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(Boys Piece)

At the beginning of the day, the second section of this piece was a bit of a shambles with timings not fitting with the choreo, themes not being properly represented and the choreo in itself being uninspired and a bit all over the place. We also were instructed to add some dialogue to the opening and to add something to bridge sections 1 and 2. We went away and sorted the timing issue by cutting the music to match the choreography more effectively and adding some dialogue where in the character’s alternate versions would talk about struggles relative to themselves before all being late to some occasion and leaving in unison. We then added that my version, the musician, would come out again and explain the concept of the multiverse before going straight into the surgeon’s reality. Overall, I’d say from the state the piece was in during the morning, we pulled it all together nicely into a cohesive and entertaining piece.

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(Physical Abuse Piece)

In half of today’s session, we worked on finalising the physical abuse piece ready for performance later that day. Due to an unforeseen injury, we did have to rework some aspects of the piece to accommodate. However, this did not possess nearly enough of a detrimental effect to stump us for too long. We also choreographed the last section of the piece which involved going back to the start and reversing all of the choreo, ending with the other characters conspiring to kill mine. My part in this was easy as I only had to reverse laying down and walk away. We were told that the piece had pretty much come together apart from some minor errors involving transitions from one section to another. Hopefully we can fix this by the final performance.

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(Boys Piece)

In today’s session, we worked on the boys piece about multidimensional reality. We refined and rehearsed the first section several times before realising that our piece didn’t meet the 5 minute minimum time window. I presented an idea in which we would use the song Portrait Of A Blank Slate by Lovejoy and have the 4 universes act in moving dioramas jumping from one universe to another throughout the song. I suggested we have the universes with the character taking up different occupations. We discussed surgeons, students, soldiers and musicians as ideas. We then got to work trying to block the second section for which we came out of the session with a rough draft in desperate need of polishing.

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(Physical Abuse Piece)

During today’s session, I was asked to fill in for a bigger role in the physical abuse piece due to the departure of the original performer. This was initially, a very stressful concept for me, seeing as I’d have to maintain my previously established choreography whilst learning an entirely new set. I took to it with enthusiasm, with the rest of the group taking time to guide me through what to do as well as me using what memory I already had of the part to help build the performance back up again. The character involves a lot of slow movement with quick interjections to accentuate the abuse he inflicts on others.

I am still a bit worried that I may mess up the choreo and we haven’t blocked the ending of the piece as of yet but I am sure we will get around to fixing both of these soon.

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(Boys Piece)

For the boys piece, we have decided against the ‘Raven’ concept due to a shared disinterest in the concept. We brainstormed several other ideas for what we could do before settling on a pitch for a piece about alternative universes and how small actions can have large effects. We wanted to represent this by having all of the boys carry out the same movement sequence in their own unique way before one by one diverging and ‘splitting off’ from the original universe. We imagine this happening through the making of a cup of coffee and the coffee machine either doesn’t work, works but slower or one just chooses not to have coffee. This would then later spiral into the differing universes leading to contrasting endings for our character such as one becoming a doctor, another a soldier, etc. Overall, the group likes where we are now with the concept and we are eager to develop it into a full piece.

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Put together new section of our physical theatre domestic abuse piece. We built on the choreo from last time and added new movements to further flesh it out. We added some back and forth movements linked with mirroring. Our feedback suggested that we mind our distance from the table to make sure it is equidistant, make sure to convey the story properly by working on how it is communicated and to hold on certain movements to let their impact set as it feels as though we are losing them due to the speed at which they are performed. For next time, I’d like to try putting the feedback into practice and to see if it works. I also want to go through the entire piece to see what other flaws we can iron out.

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Today we focused on the refinement of our piece about men’s mental health.

We were given feedback to work on the shape of the raven formation as it didn’t come across how it was intended. We were also told to work on hand movements in the raven formation as they appeared to lack cohesion and didn’t come across how we intended.

We were told we had improved movement in some areas but that we are making too much of a story out of it when it would be better to keep the piece more abstract

We were told that our levelling with the bird was nice but that overall we need to keep the piece moving as it feels very stop/start at the moment.

We were recommended to stop physically touching each other for the pulling motion and that the shaking off of the character’s depression was lacking which could potentially be made up for with some implementation of slow motion.

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In todays session, we were asked to split into boys and girls and put together a piece to present at the end of the session. We initially planned to make our piece about men’s health in the form of reading our the NHS page for testicular cancer. We then swapped this for a piece inspired by The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe. We took the concept of the raven itself as a representation of mental health. We developed sections where people would help each other but be left saddened themselves, each joining the raven after the conclusion of their section. We received feedback following our presentation. Our piece was called unique and a good representation of our deep theme. We were praised for applying frantic assembly movements. The dialogue was not necessary and we were told to opt for a projection instead. There needs to me more movements to allow the piece to flow better. It would be interesting to experiment with the music to try and juxtapose the theme and movement. We were also suggested to try and add some of the original text from The Raven.

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How do Frantic Assembly incorporate words into their physical work?

First person instruction

Taking instructions and putting them in first person and past tense. Ambiguity

Use ‘How to’ guides

Instructions

Translate the instructions into first person and put it in the past tense to create alienation

Imagine it spoken as a monologue

I purchased a large cage to house my bird

Birds thrive in large cages, so I opted for the largest cage that my housing space could accommodate.

I chose a rectangular cage for my bird

Circle cages were bad for my bird. There was hardly any space for my bird and no corners for him to feel safe in.

I ensured the space is more than adequate for housing more than one bird.

I had never housed more than one bird in a small cage. My birds needed space to retreat, forage and fly.

I ensured that the placement of the cage was somewhere warm and comfortable.

My birds were social creatures and have become unhappy when isolated in a room.

Finally, I placed some old magazine papers on the bottom of the cage

This made cleaning much easier and the papers were able to be disposed of with ease, then I placed fresh ones straight down for the next day’s use.

Focus on expressing subtext

2 people do conversation and another 2 do movements

Keep mixed focus

Simultaneously performed

Or perform the speech and then the movement

Performing lists and definitions

Lists that can be coupled with movements

Generated from performers

Thematic

Christianity

Love God

Love your neighbour as yourself

Forgive others that have wronged you

Love your enemies

Ask God for forgiveness of your sins

Jesus is the messiah and was given the authority to forgive others

Repentance of sins is essential

Don’t be hypocritical

Questionnaires

Simple way to generate performance material

Generates words or physicality

Generates lists to perform

Free Writing

Jealousy is a rather peculiar feeling. You never know where it sprouts from and it can very easily be triggered by the smallest of things, the straw that breaks the camel’s back in some instances. Examples of this can include envying someone’s car, their salary, their loving parents, their dog. Jealousy seeps into every fibre of one’s being and twists and contorts your vision into a self degrading mess of longing, bile and hate.

Cheesecake, cheesecake is the desert that unites families. Families are happy, but not always. Stress kicks in, unwanted party crashers screaming through your synapses. Unrelenting, unyielding, not at all friendly. Sometimes you feel like you can’t even escape into sleep. Dreams are the refuge from one’s horrid life but how does one take a step when the door has been long since shut. A dark void, a blank abyss. Nothingness stretching for miles and miles, street corners to city halls. Infrastructure and skyscrapers, concrete and soot.

Directly addressing the audience

Material generated is almost always a monologue directly towards the audience. And breaking the fourth wall.

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In today’s session, we were introduced to Push Theatre. Another practitioner. We then were asked to start thinking of a piece for our final show. We considered early on using the Two Headed Bug concept from Push for a piece but we kept that idea to one side for now.

We thought through various thought provoking political themes such as sexual assault, disability, depression and isolation in addition to the story potential of a couple being separated due to pandemic.

We also thought through unique staging opportunities such as unconventional furnishings and umbrellas with the colours identifying stereotypes in our world. We have to work on expanding these concepts further to see if something can come of them.

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Kay tempest poem

From this poem, we developed our own movement sequence featuring text from the poem to highlight what we were doing.

I wish to add more to this piece to further flesh it out as what we had in terms of the blending of choreography and text was good, but it felt short and cut off.

There was a very nice use of choral work from other group. If we get to work on this further, I would like to experiment with more choral techniques to further improve the piece.

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In this session, we watched a video of a poem by Kay Tempest.

We then read chorus 2 from Wasted, a play written by Kay Tempest to use for the following exercise.

We picked out key words from the text and tried to gather themes that we felt the text conveyed.

Scary, flow, death, separation, society, destruction, darkness, shine

We utilised British Sign Language and gestural movements to represent all these words in a set, choreographed routine set to the song Massive Attack by Teardrop.

Following the performance, we were put into 2 lines with both groups delivering their piece at the same time to create variety in the movement when performing.

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Frantic Assembly

(Push hands, controller, controlled)

I feel like I was good at following. I would like to work on my controlling of others in order to mix it up with various interesting movements

(Contact importance)

(Learning to fly exercise)

I should volunteer to be lifted next time

(Lifts)

(Jet pack lifts)

(Round-by-through lifts and movements)

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In today’s session, we were introduced to a physical theatre technique known as ‘Round-by-through’. We were also introduced to Frantic Assembly, one of the largest practitioners of physical theatre. We watched a video of theirs explaining Round By Through.

The video talks about the importance of 3 stages. The stage before, during and after contact. These 3 should all hold significance and be different from each other when conveyed properly.

We then listened to 2 songs to prepare for our own Round By Through sequences.

Je te laisserai des mots by Patrick Watson and tango bajo fondo

Adjectives for songs

Melancholy, bleak/Suave, upbeat

We recognised that the music influences the perception of the movement as much as the movement itself.

Initially, Ronan and I’s movement piece, set to Patrick Watson, read as melancholic and homely. Whereas when the music was changed, it became more confrontational and boisterous.

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In today’s session, we got our first introduction to the world of physical theatre.

We looked at clips of Frantic Assembly work in order to get an example of the type of physical theatre we’d be acquainting ourselves with.

We then participated in some warm up exercises based around ensemble work and focus in order to prep ourselves for what we were going to learn.

We started with a Brain Gym exercise to help with our concentration. I initially was quite worried with this as I kept slipping up but I eventually got the hang of it.

We then had to walk neutrally around the space. I adjusted to this rather quickly.

We then were told to move in sequence, being aware of everyone around us and moving one at a time with the number of given people moving increasing.

We then were partnered up to work on an exercise called Chair Duets, in which we paired up and created a sequence whilst sat on two adjacent chairs. My partner and I worked this out fairly easily but we do wish that we could have been more elaborate in our chosen movements.

Slip-Elliott Moss-🎶