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.