Some hazards that I identified were:

-Cables left unattended

-Props left unattended

-Fire exit blocked

-Liquids by the sound and lighting desk

-Chairs unorganised and messy

Dangers:

-People could get hurt (e.g trip up)

-Props unattended could get knocked over or hurt someone

-Shows can get disrupted

-Liquids by tech could possibly electrocute someone

-Audience could struggle to exit if there is an emergency

-concentration

-quick reaction times

-spacial awareness

-eye contact

-Who am I? 

-Where am I? 

-When is it? 

-What do I want? 

-Why do I want it? 

In Blanka’s lesson, we learnt that before performing a character, you must always ask yourself the 5 W’s to internalise a character’s phycological life motivations and circumstances. To practice this we were given a duologue and the instruction was to create a scene our of the short dialogue by using the 5 W’s. For example, Oscar and I set our scene in a restaurant and gave his character the intention to “break up with me” and my character the intention to get him to “admit” that that is what he wanted to do. This was our “what”. 

Who? A child (5 years olds) 

Where? A classroom 

When? 2025 (now) 

What? I want to know Aaliyah’s secret 

Why? Because as a child I’m naturally nosy/curious 

How? By doing childish things such as pinky promises, tugging Aaliyah etc. 

In our performance, mapping is important because it helps visualise the performance space and shows the audience where we are, our relationships with each other and helps the audience follow the action and focus on key moments. We do this by angling Aaliyah’s chair facing the audience and Zahara’s and my chair diagonal to the audience so that our backs are never to the audience. Also, when Zahara and I walk away from Aaliyah after saying “alright” we walk towards the audience instead of away so that our backs are not facing the audience. Zahara and I “reveal” Aaliyah’s secret by looking under the table after she whispers in our ears, to show that she has wet herself. We also both have different reactions even though we say mostly the same lines after finding out the secret, such as “no” and “now what?”. Zahara is more disgusted as she leans away, holds her nose etc however my character is immature and laughs, squirming in my seat to show that I am amused. We do this to show our character’s different personalities. 

Today we were put into groups of 3/4 and were instructed to create a 2 minute long routine with movement, theme and song of our choice. In my group were, Oduro, Cayden and Kyana. Before we picked a team we decided to start choreographing first, and see what song and theme would go along with it. We started off by having Oduro and Kyana in front and Cayden and I behind but slightly diagonal to them so that the audience could see us. We slid twice opposite ways once to the left/right, then Cayden and I slide forwards while they slid backwards, so we swapped positions. Since we were doing pair movement ina group we decided we could choreograph someone being controlled. The theme that we found fitting was Halloween because of the time of year and the unnaturalness of being controlled physically like a puppet. Findind a theme that everyone agreed with, like Halloween, was good because it expanded on our teamwork. We built trust by including everyone’s ideas and constructive criticism to be helpful.

How vocal actors prepare for a role

- analyse scripts carefully

- learn the context of the story and understand it

- experiment with different tones and accents

-visualise the character’s emotion

-repetition and rehearsal

We can learn a lot from voice actors because we can do the exact same things to play a role to the best of our ability. These exercises don’t just apply for voice actors, it works in theatre too and is essential to fully embody the role of a character.

• diaphragmatic breathing (breathing in your belly not your chest)

• Projection (talk to the audience not to the wall)

• Articulation (pronunciation)

• Clarity of speech (practicing tongue twisters)

1. We breathe into the lungs

2. We exhale.

3. The air strikes our vocal folds cords.

4. The vocal folds vibrate creating a sound.

5. The sound wave is amplified by our resonators (a space in the body where sound vibrates)

6. The sound is shaped into words by the ‘organs of speech’.

There was a woman who kept a lamp burning all night.

People laughed and said that the oil was ‘too precious to waste”

But she said, the light was not for her.

It was for the travellers she’d never meet,

So, they’d know someone believed they’d make it through the dark.

And that lamp still burns.

It burns in the people’s footsteps, in classrooms, in courtrooms, in songs.

It is the fire of Black history- a flame lit by those who gave everything,

so, we could stand here, not in the shadows,

But in the power of their light.

It burns in the hands that write, in the voices that rise,

in the quiet courage of mothers who pray their children home.

It flickers in the marches, in votes cast, in the names we refuse to forget.

Every spark is a promise that the story isn’t over,

that the dream is still unfolding in our time.

And when the night feels longest,

When the air grows heavy with doubt,

Remember- there is always someone tending that lamp.

Maybe it’s you. Maybe it’s me.

Maybe it’s the echo of all who came before, whispering, keep it lit.

Because the light is not just memory- it’s direction. It shows us where to go next.

Today we had our assessment, and I participated in the main dance, secret drama scene, Despina’s dance piece and the poetry. My responsibilities were to learn my lines, movement and dance steps, and to be different characters.

My dance performance:

Some of my strengths in the dance piece were, remembering choreography, moving in cannon and unison, and sticking to themes. Some areas for improvement would be, not looking at the floor and keeping my eyes up towards the audience and not rushing the dance. For example, in our group dance (Sara’s dance routine) I rushed slightly when doing the swimming actions (walking on and off stage)

My drama performance

My drama performance was my best piece. My strongest attributes were learning my lines, being able to play a young character (for example being able to show it by fidgeting and overexaggerating my words) and working as a team. Something I ned to improve is remembering my cues for lines for example sometimes I spoke over Aaliyah and Zahara.

Evaluating other performances

I enjoyed watching others performances, two that stood out to me was Sara’s tutor group’s dance and Oscar’s poem. The group dance was really good because it showed off everyone’s skills, I liked when they went across the stage doing their duets at the start and the end, it was a really good way to start and end the show. I also liked how they kept eye contact with the audience as is kept us engaged and it made the performance even more engaging. Something that they can improve is facial expressions and maybe developing 2 or 3  different facial expressions through out the performance.

Target for the next project

My target for the next project will be to learn my lines early so that I can put my time into  other things such as, body language, applying Stanislavski technique, projection etc. This will help me improve in my next performance because it will only help me get into character even better. I’ll achieve this by spending some time after every lesson analysing my lines and applying different skills to it such as, tone, pitch, pace etc and taking time at home every day to learn my lines, applying directions from my teachers and my own annotations.