Making our new and revised puppet and getting some help with the IPP

Making our new puppet:

Throughout the week Bekki and I focused on making our revised puppet. We included parts of the three puppets we'd previously looked at to make a better puppet. It was there I realised that skills learned in one subjects can be applicable in other subjects. For this project, I used incremental design to add design ideas to our puppet in order to make it better. Bekki was leading this activity in the same way that I will be leading sound design.

IPP Help

Despite the focal point of the week being the puppet, I also receved invaluable help for my IPP. I'm now certain of what I'm doing, which is leading  a workshop on Strasberg's Method Acting. I will be training a non-actor into performaing a monologue from a naturalisitcs play that contains movement as well, meaning it will show the effects of Method acting.

Archery and Zen

For our work on our puppet play, we studied an extract from a book called "Zen in the art of archery" It details a man's journey to learn the art of archery from a Japanese master archer. The key quote from this text is "If one really wishes to be a master of an art, technical knowledge of it is not enough. One has to transcend technique so that the art becomes an ‘artless’ art growing from the unconscious’". This means that to truly achieve skill in something, it has to become an unconscious reflex, something that is done without thinking, like inner ear balance.

Script Study

This lesson, Bekki was sick but Lydia and I went through our jobs and then the script that Lydia had written. We discussed our own personal roles and realised that the role of puppet maker was not really Bekki's job. This is because even though I was meant to be just helping to make it, both of us were making big decisions and doing the same amount of work. It's good that we managed to work together on this but the problem with us producing an equal amount of work means it will be difficult for Bekki to use this in her TPPP, as she cannot claim sole credit.
As we went through Lydia's script, we noticed that she had included a lot of things that woul appeal to a young audience, which ties in exactly with our performance concept. However, there was something that we need to change, and that is the use of flashbacks. We started discussing alternatives but have not come down with a final solution yet.

PPP 

We studied the markscheme and task requirements in depth, comparing to past papers and eventually, our own work. Although I only got a 4, it is important to remember that it was my first go after only a year of Theatre, meaning I can now rely on a lot more knowledge to use in my PPP. Furthermore, loooking at past papers and going through the marksheme highlighted wht I did wrong and what I need to do this time.

Script and PPP

Tuesday 10th December:

This lesson, Bekki was sick but Axel and I went through our jobs and then the script that I had written.
We discussed our own personal roles and realised that the role of puppet maker was not really Bekki's job. This is because even though Axel was meant to be just helping to make it, both of them were making big decisions and doing the same amount of work. It is good to help eachother out but it means that it is hard for Bekki to stand up in her TPPP and take credit for the work that her and axel did together.
After, we went through the script that I had written.
There were quite a few problems with the tense that was used in the script because I had used flashbacks to go back in time when Monty tells his story to the children. A good thing about the script and something that we all said we would do was to include repetition, easy words, a good structure and a message. I did include these things into the script but I need to fix how I am going to tell the story and in what tense. We tried to come up with lots of ways to fix the problem of flashbacks and we did come up with a few:

• filming and then playing back on the screen the flashbacks
• changing the tense

We didn't manage to go through the whole script though.

Thursday 12th December:
Thursday Axel wasn't here so we just gave in our EE and changed all the little mistakes to make it better. I thought that it was actually a good lesson because I am so happy that I finally got my EE in and I do think that it is good that Mr Fearnehough points out all the little mistakes that to us don't mean much but we can lose little marks if we don't do it.

Friday 13th December:
We had a double lesson all to do with the PPP's. We first went through the marking criteria and the examiners notes. This helped because it helped us to understand what the little things we need to do from the examiners. After going through that help, I know for sure that my next PPP will be better.
We looked through other years PPP, seeing the mock ones and then knowing what they got for the mock and the real made me feel much better. My PPP was quite similar to Georgia's mock and for her real one she got a 6. I would love to have a 6/7 for my real one. We got back our mock PPP, i got a 4 but was 1 away from a 5. I did think about my PPP a lot but I could have spent more time on it. I feel much better knowing how to analyse my points more this time.

Zen and The PPP
Being Zen:
Zen in the Art of Archery by Eugen Herrigel is a book that Mr.Fearnehough talked to us about when we first started to work on puppetry and concentration. We had already worked on this book and on the 1st of October i wrote 'the key quote he read out to us was ‘If one really wishes to be a master of an art, technical knowledge of it is not enough. One has to transcend technique so that the art becomes an ‘artless’ art growing from the unconscious’. My first reaction to this was that a person has to keep on pursuing their own goals in order to succeed. A person has to overcome exhaustion and keep their own beliefs in what they can do' After reading a chapter of the book, we found out that the man in this book tries archery and tricks the master but the master refuses to work with him because he had let him down. I realized that for concentration especially you cannot force something to be perfect. If something will happen it will, we cannot push ourselves to be perfect if we have just started doing something. I find this relates to me because when we first started working on concentration and we did some exercise which made us do something for quite a while, i found i lost concentration. Reading the rest of the chapter of the book i realized also that it takes practice to be perfect, no one can be perfect on the first go, practicing is what will make a person perfect and this is done for everything (dance, acting, playing football and even doing a presentation).  
Relating back to what i said in October about the quote my first reaction still sticks with me that a person has to keep pursuing their own goals in order to succeed, pursuing their goals here would be practicing. 


PPP:
On Friday 13th (oouuuh) in our double lesson we worked on the PPP. We went through the marking criteria and the examiners report on the past PPP's. 
We first did a Mock PPP last year when i did it i really thought i had put in a good effort in what i did and included everything that was necessary for a performance. I  soon realised when we were going through the examiners report that i had missed out quite a few silly things and i wasn't very specific on what i wanted, such as:
- The lighting - in my PPP i had not but for my lighting what i exactly wanted and no dimensions or on what power the lighting would be. 
- Words- i used a lot of words which on the moment when i was doing my PPP was what i first thought off. These words were simply descriptive and sometimes were not really explaining what i was trying to portray. 
From the fed back i have got from Mr.Fearnehough i am much clear on what to do also because i had a practice im more comfortable in what im doing. It was also helpful to see past students work to see the aspects they had included in their PPP's and how much detail was added. 
The one thing i need to try my best now is talking about why i have chosen specific things to use and i cannot just use it to look pretty. I need to explain everything and i need to be clear on why im using it and also i need to explain correctly because one thing i could write about could be read differently by someone else and my idea might not be so clear. 

Script Writing for our play!

Tuesday I was off sick so I didn't have this lesson...

Thursday 5th December:
I have been allocated at script writer for our piece. I am excited to have this task as I mentioned in the blog before this one. On Thursday I got on with writing the script. The first act I found was the most important because I wanted to get the wording right and get the use of repetition for the next acts. I had to come up with key lines that I would be able to use later on in the script.

I only got up to Act 1 on Thursday, so tomorrow my aim is to finish the script with all movement and music points into the script.

Friday 6th December:
Today we first discussed the PPP when it is about to come and it was good to be reminded of the PPP because it was so long ago since we did the mock ppp. I also had a question about the IPP because a lot of my work is on word documents and I didn't think that this was the good way to brainstorm so I asked if we could do the IPP on a big sketch book just like we would for the PPP. The IPP and PPP are quite similar because you will go through the process in the creation of a piece or workshop.... But the ppp you never get an end results performed whereas for the IPP all of your ideas will be true.
After this discussion, I got on with my script. I managed to finish it before the end of the lesson which I was happy about. I feel pleased with the script but I hope that everyone else finds it good enough to use for the recording and for the actual piece. I have tried to incorporate repetition, a message, audience interaction, key lines so that the message gets into the children easier and they understand well. We want them to have fun and be educated and I think that the script is key for this to happen because it has to be educational but enthusiastic. I also added him some facts about the ideas too e.g. how many people are starving in the world. This fact will shock them and maybe make them want to change more.

Our puppet play and the IPP

Tuesday 26th November:

On Tuesday, Bekki wasn't there so we compared and contrasted the puppets we had used in the masterclass to a puppet that the art teacher had made in order to find the best qualities in puppets. We did this before making our own so that it would be the best it could be. This is working by influence, where we take good ideas from different sources to make  an even better project. This is very important to our production as it relies on the realism of the movement of the puppet. As there are only three of us and we can only use the one puppet, making it the focal point of our play.

 

The best features in a puppet we now realise after reflection are:

• ease of movement
• joints facilitate movement
• facial features
• correct, realistic proportions
• breathability
• light

Thursday 28th November:

Today we had a talk on our IP's, which we are very behind on. At first I was set on running a workshop on Strasber's Method, but after revising my action plan with Mr. Fearnehough I decided to direct a short extract of Ibsen's "A Doll's House". This talk was very helpful because it made the IPP much clearer for me and I'm now certain of what to do. 

Friday 29 November:

Today we carried on with our development for ideas for our new puppetry piece.
As an ensemble, we chose different roles to make the devising of our play faster. We figured out the important aspects that are involved in our piece which is:

• script
• LX
• puppet
• Shadow Puppetry
• Music and Sound

At first I was quite interested to make the puppet as Lydia was doing Script and I had already done Sound. However, I chose Music and Sound in the end as it will give me a basis of comparison in the TPPP. Music and Sound in our play is not restricted to just sound effects and background music but also narration. Something I noticed when performing our short "Monty" that in the audience participation, as I was doing the voice, the spectator who came on stage to talk to Monty spoke to me, not the puppet. This is something that must not happen during our play as the realism will be broken and the play will not be as effective.

IPP and getting on with our new play!

Tuesday 26th November-
Today Bekki wasn't here but Axel and I had the chance to look at all three puppets we had in the drama room and reflect on them. We thought about the strengths and weakness of each puppet under the sections of Aesthetics and Manipulation.
Doing this task really helped us to understand what we need to do to have the best puppet possible for our new production. We thought it would be best to just create a whole new puppet so that we could get the all the best features together in one puppet.
The best features in a puppet we now realise after reflection is:

• able to move
• good joints
• facial features
• good propertions
• easy to make breathe
• not very heavy

Thursday 28th November-
Today was meant to be the deadline for our first IPP draft.
We all know and understood that we had not done much of our IPP's. It is very bad that we haven't and Mr Fearnehough has extended the deadline which will be really helpful.
Personally, I have struggled to be getting on with my IPP because we have had a lot of work and when the deadline is long for something, you don't do as much as you should for it because you have other homeworks that are in earlier. I struggle to find the time to do anything more. After talking about it, I have a clearer idea of what an IPP should look like and where to start and develop my ideas. I actually like the thought of the task, I wish that we just had open time to do it!
Right now, I have brainstormed about my ideas and I have a concrete idea that I would like to do. I understand what I need to do to develop that idea now and I know what steps I have to do next.
I am happy that we did talk about the IPP. Mr Fearnehough said that he will regularly ask to see our IPP work now and I don't really mind that to be honest. I find that it will be better to make me get on with it and it will also be good to have chances to ask for help.

Friday 29th November-
Today we carried on with our development for ideas for our new puppetry piece.
We decided that it would be good to give ourselves roles for the making of this production. We know our actual story and message. We figured out the important aspects that are involved in our piece which is:

• script
• LX
• puppet
• Shadow Puppetry
• Music and Sound 

I am in charge of the script. I am happy about this because I have wanted to have a chance at writing a script and also planning the outline of our production. It will help me in understand timing for our play and it will also give me experience for my PPP if I do a little preview of the script.
I spent the second hour of the lesson doing a complete outline of the play. During this, I did have to stop and think would this actually work. For example, the shadow puppetry. We need two people to hold the two small puppets of Angel and Devil but we also need to hold up a white sheet for the screen. Thinking about it and all the possibilities, I realise that it is possible and this helped me to be able to move on and continue using the shadow puppetry.
When writing my script, I need to remember:

• target audience
• repetition
• key lines
• easy language to understand

All of these aspects mean that the message will be easier to get into the children and help them understand what we are trying to show. That is our main goal, for our production to be entertaining but also educational.

Next lesson, I will be able to start writing the script and I should get a lot done in an hour I hope!

Working with Professional puppeteers and getting up to speed on our own play!

Right, this is a bit of a late post but I'll try my best! On Tuesday 12th and Thursday 14th we made our own Bunraku-style puppet out of paper and masking tape, otherwise known as Monty. I say Bunraku-style because our focus was to have a working puppet that respected three key points. It had to move in a lifelike manner, puppeteers could breathe life into it (so manoeuvrability) its head had to be movable to assist with eyeline. This was all done in preparation for a masterclass on Friday 15th with the three puppeteers from Ouroboros that we spoke to on Thursday 7th. They had the kindness to come in to our small class and teach us the basics of puppetry. I was in charge of Monty's head and left arm.

This whole experience taught me that to perform a puppetry piece, it is incredibly important to rely on the BERPI technique I describe in my previous post. BERPI stands for Breath, Eyeline, Rhythm Physics and Intention and I described their roles in my other post so I won't go into detail on them now. However, the workshop made me realise that to perform a play with a Bunraku puppet, you need teamwork more than anything. I noticed that even if a the beginning we were having trouble coordinating our movements, practising made us gel more as an ensemble and we were able to show a mini performance without any major flaws (It was far from perfect but it was a beginner's piece). However, I noticed that Lydia, who was doing the feet, looked to be in a very uncomfortable position, to which the puppeteers answered "You have to die to make the puppet live". This has shown me a different aspect of Theatre and will make value and appreciate the true efforts of actors and puppeteers and dancers in the future.

This was a case where we learned by imitation, and proceeded to do exactly as the puppeteers told us in order to learn  the movements and conventions of puppetry.

In the following week, we started talking about our blogs and devising our own piece. We learned that in Theatre, copying is an essential way of learning. The three key ways of learning are imitation, influence and inspiration. We used imitation in the workshop. Our new devised pieced was influenced by the puppetry we saw in Ouroboros. Our play focuses on food wastage by primary students. We were inspired to add the shadow puppetry element after watching Ouroboros.

We decided to devise a puppetry play for primary students because they were very receptive to puppets and thouroughly enjoyed orking with them. They know us and what to expect from a puppet show.

The beginning of our Superman performance!

Tuesday I had no lesson because I had my final English oral :(

Thursday lesson we spent going through the blogs and how we need to improve and go into more depth! Our blog is going to be very important when it comes to our TPPP's and it is also a part of our course to have a journal.
Mr Fearnehough asked if he could use my blog as an example to correct and know where to add more reflections and examples. I don't mind using my blog because it will help myself and everyone else.
After going through my blog again, I understand that the things I need to improve on is :

• making links to other parts of the course
• going into more depth
• explaining the points I make

After such a busy week with tonnes of advice and points with the workshop, I did not talk about everything that I should have. It was good to go through the blog and talk about what we needed to improve. I have corrected the blog and will now continue to keep my blog updates with many examples and in depth because it is important that I understand things for when I go back on for my TPPP.

Friday in our double lesson, we had two hours to create our Action Plan for Bunraku and also come up with our next moves!
Creating the action plan now was quite good because it meant that we had to think about everything we had already done and this also meant we ended up reflecting of these things as a result because of discussion. We then had to think about what we need to do now for our Bunraku project and that is to create a performance and then perform!
Having the double session gave us chance to think about all the things we need to think about for our performance. We don't have long to create and practice so I find that we got a lot done in this lesson.
As we already did a short performance to some of Primary, we know that we want to go back there and do something bigger and better. They also demanded we do a performance that they can see!
As we knew our target audience, we had to think of a message and idea that is suitable for a younger audience. We have main goals and that is that we want our piece to be entertaining and educational!
We thought about the problems a younger child would be facing and wanted to create a piece that can be educational. Some of the ideas we came up with were:

• cheating on a test
• waste of water, food, electricity, paper...
• being friendly
• manners/respect
• Being left out

Our idea we like the most because there is more of an issue to do with school life and home life, also it will be something educational.
As we only have one puppet and we need three people to operate one puppet and there is only three of us, we had to think of solutions to the way our story would go with just one puppet and if it was actually possible.
We know that children love super heros and goodies/baddies so we took this idea of having our puppet waste food and then a devil and angel tell him what is right and he is persuaded to not waste things, he then becomes a super hero.
I think that our idea is brilliant because it fits perfectly to children and is also fun and educational which are our main goals! Thrashing out all these ideas on paper really helped us to share our ideas and combine ideas together.
We were influenced by the handspring puppet company to add some shadow puppetry into our piece too. They used it in their show and we think that it would be good to add in more types of puppetry into our piece and it would also work very well to show the devil and angel part.
Having all of these ideas come into place makes me excited and I hope that they work out well! We should start to work on our performance physically now!

Tuesday's and Thursday's lesson was spent creating a puppet made out of newpaper and masking tape in preparation for Friday’s workshop with the 3 Ouroboros actresses. We managed to create a pretty good puppet (which we rushed at the end). I think we did a good job in making a puppet that we were able to manipulate well.

Friday the 3 puppeteers came in, we started by learning each other’s names with a warm up exercise. We stood around in a circle and said our names to a clapping beat; we then said it in a different voice and then went on to add an action. This helped create the ensemble feel and make us feel more comfortable with the 3 actresses. We then watched the Ted Talk Video about Handspring Puppet Theatre. On this Ted Talk we were shown a puppet of a hyena and we were explained about the movement and manipulation of all puppets. The video then went on to talk about War Horse and a horse puppet was shown on stage. It was so life like and the characteristic of a horse was portrayed amazingly by the movement of ears, the legs and even the breaths and sounds.

 I learnt that you have to understand the body of an animal or human to be able to manipulate a puppet which is an animal or a human.

Before working with our puppet ‘Monty’ we worked on ‘eyeline’. Eyeline is the second most important thing when it comes to puppetry. We used teddy bears and each had an actress pointing where to look and we would have to make the teddy react to where the actress was and move to that point. At first I found this hard but then when I put my eye near to where the teddy’s eyes were it was much easier for me to get the Eyeline right. I realised how important eyeline is and if it is off it can change the whole thing the puppet is looking at so maybe changing the story.

After this we started working with ‘Monty’. I was the right hand puppeteer, Lydia was the foot puppeteer and Axel was head puppeteer. I think I had the easiest role to do, because Axel had to speak and remember to control the eyeline and keep the puppet alive. Lydia seemed extremely uncomfortable in the positions she had to do. My role was to only love the right hand according to to left and what axel was doing. Even though I thought my role was easy it was quite tricky to be coordinated with Axel and what the 3 puppeteers said ‘you have to die in order for the puppet to live’ is very much true.

We spent a long time focussing on our puppets movement; we were all focussing but sometimes forgot even if the puppet id lying down it is breathing. We also learnt that we have to think about our own actions so that we can portray the correct actions of the puppet in order for it to be realistic. If we did not do the actions properly it would not be as effective.

After we worked on the movement of ‘Monty’ we all created a short piece to perform to years 2 and 4. We wanted to make our little piece funny because we thought it would keep the children intrigued and it would be more successful than if we did something serious. We had the idea of using lazzi which we learnt when we studied Commedia last year. We thought that ‘Monty’ could have his own puppet show and that things could go wrong. We decided on him making a pancake and then making him drop it which would be slapstick and then we got a volunteer from the audience to have a go at flipping a pancake. Of course this pancake was not real but it was still enjoyable and didn’t stop the flow of our piece. We got lots of laughs off the children which was our aim. During the performance I thought that we succeeded with the way we worked together and manipulated the puppet.

After the performance we helped the year 4’s and 2’s make puppets for themselves, we helped them create the puppets and explained to them how to move the heads and body parts. I saw that the children understood about the movement of the head and I saw a lot of them manipulating the heads.

It was so amazing to have 3 professionals with us, I think it will help us with future work and their experience and knowledge helped us a lot with our own puppet ‘Monty’. It was very exciting to work with the young children again and I am excited to possibly work with primary again this time on our own showing the things we have learnt from the 3 puppeteers

Ouroboros

First, I’ll concentrate on my RI. IT’S DONE. OVER. FINISHED. I won’t lie and say I’m not relieved it’s over, because I am. Very much so.  ON Thursday, we handed in our final drafts, after some last verbal feedback from Mr. F, who was (for our own good) being the pickiest person alive. Nevertheless, I feel that the RI has taught me a lot about researching a particular subject. What was especially interesting was that the subject was completely new to me, meaning I had to do extra research just to understand the subject (in occurrence, Japanese Noh Theatre). As well as teaching me about research, this benefitted me as an IB theatre student in that during the research and writing stage of my RI, I was able to draw up comparisons between the theatre I was studying and the Theatre I had studied, leading me to a better understanding of Theatre in global terms. 

However, this was only the minor story of the week. We also went to see Ouroboros, the new production by the Handspring Puppet Company, made world famous by their West End hit, War Horse. This play was interesting, to say the least. This piece focused on telling its story through the movement of the puppets. AS such, it had no dialogue, except for a narrator reciting the poem ‘Aristotle’ by Billy Collins. It told the story of life, its beginning, middle and end. The play’s story was that of a love story between poet Andre and dancer Nokobonisa. However, both struggle with commitment due to unresolved childhood issues. Andre watched his parents’ marriage dissolve as a young boy whilst Nokobonisa lost a person she loved dearly when she was just a child as well.  AS they try and build a relationship, their tormented souls (shown in the play by smaller puppets representing Andre and Nokobonisa as children) try and stop them in order to protect them. For me, what made it particularly emotive was the realism displayed by the puppets movements. In particular, the scene where a young Andre plays with his toys was very evocative as it reminded of my own childhood.

In our lesson on Friday (the show had been on Thursday night) Mr. F asked us to think of three words to sum up our feelings in the play. After class discussion, my final three words were surreal, truthful and coordination. Surreal because the puppets and what they represented transcended the medium of stage and were real. I called it a “painting come alive” because that’s the only way I could describe it. Truthful because the message was timeless, universal. A similar sort of message can be found in Charlie Chaplin’s “the Great Dictator”. Something that can be relevant anywhere, anytime. Coordination simply because of the effort and teamwork shown by the puppeteers. With three puppeteers per puppet, it was obvious that it was tiring and hard work yet the puppets only seemed all the more real for that. This was just my opinion, my interpretation of the play. Yet this play has many interpretations. Like “Oh the Humanity” that we saw last October, “Ouroboros” was trying to show its message to anyone who would hear, and everyone came out with a different idea of what the play meant. This has shown me as a theatre student that some plays have dual messages. One is universal, for everyone to grasp and understand. The other is at a much more personal level; every person takes back something different from this play, something to mull over on the drive home.

However, the highlight of the evening came after the play. Mr. F arranged for us to meet three of the cast, or the three actresses in charge of the Nokobonisa character. This means three puppets, with a different head puppeteer for each. This hierarchy is essential because it means that the actors (actresses in this case) are always fully invested in the emotion of the character they’re representing. This is only one of the requirements that have to be fulfilled in a puppet. The acting system they use is called BERPI. However, as will soon become apparent, many of the skills needed in BERPI can be transposed into other styles of acting. In BERPI, the B stands for breath. There are two kinds of breaths in puppet theatre, stop-breaths and go-breaths. Much like their name states, they dictate when the action stops and starts. They are always performed by the head puppeteer. However, as well as informing the other puppeteers of what’s about to happen, they breathe life into the puppet by the style of breathing they use, like scared breathing. This extra degree of emotion really makes the puppet come alive. The E in BERPI stands for eye-line. Eye-line is vital in displaying the puppet as a real person. The puppet’s line of sight means it’s concentrating on something, which means it’s alive. The R stands for rhythm. The puppet must never be still. If its still, its dead. This can sometimes means difficult and awkward movements for the puppeteer, but as one of the puppeteers said in our meeting “the actor must die in order for the puppet to live”. The P stands for physics, or an awareness that puppets can only move in certain ways, so due care must be taken to make them seem real. Finally the I stands for intention. The puppets purpose defines its place in the play. All of these are vital to make a puppet become alive. 

Workshop with HandSpring Puppet company!

We spent Tuesday's and Thursday's lesson creating a puppet made out of newpapers and masking tape in preparation for Friday, where we had a three hours with three puppeteers that we met after the Oubouros show last Thursday!
We thought we wouldn't be able to finish the puppet in time because we only had two hours and I think the way we were working was a bit slow but we managed, we didn't want to let our guests down. I never thought that we could be so creative but we were and we managed to create a puppet that we could actually use too (walk, move, bend) but all stay together.

Friday-
We began our workshop by doing "the name game". We went round the circle and said our names to the clapping beat. We then said it in a different voice and then added an action. In the end we had to remember all the names and actions. This was a good ice breaker and it also helped us to know the girls names too. Ice breakers are important when doing workshops with new people because it makes everyone more comfortable with eachother, more trust is built in the class and it can physically create more energy which is needed for a theatre workshop.
We then watched a Ted Talk video on Handspring Puppetry.
It was an amazing video and it showed us the horses from warhorse. What I learnt from the video was that every aspect of the puppet is important. You have to understand the body perfectly in order to copy it correctly and understand every inch of the actions. For example the horses ears in warhorse, the ear is something you wouldn't think off that much to show an emotion but for a horse it is and the ears move in many different ways that show emotion in Warhorse and it is essential!
We tried out some eyeline activities to begin with, this would help us to know how to control an object and be able to have eyeline between the puppet and something else. Eyeline is key to make that character interaction and create emotional pauses in a puppetry piece.
We each had a teddy and walked around the room getting eyecontact. We had to understand that our movements for the puppets had to be simple instead of hugely expressive otherwise it isn't as realistic. They said that less is more for puppetry which is true because they have to be like humans and we cannot be too expressive otherwise it is unrealistic. This links into other work we have done like the mask work for Commedia, we could not be too expressive because we had to make the maks come alive.
We went into pairs and they guided us for where our puppet should be looking. I struggled to move m puppet but I was okay at the eyeline. I realise how important eyeline is because it creates the human in the puppet. I really struggled to do this with my teddy because it was really stiff, I couldn't move it to get the correct eyeline and it was also very small. I was told to switch and I was much better afterwards.

We tried out walking the puppet first. I was the foot puppeteer, It took me a really long time to find the most comfortable but moveable position I could get myself in. I realise that if I am doing the feet, I will never be truly comfortable. But as the three puppeteers said before " you have to die in order for the puppet to live". I feel like it is important to be comfortable because it can be difficult to concentrate when you are in pain and this could distract you from the actual puppet. I am a beginner at puppetry, so I found it difficult to do because you are put into many different positions and can struggle to get out of them in time and keep up with everyone else.
We spent a long time walking round with the puppet, making it sit down, lie down and do normal human things. We learnt obviously how to do that but we learnt that it is important to always be thinking about our own actions when moving the puppet to know the true actions of a human.

Axel, Bekki and I created a short performance for the yr 4 and yr 2 class. It was our puppet Monty having his own cooking show. We wanted audience interaction so the children would feel that the puppet was real and we wanted some comedy for the children. We got lots of reactions and even though it was only a short performance, we felt that we succeeded in our main goals (just for us) which was being successful in manipulating the puppet. With just two hours practise of learning how to move our puppet, I felt we did an amazing job. I found it went well when we involved the audience, when we flipped the pancake and it went wrong because it added to the human which was one of our main goals. The way we moved monty was not perfect though because sometimes the legs weren't in time with the head. I think we need to get used to understanding not to go too fast because it is hard to keep up with for the feet. But with only two hours practice, I think that it went pretty good!
We then did two workshops with the children where we helped them to create their own puppet. I realise that the puppeteers only was telling them how to make it but I decided to help the kids know how to move the puppets by feet and head. They followed my fingers to get eyeline and this helped me talk about my own knowledge so that someone else could understand it even if they were only young.
I learnt so much about how to manipulate the puppet and having the three puppeteers themselves be there to correct us and praise us when we were practising helped a lot because they gave some amazing advice like:

• eyeline is important in character interaction and audience interaction
• less is more - don't exaggerate too much in the movement
• don't walk too fast because other parts of the body cannot keep up
• always keep the puppet alive with breathing and tiny movements!

The things that I struggle with when being a puppeteer is:

• when I am the foot puppeteer, I struggle to keep up with the other puppeteers
• trying not to exaggerate too much
• don't use that many movements in one go.

The things that I feel I am good at :

• using my own emotions and transferring them into the puppet
• understanding key things a puppet needs to have throughout the performance
• staying on the floor being very uncomfortable

Ouroboros 

On Thursday 7th of November we went to watch Handspring Puppet Company in their piece 'Ouroboros'. This show was incredible and the puppets were so realistic it was so intriguing to watch. After the show we had the amazing chance to meet 3 of the actresses manipulating the puppets, we had the chance to talk to them about the process of rehearsals and teamwork and they gave us advice for how we could work to make our own puppets. One of the actresses talked to us about 'BERPI'  which stands for:
Breath - Breathing life into the puppet.
Eyeline - focus of the puppet itself.
Rythm - how the puppet moves
Physics - shows the realness of the puppet
Intention- what is the point of the puppet.
The actress told us that 'BERPI' was important to keep in mind when we would be performing with our puppets. It would make it the piece more realistic.

We found out that head puppeteer is always the same for the specific puppets which is something i certainly didn't know at first so was useful to know so we can do the same when we will make our puppets. Another actresses suggested we should do trust exercises to get us started before actually using a puppet, which is what we exactly did so it was good to know we were on the right track. One of the actresses told us that when manipulating a puppet it requires mental sharpness and being in sync this links to the concentration exercise we did about our mental focus on what we are doing and being in sync for manipulating the puppets.
We were also told 'The actor must die in order for the puppet to live' to me this means that the actor must be in pain in order for the puppet to look realistic, in some  performance the actor will be put in painful positions they will have to maintain in order for the puppet to work.
We then talked to the actresses about rehearsals and we were told that it only took 4 weeks for them to rehearse which surprised me because i thought it would of taken much more longer because of the manipulating of the puppets. They told us that for a few days they spent on testing eye-line, which i had never considered before but i realized quickly when one of the actresses brought the puppet out that it is very important because if the puppet does not look in focus on what it is specifically there in the piece it will not look believable.
We were told one of the most important things is that the puppet should always be breathing and always moving if not then our belief is broken and we cannot believe in it which ruins the piece.

The next day we talked about the piece we saw the previous night and were told to write 3 words down about the piece, the words i chose were.
Intriguing - to watch how the puppets come to life through the actors. 
Focus - of the puppeteers on the puppets and being aware of whats around them
Trust - in each other, how they work together to make one puppet come to life and tell a story.

Other words that were thought of by Lydia, Axel and Mr.Fearnehough was:
Imaginative
Surreal
Authentic
Truthful
Coordination
Ensemble

These words more or less connect together to show that we all came out of the performance with a certain feeling and emotion to what we saw.

What I realized: 

- All in breath - Breathing life into the puppet is one of the most important things to do.

What I already knew: 
- Concentration  and the trust exercises needed to work together and gain trust.
- How BERPI can be put in any sort of acting.

As actors we cannot give up on the puppet mentally but also we cannot give up physically unless we want to fail. Whilst talking as an ensemble we talked about the pauses in the piece which we realized was marking the moment, so that we took away that specific moment which would help us with a meaning of what we were watching. The marking of some of the moments was when death was shown on stage through the puppets, which reminds the audience that death is so close to everyone and everyday people could be joking death or be very close to it and no one being aware. This is interesting to realize because it reminds us that we have to live to our fullest but still be reminded of whats important in our lives which id life itself.

Talking a bit more we realised that these moments conencted to Brecht, Bertolt Brecht wanted to make an audience revolt about what they saw although in 'Ouroboros' the director wanted to mark the moments she did it in a way that people would be reminded of life. 'Ouroboros' had an important message just like Brecht's plays people leave understanding that message.

Talking more about the piece we realized that dialogue was not always important in a piece and does not offer more clarity. 'Ouroboros' did not have much dialogue which i find made it better because i thought it showed that it was a representation of everyone because it looks at life and death so everyone in the world is involved, if dialogue was added i think it would break the belief of the puppets and how realistic they showed to be.

Beginning of Second term yr 13

Tuesday 6th November

Thursday 8th November
Today was the deadline for our RI's. I thought I was going to like this assessment because I like finding out about types of Theatre I don't know much about, but I didn't like it that much. I stuggle finding good research and I hate how perfect all the referencing has to be!
I do realise that it has to be done and I want to do well so i just got on with it. When we came to handing it in, we realised there were little things that were wrong with our essays that needed to be changed otherwise we could lose little marks that count a lot. I was getting a bit frustrated when I found out about these marks but I just got on with it during the day and we all handed in our RI's at the end of the day which was good. I am glad that it is out of the way and we can move on with our other assesments now.

We went to see a production on Thursday night in the TNT to watch the production of Ouroboros by the Handspring Puppet Company. I thought that is was an amazing production, better than what I thought it was going to be. We were lucky enough to get the chance to have a half an hour chat with three of the puppeteers after the show and they even got out a puppet to show us how it works. Our class, as there is only three of us, all controlled a part of the puppet and made it walk. It was an amazing experience and we are very lucky to have had it.

Friday 9th November
Today we were going to make puppets but instead we discussed about everything that happened at the production, what we learnt and what we thought. You would think talking about a play that was an hour and a half for two hours the next morning would be a waste of time but it really wasn't!
Three words that I think represented the play and why:

• emotional-I thought that it was emotional because it made me think about life and death more than you would. There were no words and you had to think much more about what was going on and this made the whole story more emotional and a personal experience.
• reflective- You think a lot about your own life in connection to the story and think about the future and past. Everyone has their own take on the story.
• imaginative-Everything was creative from the story to everything on set. Created a surreal experience with no words, all actions.

I found that it struck me more than other theatre productions that I have seen because even though it was puppets, it seemed more human. There was no dialogue, no people trying to be something their not, no accents, no onstage voices. It didn't seem fake, the puppets emotions and actions seemed much more true than a human actor.
I learnt that there was a relationship between the puppet and puppeteer because I thought that they were just their to control what the puppet did. But now I realise they have to physically and mentally be there with the puppets. The puppeteers have to know and understand what emotions their puppets are meant to have, in order for the puppets to be able to pull of the emotions.
All the suttle little movements that the puppets made the whole show because that's what made it realistic and made the story hit you. The puppets took time to look at things and stare. This had impact on the whole show because it created a relationship with the audience and it marked a moment. The puppets eyes had no white, it was all black. This helped because when it looked towards you or something, it could look at more than one thing but to the audience it looks like it looks just at you, which is skilful and helpful for the puppeteers.
Everything i saw about how the puppets are, how they work, how to make them work, is going to impact all my own work with puppets.
We found connections to Brecht's epic theatre. The director like Brecht made the puppets freeze to give emphasis and deliver the message just like Brecht wanted to in his performances. ANother link was Brecht 'Epic' means episodes, each scene had a meaning, just like the performance we saw. There was a message all the time and lots going on but only a couple of climaxes.

Wabi Sabi and Traditional Japanese Ceremony

Tuesday 15th October:
Today we had a visitor that came and introduced the Japanese Tea Ceremony to us. This is a zen experience which many different rules.
We learnt and practised how to actually do a tea ceremony and what not to do. We had to look up the words Wabi and Sabi before class and I found that it meant graceful, zen experience. Both words together mean fresh, beauty, peaceful and grace. They are put together in many Zen experiences and the Japanese Tea Ceremony is one of them.
There were many specific rules to the tea ceremony and a lot to remember but I think everyone was quite good at it. The thing I found most difficult was how we were sitting because I found it so uncomfortable and it was really painful but you have to just power through it, just how it might be on the stage. Eachtime you do the tea ceremony, it is done the same and it a ritual, just like Bunraku can be. You have to be perfect at it to be the best and it is always done the same.

Thursday 17th October:
no class because it was sports day!

Friday 18th October:

This was the last lesson before half term so we had to go over what we will have to do. Bekki and I stayed with Mr Fearnehough and went through advice on our RI's. I have a lot of work to do and I discussed all of it with Mr Fearnehough, he gave me good advice for my RI but also for being an IB student in general. I told him that yes suddenly the pressure has hit and we aren't used to it so its a bit of a shock all the work load but I am getting used to it and I want to do well, especially in Theatre.
I don't really care about what points I get, as long as i pass and I have put in all the work I can as I only need minimum points for the Uni I want to go to.

Hardly No Lessons This Week

Tuesday 8th October:
There was no class today because we went on our French trip to the Nuclear PowerPlant.

Thursday 10th October:
today we only had 10 mins of class because we had school photos. In that 10 mins we discussed turnitin which helped us to see our referencing and stuff. I was a low percentage so I need to makesure i reference things properly but I am happy that it wasn't over.

Friday 11th October:
We began the lesson with a relaxation exercise because we were a little hyper from the quiz last night but also super tired.
We have done this relaxation exercise a few times before so we know exactly how it works and it always helps us to relax. We then did another exercise that required a lot of focus so it helped doing the relaxing exercise beforehand. This exercise was about "sensing" eachother. We stood away from our partner but facing eachother. We had to close our eyes and walk towards our partner and join hands without banging into the our pair doing the same but across us. It was more difficult that what it seemed. I thought technique first would be good by keeping to the straight line and listening our for footsteps but after i tried it without technique and didn't think about it. I just walked and I got Abby's hands. I felt like i knew how she was walking and how fast she was going.
We then did my pilates which i had planned. It was just short but I would help everyone to understand how Pilates can connect with Zen. Yoga is more zen and Pilates is more exercise ubt there is still aspects of Zen in pilates. I think most people found it difficult doing the moves and I think the whole class needed the right clothes, music and much more concentration. It did help bring the energy up and concentration level for the next exercise though.
We went outside and Mr Fearnehough was holding balloons which scares me. We had to keep one balloon in the air firstly and makesure it didn't touch the ground. This was an easy task for us so we stopped in the end but we all got into it very much haha.
Next we upgraded to going into a circle and throwing a balloon to someone which had water inside. We weren't that bad at it so we made the circle bigger, in the end Abby threw he balloon and I caught it too hard and it burst all over me. (it had to be me)
We had to have trust in everyone that was throwing the balloon but we also had to focus on how we were catching it and our skills. I know that Abby fekt like it was her fault the balloon burst on me but I don't think it was, and even if it was, It doesn't matter because i trust that she wouldn't have done it on purpose.
We did a partner back massage. This was standing up and I was with Abby. It was like the one we didn lying down but we were standing up. I first did it to Abby and I had to be careful of her back which was bruised but I think I did a good job of it. I found that when I was giving the massage, i felt in control but I had to be aware of the other person. I was happy to have a massage in return because I love them and it was a really relaxing massage. I think Abby did a very good job of doing it and she was also very kind t my back and I trusted her a lot when iving me the massage.
The last exercise we did was a little narrative. Axel was the narrator and me, abby and bekki were joined with the sticks and had to perform what Axel said in his story. We had five minutes to practise and then we performed it infront of Mr Fearnehough.
He said that our work was really good for 5 minutes but obviously it wasn't going to be perfect. We communicated well together in this exercise and really listened to eachother especially Axel the narrator. We sensed what was going on around us and this really helped us to work together. s

RI work, marking work and Puppetry work

Tuesday 1st October:
Today we handed in our first draft of the RI. I was happy with mine but I knew there was a lot of work to be done on it. I was curious to get my marks back and also worried to know the amount of work that I will have to do on it to get better grade. I also feel motivated to do the work I need to get a better mark! We then started to go through our RI's to know the do's and dont's which is helpful because it was quick advice that would help us to get those little marks. Also something we could always go back on.

Thursday 3rd October:
Today we worked on marking other example RI's. This was good to help us understand the markscheme. The first one we marked was very bad and we all knew why, but it was good to discuss afterwards how and why it was so bad but how to make it better. We understand the easy marks that were missed
The second example, we thought it was AMAZING but we were very wrong. We thought that it was worth a 6 or 7 but it was actually just worth a 4-5. This shocked us because it made us realise what we have to do to reach those top marks. This was the most helpful example because it helped me to understand the points that were missed that I thought was fine and good. We had one more to mark for homework.

Friday 4th October:
Today we had a 2 hour session of practical work. We did many exercises involving working together, movement, puppets...
Our first exercise was movement like cars. One person was blindfolded and had to trust another person to guide them round with just simple directions of a push and touch on the left or right shoulder or a tap on the head for stop. I was with Abby and first I guided her round. She seemed to trust me very well and I thought it would be an easy task for me but harder for her. I felt like there was a lot of responsibility when pushing Abby round because she had to listen to me and I had to be very clear with my instructions otherwise it would go wrong. I was telling her an instruction once and she didn't hear me and ended up walking into Axel and I felt so bad because I felt like it was my fault.
I then was being guided round by Abby. At the beginning I felt really nervous about bumping into things but not being I didn't trust Abby, it was because I was worried I wouldn't hear her and I would get the instruction wrong.  Mr Fearnehough tried to put obstecles infront of us. My reaction to this was weird because it didn't make me nervous, I literally couldn't hear the noises around me, i just blocked them out and focused on abby's instructions.

Japanese Tea Ceremony.

On Tuesday 15th of October we had a visitor come in to show us about the Japanese Tea Ceremony whihc is known in Japan as 'The Way of Tea'. It is a ceremonial preperation and presentation of macha which is powedered green tea.

We had to look at the words 'Wabi-sabi' before the start of the lesson and we foudn out that 'Wabi' means  austere refinement and 'Sabi' means quiet simplicity. These words together connect to the idea of being zen.
The tea is made in a bowl and a Tea Wisk. The tea maker will start off wisking gently then go in a specfic circle form which has a significantmeaning in the Tea Ceremony.

There is a certain way to drink and hold the bowls during this ceremony. There is also a certain way to sit - on our knees and our hands placed on our thighs. At the beginning you have to bend down and say 'Osakini'. The person will then go on to placing the bowl on the side where ever a person is on when bending down you have to say 'Otemae'. Then you move the bowl back infront of you and grab the bowl wiht the right hand and palcing it on the palm of the left hand. You then have to turn the bowl twice and then you are able to drink the green tea. After drinking the tea you have to wipe the side of the bowl then clean you hands with a handkerchief found around the neck. You then have to place the bowl back on the ground and thanking the tea maker.

Traditionally on the tea bowls there are floral paterns that are very meaningful this is why the bowl is turned twice so that the pattern is facing the front of the bowl and can be seen whislt the tea is being drunk. As soon as one person has finished drinkign the tea the tea maker will do the exact same process wsking the tea then giving it to the next person down the line. The person will then go through the exact same process drinking the tea.

After the Tea ceremony i relaised the words we talked about at the beginning have a very strong connection with the way everythign is presented in the ceremony. Whilst the tea ceremony was in progress we stayed very quiet and respected the way in which the tea was prepared and we all respected each other when we drinking the tea.

Week 38: Wabi, Sabi, Tea-time

Tuesday: Today we had a visitor show us how to do a  Japanese tea ceremony. I found it to be very  graceful and interesting to watch (as I did not have the opportunity to do it myself), although  as a social setting and activity I think it would become kind of boring. The lady taught us about wabi and sabi. "Wabi means things that are fresh and simple. It denotes simplicity and quietude, and also incorporates rustic beauty. It includes both that which is made by nature, and that which is made by man. It can mean an accidental or happenstance element (or perhaps even a small flaw) which  gives elegance and uniqueness to the whole, such as the pattern made by a flowing glaze on a ceramic object."* "Sabi means things whose beauty stems from age. It refers to the patina of age, and the concept that changes due to use may make an object more beautiful and valuable. This also incorporates an appreciation of the cycles of life, as well as careful, artful mending of damage."* Together these words refer to a grace and ritualistic beauty, the ancient practices. The tea ceremony had very specific rules and each person had specific roles, like a theatre piece. As in theatre hierarchy is key as it determines how people speak and act to each other. It was vital to react to each "character" appropriately or else the ceremony would be destroyed. Each time it is done it is done the same way, although there are are some  very slight differences in different teahouses (e.g. number of turns on the bowl). This shows the rigidity of the performance if each "actor" doesn't do their part than the other actors will not know how to react, although slight deviations from script or blocking can be tolerated.  
*From http://mercury.lcs.mit.edu/~jnc/nontech/wabisabi.html
Thursday: sports day-no class
Friday: We are preparing for the break and for Argy, this means getting help on RI's and making sure blogs are caught up. Mr. Fearnehough has also assigned us the task of building a Bunraku puppet. He wants it to be able to move correctly. I think that this could be difficult, especially as our only materials are newspaper and masking tape, and anything we bring in. 

Double Lesson Friday 4th of October:

We continued on our work on puppetry, to do so we continued working on concentration an activity we did was 'Cars'. We were out in pairs and one person would be the car and one person would control in which direction the car would go in, the car would also be blindfolded. There were different parts of the body, tapping the head meant stop, tapping the left shoulder would mean turn left and the right vice versa. The aim of the exercise was to have trust in each other. Me and Axel were paired up and i didn't have a problem trusting him i was comfortable in Axel 'driving' me because i had nothing to worry i also felt like the directions Axel was giving me quite easy and i reacted quick to them up until Mr.Fearnehough started making noises i thougth this was unfair because it put me off and then i got less comfortable in myself and doubted myself where i was stepping. When we changed role i thought i would find it easier and i did i could feel that Axel trusted me just the same that i trusted him just until Mr.Fearnehough started making noises i felt sorry for Axel but he seemed to deal with it better then i did.

Another trust activity was we had to walk around the room with our eyes clothes and at the exact same time we had to coordinate when to stop and go. I found it difficult because i was unaware of where people were but i used my ears more to figure how far they would be or when they would stop and go.

Double Lesson Friday 11th of October:

At the beginning of the lesson we did the relaxation exercise which always seems to work so well and left the rest of the lesson in a very good dynamic where I thought we were all focused. Continuing on the relaxation mind we did an activity that required us to sense each other. We were paired up across the room and we had to walk towards each other with a blindfolds on and arms out. The aim was not to reach each other perfectly with our hands together but to 'sense' each other. I found this activity hard because i could not sense anything. The only thing i could sort of feel was how far Axel was from me. I did not understand the feeling something in this activity and it could just be down to luck.
After this quite concentrated exercise it got ruined by us going outside and playing with balloons. We started playing the classical balloon game - 'Dont let the balloon hit the floor'. We did this and treated it like a game not thinking about consequences. After we got a hand of that we moved on too throwing a balloon to each other semi full of water. No we all knew what would happen an unlucky person was going to get wet that person turned out to be Lydia. We talked about the consequences that we treat a situation differently when there are worse consequences such as getting wet.

After that activity we did Pilates led by Lydia. I had already done some Pilates so i knew vaguely the movements Lydia would use but i still find holding the inner core a horrible thing. I felt uncomfortable doing it and always forgot to do it during the exercises.

After the Pilates we massaged each other - Now it wasn't as good as the lying down massage but it was alright ahha. We were put in pairs and shown a quicker way to do the massage standing up. I didn't find it very relaxing maybe because i had high expectations because of the lying down one but i didn't enjoy it as much.

Week 37: Getting Down to Business to defeat the Puppet

Tuesday: No class-nuclear power plant trip
Thursday: 10 minute class
We had a very short class today because of pictures, but we went over turnitin. This is a site that looks  at how much you  have copied out of other sources. Mr. Fearnehough showed us how it worked and told me that have an acceptable percent of copied words, 19%, because we  should  be using correctly  cited  quotes. He also showed us how we could use the information  better, by mentioning where a quote  comes from to show its validity and quote "simple basic" information to give it authority and credibility.

Friday: This was our only "real" lesson this week and it was a double which was interesting. This lesson was first in the day after quiz night, so we were very hyper and unfocused at the beginning of the lesson, so we did the relaxation exercise, which got us much more focused and ready for the lesson. Then Mr. Fearnehough had us do another exercise looking at our ability to "sense" each other. We paired up and then stood opposite from our partner, then with eyes closed we attempted to walk across the room and place our hands on our partners. This was made especially  difficult because our paths crossed the othe pairs. I found it difficult to hold the "link" with my partner after moving, because I doubted my ability to accurately tell what she  was doing, in other words I didn't trust myself. I was really suprised by the fact that later when I tried it with Axel, we did it perfectly the first time. I had been  trying very hard, but I was easily distracted by the logical  side of my mind and tried to reason out what I should do, but Axel said that he knew when he  got to a certain point that he should stop and wait for me to come. I found myself doubting less and doing what seemed right that time, and it worked. This exercise  showed us how difficult it is to do something with out communication. Then we went outside and played with balloons. This was an exercise that looked at how we view and react to a situation  that has consequences and one that doesn't. We started by playing "Don't touch the Floor" with a normal balloon. Then we progessed to a balloon half-filled with water. We took passing this balloon around much more seriously because there were real, lasting consequences if it burst on someone. When I threw the balloon to Lydia and it burst, most of the class laughed, most likely  because of released nerves, and I just felt terrible for soaking Lydia. This shows how we are more committed to something if it has real, lasting consequences if failed. 

Then we did Lydia's pilates. I found them to be quite difficult because I had hurt my back the night before, but the concentration required to follow the movements, keep my inner core tensed, and control my breathing helped my to ignore it. The pilates poses were very simple, but required a small amount of flexibility and strength that I found difficult a the time, but I thought that is looked very graceful. The  concentration required on by the pilates helps with our Buraku work because it promotes concentration and focus, as well as being uncomfortable to accomplish a task. Then we massaged each other. We did it differently this time, the ensemble paired up, and one person did their partner's back. I found this to be much less awkward than the other way of massage we did before, as only one person  was focusing on me, I was in a standing position, and I was not surrounded by the entire class. Although  the experience was not negative, I didn't find it to be a very relaxing as a massage. The final thing that we did was a make an improved skit in a Bunraku style. This was done with three people with holding the sticks between them and the other person as the "chanter". The chanter made up a story and the three people acted it out as he narrated it. I thought we worked together well. The story that Axel made up had one main character that we all did together. This required good teamwork and seemed to work better because we all had on common goal.

Week 36: More RI

Tuesday: We handed in our first draft of our RI's on Monday, but on Tuesday we went over some tips and tricks to touch up our RI's. I was kind of confident in mine when I turned it in, and I was a little disappointed that we got a lecture on it right after finishing the first good draft. I did notice some simple things that I needed to fix like a table of contents and organizing sources, as well as more important points such as having an equal amount of words on practice, piece, and aspect. I was still kind of annoyed that Mr. Fearnehough gave us this lesson before he even looked at our papers, I felt that he was automactically assuming that we had failed, but the advice he gave us was useful and did address things that I had done wrong.
Thursday: Today we worked on grading RI's and knowing how to use the markscheme. This was useful because I saw what I though was an almost perfect paper get a 5, when I thought it deserved a 7. This shows me how hard I will have to work to get a good grade on this paper.

Friday: Today we actually did some practical work, although we have yet to work with actual puppets, we have been investigating what it will take to work as a team to control and manipulate a Bunraku puppet correctly. We did a few exercises, which gladly did not involve balancing the sticks. One was "Cars". One person was the car and was blindfolded, and the other person tapped them on the head, shoulders, or back to move them around the room. This was an exercise in trust, some members in the ensemble found it difficult to trust their driver as they moved around the room, but I actually found it more difficult to correctly follow the directions. I trusted the person leading me because I didn't have reason to doubt them  and I didn't see the risk as being that high if they did try to run me into things. I found it much more stressful to be the driver, because here I had to avoid obstacles (furniture, walls, other students...) and keep Lydia, my "car", away from Mr. Fearnehough, who kept hijacking her and pointing her toward a wall or somewhere dangerous. I found it more stressful to have the responsibility and the implicit trust of someone else, to trust another person. This may have been because I found it difficult to "be creative" and navigate Lydia as I worried I would mess up the exercise, whereas when Lydia directed me, I did not have any responsibility except to follow her directions. The other exercise we dd was one that looked how we "sense" each other. We walked around the room with our eyes closed and tried to coordinate our stopping's and starting's without talking or signalling. We also sat in an outward and counted up to twenty, with out interrupting or talking at the same time. We had a hard time sensing one another, with a lack of time and focus, but I did get some of it. We didn't need language to communicate.

Creating the ensemble feel and Bunraku!

Tuesday 24th September:
We began the lesson with Bekki finally getting chance to show us her presentation on the costumes and props in Bunraku. I think by everyone researching a different aspect and giving a presentation was good in many ways:

• We all took good notes on eachother presentations and the information.
• it gave us another practise for the TPPP's by speaking outloud in public, linking things together
• it also helped with researching skills

In Bekki's presentation, I was impressed with the amount of effort the puppeteers make in preparation for the puppets when dressing them, painting and repainting their faces. It makes me worried about Bunraku because we only have five weeks but what they actually do with the puppets interests me so I am excited.


Thursday 26th September:
Today was the deadline for our first RI draft hand in. A few of us needed more time.
I felt really bad because we knew that this was the date for ages but most of us missed it. I didn't want to hand mine in because I knew there were problems in it that I wanted to change over the weekend otherwise I thought there was no point handing it in with mistakes I knew were already there because we only get one redraft and it would be a waste. I should have gone and spoken to Mr Fearnehough before the lesson about it but I was stupid so next time I know.

After the big talk on RI and deadlines, we went into the other room and did more work with the sticks. We tried balancing the sticks in different body parts and looking at techniques. We had a whole discussion on us needing to be committed and focused on the tasks like true masters would be. After we had to do a REALLY painful (as I described it) exercise. We had to stand with our knees slighty bent and arms stretched out. At the beginning, I couldn't focus. I was looking to see what everyone else was doing and it seemed like everyone had their own ways of getting through this task. Abby had her eyes closed, so I tried it but I felt way worse doing it. Axel started at the stick and I tried it, it felt easier to do it and I could focus for a while but then Axel mentioned when the time for three minutes had started, that was when the pain got worse because and I felt the same. I had this sick feeling in my stomach more than anything because I felt really uncomfortable standing the way I was. It was something my body was not used to but this is something we have to keep in mind during Bunraku. Each lesson now I have come across an uncomfortable feeling that I have to power through it and continue because it is not about me, it is about what I am doing and in the Bunraku case, it is abot the puppets.

Friday 27th September:
Today is our double lesson so we had plenty of time to get into some practical work.
We were firstly shown a quote from the book "Zen In the Art of Archery" the quote was "if one really wished to be a master of an art, technical knowledge of it is not enough. One has to transcend technique so that the art becomes an 'artless art', growing out of the inconcious"

My reaction to this quote is that I thought we could relate to it because we have to excel ourselves during Bunraku and in theatre as a whole. I have to go beyond my normal motivation and push myself to carry on, not give up not matter how difficult or painful a task may be. It can link to commedia dell'arte because this is the skill and technique of theatre to make people laugh just like Bunraku takes 20 years to learn. You have to take time and effort to master and make these passions or tasks perfect.

We then did more tasks with sticks. We began just on our own, then with out eyes closed and then with two people. I was first with Axel and we had to keep the stick between our fingers and move around without dropping it. I was the leader at first and it felt quite easy and we had a lot of energy and focus between us. Then after we tried it without a leader but we had to keep eye contact. I found this very difficult to focus on two things at once and also as there was no leader, it felt like I was the leader just because I felt I had to move direction otherwise it would drop. I guess sometimes I am quite bossy and lead but it was natural but it felt right for both Axel and I.
I then got paired with Abby and we had to keep a stick together in a different place of the body. We tried the elbows, arms, noses but the best things we tried was between the legs. We realised we had to be synchronised when walking with the stick and we had to have 100% concentration. I felt pleased with our result because I know that Abby & I struggled the most with using the stick so to understand the technique and concentration was good.
We then got into a group and had to keep the stick between our fingers. Abby was at the front, Axel & Bekki in the middle and I was at the end. I think I may have had the easiest job but it was still difficult to keep up with the line sometimes and keep the stick in place. I really enjoyed this task because I felt that it was fun but we really created a fun bond between the group more. We were concentrated but we had to understand and stay focused because there were way more distractions outside the "safe room".
There was some sort of discipline that if we dropped the stick we would have to start again at the beginning, but we only had an hour so this would be a bit difficult.
Throughout all the stick games, I thought sometimes they were a bit of fun and a laugh but I am really starting to realise properly that they have showed me a lot of skills I need in theatre as a whole and Bunraku. When I used to drop the stick, I would laugh and carry on because I was embarrassed but also I didn't think it was much of a problem. Now when I drop the stick, I am frustrated because I want to succeed because I find it more important to myself.

The final exercises we did in the day, were a type of massage. It required four people around one body which was lay on the back. The massage was a firm pat all over the body and then a swipe and a rub of the hands to create heat. I didn't think this massage would have much of an affect but Bekki & Axel did the massage and said it had a VERY big effect. I usually am quite comfortable with people but I felt a bit more reserved this time to go but now other people have tried it, I feel fine :)
I did feel a bit conscious touching other people but I think we all get used to where is appropriate and what people don't want and we all respect that. But it requires a lot of trust :)

Last week in Drama we continued working on concentration and balance. We had wooden sticks and had to balance them on our fingers. After we did this a few times we went on to doing it on our chins and noses which we all found very hard. I ended up sitting down because I pulled my neck, everyone saw this as me giving up which hurt me a bit and put me in a negative mood. Because if my neck wouldn’t have had anything wrong with it that day I wouldn’t of been seen as a failure. We then had to do a proper Japanese exercise which involved us balancing a stick with our arms stretched and standing with our knees slightly bent. This was very difficult and I realised quickly the amount of concentration a person needs but also how someone to me has to be physically fit to do this. Because of the way the legs were positioned I found this the hardest we were doing this for 2 minutes then we were told we had to do it for another 2 minutes. I found that closing my eyes and breathing in and out helped me forget about the pain and discomfort and carry on with the exercise. This exercise showed me that persistence is key. And you have to go through the pain to be able to succeed. I also found that my breathing was important in this process and controlling all my body to not drop or move the sticks balanced on my arm.

Friday, Mr.Fearnehough read a quote out from the book “Zen in the Art of Archery” the key quote he read out to us was ‘If one really wishes to be a master of an art, technical knowledge of it is not enough. One has to transcend technique so that the art becomes an ‘artless’ art growing from the unconscious’. My first reaction to this was that a person has to keep on pursuing their own goals in order to succeed. A person has to overcome exhaustion and keep their own beliefs in what they can do. We realised that Bunraku and Commedia dell Arte connects together by the skills needed and the amount of technique needed to be successful. After this we went in the ‘safe room’ we had to do an exercise in pairs and we had to take turns controlling the stick in which direction it would go in and the other person would have to let the controlee do it.  I found it quite hard to lead because I had to have the pressure of the other person pushing so I was sure the stick wouldn’t fall. We then did it all together and walk all together around the school following each other carefully. Abby was placed in front and she had to follow Mr.Fearnehough’s hand. I think as an ensemble we had to be more communicative when we moved because we would get easily distracted by people laughing and starring at us. This exercise involved focus but because we are in a school setting people will find it weird if something is different by different I mean our ensemble walking around the school corridors holding sticks. I found I had to trust both Axel that was behind me and Abby who was leading the whole ensemble but I also had to trust Lydia to make sure she would follow us at the back.

 

Week 35: More Sticks and Massage, and the RI

Tuesday: Bekki gave her presentation on Bunraku Puppets, Costumes, and Props. I was particularly impressed with the simplicity of of the puppets. They were little more than wooden head on top of a wooden rod. The arms were strings, yet the puppets look almost life-like on stage. This is a credit to the puppeteers and the costumers. I had expected the puppets to be much more complex and include mechanical parts controlling facial features and other body movements. In this presentation I also learned that the puppets often interact with props onstage. I found this impressive and unexpected, at least partially because my largest experience with puppets is "Sesame Street". In this instance the puppets rarely interact with props, even though they interact with real actors, who interact normally with props. This creates a distinct difference between the humans and puppets, that I unconsciously generalized over all puppets. Following Bekki's presentation we watched a documentary about Bunraku. I liked how the different things we had discussed were illustrated. This made it easier to understand.

Thursday:This was the first due date of the RI. I had finished my very first draft, with very little editing, or embellishment. When I came to class Mr. Fearnehough asked for our papers. When he discovered the lack of effort put into this draft, the only one that he would be able to give us feedback on, he was understandably disappointed especially as this one of the primary determiners of our predicted grade in theater He gave us the weekend to work better on them, and then it was due. I have been finding it difficult to concentrate and get into writing papers lately, which is part of why my paper was such low quality. Then, we got back into our exercises with Bunraku. We practiced balancing the sticks again. I found this very difficult again, and part of me just did not care if I was able to do it, which is a way of believing I couldn't do it. We progressed to balancing the sticks on our chins and noses, though I had little success with it. This exercise ended with Bekki sitting down to give up, followed closely by me. My heart was not in this exercise, I was not committed to it, and it showed. This brought down the morale of the entire ensemble, and ensured my own failure. Then Mr. Fearnehough brought us back together and had us do an exercise that actual Japanese puppeteers had to do in their training. I involved balancing the stick on my outstretched wrists and standing with slightly bent knees. While this did not originally sound difficult, it becomes more and more uncomfortable the longer I stood there, my shoulders got tired, my arms got heavy, and my legs started to hurt from standing. But I have discovered in sports exercises that if I find something else to concentrate on time will pass quicker and I won't notice the uncomfortableness as much, but one problem with this strategy this time was that the exercise was not active. So I couldn't focus on the movement, I had to "entertain" myself, and I found it kind of difficult, especially because I had to make sure to not be to distracted and drop the stick. This exercise showed me that I have to do things that I don't like to get better, because of the failed RI draft I found myself applying this lesson to it. I have to push myself to do my paper even though it is hard and boring and seems pointless. Another thing that I learned from this exercise was that it is difficult to empty my mind, I generally dislike sitting in class just listening to the teacher, but this was like sitting in class listening to nothing. Mr. Fearnehough talked about a type of theater, in which the actors were pushed beyond the point of exhaustion and then their subconscious did the acting. 

Friday: Today Mr. Fearnehough introduced us to a book "Zen in the Art of Archery", book is about a dramatist that attempted to master Bunraku, by learning Japanese Archery. A key quote that was read to us is, "If one really wishes to be a master of an art, technical knowledge of it is not enough. One has to transcend technique so that the art becomes an 'artless art', growing out of the unconscious." This summed up several of the key qualities we would need to succeed, or progress in this theatre practice, perseverance, skill, commitment. Mr. Fearnehough compared it to watching David Beckham play soccer. He is a master at the sport, and has a skill in it that cannot be taught. He could teach his technique to others but they would not have his "style" and would not be the same as him by just learning his style. It is similar in this art. We need to be committed and learn technique, but it does take a gift to excel at it. Then, we continued with the Bunraku exercises, but this time it was more teamwork. We teamed up "balancing" the stick between two people. At first one person led. I found it easier to let Bekki lead me. Partially because I had no idea what I wanted to lead her to do, no goal, and also because I knew that Bekki would let me take over if I wanted to, although I was happy to let her lead. Then we had to swap leaders, this meant I had to lead, which I did not like. I find my leadership style to be more background and diplomatic. I let people decide what part of something they are going to do, and then after I make sure everyone is working toward the same goal I let them take care of it, only interfering when I think that they are struggling. In this exercise, I was not able to lead in this style, because even though I thought that Bekki had everything under control, I was placed in a position of direct, totalitarian leadership, which is generally my last resort when placed in a leadership role. I usually allow the team to make the decisions, only taking direct charge at the end bring everything together. It was impossible to lead in this way for this exercise. I found myself running out of things to do and feeling as though I was being very repetitive. The next thing we did was decide there was no leader, and we did it with our eyes closed. This part of the exercise seemed very rhythmic or like dancing to me. With our eyes closed, we weren't able to take visual or physical cues, we had to rely on the movement of the stick. Then we swapped partners. This was more difficult than I expected it to be. I had gotten used to the way that Bekki and I did it and found it kind of hard to get used to the way Lydia did it. This showed me how teams need to have experience with one another to succeed. We experimented holding the stick with different parts of our bodies; this made the experiment even more difficult. Then we moved up to making a circle, with the sticks held between each person. When any person moved it affected everyone else. Then we went on a trip around school, this involved me being put in fronts followed by the rest of the ensemble. I found it hard to regulate my speed to accommodate everyone behind me. Then Mr. Fearnehough led us. I had to keep my face next to his hand, and everyone behind me had to copy my movements. I actually enjoyed this exercise. I felt as though everyone was focused as a team. This exercise seems like the Silver String (from TaPS) level 2. It involved focus, although as a group it meant each person was following someone else, with one leader. As a group, it was not diplomatic, similar to Bunraku. The final thing we did that day was massage. This was more of a group trust exercise than a Bunraku exercise. It takes a lot of trust of the people doing it, as they touch the massaged person all over. Even though I did not go, I felt very awkward touching the others in such a 'personal' way. I have always been kind of weird about touching others, or letting them touch me, especially in such a close, continuous way. I am kind of nervous about going, and being the center of attention for such a long time.