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In the first week, we went to the National Gallery, where I saw the buildings and many paintings. The paintings of the National Gallery are mainly from 1260 to 1900. So I guess the architectural style was also in that period, which is an important point that I need to record, because it may effect to my character and her historical background. Which decided how I should act and move like a people from that time.

So in the pictures which I put in my PowerPoint， there are not only many individual single characters. From the second page of the PowerPoint, there are many paintings from the painting of the whole social environment, and many small characters are found. I hope this will help me to create my characters in the future. Maybe I can put my characters in the living environment of these paintings I find.

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In class, we and designers got to know each other and got to know each other's work. We made some movements to show them. They draw some lines，points，ect. To show the movements on the paper. I just learned that in their eyes, our movement is a fluctuating line, and they will turn these simple and maybe some messy lines into beautiful clothes, making our performance more exciting.

Then in the afternoon we started our exploration of this unit. We created many movements by simply crossing each other. And when I watched other people's performances, I found that even we don't do any very complex actions. We can also create a story that can bring imagine to others.

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This week, we began to choose from each other with designers. I wrote on my CV for all the way I can performing. Hope someone can choose me，but there are not many people choose me, which also makes me think again about myself. As an actor, do I need to learn more other skills in order to make me stand out among the people who is looking for a same jobs with me in the future.

But luckily, I met my designer and Interp who wanted to make some clothes with a sense of history. I am very looking forward for see it. So we finally chose each other. They showed me some of their drawings before. They  are all very cute and gorgeous. I also like this style very much. I believe I can and I will push myself to perform their costumes and characters well in the future.

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1. Deicide the basic character

For rehearsal, we worked together to try make a movement with some simple actions that the maybe help for building our character. My designers and I are still discussing the specific paintings we want to create and the rooms we want to perform, so I just follow my heart and show it to my designers, hoping that they can get some inspiration from it and design clothes suitable for our final work.

But on the next school day, we are basically determined to use the painting of Judith in the Tent of Holofernes as the basic role reference. Then, I also decided I want Room 36 to be my performance room.

After decided the role concept, all my creations became simpler, because I can focus my creative and research on my character's characteristics, which will make my dance and performance more reliable. Under the lead of our tutor, we began to think about our own solo performance part. At the beginning, I didn't know whether the actors in the same group needed to create the same solo part together, so I first created a story about the reunion of two sisters with Bianca which is the actor who in the same group with me. In that solo, I did not fully refer to the state of my character Judith when she assassinated Holofernes, but more to the role of Bianca and my imagine of Judith when she was young.

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When her hometown of Bethulia was besieged by Assyrian forces, Judith infiltrated the enemy camp. She gained entry to the tent of the Assyrian general Holofernes, and when he was drunk after a banquet she seized his sword and cut off his head.

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London

Title

Judith in the Tent of Holofernes

Measurements

H 128.5 x W 99 cm

Acquisition method

Presented by James W. Dollar, 1931

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Normally on display at

Trafalgar Square, London, Greater London WC2N 5DN England

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1. Basic on Judith
2. Female，against power
3. Don't step on the long skirt

In the third week, I saw the first draft made by my designers and the two paintings as references. They are very basic on terms of historical design. After discussion, I get that we mainly take feminism and resistance to power as our main ideas. After comprehensive consideration and discussion, we decided still  use Judith as our role, because she stood up in the war as a woman, killed the more powerful enemy at that time, and ended the war. These points are very consistent with my designers' design concept of costume, so that we choose that.

In addition, we measured all of my body this week, so that they can start to do basic cloths if they want. I'm considering that my costume is a long skirt, I will also consider not stepping on the skirt when designing actions for my own part.

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1. Solo performance part
2. Double side of Judith

In rehearsal, we are continue trying to finish everyone's solo performance better this week. Last week I did the solo part with Bianca, so I need put all my energy into my individual solo performance this week.

After observed Judith's paintings and thinking of my costume, I decided that I want to express Judith's inner feelings before killing Holofernes. So I think two different ways:
1. Before Judith killed Holofernes, did she ever tangle or feel guilty, and whether tangle would bring bad things to herself or her family. After kill, she was guilty of killing a human like her，even that is a bad guy;

2. Or maybe when she was a heroine, he also carried a lot of painful things that others might not be able to share, but at the same time, she wanted to do something for her own people, so she bravely stood up, killed Holofernes, ended the war, and finally became a heroine.

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1. Inside cloth for the custom

Because we did a lot of performances about water this week. It was me and Ellie who worked together. After my designers looked at our water part, she found that there were many circles in my movements, so she considered putting the cloth suitable for our characters inside the skirt, so that when I dance, the cloth inside the clothes would be exposed, and that was still in line with the role and good-looking.

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1. Solo performance Part, show the double side of Judith
2. Water Part with Eillie, no set actions, only characters

This week I continued to work on my solo performance. Continuing my thinking about Judith last week, I hope to show my Judith with two side: As soft heart and selfish on one side, and brave and selfless on the other. So here, I hope to use two different powers to show my character Judith in the dance, and I may more be good at doing circles as my actions, so that I'd like to use in my movements design, I also make a lot of circles to show how and when Judith transforms her two different sides in this solo.

For the water part, at the first of the water's creation, I put more emphasis on how to show the fluidity and flexibility of the water when I create the dance about water. So when I worked with my partner Ellie, I acted very dependent on every strength she gave me, acting as if without her arm, I would collapse on the ground like a pool of water.
Fortunately, my partner Ellie is a very good partner. Before we showed the results of our rehearsal to the teachers and designers, we did not completely set out the actions we need to do in each step, but only discussed the relationship between our characters. The relationship between me and her is that I am a water which more dependent on her as a stronger water, and my actions will rotate and flow with her actions.

And when I rehearse this part, I feel very comfortable when I doing the creation, because I feel like as long as I have a character inner of me, my actions seem to have a soul. Even if it is may different from the actions in rehearsal, I also have my goals can do, and there will be no "mistakes" on the stage.

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1. More design idea for the custom
2. Change the set of Judith of the soft side

In this week, I attended the discussion meeting with my designer and their tutor Kevin, and saw some designs of other groups. Kevin put some suggestions for our designers' first draft: First of all, although the skirt like this respects the history very much, but it is too safe. We need to add more design concepts in this costume.

After listening to Kevin's suggestion, we continued to discuss the character of Judith. Finally we decide changed the soft heart and selfish side of Judith that I had set before that was instant by people's prejudice or secular. So my designers intend to express our character on the basis of the original clothes plus the shackled iron chain and other things to show the inner heart of Judith.

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1. Remember all my position in the group performance
2. Judith in group and Judith with herself

Because this is the last school week before the Christmas holiday, so we try to arrange the group dance part for all of the  set before the holiday, and after the Christmas holiday, all we need to do is just remember all the positions and review the dance movements. However, even in the group performance, I still don't want myself to jump out of my character, so I hope to show that I'm still Judith, but not others, by designing her walking, eyes, and the sense of strength in the group dance to show that.

So for this reason, I tried to find many pictures of Judith and videos of people who have played Judith before. In all these materials, I do see many different Judith, and as I imagine, some Judith's face shows weakness and fear, while others are brave and fearless, which is very consistent with people's imagination of heroines. So far, I am more determined to show Judith's contradictory inner feelings with two different side.

In Judith's original story, they did not explicitly mention whether her family was rich or not. After a long time of entanglement, I decided to use the most common walking posture to interpret Judith in these group performances. Because in my opinion, Judith was a heroine, but before becoming a hero, she was just an ordinary woman. It was her love for her people and her courage that made her summon up the courage to kill Hollofernes and finally become a heroine. So it may be very powerful to express her in the simplest way here.

Refrence:
1.Movie  "Judith of Bethulia" the actress Blanche Sweet（1896-1986）
2. "Judith Beheading Holofernes" By Artemisia Gentileschi（1593 - 1653）
3. "Judith" By Antoine Coypel（1661-1722)
4. "Judith Beheading Holofernes" By Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio（1571-1610）
5. "Judith and Holofernes" By Camillo Procaccini
6. "Judith with Holofernes's head" By None

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1. big raffle collar should be notice

This week, my designers showed me the final draft of our costumes and made my jacket ready for me to try on. It fits very well, but it may be a little tight for dancing, so I suggest my designers to make it bigger, and the clothes will run up if my hand lifting action, but after discussion, we think it will be much better after we add skirt and sleeve.

The final draft also added a big bend on the left arm on the basis of the previous one, which in the performance means that the two hands are holding different things, the skirt is added with a black pong pong  ball, and there is a big raffle collar. I will notice that in my performance.

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1. Rehearsal for the whole group dance, and Aliyah and Alice's one.
2. Me, Stella, Kasper and Freya's small group thing.

This is the first week after the Christmas holiday. The first thing of course is we need to review all the performances before Christmas. After reviewing, we began to add music to our performance and complete some detailed performances, first of all, the part of Aliyah and Alice. In general, I think this is more like the story of two queens fighting for power. If I think like my character Judith, I will think that even if I only have eyes can move, I should also show more dislike to the bad queen. Even if I can't do anything, I can just not follow her until the new queen replaces her.

And we also rehearsed the small group performances of Me，Stella, Kasper and Freya. First, we kept grad each other's hands, and then the hands gradually moved to my body. Then I fell in all directions, and been pushed back. Then I moved Stella to the middle. We kept grading her face, and then she went to the front. Slowly, we passed it to the end, which is me. In the process of transmission, I will do  my own solo part.

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1. Big sleeves
2. Make a plan B if I can't rise my arms

This week, my designers have made all the fabrics we need, but they haven't sewed them together yet.

But fortunately, my jacket is finished and I found the sleeves are really big. I think the solo action I set before needs to be changed some hand actions. Because it is not convenient to raise my hand. I discussed this with the designers, and they will try some changes，but by the way, I will make a plan B for this as well.

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1. Make sure the group dance running good
2. Don't fall on my tail

This week we still rehearsed all the group performances as usual to deepen the muscle memory, so we won't make mistakes. This week, I  will focused more on the together solo part after performing the group dance. For me, the biggest challenge in this part is still my solo performance. In terms of rhythm and cooperation setting, Lee and Malakai have helped us a lot. I think the cooperation part has been perfect, but for my solo part, I still need to think and try to make my actions better and to think about how to show my character better.

And in this week, my designers have shown me the unfinished part of our custom skirt. I saw that there will be a tail on the back of my skirt. So I rethink all the parts I cooperate with others, and tell them my tail, so that when we rehearse they can notice this, leave the distance of my tail to prevent us from falling.And I noticed that, especially in the water part of Ellie and me, we were very close to each other, and there were a lot of turns. We tried many times with rehearsal, and finally decided I will kick my tail aside when we performing. Of course, the more detailed thing is to rehearse need happening after we can put on our costumes.

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1. Fitting and move with the big tail

On Tuesday of this week, we fitted our costumes with the custom tutor, but it was not completely finished. But I try wearing on the unfinished costume and tried to do some movement. The skirt does affect the movement, but now that I know this, I will consider it into the rehearsal later.

But on Thursday, I saw the customer I had finished, and tried to put it on, and really rehearsed with my team members. It was working, I was very happy to know that.

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1. Rehearsal the group thing
2. Improve my solo performance

(Because of I don't have the video shooting on the class, so this video is cutting by the one shooting in the Last week, but movements is same)

In this week, all our movements and group dances have been set. Lee gave us a one-to-one check to see if our solo part could be improved. Lee gave me the following suggestions: 1. Delete unnecessary hand lifting actions to make the overall movement looks more cleaner
2. Make Judith's both sides perform with two hands more dancing. The performance before is too simple

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1. Make sure the make up and hair time
2. If somewhere break, fix it before the last performance

This week we only need to dress up for rehearsal and performance. My designers are very nice. They found a stylist to help me make up and do my hair.
In the rehearsal on Tuesday, we fixed our hair and makeup so that the performance on Friday can save time and go smoothly. But during the rehearsal, maybe because of my big action, my clothes fell off in some of the places. We need to remember to reinforce it every time.

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1. Carry the tail of dress when I move
2. Doing a nice performance like what we rehersal

This week is our last performance week. I'm been nervous and excited. On Tuesday morning, we used this last time to do a lot of rehearsals as usual. And in today's rehearsal, I put on my costume and hair accessories. As I imagined, the rehearsal after putting on the costume was very different from usual. Because of my large skirt, I would stumble over it from time to time, and I was often trampled by others in the group performance. Fortunately, I noticed these problems before I went to the national gallery, and found solutions through joining the rehearsal.

In the afternoon, we went to the National Gallery. The designers and I, and the stylist, prepared the same hairstyle and makeup as the day of the official  performance. The light in the National Gallery is quite dark. Hope the camera can clearly record our dance.

The size and shape of the National Gallery are different from the room of our rehearsals, so we made many adjustments at that time. Be told once again, we have clarified a concept that when you enter the national gallery to start performing, you will always be your character until the end of the performance.

I hope all our last performances can be as wonderful as this time.