Today's lesson was our final rehearsal before our show, we began the lesson by reviewing parts of the show that we were no longer very confident with.

We began with our ration line and trying to perform it as we would on the night, this was successful as most people remembered their sequences however it was difficult controlling the line so we would all start and end at the same time as we couldn't shout over one another or move out of the line. We decided that the people in the middle of the line would cue the starting of the line as this would be able to spread through the line both ways. This ended up being very successful and we were able to perform the piece in sequence.

We also worked on performing our piece throughout the school as we would. This rehearsal also went well but we were all slightly confused on the routes we had to take and I think we needed to concentrate more on walking from place to place efficiently and quietly to allow the piece to have its full effect. 

Our piece in our separate classes was also something we rehearsed, in our class we focused on our transitions between different parts in the piece. We worked with the boys to create a sequence at the end of our piece which shows them reading letters they had sent to their wives. Whilst the boys were reading we used subtle actions to represent what they were saying to us this was a really interesting idea as it brought the two sides together even though they were far apart. I think we all did the actions clearly and emotionally however I think we as a group need to work on performing them in sync by working out words that cue us to perform them. I really tried to show what my character was thinking and feeling on my face as I think it is important to show her as a singular person in a large group. I did this by trying to put the situation into perspective and thinking how I would feel if I was in her situation and what I would think hearing those words. I think this worked well although I think all of the girls need to work together and on their own to produce individual characters with their own habits as at the moment all of the characters are very similar. 

We began today's lesson in our separate classes finishing our group pieces. In this lesson our group tried to perfect working with the shirts and making our physical theatre section look clean and polished. I think we succeeded in doing this and I think the use of combining the 'attention' said by the soldiers and the women at home showed the contrast in perspectives of the war and was also very visually impacting. We also worked on our small scenes. I believe our group performed well however we need to rehears performing with the shirts as we don't want them to distract from the scene which can be done very easily if they are moved to much as all the attention goes to them, we will improve this by deciding certain points at which people will hang the shirts on the line making sure to do it at points that will not distract from what's being said.

After we had rehearsed our pieces separately we then attempted to do a run through of our entire piece. To do this we had to move around the school performing in different places. I think the run through went well however we need more practice on the transitions and timings of some of the pieces as on the night we don't want to be running around and this was something we all struggled with during the run through.

we also added an end section in which two soldiers return and we see their reunion with their partners. This is effective as it shows the journey the soldiers and wives have been on. as I am one of the wives being reunited with their partner at the end I think I need to work on how we reunite as this is important in showing the way the characters feel about each other, this is something I need to work on with my partner as it is an important part of the piece that needs to be performed accurately and in a believable fashion.

class performances

This week we carried on working on our class performances. we began by using the scripts we had written down from the previous week to work on our separate washing line pieces. I found it very useful to have what we were saying scripted as it allowed me to think more about how the character is saying something rather than what she is saying. in our group we have a mix of a gossiping piece and more serious piece speaking of the men at war. i think this is a good mix as it accurately represents what would have been happening in Britain at the time and how many mixed views there were on war.

We then continued working on the physical theatre side of the piece using the shirts. We included singing of 'keep the home fires burning' as the lyrics were very appropriate to the scene we were acting, we also included us waltzing with the shirts that were left from our husbands, brothers and fathers. this looks very affective as it is a repetition of what we do in the tea dance and shows a later stage in the war where these women are no longer dancing at tea dances but instead alone. finally we move into our physical theatre piece which we do in small groups showing women hanging up washing. in our group we decided to make our piece slightly simpler and cleaner as some of it got lost behind us moving the shirts. instead we went for bolder moves using mainly our arms and legs, this meant it was clearer for the audience to see and also allowed us to get everything right repetitively.

overall I think our piece looks really good and shows a diverse and accurate account of both the home life and front line side to WW1, however when we continue working on it i think we should work on all of our spacing and staging as we are all still finding ourselves in the wrong places and by working on this it will create a much more dynamic and impacting piece.

Week 1 term 2

In the start of today's lesson we recapped our 'tea dance' section and 'ration line' section. In the tea dance part we added some more sections of us singing 'pack up your troubles'. We varied the tone in which we Sang this, going from really sad to extremely positive and then somewhere between the two. I think this is accurately reflects the mixed feelings throughout and towards the war. I think as part of an ensemble it's important to make sure everyone is taking each section seriously even when we are meant to be being very positive. I also think the section in which we go to sing the song to someone else is important to get right and accurate as people really did have to support and watch over people at the time. With many peoples husbands and fathers gone some women found it very hard and when performing it is important to show this in our faces to each other. I think I personally need to work on creating a clear difference between the ways I am singing the song and what I am feeling in singing it, this is something I can do through thinking about my character and how I can relate what she must be going through to my own life to find the emotions she would be feeling.

We also began work on our pieces in separate classes. In our class we are split into male and female. The boys are working on the idea of 'uniform' and the girls are using white sheets to represent children, washing and eventually injury or death. We worked in groups of three to create a piece showing women talking whilst hanging up washing. In our group we tried not to focus on the idea of the men being gone but instead make it a background feature whilst they have a normal gossip. We had two women gossiping and one women , who I played, thinking more of the negatives of what was going on. I tried to play her in a very calm and collected way not breaking down or going over the top with emotion as I think this reflected the front people would put on to show they were coping to their friends and family even when they  perhaps weren't. I did this by making her speak only a few times and when she did being very slow and quiet in my voice. I think I played the character well however as I group we need to work on writing a script and changing some of our piece as many of them were very similar and we want to show all aspects of war, I think we will do this by perhaps minimalizing even more the mention of the men and where they are and just focusing on the women's everyday lives.

In today's lesson we worked on combining all different areas of the arts into our theatre piece including singing and dance, for example we showed women at a tea dance and all the men slowly leaving them dancing by themselves . This was effective In our piece as it helped in conveying a story without the use of dialogue also It showed the activities people were doing in contrast to the war and how big of an effect it was when all the men left. As an ensemble I think the piece was performed well however as it was the first time we had worked on it we still need to rehears more unable to learn the movements better as well as then being able to characterize our faces more and make the men leaving much smoother and well timed. in future I personally want to work on my relationship with the person I am dancing with and  how I may be feeling about dancing with them as I feel these would be important emotions and feelings to convey to the audience in order to make them understand what him leaving does to me and how I am effected by it.

 We also created duet Pieces in which we showed brothers, fathers and husbands leaving their loved ones behind for war. I worked with George and we created a piece between a brother and sister we chose to do this relationship as it wasn't something we had really explored in class and we anted to set ourselves a challenge of conveying it. We used physical theatre to create a mirror image piece of each of the characters feelings and reactions.  I think our piece was effective because we combined harsh dramatic moments with gentler ones such as at the end of the piece where the two characters come together to play a game reminiscent of when they were young, as well as this we used body percussion, such as slamming our hands and feet on the ground to impact and grab the audiences attention. However, in future I think we need to develop our characters more by working on what posture they would hold and how they would walk and how they would be reacting to loosing one another. furthermore we could develop the way in which each movement is performed, if one of them is lightly harsher at slamming the floor or if one of them lingers slightly longer on the other at the end as I think this would make the piece feel more genuine and realistic to the audience.

lesson three

In todays lesson we worked on our solo performances that we were devising from a stimulus. my stimulus is the poem 'Dulce et decorum est'. I chose it as I think it gives a very visual, impacting view of the war. my original idea was to read a section of the poem I had chosen whist physicalizing it in an inhuman way. grabbing my arms legs and all over my body and expression the pain i was feeling on them as if I had been shot a thousand times. However after performing it to the class we decided it would be better, as the words themselves are so powerful, if i contrasted it with something gentle like holding a baby.I this this is a very good idea as it shows the contrast of war and home life and also shows the audience the shock soldiers must have got when arriving at the trenches because of how different it would have been to home. In future lessons I am going to re work my piece and try to change it to fit more with this new idea as I think it will improve the piece greatly.

Aside from the change that I am going to make with my physicality I was very happy with my piece when I performed it. however when I develop it more I want to work on making the way I say the poem itself more impacting by making my voice harsher and changing the pace at which I say certain parts as I think the language in the poem is the most impacting part of it because of the imagery it creates so emphasising lines like 'froth corrupted lungs' really shows how hideous the war was and the things that surrounded it.

I also want to include noises separate to my voice such as slamming my feet together as this puts the audience on edge and heightens the imagery making them feel as if they are really there in the trenches or on the battle field.

lesson 2

in todays lesson we continued work on our world war 1 ration line piece. we developed the piece by including other groups which added to the scale of the line. we also changed the piece of music we were performing it to and instead chose one which had sharp sounds that didn't keep in time exactly with what we were performing. this was effective as it contrasted the movements we were performing and reinforced the idea of fighting, in future I think our classes need to continue working on getting into the line efficiently and the spacing within the line as when new groups were added it became a lot more cramped to perform in.

my group worked on our piece on our own and tried to make it more clean cut and pedestrian so it appeared effortless. we also had to change our spacing in a section of it to allow for the amount of space we had once in the line as this  was a problem we had observed when performing it all together. As a group we all agreed that our piece was very minimal and simple so we added more switching between positions and changing levels within the piece for example when I go to the floor to tie my shoe lace this improved the quality and impact of our section as it showed peoples desperation to get to the front of the line but we also included very pedestrian movements to show that this was just everyday life for them,

in the lesson we also had groups feed back to us from their research surrounding certain areas of the war. this was useful as it allowed us to broaden our knowledge of the first world war which enables us to come up with more ideas on how we can devise a piece of theater from it. it also gives us contextual knowledge as to how the people of the time would have been living and what they would have been experiencing as well as this finding out about areas such as fashion means we can work on picturing characters in our heads which is something I find very useful and imagining and creating what their life is like.

Lesson one

In today's lesson we began our devising project based on World War One. We began by creating a physical piece in groups of three. The peice used techniques from 'frantic assembley' to show three people in a ration line. It used pedestrian movements to represent people being anxious in getting to the front of the que. I found the peice effective as it gave me an idea of just how desperate people would have been to get food, it also allowed me to use movements I haven't used before and have never thought would have been used in theatre. It also taught me about devising to music and how music can be used as a stimulus to create a peice of physical theatre. I thought our groups performance was very good however if I was to do it again I would have included bolder movements such as jumps or coming out of the straight line as I think this would have made it more eye catching for the audience. 

We then worked in pairs of one boy and one girl. We wanted to create a scene of physical theatre, again to music, that would show a man receiving his letter calling him up to war and how his wife would react. Our peice began with cross cutting showing the man receiving his letter while his wife was oblivious in the other room. I thought this was effective as it showed how everything could change in an instance as as soon as the man walks into the room with the wife in and instantly her physicality changes from gentle to harsh. I think this was a good technique to use as it really represented the women's emotions at the time without using dialogue. Overall I was very happy with our peice but if we were to work on it more I would try and include more experimental movements and less naturalistic/pedestrian ones.