Week 30: Back from the Battlefields Trip and Back to Work

Monday: We discussed the Battlefields trip that most of the class had gone on last week. Sharing and reflecting on the experiences was helpful, as the trip had gone pretty quick and there had not been a huge amount of time for reflection. The trip has helped me to form my idea for my PPP. 

Wednesday and Thursday: We worked on our Mother Courage design projects. My idea is coming together and I am starting to get excited about it. 

Monday 27th of May 2013:

This lesson was a focus on more tips for the TPPP's and all of our blogs - the most important things that stood out for me to remember whilst doing TPPP's is 
- to look at the mark scheme, i know i should already be doing that but i get so carried away and want to start the projects i am given that i just completely forget. Another helpful tip that was given 
- State something, introduce theory, then reflect if that theory worked or not. 
- talk about our own experience and connect it to as many things as possible which will show understanding of theater. 
Tips that were given to our blogs were:
- BE SPECIFIC - being specific will show that i have understood the lesson and will help Mr. Fearnehough see how i am doing in the course. Being more specific will also help me in my TPPP, when i have to talk about my experience and show evidence and be able to connect it. 

Wednesday 29th of May 2013: 

I was really excited but nervous to what the workshop with Helen Leblique was going to be like, we had already been told that it was going to be mostly acting based and discussing Mother Courage and Brecht. 

At the start of the workshop we just did some easy stretching to wake us up and get us ready. One of the warm ups was the 'Funky Chicken' which is an exercise that i am going to remember. We started off with some activities like the 'Stop Game' - for this Helen told us to walk around the space and she would say, stop, go, clap, touch the floor, be in love and be angry, we had to do this whilst walking around and once we got the hang of it she changed all the directions and everything was the opposite to what she said e.g. Touch the floor would be clap. When everything was the opposite it was very difficult because since we've been little we've always known that stop is stop and go means go but changing it round messes with our head, so we need to concentrate in order to get it right.  

The second exercise was the 'Walking Game' - we each had to walk in front of the whole ensemble and they would pick out what we were doing and we would have to exaggerate it. I found this exercise a bit awkard, i felt very attacked by walking in the middle of everyone and everyone starring at me and i also felt that i put on a different walk because everyone was looking at me. After we had all done our walk we were put in to pairs and were told to walk behind each other doing each others walk. After this we then had to do a neutral walk - i found this hard because i don't think there is anyone that would be able to do a neutral walk because there will always be apart of the body doing something not neutral. 

The third activity we did was to do a 5 line piece by using our exaggerated walks. I was paired with Mary which i thought was good because our walks were very different. Mary's was very slow and delicate and mine was quite energetic and quick - we came up with the idea of a granddaughter (me) and a grandmother (Mary). We then had to find a social message in our tiny piece and we wanted to represent families falling out and the effect it does. We then had to Narrate everything that was happening in the piece, i found this a bit tricky and    i got lost to what i was suppose to say every time i would narrate something, although i felt like that  i think Mary and me did pretty good. 

After these activities we sat down and we all discussed how we felt about Mother Courage and our ideas. Helen then told us about what questions she would ask herself that she would say to a director on why they should put one of her shows on - the one that stuck with me was 'What can i bring to the play' i thought that was very important and can be used for our future work and in general perhaps. And i think it could help for when i am older and applying for a job. 

Thursday 30th of May 2013:

We were told to write down 3 things on the board which we had remembered from Wednesday's Workshop

I wrote - 

- What can i bring to the play?  

- Why the play should be done? 

-Narrating  

I picked these because i realized how hard narrating is and how much concentration you need and i choose the two questions because they stuck with me to what Helen said and i thought they were quite important. 

Workshop with Helen Leblique!!

Monday 27th May-
Today Mr Fearnehough gave us more advice on how to d better at TPPP's & Our Blogs.

For our TPPP's:

• ask for most advice and help now because you can't for the real thing
• use all the notes he gave us
• and use the markscheme

For our Blogs:

• write more about what we learnt, how it is useful and reflection
• don't write about what we did and how i found it, write more!
• use quotes, pictures, links to help us in the future with our tppp's.

Even though our blogs have improved, all of this help will help us for when we come to producing our TPPP's.

Wednesday 29th May-

 Today, we had a workshop by director, Helen Leblique.
She worked with us for three hours and i thought it helped me so much in confidence and with Brecht.
At the beginning I felt quite nervous because everyone was very quiet but after the first exerise, I got into it fast and became more confident.

The first exercise was called the funky chicken. We had to move a part of our body on the count of 6 and countdown till we got to one and we looked like a funky chicken. It sort of broke the ice because we all look weird so that was a good exercise to begin with.
We then did a game called the stop game.
We had to walk around on our own in neutral, when an instruction was shouted out we had to do that instruction. The game got harder because when Helen shouted out an intruction, we had to do the opposite instruction she said instead. It required a lot of focus.
It connected to acting because that requires a lot of focus.
The third excercise we did was " Analysis of how we move".
We had to take it in turns to basically was the catwalk in our neutral walk. The ensemble shouted from the sides, something we did in our walk which we then had to exaggerate. After everything was shouted out, you had a completely different and very exaggerated walk which was funny to watch. We could still see traces of our personality in the walk though. The actual walking I felt very uncomfortble physically and mentally. It was quite painful to walk like that for 5 minutes, let alone an hour and a half play!!
Mentally, I just felt like I looked stupid and it made me feel really uncomfortble doing it infront of everyone but I feel like if you feel stupid or uncomfortble doing it, your are probably doing it right because you arn't yourself.
I found this exercise very useful when it comes to performing because it helps to remind ourselves that you shouldn't be yourself physically or mentally.

We did a Bretch exercise where we went into pairs and created a 5 line sceanario using our exaggerated walks and personalities where we had to great one another. I was with Axel and I thought we did pretty well at this bcause we stayed in our very excited, jumpy, loud characters. After we had to put naration before every action we did "she was walking down the street and met an old friend she hadn't seen in years and said..." I found this VERY difficult. It required a lot of focus like the exercise we did before and it was really hard to go from neutral to our jumpy characters. I struggled to get my wording right on the narration which let my focus go a bit but for a first try I thought it was okay. It was good because it helped me understand Brechts style of acting better.
After we discussed Mother Courage and our thoughts towards the play, when we discussed it more and more, I realised more about what I thought about the characters and the message the play was trying to portray. I got a lot of set ideas from just discussing it which will come in handy for our set design project.

Thursday 30th May-
Today we wrote down the three things we learnt from yesterdays workshop, our most proud moment.
It was good to see everyone else three things too because I felt the same as them just didn't realise it.
My three things were:

• clearer understanding of how to use the A- effect in the performance concept of mother courage
• Exaggerating is important in Brecht aswell as Commedia so we can use that knowledge
• Not being myself at all when acting a character. 

I thought that one of Abby's points was good " Give the audience a question to answer." It is very brechtian and will be useful when creating set design for mother courage. 

Week 29: Guest Director Workshop

Monday: Mr. Fearnehough gave us more tips on the TPPP and our blogs. 

TPPP Tips

• Use lists to show the things that I have done in the course
• Work from the markscheme-analyze, synthesis, and reflection. 
• Have a pattern e.g. make a point, connect it to theory, connect it to other parts of the course
• Make room to talk about several important points in depth, but leave out some less important things things 
• Talk about the process that were used- action plans Link the freeze frames that we  used in Commedia to the stage picture that Brecht used

Blog TIp:Be more specific. Do not use general statements like "it was successful" or " it was bad" explain why this is true and how it happened. 
We also picked quotes from the excerpt from Brecht's work that described his theatre best. This is mine.

"We need a type of theatre which not only releases the feelings, insights and impulses  possible within the particular historical field of human  relations in which the action takes place, but employs and encourages those thoughts and feelings which help transform the field itself. "

This quote tells about Brecht's aims and purposes with his theatre. It displays his true intentions.

Wednesday: Today was the workshop with Helen Leblique, the director from London.

We did three exercises. The Stop Game. We were instructed to walk around the space. Then we were given different directions, "stop" "go"  "touch the floor" "clap" "act like you are in love" "act like you are angry", to do while moving around. Then, the meaning of the directions were changed. This made the activity more difficult, because what the words meant to us was not what they meant during the activity. Ms. Leblique compared this to acting. When we did what the directions meant that was like naturalistic acting- it was realistic. When did something different than what the words  meant it was like Brechtian acting, because it was odd and unfamiliar rather than realistic. The second exercise that we did was an analysis of how we moved. Each person walked in front of the ensemble and the group would tell the person each thing they did that made their walk look different. Then they would exaggerate this feature. This was the most uncomfortable part of the workshop. I hated walking in front of everyone, and having them stare at me, but what was worse was the anticipation of how much I was going to hate it. This shows how irrational my fear of being in front of people to be even more irrational. After this we got into pairs and each person would analyze their partner's walk and do their exaggerated walk. This part was really weird as well, and difficult to copy the other person. Then we practiced removing our movements from our walk to create a "blank walk" that could be adapted to a new character. We practiced moving in and out of our walk and the blank walk in degrees. This was difficult to be partially me or partially blank, it was also hard to tell if I had erased each of my movements or not, since I could not observe myself. The final activity that we did was make a skit using our exaggerated walk. This scene was of two people who had not seen each other in a long time. Halley and I worked together. Her walk was very quick and mine was slow and awkward with a limp. We made a scene of an old father meeting his son in the street. Then we were told to make sure to include a social message and to narrate each action or line as we acted it out. The narration was difficult as we had to move in and out of character constantly. I found it difficult to change voice, but Halley and I did very well in our skit because we were both very deep into our parts and we made up a good story. This skit was a definite success, and the strangest part was that I was barely nervous when we performed it for the group. After that we sat in the drama room discussing "Mother Courage", we read through a scene and discussed different ways of annotating it and of directing it. Ms. LeBlique told us her directing techniques and helped us brainstorm. 

Thursday: We wrote down the three most important things that we learned from the workshop, and discussed what we liked and disliked in the workshop. 

Master Class of Helen Leblique

May 27, 2013 (Monday) We choose from the brecht work which is "A short Organum for the Theatre", and i choose this quote which i think this is the most important to his theory. "'Theatre' consists in this: in making live presentations of reported or invented happenings between human beings and doing so with a view to entertainment. At any rate that is what we shall mean when we speak of theatre, whether old or new." In this quote brecht wants to say that making theatre is like in live presentations or it could be like invented or whats happening in theatre even thought it is old ways of using theatre or in a modern ways.

May 29, 2013 (Wednesday) We got 3 hours of theatre to do a workshop about Brecht and some set design of Mother Courage which is lead by Director Helen Leblique. At first i was not nervous on what we will do so far its like an ordinary day for me but when we got to start i got a little nervous then  especially when we got our first thing that we will do, and i call it as "GO and STOP GAME" where i do like it cause it has a concentration and i am always getting to what Ms. Helen will say, i found this game as an exciting and i learned some thing from it is about on giving your attention and focus to what the leader will say and do you will do it.

On the 2 thing that we do is to give us an exaggerated moves, its like walking at the center back and forth and some people will give the instruction on how they would like you to be, just like "bend your knees, walk faster, give a big smile...etc...." so i felt in this exercise that it is really weird and its really funny on how you gave the others on how they walk. By giving the other way on walking with exaggerate walk, and after this e do another exercises which is about having a partner that the thing the we exaggerate will do it by your partner and i will do what my partner did, and the last thing that we do is having partners also and we need to make a 1 scene that has relate to the two character, me and bekki do a scene, my role is a grandmother of bekki which is she is my granddaughter that i never seen her because of my daughter that she keep away from me for many years, and we act it at first we don't know what we will do so far because we don't have any idea and also wed on't know what we need to say, but then as we go on we think some ideas that we need to use for me it is not really difficult when you got the idea in my head, so next thing we do is to narrate what we will do and act it, i felt that it is really difficult that you will narrate it and do it also as a character where when we narrate it we should be like us nothing to show to the audience but when we go back to our haracter we need to be exaggerate our moves and act, in this exercises i found it is really difficult to handle two roles in play, but then i know and i experience it that it is not that easy to it as your own. 
On the last our of our master class we talked about Mother Courage and give some ideas that what we learned from it why is it look like and asking us if we liked it or not, well for me i got boring and i don't even know some of the words, i really like to watch it than to read it. Ms. Helen. The most important that i learned from her is about all of this questions:

• Do i need the politic become clear? Why?
• What is the most important thing?
• How do i make it exciting in front of the stage?
• How you build and design the show?

When i heard this question that i remember is that it is really important to know especially when we need to do our PPP about Set design. 

In this Master Class i really learned more things about brecht and i'm really want this to happen again in my life! :D

May 30, 2013 (Friday) This day is about yesterday on what we learned from Ms. Helen, we should give us 3 important things, and i wrote this 3 things:

1. How you build and design the audience
2. How do i make it exciting in front of the audience?
3. Creating not for yourself but for your audience

I think this is important because it tells about being an actor on how you will present it and being a set designer, and thinking the all this thing that we do is not for us it is for the audience who can appreciate the things and how they will enjoy watching the presentation.

Helen Lebliques's Masterclass!

            At the beginning of this week we discussed Brecht in turns of his theories. We undertook dramaturgical research by reading and annotating several sources. From Brecht’s own, “A Short Organum for the Theatre” I’ve selected the following quote which I believe accurately expresses the main idea of his theory: “We need a type of theatre which not only releases the feelings, insights and impulses possible within the particular historical field of human relations in which the action takes place, but employs and encourages those thoughts and feelings which help transform the field itself.” In this quote Brecht is expressing his idea that theatre should not be narrative in the way that is should not create a passive audience. Rather Brecht wants the theatre to encourage people to take action to change the present situation presented in the play.

            On Wednesday we were lucky enough to have a workshop with director Helen Leblique! We were told that the workshop would be on Brechtian acting, that way we could incorporate some of her directorial insight into our set designs for “Mother Courage”.  I was very nervous when she came in for a couple of reasons: I wanted to impress her, I wanted to be open about learning something new, and I was pretty sure there would be an element of improvisation. (I’m starting to think that improvisation is the only way to devise! At least that I’ve been exposed to yet…) All of the nerves aside Helen came in and was very friendly and open! (Also so told us that she herself wasn’t much of an actor, a prospect that really opened my eyes to her genuine role as a director.

            The workshop started with a warm-up game, almost like Simon’s Says, except in this case we were meant to do the opposite of the action. Ex: When we hear stop it really mean go! I found this “game” pretty fun, even though it required concentration I used to picking up choreography quickly from dance so I didn’t find it too difficult to manage. I really stepped out of my comfort zone when I volunteered to go first (oh yeah!) and basically invited the entire room to watch me walk back and forth across the space…Weird I know! However the point of this exercise was for the rest of the ensemble to say the little “quirks” that the person walking was doing; we would then exaggerate those aspects of our walk, which at that point had become a complete characterization! Eventually we learned how to neutralize our walks but toning town the exaggerations and removing the essence of our personal movement. Once I got to this neutral stage it really helped me in the process of actor because later in the workshop I was able to move from neutral to character in an improv scene.

            Helen gave some very specific advice regarding the process of directing and or more specifically getting started with a piece. You must answer the question:

1. Why should this play be performed now? Why is it relevant?
2. Where and how will it be staged?
3. Why should you direct it? What is your personal take?

Later when we were discussing “Mother Courage”, she explained the importance retaining your personal first impressions of a piece. I found the play boring and cast Mother Courage as a villain. If I was direction Mother Courage I could use those emotional responses to help aide the process, either by highlighting Courage’s villainous nature or adapting it. The last key idea that stuck with me was the informality of theatre. I’d always known “the business” was hard to get into but the more I hear the more it seems like who you know. For example Helen said that most of her “job interviews” are informal “coffee meetings”...just another aspect of the arts that makes it for the perfect for passionate poverty-stricken artists.