Last Wednesday Rehearsal N2C

One. Week. Today.

Excuse me while I scream.

I was quite nervous about performing in front of Chipp, considering last week, and lo and behold, I did terribly. I do not know what went wrong, but I was awful. No real characterisation of the character, a lack of actual acting. I'm at that stage in life where I feel like I'm awful at acting. It happens with every play, at the beginning I always feel like I'm the worst actor there. I'm probably right looking at yesterday. I really need to look at the character of the bass player and get him sorted in my head, and basically just believe that I can act, then hopefully, I won't ruin the whole play and disappoint everybody.

Chorus Sections - 7.12.16

Again going over sections we'd rehearsed and then adding to them:

After crazy yoga warm-up not suitable for super-not-stretchy-that-could-rip-at-any-moment-trousers,we went into the opening scene, going over the things we'd added on Monday. This went smoothly though the bit where me and Shanice fight in the middle of the room went horribly wrong as we messed up the timings. We moved in then to the scene where Antigone is arrested by the guards and the chorus come into the centre for Antigone to wildly wave her sword at them (hehe). I love this bit, though occasionally we struggle to keep the, "lads, lads!" shouting up, I struggle to find the right things to say as I feel really uncomfortable saying the kind of things we need to, to anybody. I think the first time we did it, I was actually better at doing it, maybe because I was in the middle of performing Oliver as a pickpocket (off note: my Granddad came to watch Oliver and didn't recognise me for half-an-hour because he thought I was a boy who looked strangely a lot like my brother).

Thought I'd add a little anecdote for entertainment.

Additionally on that guards scene, the line where I say, "I can see yur tits in tha' luv" definitely needs to be louder, more central, better timed and in a more crass manner. If you can't tell from the improvements I need to make, I did rubbish at that line. Generally, I really need to do better.

We moved back to the first scene to look at the characters' introductions in the Chorus' monologue at the beginning. There are many, many cues to remember, especially for those swapping parts on different nights. It has been decided that for me and my fellow Creon, we shall swap being King and Page each night. This luckily means that I do not have to suffer the embarrassment of my atrocious dancing skills - despite being a 16 year old female, I apparently have the, "ultimate dad-dancing skills" or contrastingly, I dance "like a middle aged, fat lady" - these are direct quotes. I have no grace. Or timing. Or coordination.

We decided to develop the reaction to Antigone's casting, firstly thinking of a thought at a base level of emotion as whomever i.e. actual person, the actor in the play, or Creon. I decided to go with "I guess their OK, I'll let them give it a go." but then Chipp decided to the though a lot harder: "Imagine that the person who is cast is actually going to be bricked-up and killed." Oh.

I find these kind of emotions hard to define therefore putting it in the form of a sentence is extremely difficult. My first thought was simply, "Please God, help her."  in a sort of lost, defeated tone. My problem is, I've been privileged enough in my life to never have had to deal with the prospect of someone dying with all my close friends and family still alive, other Granddad's survived 2 heart attacks, prostate cancer, alcohol poisoning and 3 collapses. I'm sort of lost in how I would feel. I think that I would really be lost for words in a moment of shock and empathetic despair for the loss of life and inevitable fate the girl faces: I imagine knowing someone's is going to die would suspend you in a drawn out feeling of helplessness and horror as you watch someone's life drift away. But I can't define how I would feel in a sentence. I think all I can say is that I would feel caught in a moment of despair and helplessness, as well as shock at the prospect of seeing a death.

Again, all I can say is that I love how Chipp has directed the first scene: it looks good and it feel comfortable. Though, a shock to the system when after rehearsing the Page's role in the first scene, suddenly the Chorus changes the Antigone and I'm Creon. I think I remembered what I was meant to do, but I wasn't really prepared for the part so didn't quite relax into it, maybe next time.

The fruits of our hard labour:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rp9BVAKVFs&feature=share

It's in this run-through that myself and my partner went very wrong with our sequence and we really didn't recover, it's also this one where I was surprised into being Creon.


Second Antigone:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L99-jKklHJg

This one went a little bit better, felt more confident in my part as Creon after the second run through and me and Shanice got our sequence a little more in time.

Chorus Scene - 5/12/16

Well I missed the first 10 minutes because I had to cycle straight from my last school and they had locked my bike in and when I got there there were exams I had to find out where I was because I was stupid and didn't see the sign and eventually I went to student reception and I got to the lesson 10 minutes late. Ah. Stress!

Anyway...

We were doing the opening scene of Antigone and firstly just going over what we had already rehearsed a few weeks ago, it was a bit ropy at first but we soon started to get into the swing of things again. Me and my partner messed up our sequence a couple of times, (especially when the chorus began to go double time) but that was kind of to be expected considering we hadn't rehearsed it in ages. We do need to make it as smooth and fast as possible though, to make it more eye-catching and impressive to the audience. I feel like our movements look pretty good, though we only have one change in level at the beginning and the last few movements are pretty similar.

We then began to work on the transition into the actual script beginning with distinguishing Antigone from the rest of the cast and then where the cast stand and how they react to the first part of the Chorus' speech. As Creon I have to go centre and as the page I have to go behind everyone else, and I am wee bit worried about forgetting on the night which character I'm meant to be and standing in the wrong place. Sure it'll be fine. I do really like how we've done the first scene as the fight sequences are very striking for the audience and the way we transition into the play is very effective.

N2C Run Through Night - 30.11.16

AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Bad.

Really Bad.

Not me specifically, but as we began to do our first run through with the two main guys supposedly knowing their lines, disaster struck. I was prompting the first part and after 'the girl's' first line, 'the boy' turned to me: he had forgotten his first line! This is how it carried on, every single one of his lines, a glance to me and I had to prompt him, somehow with Caitlin ('the girl') keeping her part together while 'the boy' failed. Now all credit to him, he has a mammoth amount to lines to learn with a lot of them repeating, but it meant the scene was excruciatingly slow and painful to watch. It also meant that the blocking was awkward and Caitlin struggled to act off Rob who was constantly getting prompts. (Want to point out, Caitlin knew her lines perfectly). Furthermore, the disaster of the first section knocked everyone else off and it meant that when the drummer came in, although he knew most of his lines, he kept getting brain blocks and so, kept looking to me (for prompts, not because I had the script written all over my face).

When myself and the singer came on, although we knew our lines, it was extremely difficult going through our scene when the boy and the drummer kept stumbling or doing the wrong bit, and it left me feeling extremely uncomfortable on stage.

Then we looked at the time and saw we were meant to perform to Chipp in 5 minutes.

Oh.
My.
God.

Then the cold dread when asking if 'the boy' and 'the drummer' could use their scripts, you could feel the disappointment dripping from his perfectly level voice, saying that "no" we were not allowed to use our scripts because it was a no script run-through. This was going to be painful. Even more horrifying when after five minutes, of Rob not knowing what he was meant to say and Caitlin desperately trying to keep the scene alive, Chipp got up and said he was coming back in 15 minutes.

Thankfully, he didn't have time so we didn't have to suffer through the tormenting embarrassment of the slow-moving play. By the end of the night, we were feeling more confident in our lines and the running of the scenes, I think the embarrassment and horror may have jump-started everyone, and hopefully next week, we will all know our lines, ques and blocking and it will be wonderful. All fingers are crossed.

Must note, the drummer and the boy (Sam and Rob) did try and they do have a huge amount of lines to learn (whilst I just have a few) so all respect to them, learning the lines is a huge job, especially as I mentioned earlier, the script is extremely repetitive making both the lines and the ques quite hard to learn. I just felt so bad for Jermaine who had tried so hard to make it work and trusted us to learn our lines, and it had fallen apart when it had really mattered.

Antigone Arrest - 30.11.16

We were working on some physical theatre sequences today, looking at the chorus and the guards arresting Antigone when she's trying to bury her brother. Firstly, we went through an exercise of falling to the floor every time Mr Chipp clapped, twisting the legs to the side and sort of sliding down, I don't think my core was strong enough to really control the fall so I fell a bit more heavily than Chipp wanted but I was starting to get the hang of the fall by the end. We then extended this to an amazing game of 'Stuck in the Mud' where if we were 'tug' we fell to the ground and had to be spooned, and rolled over the 'spooner's' body to be back in the game. Following this, we then went through a game where the 'Antigone's' had a 'sword' (really a small stick) which they would wave ferociously at us and we would move away when she took a step forward, we were practising this so that in the play we're sure we'll get away from the mental Antigone who'll be concentrating on acting her convincingly. At first, my reflexes were maybe a bit too slow because I felt that the stick was far enough away that it wasn't going to hit me, so I didn't move, but after a close shave I started to move a bit further and faster when she stepped forward.

We then started to apply these techniques to an actual scene from Antigone where the guards come to her and she takes the sword and starts waving it around. We played 'ladish' guards jeering at her as we came into the middle, at first I found it really weird and uncomfortable doing this to Antigone, but with the others shouting and laughing, I soon got into it and was able to improvise a few lines antagonising Antigone ( that sounds cool). We then used the falling thing when Jonas comes and disarms her so she falls and we grab her. This whole scene was extremely fun to create and it was great getting to play the guards.

Full Day N2C - 28.11.16

The full rehearsal felt quite positive with the scenes appearing to come together as we finished off parts which we hadn't blocked yet. It was extremely useful for the first hour going through the lines of my scene and getting it really fast so that we felt comfortable with our ques ets. though I still struggle with a couple of ques because I've found that the script is relatively repetitive meaning that the line for my que is the same as a line a couple of moments before and that sometimes makes the scene quite stunted/ slow or means I just mix my own lines up and skip a huge chunk of text. Other than that confusion, I feel like I really know my lines. However, I don't think I've quite explored my character enough, partly because I haven't had an obvious opportunity and partly because I just launched into the part without looking at the different ways I could play it. Me and 'The Singer' need to seem more like a pair working together which we are beginning to concentrate on a bit more, and I've decided to make my character not 'stupid' but just a little bit oblivious and confused at the tense situation.

Units and Objectives - 23/11/16

Splitting off into groups, the Antigones and Creons were left to go through their scene with the argument very deeply, using the Stanislavski method of splitting the text into sections depending on the change of mood and titling them with what our character is trying to do/ how they are feeling about what is happening. I found this extremely helpful in grasping my character (though there's still a way to go) as it helped me look further into the text and understand how he was saying it and why. The discussions with Mr Chipp and my cast-mates made me feel more confident in how I was going to perform the character and helped me see what Mr Chipp wanted from him.

As we had a go at the first bit with just Antigone and Creon, I realised that rush far too much, just trying to get the lines out and I need to slow it down and not be scared to put pauses in. For example, when I was questioning Antigone so that I could fix the situation, I was rushing the questions out as if Creon knew exactly what he wanted to ask, but he is trying to work out how to fix it after being plunged into a situation where his niece's life is at risk, and by extension, the life of his own son. Therefore, we developed this, and I began to add pauses as Creon works out what to do and then comes to a solution. I'm hoping that starting this way will help me get into the character and his interactions with Antigone relatively quickly.

A couple of examples of our titled sections in the script:

Beginning the Read Through - 21/11/16

On Monday morning, (wet through from the rain and shivering) we began to read through the play, beginning with the scene between Antigone and Haemon. We looked really deep into the moment of orientation, even coming up with interpretations of the story behind Antigone's apology for the night before.

Me and my partner decided to play it a bit less subtly than we later decided it should have been, with a snigger from Haemon, who then digs himself further into the hole with his apology for being surprised at Antigone's outfit. We needed to have Haemon a bit more shocked/ uncomfortable than amused and as Antigone had gone there for certain reason, she needed to come closer and more affectionately to Haemon. When we performed it, I don't think really tried hard enough to relax into the mood of Haemon and thought too much about getting the story to the audience, e.g. getting the right words out rather having the right body language or tone of voice.

We then went back to the moment of orientation, and going against the stage directions in the text which made antigone run to Haemon, we made it more awkward with silence, distance and glances at the start until Antigone can't take it anymore and bursts out with her apology, then them coming together as Haemon says he's forgiven her. I liked how me and my partner did it as I feel it managed to show Haemon's caution over how Antigone will act, and Antigone's embarrassment for the night before. Mr Chipp had similar ideas to ours about how Haemon and Antigone should act at the moment of orientation, but with a bit more tension while Antigone was speaking her apology.

Antigone Physical Theatre - 16/11/16

As a warm up for the lesson we did some exercises around Greek theatre and the way the chorus told stories which didn't happen on the stage. Using the example of a story where a king cut out his son's tongue and ate it, we came up with a mime to portray this and did it in synchronisation. Then following this we came up with some sentences which the chorus say in synchronisation, I was pretty proud of what we came up with considering how long we had:

The son disobeyed the father,

The father cut out the tongue,

He took the tongue and ate it,

And then the son was gone.

The main task for the lesson was to take 50 minutes to come up with a series of physical theatre-like movements to portray the story of Antigone in around 5 minutes. Split into groups, we began to tell the story firstly with the scene where the 'actors' come in then turn into the characters, followed by the scenes with the Nurse, Ismene, Haemon, Guard and Creon. I really loved creating this sequence as it gave us leeway to have a creative portrayal with abstract movement to show the connections and stories between the characters. I don't think we had enough experience of movements like this to create something really eye catching or fluid, but with what we had I think what we came up with had a lot of really nice images and clearly managed to tell the story. However, there were a couple of points which could have been polished to make the transitions smoother and a couple of moments could have been more intense especially the end of Creon's confrontation with Antigone. We also forgot to include Haemon's scene with Creon which could have had a really heartbreaking moment, as well as forgetting to create the connection between Creon and his wife to make the suicides at the end more effective. All in all, I was pretty pleased with our performance as it was smoothly performed, with nice transitions and images.

The video had to be uploaded in two parts because blogger couldn't take higher than 100 MB.

Videos From the Drama Weekend

Here are the links to the videos of our drama residential:

The chorus work - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXeBi9a3T7I&feature=share

Mine and Charlotte's paired work - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHonoQZOGsI&feature=share

The group work on Antigone sequence - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHO3ODvpKfw&feature=share

Group of Three reaction sequence - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgDbK3GcyfM&feature=share


General Photos Video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3XPv8PBPEQ&t=206s

Antigone and Ismene - 14/11/16

Today we explored the relationship between the sibling Antigone and Ismene in their first scene together in the play. Looking at the dialogue we began to explore the subtext and the emotions between the two characters. We self-directed the first part of the scene, exploring ways in which the characters connect: whether Antigone is mocking, sarcastic, spaced out or caring. We decided to play her with a bit of disconnection from the world at the beginning when Ismene says "Are you not well?" and then gradually she connects more with Ismene, sarcastic with a couple of comments but at the same time extremely caring with others as we acknowledged the fact that Antigone believes that this is the last time she will see her sister, and would therefore be trying to say her goodbyes.

I felt that with time we could have developed the scene we had into something really effective as I felt that we were beginning to grasp the characters and how they treated each other. Admittedly, I didn't see subtleness at first that my partner Hannah managed to access and was originally planning on playing Antigone as quite mocking of Ismene yet when we looked at it, there were occasions where what I thought could be mocking, could also have been reminiscing about past memories which worked much better with the idea of Antigone trying to say goodbye and the stage directions with Antigone stroking Ismene's hair.

Weekend Residential Day 2

Character Reflection 

Reflecting on the sustained character roleplay of the night before, we were told to write either creatively or free flow about our characters, I decided to write creatively as I love to write stories and though I don't think I did quite what Mr Chipp asked for and it wasn't a very good quality piece of writing, I think it gave me a good insight into my character, and a nice outlet for exploration of the character's emotions:

Character Partners - Moment of Orientation

Finally getting to work with my partner from the extended roleplay the evening before, we had to work out a moment of orientation 20 seconds long depicting a significant moment in the characters' background. We decided to do the moment when my partner cuts my eyes out. At first we decided that I would hold the power in the scene being the torturer and her being the one whose family was tortured. I now realise our mistake in this regard as one it didn't really make sense, both in relationship to the power play. characteristics and the actual situation. Furthermore, when we performed our moment of orientation, it was pointed out how my actions were very theatrical and unbelievable, I could definitely see this. When we actually performed it, I did feel very uncomfortable in what I was doing as it was fake, and I was extremely embarrassed by my performance.

Developing this, we were then tasked with coming up with 30 seconds of dialogue. We decided to firstly change the moment of orientation, as well as the characteristics of our characters with my partner acting extremely sinister and me breaking down under guilt. I feel this worked better, and though dialogue was hard to come up with first of all, getting into the scene meant we could kind of improvise around out characters and just say what we felt was most appropriate for the situation, this meant that I felt more comfortable and natural in what I was doing as it felt like an emotional reaction rather than a forced theatrical one, though it may have still been over the top as my fake crying is not great. I felt the performance for what we had planned went well and looked good, but I realise with hindsight that it didn't make sense and the staging could have been improved. Mr Chipp made us do it again and made my character stationary in a chair and immediately you could see the difference in the effectiveness and realisticness of the scene. I don't know why we didn't think of this staging originally as once it was pointed out I was kicking myself, it was so obvious and yet so much more effective.

Stick Work - Antigone

We went through the sequences we'd come up with for the first scene last week, and we developed it a bit, adding a responsiveness to it, following stick ends etc. this was actually quite difficult to remember to do as my poor memory of movement meant that I was continually thinking about what move came next and not thinking enough about reacting to the stick as if we were in a fight. We then added in some of the movements we'd created the previous day such as the turning around each other with the shoulder push, and pushing the other down with a walk-back. I really enjoyed creating this and after quite a bit of rehearsal me and my partner were getting it pretty smooth though I think we could still work on making it more dramatic and fight-like. Though we must have been doing something right because I've got a massive bruise on my arm now. 

Sustained Character Work

4 hours. One character.

Underneath the Theatre was a group of old rooms and cells with a creepy corridor connecting it all.

Each of us was given a letter containing a stimulus for our character in the form of a stream of consciousness.

From this we had to create our character and make a detailed back story to it.

After a consultation with Mr Chipp I felt very secure in my ideas for my character so I felt pretty confident at how I was going to act it going in. I wasn't completely prepared for being blind-folded and having fake blood poured all over my face but once told what was happening I was very excited at the prospect of being blind for 4 hours. Probably the scariest part of being blind was being led down the stairs by Mr Chipp then being completely disorientated.

Once in the rooms, I was tied to a chair and had bag loosely placed over my head. Even though I wasn't alone in the room, it felt that way for a very long time as the other person was 'unconscious' on the ground. This feeling of loneliness, silence and helplessness was very effective at amplifying my broken and tortured character who had been there for ages. This was most noticeable for me when Connie entered as 'Clara' and untied me as just the contact of someone else almost made me hyperventilate as I had just been immersing myself with the character that when someone else came it was a shock and I was almost sobbing with the release from the chair and simultaneously the release of all the emotions. I found the first interactions with the other characters the most emotionally heightened as everyone was trying to find their feet as their characters and get a grasp as to what was going on. Trying to grasp the situation around me was made even more interesting by the fact I was blind folded as I had no idea what the room was like, where I was in it, who else was there and what they were doing. It wasn't until half an hour into the roleplay that I actually found out that there were five in the room rather than four as I thought. Even more disorienting was that I didn't know what was going on when the door was opened and closed.

Looking back on the first room, I thought that my character was pretty realistic to the idea I had in my head, but I could have done something more when I was released from the chair such as getting away from the place I had been trapped and finding a wall to sit against as I don't think someone would stay in the chair they had been trapped in even if they couldn't escape the room.

I felt that the fear of being taken by Mr Chipp was likely amplified by the fact I had no idea he was coming for me, and it was quite a shock when he grabbed my arm and dragged me from my chair. Furthermore, I was taken to a room which earlier in the day Mr Chipp had warned had had a 20ft deep hole dug in it, so when I was told to 'stay by the wall' and felt the cold of the night I was a frankly terrified. However, later I found out it was just the courtyard - this made sense as I was confused as to why a 20ft drop meant we could hear outside noises. When I was put in here, I was alone for a while and I remember feeling eerily lonely with the lack of sight, the cold air and sound of fireworks in the distance adding to the dark, fearful atmosphere. I stayed standing for a while but to be honest, if I was actually someone who has been tortured for weeks I think I would have sunk to the ground immediately due to weakness and weariness. Furthermore, despite my character losing resolve as a 'soldier' I think she would given a bit of a fight simply out of years of training and instinctive defensiveness but I played her a bit to much like she was resigned to her fate.

When some other characters entered such as Thomas and Clara, the one on one conversations felt more personal and I felt a bit bad when 'Thomas' got really uncomfortable with my character falling into a kind of madness out of misery and pain. When Clara also entered and met Thomas, I was quite touched by the pain in Clara's voice over their relationship and at the same time Thomas' pleas for them to be together despite society. It was a bit awkward being in the middle of this reunion but at the same time very emotional.

During this time I had sunk to the floor, and just before I was taken to another room Mr Chipp stood in front of me and said, "Stand up soldier" to which I did. It was pretty intimidating as it felt like the tall figure of Mr Chipp was looming ominously over me and I decided stand up slowly into the most soldier-like proud figure I could. Then I was dragged off into another room.

This room appeared to hold the rest of the group and as I hands came up to help me I fought them off, not able to trust them any longer. I stood in the corner for a long time, trying to work out what was going on around me. I definitely felt like the atmosphere was so much less personal than the ones when it was just a couple of characters as many of the quiet ones wouldn't say a word leaving the loud ones to control the situation which left it feeling a bit forced at times and I think in a realistic situation with the closeness and fear in the room there would have been a few more confrontations. What was also quite spooky was that I didn't know when Mr Chipp was in or out of the room and had to read it from the silence. I normally guessed right but at one point there was some talking as people talked about drinking something so I thought they were just discussing a drink and it was an instinctive reaction when I felt something come to my mouth so I pushed it away. Shouts then came up from the room telling me to drink so a hand came around the back of my neck and tipped a bottle to my lips. I feel like I should probably have fought more at this point but I was a bit confused at what was happening. 

The way that the extended roleplay ended was for people to choose 'one who would stay and one who would go' and I later found out this was between partners in the play as I hadn't met my partner and hadn't been told in my stimulus that there was someone else who was involved with my back story. I wish we had met because I feel that this could have ended in a dramatic and emotional confrontation as I killed her family so it could have had her anger and my remorse at what I had done in the past. I was the first to be chosen however and was taken up to the safe room where I was able to relax for the next hour whilst everyone else worked out what was going on and came up one by one. 

It was testament to just how effective and absorbing the exercise was as for the next hour people just couldn't stop talking about what had happened. It had required such a huge amount of energy, concentration and investment into the emotions of the character that it just left you on a high after you had left.

Weekend Residential Day 1

Warm Up  Activities

We began the whole weekend with a trust exercise in which the class had to follow a blindfolded student around the room and stop them from hurting themselves, even walking over chairs in the auditorium. A very effective team exercise requiring a lot of concentration, it felt quite urgent for most of it as you tried to stop the person from falling over. It laid the foundations for the themes of the day and around Antigone with one person blindly walking despite obstacles and the others trying to stop them from hurting themselves. The next exercise built the idea of desperation and fighting against the barrier stopping you from reaching the thing you need to fulfil as a single person had to break through the circle formed by the others with their arms linked. I loved doing this, both stopping and trying to break free (especially as I was the fastest to break out, not to brag or anything) and it really gave the sense of trying anything just to get free.

Triangle of Emotions

It began like so: three points far from each other with one representing love and comfort, one fear and one anger and we had to walk between them. Quite simple at first and gradually began to build the intensity of the emotion until it was extraordinarily difficult to move to each emotion. I really loved this exercise and found the emotion love/comfort and fear quite easy to express but actually found anger quite hard to intensify without someone to let it out on and found my intensity of emotion for that one was much weaker than the others.

The next part added in a partner with whom you shared each other's paths and helped each other understand their emotions and the paths they were walking, and how it affected them. I found this quite moving as my partners emotions almost amplified my own and gave me a great desire to comfort her. Adding to this, we began to try and drag our partners on our paths and not let them take you on theirs, I was quite shocked at how desperate this made me as I had a huge determination to stay in my place of comfort and keep my partner there also. Megan was basically sobbing as she tried to drag me on her path and I found it quite hard to keep her in mine but the desperation to stay sort of took over and wouldn't let me shift from my spot.

Walking the paths again on our own was quite isolated after that, despite keeping eye contact with our partner, though I did feel a great connection reaching over the room to my partner. This feeling of comfort from the partner was amplified hugely in the next exercise where we lay on the floor with our eyes closed and had to find our partner on the ground. Luckily, me and my partner somehow managed to find each other within 30 seconds and stuck together taking comfort from each other and I was surprised at how comfortable I felt being so personal with Megan and the level of safety I found in her presence. This was especially true when Mr Chipp came up and dragged my foot as I immediately just grabbed Megan and took her with me and it actually strengthened our bond and made me hold on even tighter to Megan. This is until Mr Chipp began to place a niggle of doubt in our minds about the other's integrity which made me feel quite isolated and hurt.

Using this whole sequence, we had to condense the movement into one minute, which I found quite difficult as there was so much content to go through and it took a lot of restraint to choose the most interesting moments from the sequence. I felt that the sequence was quite good though perhaps I could have spent a bit more time on the emotion/ walking around than the finding comfort on the floor.

Finally, in a three we had to condense movements again into five favourite moments from the sequence and react to each other: one would do a move then hold eye contact with the other, then again with the next. This was quite intense and the performance was quite good though with hindsight I think it would have been better if we had done something like Kieran and Caitlin by  reflecting each others' levels and continuously staring at each other, or like Harriet and Emily who linked theirs together rather than just reacting.

Lunch - Amazing

You wouldn't think it, but you can  add so much drama to lunch.

I absolutely loved this: the table was laden with food and one place was set for the 'master' who was tied to a chair and had two 'servants' feed them food. On top of this, the two parties had portray an emotion whilst doing it. Absolutely fantastic to watch, it was even better being the 'master'. I had to show the emotion 'lust' whilst being fed a salad sandwich, wish they'd been more adventurous with the food they fed me as I was up for anything right then, so the hardest thing I found was chewing in front of an audience especially as I was very conscious of the fact that some crumbs were on my chin.

Movement with Partner

This exercise was about creating interesting methods of travel across a room as with a partner we took it in turns directing the course of our movement through applying pressure firstly through connected hands, and then through touching left shoulders. It was interesting doing this not only in trying to create an interesting path with turns and such, but it also took a huge amount of coordination from both parties in understanding what the other wanted, moving with each other and then avoiding the other students in the room. I found leading this exercise extremely difficult perhaps because I didn't have the best ability when it came to putting pressure into someone at the point which indicated an instruction. I somehow also managed to create a lot more collisions than any other person in the class.

Using this idea, with a different partner, we took the idea of the relationship between Antigone and Creon firstly exploring it with Antigone as the hero and Creon the antagonist. Within our partners I acted as Creon and Megan (again) as Antigone. We came up with a set of movements which I felt were pretty effective though we may have incorporated something a but more fast-paced and passionate, though I was especially proud of one move we came up with which was Creon pushing Antigone back and simultaneously down as it looked very dynamic. We then swapped the roles and made Creon the hero and Antigone the antagonist (controversial) therefore we adapted the movements, making Creon seem more concerned and comforting of Antigone whilst she ignored his help and care and pushed unreasonably against him, the main aspect of this being Antigone pushing back on Creon's hand as he pushed her down and eventually ending up above him.

I really liked our sequence of movements and it was one of the rare times you get excited at sharing your ideas with the rest of the class as I felt we clearly managed to portray the power in the relationship, the intent of both characters as well as making it aesthetically pleasing to the audience. In our performance we had to run the sequence twice and the first run through was perfect, but the second time we went through it, something went wrong and me being clumsy and confused lost my train of thought and completely lost where we were in the sequence.

I definitely need to work on my coordination, memory and recovery. I may be at a disadvantage in this respect as I never did drama at GCSE level so haven't had the same experience as most of the class and I notice I struggle more than a lot at remembering moves and actually coming up with effective pieces in the first place. It actually more likely to do with indecisiveness and clumsy, disordered nature. 

Some of the other performances were really memorable, especially Caitlin, Hannah and Jenna's as the movement as three created a really lovely mirroring effect as Caitlin and Hannah were Creon trying to stop Jenna and they made some really eye-catching shapes with the two Creons.

Antigone - The Word

We started to explore Antigone's reasons and emotions involved in defying Creon: we were told to think of a reason completely detached from saving or changing the world that you would die for. I put this into a similar situation as Antigone as I wouldn't let little brother's body be left to rot even if it meant risking my life and being told to put it into a word I defined it as Closure, though I found it really hard to define as I felt there wasn't a certain emotion that defined it. Using this we were told to rise from lying down, writing the word in the air in the emotion and determination we felt linked with our reason to die, getting bigger and bigger as we got more desperate.

Using this idea, we were put into partners where one was Creon, trying to stop Antigone from hurting themselves whilst the other was Antigone trying to write the word, using any means necessary, Creon had to try and stop her whilst again, any means necessary, Antigone had to keep going. Hannah was my Creon and she was pretty hard to get free of at points and it was quite striking how much the determination took over my body and I fought against her constantly, never giving up - it was very exhausting doing this and felt as bad as the last mile of my marathon, but doing also funnily made me feel stronger at the same time as the need to fulfill the writing meant that I was fulfilling a moral duty and that somehow gave me strength despite only spelling a word in the air.

Next, Mr Chipp shouts, "Holly's Antigone, the rest of you are Creon" so suddenly I'm fighting against 12 teenagers as they try to pin me down, this elevated the need to write the word and I thrashed and thrashed against the oncoming students, accidentally kicking one of them in the jaw as they resorted to taking arms and legs and lifting me up. This was immense fun and I was quite proud of how I did and I do feel that it gave me a good insight into Antigone's reasons and her need to keep on fighting no matter what, (maybe not quite death though).

Sequence of the Activities of the Day

Using the idea of our one defining word for Antigone, split into groups we tried to combine our ideas to come up with one word. We ended up deciding on 'closure' as the others' in the group kind of fell into that category. Using aspects from each activity of the day, we came up with movements to portray this idea. I loved this creative process as it took a lot of thinking and trial and error to finally come up with the finished piece which I thought looked very effective in the end with different levels, fast and slow movement, story line and weird shapes from Caitlin. One constructive criticism from Chipp that I agree with is that we could have done something with the strange shapes at the end as we came together with Caitlin making shapes which I could fit into when I moved.

Free Flow Writing

To sum up the day, we spent ten minutes doing free flow writing, it was my first time doing this and I'm not sure I did it completely right but it did feel like it freed-up a lot of the ideas I'd had all day though it ended up being pretty unreadable:

Nurse and Antigone - 09/11/2016

More script work, this time Nurse and Antigone.

First of all, my oscar worthy performance apparently came from the read-through,with my amazing portrayal of the 'stage directions' as I felt comfortable in this role, and the emotional detachment really came across and really affected the audience.

Split into groups, we had Nurse (yours truly) Antigone and Antigone's subtext. This was so that we could really access the actual emotions and reasons behind Antigone's speech, eventually reaching the point where we realised that Antigone loved this: being caught and being the only one to know the secret. When we performed this, it felt quite strong and I thought the 'subtext' did a fantastic job of saying what the subtext was to what Antigone says. Just going to point out that Nurse was obviously also amazing...

In pairs now, we had to use this subtext in just the scene to try and portray Antigone's feeling. What I found challenging was trying to make the nurse seem old and naggy, I had been playing it quite different to this and had sunk into the role, comfortable in what we had been doing, putting new aspects in aws a huge challenge and I think by the end of it I had I given up, but my portrayal was much weaker. Especially in the performance as I felt extremely awkward at the start for some reason and this meant that the speech was stunted, my portrayal terrible and the actions wrong. Half-way through I began to get comfortable again and this meant that I was able to elicit a couple of laughs from the audience, but my performance was just embarrassing and I couldn't edit the film to analyse it because I just couldn't watch myself back. It was so, so bad. You can see the awkwardness even in my movement especially when I was standing as I kept crossing the arms while speaking then relaxing while listening. The lines were awkward, as I just forgot what I'd done earlier and made it up on the spot. Just generally terrible. However, I like how Jenna did Antigone as she seemed quite scarily detached from the conversation as if she was enjoying the idea of burying her brother.

Antigone and Creon - 07/11/2016

Did some script work today, working on the scene in which Antigone and Creon confront each other over Antigone burying her brother. With an uneven number in the class, I had to direct the scene for a pair which I find pretty scary because I am such an indecisive, self-conscious person making me very bad at directing (though I can be commanding when I feel like it) and it was pretty hard directing without a script.

We decided to play it with Creon as the hero and Antigone the antagonist therefore we made the decision to make Creon appear extremely concerned for Antigone whilst she kept ignoring his concern and just fought against him. She appears to be proud of what she's done and almost wants the punishment from Creon who is trying to save her. We decided to present Creon's concern through rushed concern at the start, then taking Antigone from the floor and putting her in the position of power of the chair and him kneeling at her height. At first, we made Creon get frustrated and angry at Antigone too quickly and after Mr Chipp pointed this out, we toned down the change of emotion a lot and kept Creon pretty level and just a bit despairing of Antigone's refusal of help.

I was actually pretty proud of the finishing 'product' as I felt that it felt realistic and effectively managed to portray Creon as the hero. However, Antigone definitely needed to have had more help at making her more defiant of Creon though it may have been hindered by the head in the script. I had quite a bit of fun directing and liked the creative process, especially when your rewarded with a good performance at the end.

First Scene of Antigone- 2/11/2016

Today we actually began to look at the staging and the blocking of Antigone creating the first scene of the play with the metatheatre aspect and the start of the Prologue's speech. I really loved creating the whole sequence and found the way that we came to it to be extremely effective in aiding us to not only create something to look natural and aesthetically pleasing, but also meant we felt comfortable and sure in what we were doing on the stage. Despite only doing it for two hours, I feel like the first scene is already looking very together and effective for the audience.


We began the process of coming up with the first sequence of movement through imagining ourselves in a box with points representing the numbers 0 through to 9, with this we created a sequence through making our birthdate through the movement using our hands and knees, this proved pretty difficult when I had to make 1999 using hands and knees alternately as the point 9 was above my head, don't think the number 9 looked any different to 1 and 2, but I tried.


Using these, we had go into someone else's space and start to coordinate our movements opposite to them, starting to also move together as partners which myself and my partner did through interlocking arms and moving down together, made easier by the fact we had very similar birthdates. I like what we came up with as most of it worked together as if we were fighting, perhaps a bit more abstract than realistic but still effective in portraying this. However, this was made more difficult by the addition of sticks into the movement as they were pretty cumbersome and frequently got in the way, but after a while I feel we managed to effectively incorporate the sticks into our movement, though the last move constantly proved difficult to coordinate. I felt that the movement, whilst effective, was very hard to remember at first and made me pretty confused, however, once I started to put it together with a partner it was pretty easy to get my head around as I could react to my partner's movement.


Next we began the scene with us coming on to the stage as actors which we achieved through being given small stories to use creating unique relationships in the 'Company' and creating a natural rehearsal space on the stage. I thought that the way we came on did manage to portray a rehearsal space to the audience with different characteristics definitely shining through. We then began to rehearse our sequences on the stage and the rest is shown in this video:

Antigone Chorus - 31/10/2016

Again, we were looking at the actions of the chorus in the play and how they need to move fluidly and together. Using the idea of the battle scene between the two brothers, we used this idea of coordination as a group using sticks which pushed vertically towards each other at their hand as a target. It was hard to get at first as they kept going in a curve or travelling at an angle to the other person, however, after a lot of practice it felt like I was getting the hang of it. We practiced it in a circle across which we threw it to our partner and though a few went stray, I feel like my throws were pretty accurate and straight. The following exercise required a lot of concentration as someone in the middle directed who was throwing and catching and moved around the circle at a high speed. The concentration was palpable and especially noticeable when someone missed one. When I had my turn in the middle, I felt rather panicked at first which made me lose focus and left me dropping a lot of the stick thrown at me or misaiming them at people, but as I relaxed into my role, I grew in confidence and it began to work smoother. I liked this exercise because it took a lot of concentration and coordination with the whole group.


The last exercise was choreographing a set of moves with a partner like a fight scene using the sticks, this was fun and I tried to incorporate a lot of levels as well as back and forward  movements. I could have improved the sequence perhaps by actually making the moves simpler and more precise, I realise this now because in the final five minutes of the lesson we followed someone else's moves as a group and they had very precise, simple yet effective movements.

Stage Combat - 19/10/16

This session looked at two parts of Antigone: the chorus and the fight between the two brothers.

It was during the half-an-hour warm up that we looked at the chorus, trying to create a synchronised cast doing odd movements together through following someone. To create an effective Antigone chorus we need to be able to move in distinctive ways as one, therefore we need to work on coordinating with the rest of the cast whilst following the leader's movements. A bit ropy this week, I reckon that the synchronicity and inventiveness of our movements will improve quite rapidly over the next few weeks.

Moving on from the chorus, we began to look at stage combat in relation to the brothers' fight learning moves such as the punch, slap, hair grab and strangle. This was extremely fun and I think that I got the hang of the punch pretty quickly as well as the strangle though I think I need to work on the hair grab and slap a bit more. Using these movements, we had to put them into a sequence alternating in our partners: left-hand block, punch in the stomach, punch to the face and swap and repeat. With the help of my partner who had some experience in stage combat before, we managed to get a good rhythm going though I often found I lost coordination or our place in the movement.

Using this routine we then slowed the movement down trying to access the basic movement of the fight and softening it. This required a huge amount of concentration especially in coordinating our movement with each other and because of this I found I kept leaving out precision or aggression in my movement.

Stepping this up, we distanced from our partners and start adding frenzy to our movements gradually which I found meant I lost control of my body, and got confused as to where I was in the movement meaning that I often flung punches in the wrong place but tried to get the pasic to and thro of the movement whilst just making it fast paced.

All of this was combined together in a sequence: combat sequence real-time, slow motion, distance with real speed and gradually gaining frenzy. The performance of this is shown in this video:

Pina Bausch

Pina Bausch is a German dancer and choreographer (1940 - 2009) she pioneered a style of dance which combined everyday life with a poetic quality, she was able to do this when given a role as a choreographer where she renamed her ensemble Tanztheater Wuppertal.

Looking at some of her own works as well as those inspired by her on YouTube, I'm amazed at the beauty of the movement with all the pieces requiring a huge amount of skill and trust e.g. in one clip I saw, it required the girl to fall forward till nearly falling on her face without putting her hands out and relying on her partner to catch her by the shoulders. Although I do not think I would ever be able to execute something of that beauty with that amount of skill, I'd love to give the type of dance a go and have a go at choreographing something like it.

You can see echoes from Pina's childhood in her dance pieces; music is heard, people come and go, and talk of their yearning for happiness, but there is also the influence of her experience of WW2 as there are sudden bursts of panic and fear. 

After already having been trained in ballet, at the age of 14 she attended Folkwang School in Essen and studied under Kurt Jooss who was a significant person in pre- and post war modern dance, teaching his students both the freedom of modern dance whilst keeping a classical form allowing Pina to break away from the restraints of classical ballet. 

With funding, Pina attended Julliard in New York for a year as a 'Special Student' as this was seen as the centre of dance with classical ballet being reinvented and modern dance being advanced. She decided to stay another year but had to fund herself so got a job at the Metropolitan Opera where she gained a respect for Opera equal to that of her love of dance.

She returned to work with Kurt Jooss in Folkwang Tanzstudio and eventually began to choreograph her own pieces winning prestigious prizes for her work.  In 1973 the director of the Wuppertal theatres Arno Wüstenhöfer appointed her head of the Wuppertal Ballet, which she soon renamed the Tanztheater Wuppertal.

In an unusual move while producing a version of Shakespeare's Macbeth, Pina was able to finally find her form for her work: dream-like, poetic imagery and body language. She took people's essential emotions as its starting point allowing the Tanztheatre Wuppertal to be understood throughout the world, sparking an international choreograph revolution.

Stanislavski Workshop Pictures

N2C Week Three

For the first hour, we started the play from the start and went through the first scene with the Girl and the Boy. As I wasn't in this scene I was asked to critique on it to help Jermaine with direction and say what worked and didn't from my perspective. In this respect, there were a couple of problems with the girl looking to confident and comfortable as she entered the room, they huddled in the corner and barely moved. During the course of the hour, however, the were moving more and came out of the corner and by the end the first scene was going really well.

In the second hour, we started to go through the scene containing the band which included me! This rehearsal felt definitely like an improvement from my own perspective as I felt comfortable in my position on stage and how I interacted with the other characters. However, when we performed it to the rest of N2C, people didn't quite stand in all the right places making it a bit awkward, but with more rehearsal this will be amended.

The Unavoidable Machine of Tragedy - 11/10/16

Tragedy: an unavoidable disastrous ending for the tragic hero where nothing they can do will change the course of fate.

We see tragedy in Shakespearean plays such as King Lear where Lear's downfall begins with his act of hubris which leads to him banishing his youngest daughter bringing on a chain of events which ultimately lead to madness and death, and Macbeth where his meeting with the witches begins his chain of events in pursuit for power which also leads to his death. The classic genre of Tragedy comes from Athens in ancient Greece where part of the festival of Dionysus (City Dionysia) was for three playwrights to compete through each writing three tragedies and a satyr (three other playwrights competed in the comedy section). The general form is to have a tragic hero have a moment of hamartia due to their hubris leading to a peripeteia as a series of events roll out which lead to the unavoidable moment of  anagnorisis and eventually the protagonist's death.

In the middle of Antigone, this idea of the tragic end being unavoidable is addressed by the Prologue/Chorus who says, "Now the spring is wound. The tale will unfold all of itself." this is the section that we explored in our lesson. Indirectly, we produced a set of movement in groups which represented a machine with one trying to get out, another trying to stop them and the others representing the tragic ending waiting for one of them. We got to this stage first by coming up with a series of actions meant to represent a profession. I decided to portray a Physiotherapist helping someone regain use of their legs through massaging and moving their legs gently up and down. These movements then had to become more abstract and dynamic so I increased the size of the movement and started to use the whole of my upper body within the motions.

With these movements rehearsed, we had to coordinate our own movements with a partners and try and make it blend together. This worked quite well with my partner as I was kneeling and she was standing, and once she was behind me, our movements worked in similar directions with her arms sweeping in the same direction as mine, purely by coincidence. At the start, it was hard to get close and coordinate without being able to speak, but after a while we had a good connection and felt comfortable in moving together.

This had to be added to another partners to create the motion of a machine working together, this was extremely difficult to do though conveniently we had two kneeling and two standing so the levels worked well. However, the two standing moving around the two kneeling meant that we had to be continually conscious of where the others in the group were and were you could do your movement without obstructing or colliding with someone else's. This was made harder by the addition of sticks. I think I hit each member of my group at least 5 times. The sticks created a more powerful image and with more time I think it would have been extremely effective, but it took a long time trying to get our heads around how to do our own movements with sticks and then how to have others working around this bigger movement also.

I think it went quite well considering, but if I did it again I would try to work out how to make the story more clear within the moves as well as make my own movement more effective.

Here is the video of our final piece:

Antigone: The Plot - 9/10/16

The session centred around Antigone, the play which the class will be doing for our Performing Arts. The task for the lesson was to represent the  main aspects of the plot through a series of movements and images.

The version we are doing is a contemporary version written by Jean Anhuil in 1942 as a social commentary on the Nazi occupation of France at the time. It has the same plot line as the original Antigone written by Sophocles in Athens BC, but it has contemporary twists with some comments made about modern things and the use of metatheatre e.g. at the beginning when the Prologue introduces the characters and the fact that some will die.

Using the plot line we came up with a series of movements in groups of five however, in the time we had we spent far too much time on the start of the sequence trying to get it synchronised leaving us too little time to come up with anything to do with the three suicides at the end and had to end with the sentence of Antigone to be immured.  I felt the ending was ineffective and we should have come up with something more striking such as a dynamic movement as a group representing Antigone hanging herself, perhaps with some lifts adding height. Furthermore, I believe that my part as Creon could have been played better by exuberating more power and having more of a conflict with Antigone.

Here is the film of our final performance:

N2C Director Challenge Week 2

In this session, we had our first look at the script as a whole which revealed how the play was set all in one scene, with the characters and action centering around the boy who entered in the first entrance and stayed until the last. It also felt like the play was split into four sections with the girl and the boy at the start, then the argument between the boy and the drummer, diffused slightly by the singer and the bass player in the next, and ending with the girl and the boy again.

For the first hour we looked at a scene involving 4/5 of the cast: the singer and bass player enter the rehearsal space following an extremely heated argument. At first, accessing the odd layout of the script and the situation as the bass player proved to be quite tricky especially when I first enter as I feel quite trapped and stationary in the corner. However, the scene seemed to start flowing a bit more as we began to get our heads around the text and the staging, moving and interacting with the characters. I liked Jermaine's decision to place the singer and the bass player so that they physically and figuratively diffused the tension slightly through being positioned between the two. This rehearsal definitely allowed me to understand both my character and the script we're working with a lot more.

Stanislavski Workshop - BTEC

A session I'll probably never forget: entering  the space we joked, 'is he going to get us to lie on these mats and make us think of our worst memory?' basically, yeah.

With dark lighting and odd music in the background, we began the session in semi-supine, and did some breathing exercises to focus our minds. This was so that we could focus on a memory of strong emotion. Trying to recall a memory that strong was hard for me, but I found one where I remember just experiencing a harsh, ache in my chest from the pain of missing loved ones. It was painful recalling this memory, even more so trying to immerse ourselves in it to feel the strength of the emotion again, as the feeling I had chosen is one I always remembered as one I never, ever wanted to experience again. Remaining focused, we then had to try and imagine writing our emotion on a blank, white sheet of paper placed in front of us. Another hard, and painful task as I had no words really to describe my emotions, (if I had written physically, I'm pretty certain no-one would have understood what I meant).

I had no idea walking into this lesson, that within half an hour I would be in floods of tears. I think this feeling was probably amplified by the amount of emotion through the room as you could feel the atmosphere and hear the sobs of other students.

The hardest part, for me at least, was yet to come. Individually, we were taken to the centre of the room, into a spotlight. Then another student would walk up and do something with the white piece of paper. It was hard, not only to be a part of the interaction, but also to listen and be aware of the others, who were having their paper torn up,or laughed at and the sobs were at time heart-breaking.

In my case, I felt extraordinarily self-conscious entering the spotlight in the centre of the room, with tears and snot streaming down my face, (lovely, I know) and I just felt fear at what would happen to my piece of paper. Caitlin came up, and took my piece of paper, read it, and laughed mockingly at me. Feeling more embarrassed and self-conscious than angry at the way she looked at my piece of paper, I didn't react strongly but rather tried to hide my face and half move towards the paper, then half move back.

Thankfully, when it was my turn to take someone's paper, I was given the far-less harsh job of looking at the paper compassionately, then giving a comforting hug. This was a relief after my experience as I knew how painful it was to be in the middle and actually comforted me as well as Emily.

To be honest, the Stanislavski workshop was extremely emotional and slightly harrowing, but it also gave me a sense of relief afterwards as I felt that I'd released a lot of pent up emotion, and it also gave me a stronger insight into the methods some actors take and to what extent you can go to express the emotion of a character. However, I don't think I could use this method as it took me at least 20 minutes to access the emotion and after that, it was almost emotionally exhausting and doing that in a performance could be ultimately scarring.

Yet more...

(sorry: there's a lot to say)

After the hour long workshop from hell, we had a quick break to emotionally recover, and were then plunged back into another dark, tragic setting as we began to explore the play we will be performing as a class for our BTEC: Antigone (a contemporary version).

First of all, we were asked to imagine that a box was the image of our dead brother who we had admired and respected throughout our lives, and that inside would be revealed the true, despicable nature of our brother. Using this, if we felt able/ready, we were to approach the box as if we were grieving then to find the truth inside and react. It took me a while before I felt able to express this, and truthfully, even when I attempted it I'm not sure I really had the right state of mind on. I believe if I had focussed more on the emotion rather than thinking about how I would go up and then react, I may have been able to offer a more convincing performance. However, I felt that the silent mourner, then shocked reaction worked well, though I could have been more daring.

Using these emotions and movements, we then had to react as Antigone and Creon (Mr Chipp) came in and revealed our brother to us. It was extremely shocking when he came in and almost stunned me with the violence and harshness with which revealed the truth of our brother, reacting violently to students who reacted as Antigone. I was in denial and tried to put the dirt back into the box which he had ruined, but he came up again and chucked the mud all over me. This exercise was extraordinarily dramatic and slightly shocking, and gave me a huge insight into what sort of situation and emotions Antigone must have gone through.

N2C Directors Challenge Week 1

In this first session, our groups were selected. The main purpose of this session was to bond as a group and to understand the themes of the play. I was put into the group with Jermaine as our director, and we found out that our play was going to be Purple, by Jon Fosse. Jermaine decided that this was going to be a Stanislavski performance with the lack of personal pronouns for the characters lending itself to the idea of, 'just being a ball of emotion.'

I was given the part of, 'The Bass Player' who acts as a bit of emotional relief in the play, entering in the midst of a tense scene involving 'The Drummer' and 'The Boy' along with 'The Singer'. Having not been given the script, I wasn't able to explore my character fully but got the idea that 'The Bass Player', if not a calming character, tries to subdue the tense atmosphere.

Monday 3rd October

During this session, we explored the feelings of fear and that of wanting to be close to be somebody, and from this, ways in which we could present this through realism, followed by using movement.

To begin with, we began to try and understand the feelings we would portray through doing an exercise in which we had to concentrate on someone we cared for who didn't know, and try and stay close. Then we concentrated on both this person and someone who we were afraid of. This allowed us to try and combine the two at once and work with avoiding one person while caring for another.

As groups, we then had to present ourselves together in a room with each character presenting a different feeling: wanting to be close to somebody, being uncomfortable with the former, and then simply being afraid and withdrawn. As our group had four rather then three like the others, I attempted to present a character caught up between it: interested in being close to the one who was afraid, friendly with one who was uncomfortable and annoyed with the one being close to another. We presented our scene in a staff room at lunch time as we felt this would be the ideal setting for odd relationships and tension.

After performing these, the class then sat in a circle and we used physical movement to describe what the person on the left looked like. Using these movements, we went back to the scenes we had just come up with and tried to incorporate it into all our movement. For half the characters in the scene, this worked effectively as they were directly interacting and were able to work off each other. However, I didn't do very well at this activity and though I tried to portray some movement and feeling in these actions, I didn't effectively interact like I did with the realism. If I had had more time, I think I would have been able to come up with something to interact with another character to effectively show the tension in the room.

Monday 26th September - Antigone

We began today's lesson with an exercise in which we had to enter the rehearsal space as if we were professional actors getting ready for a rehearsal. In our first attempt, I entered in a group of three as if we were going over lines, but the next time we were forced to enter singularly and present a subtle character. I decided to present a character slightly nervous about their rehearsal and trying to put a brave face on as they mentally prepare for the character they are about to play whilst acknowledging those around them. I try to portray this by walking in moderately confident with half smiles to people around me then moving my feet agitatedly while biting my lip in a half-smile. In my first go entering on my own I realised I presented the emotions too fully and without the subtlety required so in the next attempt I tried to mask the emotions more.

After this, we linked this exercise with the rest of the lesson as we read through the first page of an English translation of a modern French interpretation of the Greek tragedy Antigone. This page presented a scene in which the Prologue talks the audience through the thought processes of the actress of Antigone as she focuses on her character while the other actors are chatting behind her and the Prologue tells the audience that the lead is going to die in one and a half hours.

As a group, we discussed the effect the Prologue might have on the audience. We came up with the idea that it will make the audience more aware of the tragedy the death may have as they go through the lead 's story knowing that they're going to die, with the fact the audience was made aware of the actors' processes actually making the story more real as this revealing scene humanises the characters.

Aware of these ideas, we were split into groups of 4/5 to have a go at the first scene. In our group, I played the Prologue and we thought we would set the stage with Antigone in the corner, separated from the rest of the actors who would be chatting as a group from which the Prologue would emerge.

To develop this scene, we were tasked with creating a transition from 'actors' to the 'characters' in an unsettling, ritual-like movement. I thought that that those playing characters other than Antigone should move together and separately to the lead and go into a line, then Antigone should move across the stage alone and opposite to her sister. Our group then developed this and had the Prologue moving the characters then guiding Antigone.

After we had got into line, we positioned ourselves with our heads down and hands behind our backs, then one of our groups led us in rising our heads up and our hands simultaneously up to the sky then to lower them again while staring at a point on the wall behind the audience. If we'd had more time, I think we could have created a move even more unsettling and creepy for the audience perhaps by doing even more outlandish or ancient movements.

Wednesday 14th September

The main focal point of this lesson was around the play ‘Blood Wedding’ translated from the Spanish, ‘Bodas de sangre’ by Federico García Lorca. However, the lesson began with an exercise in which we had a partner and had to touch foreheads and rise, fall and turn, all while remaining in contact with each other’s bodies. I believe that this exercise helped with my concentration and awareness, as I was constantly keeping track of how I was connecting to my partner. When we had to develop these simple moves into a sequence which displayed two people meeting and falling in love, we went through some movements in which we tried to display feeling through lingering glances, helping each other up and doing a little twirl. In hindsight and after being shown some other partners’ sequences, I think we should have included a few signals and movements to make a more creative sequence to show without a doubt that we were in love.

After this exercise, we were given the name of the play ‘Blood Wedding’ and had to discuss with our partners any ideas of the play we could garner from this name. This was followed by being shown table of objects as stimulus indicating some events of the play. These included a knife, a stained wedding dress and underneath it all, a red cloth. I inferred from these objects that the play included an unhappy marriage which may have led either the bride or the groom to commit murder, perhaps one another or there could have been another lover. Using these ideas, we were put into groups where we quickly came up with a three-image sequence presenting our ideas of the play.

After a discussion, one of our group members had decided that the name and stimulus could indicate a marriage of incest as she inferred the name ‘Blood Wedding’ to mean two people of the same blood getting married, and therefore society being disgusted by it and acting against it. Therefore, our group came up with a sequence using the first exercise’s movements to create an abstract storyline showing the couple in love with on-lookers disgusted who then pushed them down mirroring society trying to suppress their love, followed by one getting killed and being shown to the lover. I think that our sequence went very smoothly though it could have been improved by somehow portraying our story with more clarity as the circumstances weren’t really clear to the audience, as you could just assume that it was another Romeo and Juliet story from our first image.

After our performance of this, we were told the actual story, (oddly: not incest) after which we read a scene together which a scene with the bridegroom and his apparently unstable mother. From this scene we had to create the son’s entrance to show how he was reluctant to let his mum see he was leaving. My partner and I decided to take a bit of an exaggerated inference from this, but with hindsight, it may have been better to show his reluctance a little-more subtly, perhaps by just using recognisable signals such as trying to search for something without being noticed or by slipping in and out without being seen, with wary glances towards the mother.

Finally, we were set the task in larger groups to show the main events of the play with three clear images with movement in-between which is shown in this clip:

I think from this lesson I learnt the advantages of abstract movement, the advantages of taking risks and gained a greater understanding of ways you can move between frozen images in an interesting and meaningful way.