Exploring movement inspired by 4:48 WK 8

Thursday 17th December 2015




This week in our pairs we began to practically explore the movement that we discussed and brainstormed as a class. 

Me and Iyla began to explore movement to show the characters various suicidal thoughts and battle with schizophrenia. I decided to research more into what schizophrenia was so that we had a better understanding of the characters mental state which we could combine into our movement. I found out that schizophrenia is...


" A mental disorder that generally appears in late adolescence or early adulthood - however, it can emerge at any time in life. It is one of many brain diseases that may include delusions, loss of personality (flat affect), confusion, agitation, social withdrawal, psychosis, and bizarre behaviour. "


From this research we discussed an interesting storyline to demonstrate would be the battle between the characters good and bad side. Iyla would be the "good" side, still struggling with anxiety being uneasy. We would demonstrate this with agitated movement, smaller dynamics showing the anxiety and fear. For the "bad" side we would have larger ,sharper dynamics to appear more face threatening.

We decided to explore movement to represent the suicidal thoughts of the character represented within the text.

In particular the words "wait for the train to hit me on the tracks". During practical exploration we decided to use our previous lessons mind map of table stimuli movement of "slides" to represent the train tracks. We wanted more divergent slides so as shown in the video I pull Iyla to the edge of the table and in sections she pulls her body back over the table to represent the train carriages moving over the tracks before collision which happens at the end as she falls to the ground on impact.

Afterwards we began to see what movement previously generated in the table stimuli lesson could be incorporated with the 4:48 script. We created a sequence of movement roughly for experimentation (see below)

 

In the second lesson of the week we decided to go over the work and try and organise the structure more, we practically explored the structure and commented throughout particularly on areas where the movement was unclear, at the end we self assessed our work vocally using the unfocussed post show discussion technique to analyse our work overall talking on aspects that were good as well as areas to improve.

Responding to Stimuli , 4:48 Psychosis WK 7

Thursday 3rd December



This week we read an extract on Sarah Kane's 4:48 Psychosis, of which would be the stimulus/ theme of our final piece. Of which our final performance will be inspired by 4:48 in the style of Frantic Assembly.

We then in our pairs, began to annotate the script, picking out key events and lines of dialogue that can inspire movement and a story line for our duets, exploring various performance potentials that could weave together to create our final performance piece.
As a class we collectively brainstormed many idea's relating to various performance possibilities to explore practically the next lesson. This was effective as we were able to exchange ideas in a group and receive a variety of original and unique interpretations of various movement to develop and create, allowing us to adopt a more frantic style with our divergent ideas opposed to more basic convergent ideas.

Table Stimuli WK 6

Thursday 3rd December

After completing the first section (chair duets), we got into pairs, and had to create a motif, with a table being our stimuli.

As a whole group we mind mapped various performance possibilities, using our second stimulus.
Various ideas were rolls, percussion, platform for lifts and so on.

Below are videos of us testing out various slides and rolls, as we chose these ideas off the brainstorm to develop. Initially we started with basic versions, then to achieve a distinction we realised we needed more divergent ideas, unique and complex slides and rolls to enhance our performance range. We explored transitional rolls and slides that we could incorporate into our movement to help it flow well together.

After discussion we found the slide 4 would be effective to incorporate into our table motif as a transition. As you can see I pull Iyla along the table, I could transition into another space while Iyla reaches the other end of the table by pulling herself along. The aesthetics of the slide, looks like train tracks and represents the carriages jolting and moving along. This links to our 4:48 stimulus as the character has suicidal thoughts one involving a train collision.
From the rolls, we found the backwards roll to be effective especially on the table as its more risky and engaging, a performance possibility could be for me to backwards roll along the table and slide off into a chair of which we could go into our chair duets or motif.