Combination of Exercises for Story Telling

In our last lesson for Double (6th March) our target for the lesson was to combine all of our techniques that we have used and gained from the past few lessons and to put them to action. We were told that we had 4 different types of audiences (Infants, young teenagers, Adults in a pub, and sixth form students). And to add to the challenge we were only allowed to use our voices. Personally I found it quite challenging for the infants as when I usually talk to someone who is an infant I like to try and adapt to their level so they find things more engaging.  Talking to younger teenagers and people that are in sixth form however I found a lot easier as it's more relate-able and is something that I do on a daily basis and therefore I found that less of a challenge. Then we were told that we had to keep a plain voice and really express our movement which I found very difficult as I tend to find that when I empathise my body language I tend to adapt my voice with my body movement.

Vowel Pronunciation Exercises for Story Telling

At the beginning of the lesson we were focusing on pronouncing vowels and we were doing them frenetically.  We were put into a line and each person would pronounce a vowel (A, E, I, O, U). Once we had pronounced them in order at a faster pace we then tried to do a “tongue twister”, but still pronouncing them in the correct way. Broke it down into sections so “Susie saw Sylvester” “stack silver saucers” “side by side”. Eventually we all were put into groups of 3 and were given 10 seconds to decide how we would say this tongue twister and then the other groups would try and guess what the emotions were. We then attempted the “red lorry, yellow lorry”. Even though it’s a lot shorter than the other “twister” , it more easier to get your words muddled up as “yellow” and “lorry” makes your tongue go rather lazy and wants to make you pronounce it as “lolly”. We then watched clip from cbeebies in which the presenter spoke to us (the audience- aimed at 4 to 8 years old?) in a soft tone and read a story. By doing this it allowed us to have an idea on the tone we should talk to the children we will be doing the story telling unit with. Then afterwards we had to try and make up a story (improvised) by walking around the room but having to pronounce the words correctly and make it in the correct tone (as if we was talking to the younger ages).

Movement exercises for Story Telling

In this lesson (3^rd March) we were focused on Body Movement in storytelling. We were walking around the room and we were given animals/ objects to move as. For example we were walking around the room and when someone said be a cloud we would come up with our own interpretation on how a cloud would move as a cloud. The purpose of this type of exercise is so that instead of thinking how a specific object or human/animal would move, you move in the way you think it would move (interpretations). Personally I believe that it is rather easy as I didn’t feel judged or embarrassed about the way I was moving. To me I just instantly try and move like something you would associate with a certain object or animal/person. For example if someone said to be a cloud, I would straight away move like the wind that surrounds the clouds, (not literally) pushing birds or being snow or rain that falls from the cloud and how it falls in the sky. Towards the end of the class, we were split into separate groups and within the small groups of 3 or 4 one person was given an object they had to be, Tom was given a cloud that couldn’t fit in with other clouds. So with about 5 minutes to come up with a piece we started it off with a lift and to show that Tom is a cloud and is also the main focus. He then falls back and is caught and put down. Then I, Ashley and Dom huddled closely together to represent a different cloud. Tom moved to our cloud and bounced off all of the “sides” it was supposed to have. Then after we shows how the cloud was different, we showed our audience that it was in fact a snow cloud and we all then became the snow and showed the movement of how the snow would fall and then settle on the floor.

Styles of Acting - Physical Theatre (Including Evaluation)

So this week we have been put into our groups for physical theatre and we straight away searched for a religious/political issue that has had a really big impact on people lives. We all decided that 'je suis charlie' would be a good idea for us to use as it is a rather recent and very tragic issue. Straight away I thought of how the Muslim community have gotten the aftermath effect and seem to be looked down on my members of the British community, and that not everyone that is apart of that religion is a mass terrorist who's to kill everyone. To try and simplify this idea and make it into something physical, I thought of having this ball which represented the entire Muslim community and through out the piece, we go back to the 'representation ball' and show that it's slowly falling apart and that it's getting a worse reputation for the actions of the extremists that were involved in the incident.

As a group we have taken on board the type of movement we will use and we have come up with different techniques that are used within Physical Theatre ( Not moving, Contact Improvisation,  Movement, Gesture, Mime). We use some contact improvisation when showing the the death of those that were in the building at the time of the shooting. We also use the "not moving" technique to show that the extremists have a lot of fighting power and push the rest of us (who are representing the police) away. Towards the end of this, what was a ball is now just one person (me) who is left alone in the middle of the floor, no one to support or defend this representation of the Muslim community. The whole purpose of this is to show people how far prejudgement and stereotyping a religion can go and how it can ruin people's lives.

We are performing the piece to a song called "Once upon a Time:The battle of life and death" by Good Charlotte.
Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3gRyrZF0x8

Evaluation

For the small performance on Physical Theatre that myself and the group made together, I genuinely enjoyed it. Personally I would say this as I believe that we worked well as a team and that we really took on the techniques on board for what physical theatre requires. One thing that I thought could have been better is the music choice as it seemed a bit short for our piece however I did like the fact that when the song ends with the heartbeat monitor we all freeze and I think it gave that bit of engagement with the audience as they aren’t sure what’s going to happen next and the heartbeat monitor sound could symbolise the end of the extremist’s life or those who were seriously injured in the terrible incident. 

Body Movement and Eye Contact

Styles of Acting - Brecht (and evaluation)

Brecht

·         Was born in 1998 in Germany.

·         During World War 1 he was a medic and he then became a pacifist due to the effects it had on people.

·         He moved to Berlin in search of a career in theatre.

·         He citizenship was removed when he moved to America.

·         He was a communist and due to that was put into the House of Un- American.

·         He then moved back to Europe in 1947 and formed “The Berliner Ensemble”.

Epic Theatre

·         He wanted to make his audience members think when watching his pieces.

·         “hang up their brains with their hats in the cloakroom”.

·         Brecht was against Cathartic theatre

·         He wanted to distant his audience from emotional involvement.

·         He has a range of theatre techniques to remind the audience that they were watching theatre.

Verfremdungseffekt

·         Aka the alienation effect

·         Brecht didn’t want this in his audiences to be alienated, just distanced.

Brecht Techniques 

·         Narration

·         Coming out of role

·         Speaking stage directions

·         Directly addressing the audience

·         Using placards

·         Multi – rolling

·         Minimal props/Costumes/set

·         Symbolic props

·         Symbolic lighting

·         Song and dance

·         Montage (a series of short scenes put together)

·         Spass (fun!)

·         Gestus

·         Narrative which jumps around in time (non-linear)

·         Freeze Frames or Tableau 

Evaluation of Brecht piece

For me performing a small part of a Brecht performance in his style was weird to me, personally due to the fact that I found it rather difficult to read the script and understand what was going on. However when taking on the task, I thought I would see how many of his techniques I could take on, in the piece I was able to multi role and wear symbolic props (monk,peasant & another woman). Personally I though it would be a slight comedy so I thought it would be rather funny to take on the role of a monk and change people's expectations of him. At first I was going to try an Asain like voice as Monks are commonly found in parts of Asia. However to change the expectation of this character I thought it would be a good idea to have a Chavy/London accent in attempt to add a bit of comedy to it, however I think that it didn't really work that much as I didn't hear much of a reaction from the audience.