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Today, I marked my first day back at CANDI since I left in June 2024 after completing Level 2. I started the lesson with Tim, who is now our voice teacher, it seems for a few weeks now that, we have been studying Spoken Word Poetry.

Spoken Word Poetry can be an amazing skill to learn as an acting student as it focuses on oral traditions and performance, it is often diverse between poems and styles, from rap to storytelling to theatre. Today, we saw two poems that represented this.

We watched Aja Monet perform her poem about police brutality about Black Americans and the struggles of black people in the country. She put a lot of emphasis on her words, which were used to show the pain, as well as slowing the poem right before it ends to create further emotional impact.

Afterwards, we watched George The Poet perform her poem about growing up in London. He addressed classism, diversity and solidarity in his poem, the style he used was rap-speaking, it reminded me of home-grown genres such as Grime and Drill

Since I hadn't been here for the past few weeks, I won't be able to take place in the Spoken Word Assessments; I was able to perform a spilt section of Priscilla's section because Tim wanted to see me perform. It was very powerful.

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ZooNation is a dance company located in London, United Kingdom, founded in 2002 by Kate Prince MBE. It recently celebrated its 20th anniversary in 2022.

Katie Prince is the company's founder and current Artistic Director, as well as an Associate Artist at the Old Vic and at Sadler’s Wells, where ZooNation is a resident company. Prince founded the company to highlight the skills of backing dancers and to give them a platform as artists in their own right.

The group predominantly performs within the Hip-Hop genre while creating full-length narrative dance productions alongside the dance and music.

Zoonation is an important ascent to UK Dance culture because it was one of the first companies to offer work to 'Backing Dancers' at a time when only contemporary, ballet or musical theatre dancers were constantly employed.

They also tribalised with the usage of young dancers from underrepresented/disadvantaged backgrounds, allowing them to increase their skill set, knowledge and confidence in our styles of dance theatre.

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Whilst working as a choreographer for music acts on television and in music video, Kate was distracted by the immense talent of the dancers backing the artists. She founded ZooNation as a company that could highlight the skills of these ‘backing dancers’ and give them their own platform as artists in their own right. At the time, the career path for a ‘backing dancer’ was limited whilst for a contemporary, ballet or musical theatre dancer, the breadth of employment opportunities was vast. Our first production, BoxBeat, was performed at Sadler’s Wells in the Lilian Baylis studio. It told a loose tale of three children who ran away from home and got lost in a new world of vibrant dance and music. This same idea was to be developed three years later to become Into the Hoods.

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Research and Identify Core Principles

Characterisation - The act of changing voice, body language, movement, and gesture when you embody a role. Skills needed to take on a role, such as voice, body language, facial expression, etc, are all part of characterisation.

Atmosphere - Atmosphere is created by the production elements such as lighting, sound, music, and costume and how the performers interact with these things.

Physicality and Movement - Using body language, gestures, and stance to embody the character and tell a story visually.

Vocal Delivery - Modulating tone, volume, and pace to convey emotion, character, and meaning through voice.

Emotional Connection - Authentic expression of emotions to make the character relatable and the performance impactful.

Timing and Rhythm - Mastering the pacing and rhythm of actions and lines for dynamic delivery and dramatic effect.

Collaboration - Working effectively with other performers and crew to create a unified, cohesive production.

Audience Engagement - Actively connecting with the audience, making them feel involved and invested in the performance.

Technical Elements (e.g., lighting, sound, set design) - Enhancing the mood, setting, and realism of the performance thro

Actors - Actors have to incorporate many different principles of performance into their work in able to bring their characters alive. Emotional Connection between actors and their characters can help further the show's boundaries and push to bring their roles a new dimension of character, Physicality and Movement are essential in learning how a character should react to situations and how they may lead in the performance and Characterisation is essential as it shows the complete embodiment of the role.

Dance - Dance uses different principles of performance to tell a story through its performances. Collaboration is essential in building unity between other performers and the crew, as coordination is very important in dance. Timing and Rhythm can create dramatic effects in a dance performance, such as slowing down as an emotional moment begins to be shown.

Music - Music needs Vocal Delivery; depending on what message and genre you want to do, if it's a love song, you would try to convey emotion by being more soft-spoken and light. Atmosphere is needed in the full production of music.

Review a Performance

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Characterisation - Drama elements - GCSE Drama Revision - WJEC - BBC Bitesize

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Learn about plot, dramatic forms, characterisation and dramatic conventions when discussing drama elements for GCSE Drama.

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Who was Konstantin Stanislavski?

Konstantin Stanislavski, born on January 17, 1863, in Moscow, Russia, is a highly influential figure in modern theatre and acting.

He was born into an affluent family that was also into theatre, which played a big part in shaping his early life. His family even had a private theatre known as the Alekseyev Circle, where Stanislavski began acting as a child, which allowed him to explore his interest in performance from a young age. His family’s support and interest in culture helped him gain a strong foundation in the theatre.

When he was 14, Stanislavski became more involved in Moscow’s theatre scene. Compared to other actors, Stanislavski felt uncomfortable with the way his body and voice stayed stiff. This drive for being captivated by the patterns of humans led him to develop the “Stanislavski System,” which focused on creating natural, believable performances by encouraging actors to explore their characters' emotions deeply.

In 1898, Stanislavski co-founded the Moscow Art Theatre (MAT) with Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko, a fellow actor. The MAT was a groundbreaking theatre company dedicated to producing realistic, emotionally honest plays. Working with playwright Anton Chekhov on productions like The Seagull and Uncle Vanya, Stanislavski was able to put his ideas into practice.

His focus on truthful acting and ensemble work (where all actors are equally important) was a major shift from traditional theatre, gaining him and the theatre international respect.

Stanislavski’s acting method emphasised ideas like “emotional memory” (drawing on personal emotions to connect with a character) and the “magic if” (imagining oneself in the character’s situation).

His techniques helped the groundwork for many acting methods still widely used in acting schools today. Influencing famous acting teachers like Stella Adler, his methods continue to shape how actors are trained, making Stanislavski a major figure in the evolution of realistic acting styles.

Stanislavski's Acting System

Stanislavski's acting method contains a series of training techniques designed to help actors create believable characters and develop natural performances.

In the late 19th century, the act of theatre had rapidly changed compared to years prior, instead of the rich and nobles dominating the genre, instead playwrights such as Anton Chokov created pieces about normal people. These stories required a new take on acting, one that focused on the inner life of a character instead of their greatness, known as realism and naturalism.

Stanislavski's teachings always evolved because he never believed in stopping growth, so the teachings in the 1980s were different to those in the 1920s.

In his early work, he was concerned with creating living characters on stage. His techniques at the time focused mainly on psychological exercises. These included detailed table readings and encouraging his actors to personally experience the actions they were trying to portray in their work.

In his later work, Stanislavski argued that finding harmony between the internal and external acting preparations was essential. Ultimately, he believed that the best acting connected an actor’s inner world with specific, performable actions on the stage.

Stanislavski's methods varied throughout his long career as an actor. There are eight principles of Stanislavski. However, three key concepts are widely used to this day:

The Magic If - Imagine yourself as the character, putting yourself in their shoes and embodying them, and considering what that character would do if they were in their situation.

Emotional Memory – Stanislavski encouraged his actors to draw upon emotional experiences they had encountered in real life and to channel that emotion into their performances when their characters experience similar feelings.

Objectives - The reasoning behind every move our character makes. What is the objective goal of this character? As Stanislavski would say, “Every objective must carry in itself the germ of an action.”

Stanislavski’s system was very different to other acting techniques of those days. However, many actors' techniques have taken inspiration from his methods, such as Lee Strasberg and Stella Adler.

The modern-day Stanislavski method could be seen as Method acting, but they are still quite different. This has been popularised by actors such as Christian Bale, Joaquin Phoenix, Marlon Brando, Meryl Streep and Daniel Day-Lewis.

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For my performance piece, I did a duologue with my partner Leah about a girl who had run away from home and was now living by a canal, and it was midnight.

The twist for our duologue was that we were given nothing to work with regarding characterisation or atmosphere. Instead, we're given an open-ended approach to work with outside me being assigned Character A and Leah being assigned Character B.

Our rehearsal time was shorter than expected; I joined the course late, which meant I was struggling with the script for the initial rehearsals, Leah also faced challenges with her script because of how ambiguous it was. However, when we got used to the script, it got better as we started to create a cohesive backstory for our two characters. We decided for the background of the story Character A had run away from home due to the abuse she was facing from her father, we got this from the line 'There isn't anything worse than home'. This backstory was further supported by her resistance to B’s reassurances that her father cared about her, suggesting he was potentially involved in criminal activities. The dialogue also revealed that B’s family and friends had started receiving threats since A disappeared from school and public life, reinforcing the sense of danger surrounding A’s decision to run away.

When it came time to perform, we performed this in front of a combined crowd of both our Performing Arts groups. I believe our performance went exceptionally well, especially if I take into consideration how little time we had and the initial discomfort we had with the character until then.

It was my first time playing a character who was in a state of distress and sadness, meaning I had to find new ways to show emotion, which meant a nuanced yet subtle performance rather than big exaggerations. I also have to praise my partner for the criticisms she gave me regarding the emotional connection between our characters, adding a playful gesture. From the beginning, we had to ensure that our characters seemed as if they had some sort of relationship before our scene. Initially, I didn't raise my head when Leah walked up to me and kept quiet until she asked me what I was doing. To create a connection, we decided it would be better for her to look up at Character B and show more warmth as the piece progressed, I didn't feel self-conscious as the performance went on, as if everything melted away when I was on stage.

My strengths for this piece were our collaboration work together, if we weren't open towards each other's different ideas to develop the piece, it wouldn't have felt as good as it ended up being for us. I developed a new style of performance skill that I hadn't used previously with humanistic acting, which I am grateful for and I hope to utilise more soon. Improvements would be a longer rehearsal period and more 1-2-1 with our acting teachers; I would love to receive more critical analysis from our tutors. Yet, it all felt worth it when we heard the massive applause we received from our fellow actors in the audience.

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Greek Theatre

Commedia dell’Arte

Elizabethan Theatre

Realism

Naturalism

Melodrama

Epic Theatre (Brecht)

Theatre of the Absurd

Physical Theatre (e.g., Lecoq, Grotowski)

Musical Theatre

Verbatim Theatre

Postmodern Theatre