leads to my investigation into care facilities in order to gain a better understanding of their functions and how we may connect our theme to that community.
Care homes, I discovered during my investigation, provide housing and personal care for persons who require additional assistance in their everyday lives. Personal care may involve assistance with feeding, washing, dressing, toileting, and medication administration. Some care homes also include social activities such as outings or day trips. Which I thought interesting how there are places to help consider everyone, especially those who are unable to, which helped me come up with a general notion of the likely purpose and subject for my group performance, which we would be performing on December 2nd. As everyone knows, December is Christmas month, so it was even easier to expand on the concept of togetherness.
Friday 29th October 2021 (End of Half Term-break) -Friday 17th December 2021
(7 weeks):
1st Week Rehearsal:
We were divided into groups for unit 4 performing arts in the community once we returned from our half-term break which was:
- Aluel
- Ellie
- Ciran
- Leah-Mae
- Kellie (Myself)
- Maddie
- Jude
And we talked about the learning objectives, which included understanding community performance, practising and developing ideas for a community performance, being able to apply skills to a community performance, and lastly reviewing their own development and final community performance. We next examined what constitutes a community performance, and we spent time completing a research activity to aid us in expanding and broadening our knowledge about community performances, including what they normally entail and their purpose, throughout Unit 4. Following the completion of my research, I discovered and learned that community performance refers to socially engaged methodologies and strategies that involve the Performing Arts in projects facilitated by, with, and for community groups, and that their work takes place outside of professional performance spaces. Some projects are held in schools or community centres, while others are held at festivals, prisons, and even forest clearings. I was able to summarise their purposes and that community performances can pretty much take place anywhere as long as there is a single purpose or message that they are trying to push forward, regardless of the type of environment circumstances, which is something that I, as a performer, am comfortable with because I am willing to expand and broaden my skills as an actress and be able to challenge myself throughout this unit 4.
Which leads to the other learning objectives we addressed as a class about the purpose and focus of community performances by looking at different topics, venues, target audiences, and examples of community performances. We accomplished this by watching some examples in class, the links to which are attached below, of performances by Newcastle-based Southpaw Dance Company, which primarily focuses on delivering performances through dance and music, even though there is no dialogue, the message is still conveyed, which I find incredible and amazing and would love to be able to train myself into doing to help expand my skills as a performer.
After reflecting on all of the research done on the various community performance companies, the possibilities of what they can look like are varied because Zooco is a theatre company that uses different stylistics of gestures and movement as well as music, similar to Newcastle-based Southpaw Dance Company, and whilst the independent community practitioner I did some research on Tash Marks who is a community practitioner, Director and Producer Synergy Theatre Project: The Royal Central School Of Speech and Drama. But what they all have in common, including the performance that my group will put on, is that there will be a specific target audience that we are trying to attract and that we will be performing it in a different venue than our usual working area, which is something that is exciting and something I am willing to adapt to because, according to my research, community projects usually take place outside and not always in stereotypical areas where they take place. Unlike these community performances, they can take place in schools, concerts, festivals, or centres, which is something I'll have to factor into my own group performance as a performer. Since I need to make sure that whatever ideas our group comes up with can be readily moved and adapted to the location where it will take place, because we need to make sure that everyone is secure and that we have enough space for our performance. Because it would have a significant influence and alter the entire premise of our original posture. To avoid this, after we have our location and venue, we conduct research on the area we will be using to get a basic estimate of how much room we have so that we can remember the restrictions when practising our idea.
Target Audience:
Community. The elderly, in addition to companionship, require the development of relationships with others in their communities. They can do so through taking part in group activities and themed events, as well as going on outings. Their mental and physical health improves when they have the opportunity to socialise. Physical issues are one of the four major concerns associated with old age. Problems with cognition. Emotional issues and being aware of them allows us to create a presentation that is inclusive of our target audience as a group.
Our target audience is 60+ audience
Financial security, personal security and safety, health care and health difficulties, mental wellness, and self-actualization are among the basic necessities. The study found that older persons with chronic illnesses had unmet care needs in areas such as physical and mental health, social life, and the environment in which they live and interact. The need of designing care models and support services based on the requirements of older persons was also stressed by the findings of this review.
The impact on social insurance programmes and pension systems is one of the most significant economic consequences of an ageing population. The difficulty with pensions is that the number of younger workers is dropping, resulting in lesser contributions and a higher return on their investments. Which is something that the younger generation will not have until we reach a certain age.
We intend to meet their needs by completing research regarding information about the age group and what is necessarily involved within their age group, and how we can use it towards our group performance.
Original Group Performance Idea:
Following a presentation that contained all of the tools and information we needed to support us in creating the devise piece that will soon be performed in front of a 60+ audience, our group decided to structure this lesson solely to focus on what our idea will be, and assigning the different roles within the group to help create a smooth flow on knowing that each area of our performance will be supported and not forgotten so when we reach the 60+ audience we are fully prepared and organised.
We began to brainstorm after a few minutes of discussing our structure for what we wanted to accomplish by the end of the lesson, and our group decided that since we are performing on the 2nd of December, we would incorporate a Christmas theme alongside it, with some inspiration from the musical 'Rent because the methods they used to incorporate different individuals at different points in their lives together was very aesthetically pleasing and intelligent as it was delivered very clearly and similarly ties into the chosen purpose that our group is trying to present towards our audience members. Which led our group to decide that the purpose and focus of our project and theme would revolve around the importance of being together because the 60+ audience members will be in a care home and won't be able to visit their family member due to factors such as the current Covid 19 outbreak, which has put a huge strain on any physical contact and meeting people indoors because it can spread quickly, and because of their age, they are at a high risk of contracting the disease. And by choosing this purpose, we will be able to connect with our audience members because it is something they can relate to, and by having the opportunity to perform in front of them, we will be able to help them relight that flame of hope for seeing their family members again and being able to have that family Christmas dinner, and most importantly, having physical connection and being able to truly value the importance of being together with your family and friends, So that when we go to perform this, we can put a smile on their faces and allow them to enjoy our performances after not being able to go outside, and provide a breath of fresh air to see that the younger generation cares for the elder generation around us. Which leads to the next point of practical issues, such as the type of venue our performance will take place in, which will be a care home, and to see if there are any available resources that we can use for our own performance, but this will have to wait until later in the week because we haven't been told where it will be or what the venue will look like, which is something we took into consideration as a group during the improvisation rehearsal.
Continuing on with our group's idea our theme is Christmas, which corresponds to the month of December, and to explain further on the style and genre of our performance piece, it will be inspired by an existing repertoire, the musical 'Rent,' which tells the storey of a group of impoverished young artists struggling to survive and create a life in Lower Manhattan's East Village in the thriving days of bohemian Alphabet City, under the shadow of And, during the musical, a group of people encounter each other through connections or on their own independent journeys, eventually becoming a large family made up of strangers and acquaintances. We took this inspiration and added our own version of having seven complete strangers at different points in their lives, except having three roommates who attend the same university, alongside a teacher who they are already familiar with, and then having a couple and a homeless man, but what we added was that each individual had a different persona, for example, the couple involved an anti social boyfriend with an entirely aggressive girlfriend to switch up the stereotyping. We will be able to represent our performance's objective by assigning these roles and drawing inspiration from the musical to support our performance's goal of demonstrating the value of being together, whether with family or not, and that having someone there who cares about you and accepts you for who you are is more important of value rather than being alone on Christmas Day. Because all seven individuals are living together in a more or less ordered community, we add value of difference in society, culture, and economics from the homeless man to the university teacher, which also helps the ideas, customs, and social behaviour of a particular people or society because of the diversity within our group, which then falls into the branch of knowledge concerned with the production, consumption, and distribution of goods and services.
After we had all agreed on the objective and topic of our performance, we decided to focus our efforts on assigning parts within the group so that we could spend the rest of the lesson time working on some rough drawings of possible scenarios.
The production schedule, as well as the assignment of roles and areas of responsibility:
- Aluel- Director (stage)
- Ellie- Costume Designer
- Ciran- Director
- Leah-Mae- Set Designer
- Kellie (Myself)- Musical Director
- Maddie- Choreographer
- Jude- Lighting and Sound
What is the role of a Musical Director:
In summary the role of a music director is that they must have great communication and organisational abilities, as well as the ability to work cooperatively with the show's director, cast, and orchestra. And be able to complete the following within the group:
- Participate in creative team meetings with the Director and Choreographer to develop the show's overall vision.
- Examine the script and the music.
- Participate in auditions, evaluate all auditionees' vocal ability, and provide recommendations for who could be most suited for each job based on vocal performance.
- Teach the cast and musicians about music.
- Participate in rehearsals.
- Before each show, lead regular warm-ups with the cast and musicians
Independently, I decided to make sure that any pieces of music that were involved in our group performance were noted down and double checked with each member to ensure that the song was correct, and to be able to work alongside Jude who was working on the lighting and sound of our performance to ensure that the cue sheet wouldn't be a mess, and to be able to control the volume of the song to ensure that our audience didn't have to deal with any disruptive noise, and as well with Jude who was working on the lighting and sound. And to finalise all of this music with our director Ciran and stage director Aluel, to ensure that they both understand what is going on in our group and what songs will be used in case any members are absent, so they know what to do and who to fill in for.
Continuing on with the rest of the rehearsals we held this week in class and outside of class, we had a few of our members absent, so we decided to contribute those lessons and spend our time working on our characterisations because it was something we were lacking as a group, and it allowed us to spend time researching each character profile and what else we could do to improve it. To accomplish this, we used the method Hot seating w/ wands. We took turns hot seating each other and asking questions, and when it was my turn, I decided to push myself beyond my comfort zone because the aggressive persona is something I am not used to, and I had no experience acting in a role like this, so I was initially concerned about how I would respond to the questions posed by my classmates. 'Why don't I trust anyone?' was one of the questions posed. And the answer I gave was that I had to become a friend to myself because so many people had disappointed me, and that you don't need anyone but yourself, which demonstrates the frustration and fury that had grown up within my character.
Below are voice recordings of our feedback for each other's hot seating, in which we gave pointers on how we could improve our characterisation and how we could do so by doing more research, changing the stylistic of delivery of when our characters speak, or perhaps the interaction between each character, or using dynamics.
Feedback for my Personal Hot Seating:
The positives I used during my feedback were that the attitude and fiery aspects I used to help portray the character were great, as this was supported by not answering questions about my character's personal life and thus avoiding her feelings, and it was nice that I played around with that as this changed the intensity and change of tone from the previous hot seating, and by doing all of the above it displayed the confidence of my character. As Jude stated, I am typically cheerful and effervescent, so seeing me portray a completely different character, especially one that is violent, was shocking, so it was amazing and it allowed me to develop my skills as a performer. And by presenting the character, I was able to illustrate the polar opposite of the relationship between the aggressive girlfriend and the antisocial boyfriend, which added to the overall quality of the performance. Later in the storey, my heroine will go through a transformation from losing her boyfriend to discovering her softer side and realising how much he meant to her and realising the significance of what he meant to her.
As my suggestion for improvement was to study or extend the tale more by asking why she doesn't like her family, how would I be able to illustrate that development from hostility to timidity? What makes her think her guy is weak? And how can I make her relatable to the audience because my teacher indicated that the information used, such as drugs, alcohol, and sexual content, doesn't seem to go over well with the 60+ people in the audience, so how can I make her relatable? But, overall, I was pleased with the feedback because it reassured me that the method acting technique I used assisted me in developing this character and portraying what I wanted Zara to be as an aggressive person, so I would definitely recommend using method acting for future performances when tackling characters that are outside of my comfort zone.
In the following lessons, we continued to develop our performance with a more structured schedule and a clearer intention of what each of our characters were, unlike before when it wasn't clearly presented. The use of the method of hot seating really helped support myself and the rest of my group members to understand better of who each of our characters are, so we decided as a group that we would create character profiles to help visually see their background, responsibilities, and motivations. During this rehearsal, we decided to break down the entire performance into pieces so that we could devote enough time to each element and ensure a smooth and equal development process.
Our group's overall goal is to have our scenes set and the rest of the performance figured out, as well as to consider the feedback we received from each other and from our teacher about what needed to be improved, which was characterisation, as well as to have a strong storyline and be able to understand what's going on so we can portray it to the audience. We started with how each character would meet each other so that we could explain why they all came together for Christmas dinner. The voice recording below is of our group running through the scenes and working on a bakery scene that will hopefully tie in all of the characters and show the audience how each of them met as this will correspond to them all being invited to a Christmas dinner to help strengthen our overall purpose of the performance to show the true value of being together. We spent the rest of the lesson polishing the transitions and any companion work that needed to be polished as a result of this. Myself and Jude, for example, agreed to work independently from the rest of the group to help establish a connection between our characters and demonstrate their contrasts.
We are achieving our group goal by doing so because it aids our goal of demonstrating the value of being together as well as the development of my character Zara. Because when jude's character has had enough and describes how Zara is two-faced and forceful before breaking up with her, it makes my character realise how much he meant to her and how she should've listened and understood him better. As she transitions from confident to timid, my body language and voice tone will change to reflect this. However, in order for me to achieve this, I must work on transitioning between the two emotions to guarantee the audience notices a change in her persona. My body language gradually becomes slumped and closed up, and the deliveries will become softer through the shift of dynamics to depict the transition in my character Zara's behaviour as a result of the breakup. By doing so, I'm pushing myself to express the change of emotions and character development of her character from beginning to end in a clear and concise manner.
My goal for next week is to be able to answer the questions from my hot sitting about my character Zara and utilise them to help me finish my character profile so that I can visually express her persona and what else I can do as a performer to show it via various approaches.
2nd Week Rehearsal:
My group chose to establish Character Profiles to aid in our development and comprehension of who we are as individuals, as I indicated previously. So clearly displayed below is my character profile for Zara:
Character Profile:
Name: Zara
Age: 19
Gender: Female
Pronouns: She/Her
Job: Customer Service
Relationship: Lewis (Jude's Character)
Personality: Aggressive
Hobbies: Going out and buying things for herself
Studying: Used to study Law and Politics but dropped out
Personal Life: Zara doesn't like talking about her personal life because she's had a lot of people betray her trust, which has led her to distrust everyone, and Lewis is just there for her entertainment because she felt bad for him and had feelings for him, but she doesn't want to break his heart, so she lets him tag along wherever she goes. To continue on how Zara became who she is now, her father abandoned her and her mother when she was seven years old because he had found someone else. This made her feel as if her father no longer loved her, and her mother pretended as if she didn't exist, causing her to never feel loved. As a result, she has never felt loved, and when she tries to express emotion, she struggles, which triggers her anger. She used to be a social butterfly, but she has been abused with her trust which makes her continue her life by 'herself'.
Goal: Be able to become more independently financially and live the luxury of travelling around the world alone.
Our teacher gave us a short task for our practical lesson before we broke off to go rehearse our devise performances. This was very helpful because it created a visual representation of what needed to be completed within our group and how we could accomplish this before our first milestone rehearsal. We also had some unanswered questions from the previous rehearsal, so we decided to break down this practical lesson into sections by determining what equipment we will be using and determining how this performance will impact the audience, as the storyline was still unclear and not presented clearly, which our group feared would jeopardise our entire goal.
After rehearsing the scenes over and over again, some members of the group, including myself, became lost and began to wonder if this performance would ever go anywhere as our foundation began to crumble, and together a few members began discussing how we completely change the entire performance while still keeping the purpose of being together as a stimuli but changing the initial idea from 'Rent.' The Dumping Ground (also known as the DG) is a British children's television drama series that follows the lives and experiences of young people who reside in a care facility alongside their care professionals. Because it was more appropriate for our story. We began to plan our structure, keeping what was salvageable from our previous initial idea, we kept the seven different personalities but changed that we were all foster kids in a care home with our care worker Veronica, as the elements within the show showed the characteristics and vision we had as a group, so having to change the initial idea to this, we began to start planning our structure, keeping what was salvageable from our previous initial idea, we kept the seven different personalities but changed that we were all foster kids in a care home with our care So our new goals were to complete rough drawings of our scenarios, refine them, and polish them for our first milestone rehearsal in front of our classmates.
Because it's a similar environment to a care home, changing our initial idea to this new idea allowed us to make a more clear and similar connection with our target audience because it's seven foster children who have lived together with their care worker and some are failing to realise that being together is very valuable, and we plan to achieve this by dividing the stage into three sections to display the different rooms of the foster children. And by putting the care worker Veronica in charge, it's similar to having someone look after you in a nursing home, making sure you follow the routine for the day. This still fits the audience's needs since it's a very accessible performance that allows them to empathise because they're in a relatively familiar situation with other 60+ members going about their daily lives, while still having complete strangers or individuals they already know. However, the general point is that we can now present a much clearer picture and comprehension of a storey to assist us focus on the overall goal of this devised performance piece. Because it demonstrates that these six foster kids, including their care professional, are able to come together and value each other's presence, this idea was also modalized by the television show dumping ground.
3rd Week Rehearsal:
I was absent for this lesson due to personal reasons, so the links below show what my group was working on, and they informed me that they were going over the new idea that we had all decided to go over, and that all I needed to do now was work on my characterisation and be able to create a short period dance with Jude because we had assigned partner work because it is part of the scene with the rest of my classmates.
We developed about selecting ideas, visual components, compositions, and approaches after our initial response to a stimulus. From this, we were able to polish the new idea and work and use them in new ways. Trying new ideas and making creative judgments based on what works and what doesn't is a crucial aspect of the creative process. At this point, demonstrating originality is more crucial. For our first milestone rehearsal, we wanted to polish our work and develop a more finished product for the long-term project. Our group's progress so far has been that we've been able to recover and fully support the new idea, as well as work on any sections that needed fixing or any last-minute changes, but individually, I needed to rehearse the dance routine with Jude to understand which way we were going first, as I was able to do so because I was absent on the day that the group was doing a full run through of the new idea. Which, for my autonomous development, means being allowed to plan or schedule activities outside of the performing arts class because it affects both my group and me.
17. 11.21 lesson plan .m4a - Google Drive
We were preparing for our first ever milestone rehearsal during this lesson, and what went well was that we were able to execute our new initial idea seamlessly and transition into the different scenes quickly, which was important because we wanted to stay within the time frame of how long this performance could be, as well as getting to the cue parts for our dance partner work, which we hadn't had time to fully rehearse since Ciran and myself were missing from the rehearsal that our group spent time on editing and fixing on the dance choreography. However, characterisation is something that we could've improved as a group because there were several occasions, including mine, where it got lost, causing the audience to lose track of our tale, which is something I don't want to happen. So, to avoid this, we can simply spend more time practising acting as our assigned characters and, hopefully, building more of the plot to support our goal, which is to emphasise the significance of being together. 4th Week Rehearsal:
We reviewed the feedback received after our first milestone rehearsal and decided to work from there because it gave us a rough idea of what we needed to improve on as a group because we still needed to polish on some scenes to help strengthen our stimuli or purpose of the performance because even though we changed our idea, it allowed us to deliver a much clearer storyline. As a result of comments from one of our classmates, we needed to work on companion work at the beginning to help display the location of where our performance is taking place. So the YouTube links below are recordings of our partner work that we rehearsed because we need to build up and edit on showing the differences between each character involved and how the audience will be able to understand the storyline so they can follow along and be engaged during our final performance on December 2nd.
Since our environment is a foster home where we are all being looked after by our care worker Veronica, we wanted to display the different levels of friendship built within the community as this is something that could help towards a positive outcome of linking towards our purpose of the performance. We achieved this by segmenting each interaction scenario in the beginning, where we first display the foster care environment to the audience, and then we began working on broadening our performance and voice talents to aid our own personal development. As I and Leah- Mae discussed how we could show the difference in personality between our characters, as she is a feisty daredevil and my character is aggressive, we were concerned that these personas would blend together, which is something we didn't want to happen. So we spent our time analysing the various behavioural characteristics demonstrated by the two personas and figuring out how we could apply them to our own unique delivery of the characters. For the aggressive behaviour aspects, I had to adapt on focusing on trying not to become overly physically violent as this would cause a huge distraction from my other classmates involved in this group performance, so I looked at other gestures or differences in vocal and body language stylistic delivery. For example, I would use verbal hostility as a possible way to portray my character because it would allow me to show the difference in friendship level between my character and the other characters involved during this group performance by simply changing the tone and stylistic of line delivery, which would clearly inform the audience about my character's persona. By accomplishing this, I am not only increasing my abilities as a performer, but I am also taking into account the comments we received and being able to work on it in order to create a lot better scene and enhance our work ethic.
The goals I want to set for next week's lessons are to continue working on improving my characters' development of their own personal storey, as well as working with some members of the group, particularly in the partner work scenes, because knowing what is going to happen and understanding the cue lines or transitions for the next scenes will help me feel confident and reassured, and I want to be able to complete a run through smoothly and without any mishaps.
5th Week Rehearsal:
On November 24th, we performed our second milestone in front of our classmates to demonstrate our progress and improvement from our first milestone, as well as the changes we made in response to feedback and what we did to improve, and how we were able to achieve this through warm-ups and workshops solely focused on supporting us to strengthen our entire group performance in preparation for the final performance.
The image below depicts the location where our performance will take place:
7th Week Thursday 2nd December 2021: Performance Day
https://youtu.be/e_3kBd32ihE (Preparation before the performance)
Our group's performance went off without a hitch, despite the fact that we changed the stimulus two weeks before the show, which helped me improve my organisation and time management skills because we had to spend our time carefully and cautiously so we could have a final product of a performance to present to the 60+ audience. This helped me learn how to respond to and address the needs of the community by listening to and exchanging ideas with beneficiaries and then modelling those ideas into a performance. Allowing myself to reflect on my development as I acquire and use skills and techniques, create goals, and evaluate my success is also important. Which brings us to our group's performance evaluation. On a good side, we were able to complete the full performance without forgetting or messing up any sequences, allowing us to continue performing within the time constraints we were given for these performances. We were also able to achieve on being heard because we used clear projection when speaking the lines so that the audience members could easily understand what we said and follow along with our storyline, ensuring that there were no risks of any incorrupt understanding of what was going on the performing stage, meaning that we could hear our cues to switch scenes or transitions, which was our concern because we hadn't rehearsed in the spacing that we were given. Our group's characterization was pretty readable, which was necessary to help create the flow of the tale that we had decided on as a group; nonetheless, there was potential for growth, particularly in terms of being able to exaggerate gestures or through language. However, speaking solely for myself, I believe I presented the assigned character realistically and clearly because, during the performance, one of the audience members said, "Oh she's feisty," which was the reaction I was hoping for because my character wasn't supposed to have a welcoming approachable aura, so because of the comment, I believe I was able to present the characters personality clearly, thus achieving on the tar. Another thing to mention is that, in addition to the audience member's comment, it also reassured me midway through the performance that I was being heard and projecting loudly and audibly, which was something I was aiming for because I wanted my character to stand out and not be overshadowed by my colleagues' characters, especially Ellie's, who is timid and quiet.
However, if we were given the opportunity to perform this piece again, one of the aspects I would focus on improving is the professionalism of myself and the other members before a performance begins, because if we were all at our designated spots ready to perform, we would have more time to talk to the audience and finalise any last-minute details, ensuring that our performance was flawless. Especially because we were unable to provide a comprehensive and structured tech sheet, which was primarily my fault owing to my poor organisational and time management abilities while balancing other issues in my daily life. Because this took a long time to sort out before our performance, it caused the other group to be late for theirs, and the chosen music was not on cue at the time we had originally planned because I hadn't turned in the tech sheet on time, disappointing my group and almost putting our group performance at risk of missing scenes and messing up any partner work we had in our performance piece. To avoid a repeat of this situation, if we were given the opportunity to perform this again, I would prioritise within my list of things to do that needed to be done on time, being able to create a schedule to help me with my time management skills, thus improving my organisation, and also asking for help from my group if I had any questions about the song choices or the running order for them, as this was another factor that could've gone down the drain as this affection. Another area where I could have improved was perhaps further developing my character, particularly when presenting something with an aggressive persona, because I don't want to always have the stereotypical aspects of how someone with that persona will act, such as raising their voice and being overly empowered because I don't want to drown out my colleagues, so I could've spent more time researching different types of behaviours or personalities.
Jude and I took the time to walk around the care home and interact with our great audience to get live feedback on our group's performance, as well as what we could approve of and what we wanted to accomplish as a group. The storyline was clear and they were able to follow along; it was a breath of fresh air to have a live audience come into their care home since the Covid 19 pandemic put a strain on allowing them to have any visitors because they were high risk; and it was a breath of fresh air to have a live audience come into their care home. It warmed my heart to realise that even our presence was valued and had a significant impact on the audience. Which also allowed me to realise as a performer that community performances aren't always about trying to spread the message or the intention of the performance, but rather simply being present, which the audience appreciates, especially if they can't leave or go anywhere for reasons such as Covid 19. Another piece of feedback I received was from the other group, who stated that after watching the previous milestone rehearsal, our group had improved significantly and that the new idea that our group decided on worked much better than the previous original idea, allowing them to better understand what was going on, which is fantastic to hear because our goal was to be able to clearly deliver the purpose of the performance, which was the importance of being together and being able to receive this feedback helped support our reason for the performance.
Because our goal as a group was to convey the value of being together, which we often overlook, particularly during the Christmas season, when we are all guilty of focusing our attention on buying presents and trying to schedule time to buy food and decorations for those big grand family dinners, completely forgetting that being together is priceless and more valuable than those bought presents because you can't buy a friend or family member.
In the end, our group did their best, and if we had another chance to perform it, we would, and it would be better and edited, allowing us to clearly present the storyline and help the audience understand the stimuli and characters involved in the performance, and understand that there are always areas to improve on, but in the future, we must schedule more time to rehearse and organise a clear idea that we will follow through from. The link below is a attached link which displays our final performance at the care home we presented this unit 4 to!
https://youtu.be/BIJj3JCWW2k (Video of our group Performance)
Friday 17th December 2021: Assignment Due
Overall, this unit 4 helped me as a performer broaden my material to suit audience members that we don't always consider and through the help of our drama teacher and the Zooco workshop because it helped teach me how to develop and make performances more inclusive and help direct it towards a specific target audience given by the exam board or in general within the performing arts. And because I was able to use the help and tools supplied and integrate those abilities and learning experiences into my own independent work, I can safely state that I will be able to present a comprehensive performance for any target audience member.
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