Professional Placement – Two Weeks

14^th March

Module Facilitator – Abdul Shayek

This week, Abdul continued with us in regards to creating one’s own business.

After an opening game of Zip, Zap, Bong, similar to that of last week, we moved onto working collectively in groups with business ideas that are similar to each other, such as directing or collaborative projects similar to Abdul’s work or individual projects. Myself, I was interested in working both behind and in front of the camera and in light of this I worked with Angie and Ben who are also interested in using camera equipment during their professional careers.  We discussed some of the structures that Angie in particular had relating to her chosen career field this involved a business in which she own camera and film equipment and rented them out to professional for their work. With this idea, she could choose what clients and business she would work with, organise her own prices and constructed herself as a brand of professionalism to hopefully bring the certain clientele that would increase the success of her business. Personally I was fascinated with her idea and from this we also discussed the need for networking and creating a strong presents online, which collectively affect one another.

After this we looked at funding and obtaining money to fund our organisations, Abdul informed us towards Arts Council England which is the primary source of funding regarding artistic companies and project piece. Abdul also referred to his own partnerships, such as those who he had worked with and continue to work with, one such example was the England/Wales connection he had constructed through the use of Fio and Yoca and the work in Cardiff with the Wales arts council in order to fund some of the projects that the companies had constructed.

Regarding construction itself, Abdul informed us how his own company had a board of trustees which were taken from both an artistic and non-artistic background. This variety provides a strong wealth of knowledge and business comprehension thereby allowing the company to had many specialist looking at all sections of the company.

Finally, we finished by listening to a few ideas of companies from our peers, indeed I was amazed at the concrete plans many individuals had made and are continuing to make throughout the knowledge gained within our course. In regards to myself, and in particular Professional Placement, I have been interested in working with theatre as a means of connecting and engaging with a younger collective such as children. Indeed my training with Speech Bubbles has allowed me to achieve many transferrable skills when working with your children and apply them towards a workshop-based structure, also my previous knowledge of youth workshops has been a wealth of knowledge for my placement training as it has giving me activities and exercises that are easy to grasp with children and allow their focus to not become challenged. From this I am thinking about creating a company that provides a drama-based workshop to younger individual while also underlying topics and structure in-keeping with a school syllabus for those who may require addition support.

 

 

21^st March 2016

Module facilitators – Abdul Shayek and Martin Heaney

This week was, unfortunately, our last session with Abdul Shayek who has proved to be so effective in revealing to us, as UEL students, the different ways of constructing our own businesses. For this session Abdul provided us with a number of sites regarding performance-based companies that, similarly to his own company, work with a variety of groups. These included:

• NTW – The National Theatre Wales – which as I discussed before, has no permanent facility of operation and therefore frees itself up to a range of different venues
• The Space – which provides digitally produced art in a array of forms and structures
• Hit Record – which is a community-based art company
• Nesta – charity that helps people and organisations bring their brands and forms to life, such as arts

After these insightful artistic companies we turned attention towards different foundations which provide funding or companies that may provide insightful for us as artist:

• Arts Council England – which provide funding and capital to artistic projects based within England
• Paul Hamlyn foundation – which looks at education and learning through the use of arts, personally I delved further into this company in regards to my own projects as this looks at the use of drama as a tool for learning. This company works with a completely diverse group of individuals who provided creative and simulating activities centred around learning through drama.
• The TCN – Triforce creative network – Providing doors to the acting industry to people from all walks of life, as well as providing a trusted and viable avenue for the industry to discover diverse talent.

I found these websites fantastic as it allowed me to broaden my understanding of different companies that would support projects and provide them a platform to perform.

After Abdul finished we were given an opportunity to reflect upon our portfolio and look at key areas to address and work upon. Indeed we opened with who is the reader of my portfolio?

During my portfolio writing I have constantly through, not only of my module lecturers who will have to review and assess the quality of my portfolio but also individuals who are interested in myself regarding job opportunities or assessing my work ethos, therefore in relation to this I have always recorded my information, finding and evaluations in a clear, formal structure. Furthermore, rather than having all my information posted just before assessment I have spread out my work collectively over the year, recording my finding and personal opinions and posting them upon this blog relatively soon after the primary action took place. I believe that having a structure and organised portfolio shows how organised the individual is and therefore the reliability of their work.

Next, we observed demonstrating comprehensive knowledge through our blogs and in regards to this, in particular my placement with Speech Bubbles I have provided my knowledge that I believe I have acquired and gained within the sessions from the original source of Vivian Gussin Paley’s text, to its implementation within the session and the reactions from the session themselves, furthermore my text within the Professional Placement sessions has provided my with the knowledge of transferrable skills and how to present myself within the working environment, which in turn has influence my portfolio structure. During these times I have references the text used in a correct manner and has allowed me effectively to, if needs be, return to the text and re-acquaint myself with the information for further analysis.

During this session, Martin also informed us to present our own opinions and statements within the portfolio in order to relay our personal reactions towards activities and situations we have encountered during our studies, from this I noted that during reflective events I make a point to voice my own opinions and how I believe the situation has allowed me to grow further as an individual. An example of such would be my Speech Bubbles’ work and how I note with my evaluations the effectiveness/ ineffectiveness of certain activities and how I judge the responses from the children, from this I can assess if the activities could be rectify or changed to become more effective in regards to focus and the learning outcomes within the sessions. Martin noted that this level of honesty is something that should be apparent within the blog, and I believe that I have portrayed this clearly within my posts

 

In conclusion I believe that my portfolio posts have continued to underline myself as an individual and what I have gained during this course, and I will continue to show this.

Professional Placement

7^th March

Module Practitioner – Abdul Shayek

This week we worked with UEL alumni, Abdul Shayek, who had created his own theatrical businesses, Yoca and Fio. In order to begin constructing one’s own theatrical business they are many elements that need to be addressed, Abdul reflected upon:

• Whether the business is commercially funded (private funded) or governmentally funded
• The importance of branding – such as an online media presence
• Networking – understanding and knowing different layers of the arts

Firstly, Abdul reflected upon his own work, beginning with Yoca in 2005, Yoca was a project based business revolving around creating theatre for young, youth and taking the stories/narratives from others and providing a platform for them to perform and present their projects. Then he reflected upon expanding further into the next business, Fio and how is continued onwards from where Yoca left off. Abdul expressed how the experienced he had gained from the first business, the mistakes and difficult situations were all learning platforms in order to expand his knowledge on running a business effectively.

Next we moved onto integrating some activities used within Yoca and Fio workshops such as games, Abdul used a familiar game, Zip, Zap, Bong which brings about a sense focus and interest towards the activity from the children. I personally though that this activity was perfect for bringing about concentration and energy to the proceedings, Abdul also reinforced the need to understand and have a strong grasp of the game parameters before explaining the game to a group because if the facilitator doesn’t know how to play the game then they should not play it.

Next we were split in group and were asked to look, over our break, information regarding other theatrical companies which had done work similar to Fio. The particular questions that we needed to look at consisted of, who does the company serve, their mission statement, structure, history, brand and unique selling point. Our particular company was the National Theatre Wales and during the break I found some fantastic information about them:

National Theatre Wales

• The NTW was founded in May 2009 and works all over the country
• Statement – Bringing together storytelling poets, visual visionaries and inventors of ideas
• Production of work making strong relationships with theatre makers, creative talents, participants and audience in and beyond wales
• Providing opportunities for any form of artistic to perform
• NTW founding Artistic director – John McGrath
• Uniqueness – Serves an online community as it has no permanent building, it provides theatre to a strong, ever-following community which provides them with venues, dates and information from the online activity and site-locations.
• Site-locations – provided opportunities for an array of performance areas such as trains, beaches, nightclubs, tents and schools to name a few.
• Online community – nearly 6,000 members

 

We concluded the session, by looking at the questions one should ask when constructing their own company, particularly what make this company different from others and how to show that through the branding.

Final Practical Project – Group Evaluation

10^th March

Post-performance, this week we were given constructive criticism regarding our individual pieces from the module lectures Clare Qualmann, Liselle Terret and our individual reviewers. For this I had reviews for Andrei and Ben which I presented for them (which are present within my blog) and for me this gave me a fantastic opportunity to gain information regarding my project and expand further upon it.

Regarding my performance both Clare and Liselle gave me their own opinions of the performance:

• They enjoyed the personal attention given within the performance, however to improve upon it to further it may be more effective to reduce the amount of audience to individual one-on-one piece.
• I constructed a soothing space for the participants however having multiple performers may have introduced another level to the proceedings particular with the head massagers and making the sound more immersive. That being said, I believe in response to this my first initial performance should be about myself and the participants only however as my project continue to progress and develop I’d like to included more elements of other individuals involved and even reduced the amount of participant members
• They enjoyed the sounds, yet they wanted the effects from different directions and textures of sound simultaneously therefore to response to this I intend to have different speakers playing different textures of sound in a more confined environment and even introduce other people to make sounds.
• Connie and Adam’s atmosphere created beforehand with the ‘spa’ treatment was enjoyable however to bring them further into the core performance space will be something I tend to develop upon for my next project
• The environment felt safe and comfortable for the participants, that element of safety and comfortable setting is something that should be continued for further project development
• The effects were enjoyable to listen to and feel and the music was very effective for the ‘mood’ of the performance
• Build the story and intension of the story through actions, allowing the participants to gain an insight into insomnia condition perhaps creating some uncomfortable moments rage than flicking the pages of a book or typing on a keyboard
• The subject talked about within the performance, sleep insomnia is still considered a taboo subject and this uncomfortable could be felt within the audience, using sounds and effects more so.
• The hand massager could be present and happening throughout the performance to full immerse the participants

Regarding immersive theatre performances for research that could develop my project further Clare and Liselle referred me to some examples such as

1. Adrian Howell’s immersive theatre pieces
2. Immersive theatre companies – Punchdrunk/ Bum Bun Train/ Coney /  Lundahl and Seitz / Ontroerend Goed and Look Left Look Right.
3. Visiting the Live Art Development Agency in Hackney – regarding immersive theatre videos

 

Evaluation of Speech Bubbles -Week Twelve

9^th March

This week, unfortunately would be our last week for a number of weeks, due to Easter break and some clashes in the school’s timetable, that being said I was particularly excited for this session as we had finished taken individual stories from each child and now we were going to try taking stories from the whole session group; also with this session we were using some new pre-story activities that myself and Esha believe to be very entertaining and engaging with the children.

To begin with Group One, we opening with our traditional opening activities such as Hello Song, Speech Bubbles chant and Name in the Bucket game and from this I gauged that the children in this group were, similar to the previous week, very whiling to engage, listen and contribute towards the session, for example when the Name in the Bucket game began there was very little resistance when I chose some children and the other children didn’t get picked because they began to understand that whoever was not picked to get the bucket will put the bucket away, this implied that the children were understanding the notion of taking turns and allowing others to go first before them. The game itself was very energised and excited with a variety of throwing name methods.

Afterwards we moved into the pre-story activity and this week we had a new activity for the children to engage with, Blobby Bench. Combining the children interest with emotions (which was apparent from the previous week’s session) Blobby Bench involved three chairs making a bench, having two children up and the rest watching like an audience and scenarios coming up that would invoke a emotional action, however instead of using words the children on the bench could only say the word “Blobby” that way their emotions was the only thing prominent with their acting. The children really engaged with the scenarios and with myself prompting the activities, the children really brought out fantastic emotions and amazing physical displays to show these emotions. For example some situations were:

• Watching a scary movie (emotion card –scared) this had two children up and I pretended to be scary monsters in the movie to make them scared and pretend scream “Blobby” much to the delight of the ‘audience’.
• Doing really hard maths (emotion card– confused) this had two children pretending to do some really hard sums and so their facial responses was really confused and annoyed, then to bring out more emotion I pretended to be the teacher taking away their papers and giving them even harder sums, to more annoyance and laugher from the ‘audience’.
• Surprise birthday party (emotion card – surprise) this had two children sitting down and I didn’t tell them what the situation was, then all the audience said together “HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!” which brought genuine surprise and happiness emotions and from that they continued the scene by eating some very “blobby” tasting cake.

I felt that both the actors really enjoyed this activity and allowed the children to be comfortable letting their peers watch them while they performed, everyone wanted to have a go and this activity brought together the group in a showing of fantastic emotions, Esha and I are definitely going to use this activity again if the story lends itself towards it.

 

 

After the successful pre-story activity, we moved onto the story square and the story itself. This story was taken by Khellen and didn’t have a title however it continued from the themes and situations from previous stories furthermore this was the last story taken from one person as afterwards we are starting to take stories from the group collectively.

 

Khellen seemed to be very influenced from the previous week’s story, which was fantastic as it showed his keenness to copy and acquire story structures from others.  In this we had superheroes that were dead and so we had some very dramatic deaths from every person around the story square showing very elongated and emotional deaths which everyone around the square though were very entertaining.

We were also reintroduced with the bad guy of the Joker within the story and his influence he has over people, scaring them away. Therefore we had different children playing the character of Joker and myself asking the rest of the group “I wonder what the Joker does to scare people?” so fantastic answer came out which in turn were acted out such as:

• Painting the people’s faces – so the Joker character moved around the story square painting faces on the outside audience
• Using smoke bombs – so the Joker character pretended to set out smoke and stink bombs around the square and we, as the audience, reacted with the bad smells and smoke in our faces
• Giant Hammer – pretending the Joker had a giant hammer and pretend hitting people on the head with the weapon

From this we got some amazing emotional responses and utilised the work done previous in the pre-story activity.

Finally in the story, we had characters being brought back to life, therefore I posed the question to the children “I wonder how you would show bringing someone back from the dead?” and from this came ideas of pouring some magic elixir over them and the dead characters would jump up full of life, we also used these character in a battle against the bad guys so the children performed the fight in slow motion in order to be gentle with each other and show great actions and reactions from the fighting.

 

After such an amazing story square, we concluded with Showering off what we had done in Speech Bubbles and talking the Barney Bear and I was so enthralled with happiness that many of the children said this was one of the best sessions they have had and the story by Khellen was soo much fun. Our final activity was collectively taking a story from everyone so I had the group placed in a circle and each person gave one sentence of the story, from this we were able to create a strong story about parties, gingerbread men and more epic superheroes.

 

After a small break we moved onto group two, in which we were working with two stories instead of one and had another new pre-story activity to work with. This group, like the previous week were a little rowdy when entering the space so I implemented the breathing exercise before beginning the session to allow the outside energy to be removed before we began with our session.

 

Afterwards we began our opening activities of Hello song, Speech Bubbles chant and Name in the Bucket, and moved into our pre-story activities, for this we had a brand new activity with I had previously learnt from my time in Youth theatre groups and thought that the children would be able to pick it up. The game was Chinese whispers but with actions instead of whispering, with this I placed the group in one long line stretching the full length of the room and sitting down, then I informed them all to look forward and not look back until they were tapped on the back.

The game involved the first child in the line thinking up an action, for example flying or dancing a move, then showing the next person in the line and going onwards till at the very end the last child shows the action and guesses what the action is, hopefully the action has continued the same shape throughout the line but something the action gets confused and a new action is created to humours results at the end.  I personally think that the children engaged well with this activity and enjoyed preforming the actions to each other.

 

 

Next we used these actions and physical explanations within our stories, we had two stories today from Josiah and Jedediah and had two very similar structures following on from the previous session in which both had elements of children films such as Cars and The Lego movie.

Firstly was Josiah’s story which was called Lightning McQueen and followed the eponymous character in his adventure, for this we had each child showing themselves as a fast car moving around the story square, showing the speed and determination of McQueen on their facial and body actions. Then we used another child to create the race scenario within the story, of course I wanted the children to show emotion rather than running around the space wildly so I asked them to show the race in very slow motion and asked them “I wonder how you can show you’re going fast without being fast moving?”

The children responded with putting their arms behind them like they were running and ducking down to show their speed is making them move lower and I thought for such a difficult question they responded very well.

The environments that were used within the story such as Radiator Springs was made with some children being environmental objects such as trees, lights, houses and cars and allowed the story to revolved inside their created environment.

 

For the next story, Jedediah’s Lego Land, the story revolved around different physical reactions to events, for example the Lego townspeople began feeling very happy and enjoying themselves therefore I asked ”What things could the townspeople do to make them happy?” and the children gave some examples such as playing games in the park, playing football and sleeping on the grass. Then events in the story led to bad guys destroying the world and so the emotions of the character shifted dramatically and the children showed themselves being scared and frightened.

Within the story, the townspeople create a Lego robot which scares away the bad guys and therefore I brought on person up to be the robot and picked three other children to imagine creating things for the robot, thereby asking them for some ideas that the robot could have the responses were amazing and included:

• Laser eyes – to beam away the bad guys
• Strong arms – to crush the bad guys
• Rocket feet – to fly around the world
• Net shooter in the hands – to shoot nets around the bad guys

From this the ‘robot actor’ then acted out some of the ‘upgrades’ the children had given them and moved around the square like their robot character.

Personally I thought that both of the story were fantastic to work with and soo engaging for the children, afterwards we had our closing activities such as Showering off what we had done in the session and talking to Barney Bear who this week heard a great deal of children saying how much they enjoyed the stories.

We concluded by collectively taking a story from the whole group and, just like group one, took a sentence from each child. Our story, devised from this was fantastic and included going to the shops, dragons and dinosaurs and lots of food! I am very excited to work with this when we return.

 

 

As we wouldn’t be working with our Speech Bubbles groups for several weeks we were able to sort out a few important topics with our T.A. Noellie while we were there including student/parent sessions after the Easter break and our own opinions on how far the children had come from the first session up to now. In this respect, we had personally evaluated each child and given a comment on their progress for Noellie to take and apply with her own evaluations and I can’t believe the staggering transformation the children have undertaken from first starting Speech Bubbles.

Session Plan for Speech Bubbles – Week Twelve

Below is a write up for both Group one and Group two’s session plan for the 9th March:

 

Session Plan – Week Twelve – Group One

1. Sit the children down in a circle
2. Hello Song – Sung by ESHA
3. Chart work – reflecting upon all the things we are doing this session – JOHNNY
4. Speech Bubbles’ Chant – with the physical timetable – what are we doing today – ESHA
5. Name in the Bucket – Asking one of the children to bring in the Bucket – Small Voice, Big Voice – JOHNNY
6. Pre-story Game

• Blobby bench – using emotion cards – ESHA
• Creating scenarios for the bench

Watching a scary movie – scared

Surprise birthday party – surprise

On a rollercoaster – happy/scared

Watching a funny movie – happy

Doing really hard maths – confused

7. Pre-story game

• Dramatic deaths
• Safe fighting between the Joker and people
• Showing fear/running away
• ‘I wonder how you could bring them back to life…’
• Safe fighting ‘looked like eggs’
• Fighting slow motion

8. Shower & Barney
9. Make group story for 20^th April

 

Session Plan – Week Twelve – Group Two

1. Sit the children down in a circle
2. Hello Song – Sung by ESHA
3. Chart work – reflecting upon all the things we are doing this session – JOHNNY
4. Speech Bubbles’ Chant – with the physical timetable – what are we doing today – ESHA
5. Name in the Bucket – Asking one of the children to bring in the Bucket – Small Voice, Big Voice – JOHNNY
6. Pre-story Game

• Chinese Whispers – in a line facing away
• Getting into a car/building a house/winning a race
• End person guesses what it is

7. Story Square

• Josiah – fast car
• Racing slow motion, looking for truck
• Radiator springs made by people
• Sleeping under people
• Winning piston cups
• Jedidiah – Showing happiness
• Showing the world getting destroyed
• Lego robot, building the robot with Lego

8. Shower & Barney
9. Make group story for 20^th April

 

 

Evaluation of Speech Bubbles – Week Eleven

2^nd March

This week our session stories circulated around some very engaging topics which had been acuminated from our previous sessions. For example group one’s topic continued to look at superheroes/villains but with a new twist upon the ideas of the heroes, while group two looked at toys and games which we have also explored in previous sessions and allowed us to expand further within the ideas of favourite toys, becoming inanimate objects and making characters from them.

Firstly group one, beginning at 1:15pm as usual, was a particularly enjoyable session as all the children were egger to listen, engage and become part of the Speech Bubbles workshop, indeed many times I ask the children to calm down and listen in order to re-engage their focus however this particularly group needed very little prompt this week. We worked through our opening activities of Hello song, Speech Bubbles chant and Name in the Bucket very quickly and when there were opportunities for children to present amazing ways to throw their name in were able to repeat them many times to allow the excitement and energy to continue building. After the opening activities we moved onto the pre-story activities and we went back to the traditional stop/go game as Esha and I felt that the characters involved within the story first could be brought to life through movement and physical embodiment before applying them towards the Speech Bubbles square, therefore our activities with the game were:

“Move like a superhero”, reinforcing with the happy emotion from the resource pack and letting the children show the strength, courage and heroism of a superhero and showing how one can protect and be the definition of safety for others

“Move like a villain”, reinforcing with the angry emotion card showing the physical twisted persona of a villain such as evil grin, clawed hands and slitted eyes like a snake combined with the movement of creeping round the room looking for invisible items to steal.

 

After this personification of the characters we immediately moved onto the story square and applied them directly within the story. This week the story was taken from Chinemere and his story was called ‘Who will be Hulk?’ which firstly looked at the absence of superheroes and then reinforced the use of police action when superheroes are not around, also it looked at questions of influencing others as one bad guy influences a police man to do bad deeds. I personally found this a very interesting and insightful story and looked at some very interesting themes, therefore we began the story with embodying the idea of looking for characters, asking the children “how would you feel if the superheroes would not come?” and in turn hearing their responses such as being scared, feeling lonely and being confused.

As the story continued one aspect was fighting and killing bad guys and, of course, I reinforced the need to be gentle with each other, which is reinforced during the Speech Bubbles chant. That being said, we had previously worked on shadow boxing and not hitting but pretend fighting and the children reintroduced this method again without any need to prompt or remind them. These actions of fighting villains and killing them allowed for some very dramatic and elaborate deaths from the bad guys which I thought was fantastic and brought out epic pieces of drama

Finally within the story we also looked at the Joker character influencing the police officer and this was shown in different ways from different children, indeed I asked, “I wonder how you would show the Joker making the policeman do what he wants?” and the children responses with scenarios such as:

• Scaring the policeman to do what the Joker wanted
• Confusing the policeman by telling him the good guys were bad guys in disguise
• Making the policeman move with string like a puppet

All these ideas brought about fantastic levels of performing and although the story itself was relevantly short it brought about great scenarios for high levels of acting from the children

After Chinemere’s story, we concluded with closing activities like Showering off everything we had done today and talking to Barney Bear who, in my opinion is particularly important for Speech Bubbles as it brings the children back together and allows me to hear what worked well that I could incorporate and expand upon for other activities, this week they mentioned that they enjoyed the emotions so I want to continue using the cards in the next sessions.

The next story we took was from Khellen, who was the last person in the group to receive a story from, and involves more superheroes and questioning what would happen if they’re not around to save the day!

 

 

In contrast, group two is a much more excited and energetic bunch which makes for great energy regarding activities and exercises however sometimes they need to calm down and listen more intently, because of this I have begun to implement some short breathing exercises before beginning their session in order for them to rest and rather than bringing excitement fuelled energy from outside class letting the energy come naturally from the session. These breathing exercise consist of slowing breathing in for five seconds and slowly breathing out for the same time and repeating twice of three times to reintroduce focus towards myself and allow a blank slate before starting the session.

After this, we began our opening activities of Hello Song, Speech Bubbles chant and Name in the Bucket and regarding the information given by Adam during his sit-in session I am reducing the time taken from transitioning between activities and removing the notion of picking children for getting the bucket rather pointing at a few randomly and asking them to get the bucket straight away. Furthermore the activity of the Bucket game brings about extraordinary elaborate ways of throwing their names in and although they are amazing and so unique they do take a fair amount of time for each person, to combat this I have implement a strategy in which if a name throw takes a long time I ask them to show me it within three seconds and count them down, therefore their ‘throw’ becomes more condensed, impactful and allows the routine to be easily replicated by the other children, myself and Esha.

From these opening activities we moved onto the pre-story activity, as the story revolved around toys coming to life, we had the circle sat round in the circle and asked them to perform their favourite toy or a toy that they like, so in turns, each children showed themselves as a toy whether that was a racing car, Barbie, dragon or even a bouncy ball. I found that many children enjoyed the same things such as computer games and enjoyed acting out the characters within the games; this allowed the children who said computer games to open up into characters such as superheroes, secret agents, amazing fighters and mystical characters, all with fantastic performances and embodiments of them.

Continued straight onwards, we moved into the story square and began working on the story. This week’s story was taken from Olly and was called Just Olly a very clever title in my opinion as although there were many characters toy characters they are all make believe and the real character there is Olly playing with his toys. This story was almost a carbon copy of the beginning of a movie, Toy Story 3 and because of that there were already fantastically in-depth characters that we worked with. We began with an depiction of a train so we had a few children collectively be a train and within their shape the action would take place, I also enjoyed how many of the children knew the characters and so used dialogue and lines from the film to reinforce the personas, this added dialogue allowed for questions to be asked by the children and I asked the performers, when the entered the square, “I wonder how would your character speak and talk to each other?”

Concluding the session with Showering off what we had done and Barany Bear I noticed that many children we interested in having scenes and pieces from movies they were familiar with to expand upon existing characters and it was reflected within my story taking. For our story taking we took two stories from Josiah and Jedediah thereby taking a story from every child in the group, similar to the first group. The stories were firstly; Lightning McQueen from Josiah and, like Olly’s story uses a piece from a film, Cars and Jedediah’s story Lego Land which was similar to the Lego movie film. These stories have such rich characters and stories I am very excited to work with them.

Final Practical Project – Reviews of other project performances

Below are the two review I created in response to two performances I watched for the final practical project evaluation performances:

Final Practical Project Reviews

Ben Stanley

Ben’s performance looked at the effects of drinking, through a story-telling spoken word/poem performance. I personally found the performance very witty, funny and very relatable to the audience and the simplistic nature of one person speaking to the audience was a particularly strong image. From this I have created a few points that I wanted to address regarding the piece:

• Opening image – the opening image of Ben, passed out on the floor with tins of beer bestrewn around the staging area was a strong visual sight to walk in upon. Indeed this image brought about connotations of drinking all night, stereotypical nightclub-goer image while positioning himself right at the front in plain view therefore your eyes are naturally drawn to him
• The simplistic nature of the set allowed him, as a performer, the full focus to have him paint the picture and move the story along at his own pace and in full control.
• Positioning of him was also important, reflecting back to Gem Skii workshop and the important of positioning on a stage, his movement backwards and forwards towards and away from the audience allowed the pace to keep moving, not get stale in one space and reinforce certain parts of the story by coming closer to the audience. Indeed the bringing the audience into singing/chanting felt more friendly and realistic by his movement closer to the audience, like boys out on the town
• The rhythm of his performance, with combining rhyme and spoken word broke up and disjointed his pace, speeding it up, slowing it down similar to someone remembering and recalling events like in the story
• Timing regarding jokes and delivery was very clean
• recovery, even slower I feel, showing reactions more towards own actions
• Physical embodying the actions of fighting, punching – Would like to of seen more of that
• (regarding my knowledge prior) Removal of multi-media, more focused on you, could of used for flashbacks?
• Who you telling the story to, friend, family?
• Drawing on the body, fantastic idea – Wanted to see the drawing (even if swastika made of dicks) could be full back
• What point is coming across from the story – don’t drink, be sensible, learn from your mistakes? Or something else?

 

 

Andrei Nikopol

Andrei’s performance combined his own personal experiences and effects as a stand-up format, using both music and spoken word as a means of engaging with the audience for comedic effect. I found his performance clever in, like many other comedians, using their own experiences as a means of creating jokes and atmosphere and allowing his own style/persona to be a selling point rather than a disadvantage. From this I have created a few points that I wanted to address regarding the piece:

• Engaging with the audience – not shying away from the audience, acknowledging them and allowing them to know you as a person
• Telling your own personal stories provided another level of connection, audience sad when your sad, happy when your happy etc. Similar to a pantomime crowd atmosphere
• Use of multi-media such as pictures, music, spoken word and dance
• Opening with music, building up the atmosphere, suspense to remove it, very funny effect
• Reflecting upon personal issues, situations choose how to transition between topics, relate one to another, contrasting topics everything should flow very naturally
• Ability to let the audience laugh at you, very strong open image of you personally makes you more approachable, willing to laugh and enjoy.
• Persona of nervous, shy increasing confidence through performance eye contact with audience increased but could be more, makes more connection
• Impact of picture – fantastic, very willing to show yourselves in bad light for audience, letting it stay there for a long time reinforced the story
• More clearer with the delivery needed
• Acknowledging audience
• Comedy involves pace, needs more pace, continuous laughing
• Head actions with the music, little reactions make big differences for the audience – very funny
• Image of pride over music, impressed with yourself – very funny
• Dancing across the stage with music, very nice Needed to be clearer that you were still performing

I felt both performances were very entertaining and imaginative, I thoroughly enjoyed reviewing them and watching them.

 

 

Final Practical Project – Evaluation of Performance

The Sanctuary – immersive performance by Johnny Whiting

Performed on Thursday 3th March

My performance piece reflects upon demonstrating relaxation techniques and methods as a means of allowing my audience to rest and relax, partly as an escape to a seclude setting as a contrast to the heretic and busy environments we live in such as London and big cities and partly as a means of practical application for sleep such as insomnia suffers. Using my own autobiographical story regarding insomnia and applying the sensory effects known as ASMR triggers (autonomous sensory median response) I am able to bring the audience with me through the story structure and apply the sounds and triggers as another level of immersion, giving the image of the audience following in my own footsteps. Using an array of music, sound-scapes and soft-spoken word this immersive story is reinforced and induce this relaxing effect to allow my audience participant to drift into a great state of calmness.  In regards to the piece itself, it is a very personal reflection upon the practitioner, myself, and this closeness and willingness to open up further influences the relaxed atmosphere created within the space of trust and safety, allowing the audience to find themselves engaging more. The primary structure of the piece centred around going to bed, experiencing relaxation and then waking up, therefore this imagery was another example of the similarities between them as participants and insomnia suffers.

 

On Thursday I performed my final practical project piece to an audience, due to the need for immersive intimacy throughout my performance I limited the number of participants to only three thereby allowing them to feel close, intimate and nurtured rather than having a larger audience which would lose that closer relationship level I was desperately encouraging throughout my piece.  I performed my piece in the morning which I was a little disappointed in as a large section of my piece reflects upon leaving behind the outside world and escaping the heretic day which would be more appropriate the longer the day had gone on for, however they were many performances to be presented and time was an important factor for the observers in order to see all the performances.

I personally felt that the performance went really well and the engagement with my participants and me seems to be strong and connected throughout the piece. Beginning with the environment, I continued to utilise the large slabs to have my audience around me, close and in clear earshot, have their lying down areas comfortable and spacious and lighted around with relaxing small tea candles (fake) to bring about this level of sanctuary and escape from the brightness and intensity of the outside world. The lighting from the spot both when the audience all entered and about the exit was a clear indication of the sun going over the horizon and returning however if presented again I would of have the intensity of the spotlight less bright as although it may have been not uncomfortable it did seem more present than I would of liked.

The props I used for triggers seemed to be well-received, indeed after performing one participant commented on the relaxing feeling that they experienced from the sounds. All the sounds, both music and ASMR triggers still retained that element of the story and moved the plot forward, indeed many of the ASMR sound were used when I was unable to sleep so the audience were experiencing the sounds while connecting it towards the narrative. Another example was the use of Thomas Newman for the music pieces as his music first influenced me to the effects of ASMR and so in keeping I had many music pieces played at the start similar to the start of my journey for relaxation and knowledge through ASMR effects.

Regarding my fellow ‘cast’ such as Connie and Adam prior to the participants entering the space, I believe that they helped immersive to create this world of calmness and tranquillity even before the guests had entered the room, this allowed them to understand and comprehend the atmosphere they would enter before even entering and therefore brought with it another level of relaxation and removal of tension and unpleasant suspense. Chris’ help with the technical aspects of music was also greatly appreciated and with the use of ‘candle light signals’ we were able to have the sound transitions smooth for the audience.

 

In terms of expanding and moving forward with the project, I want to continue the intimate level of the performance and bring them into a sense of the environment being a haven despite what is presented, therefore for further work, I am interested in one-on-one immersion with my guest, taking the time to engage with them personally and creating the atmosphere around them. Another aspect is continuing the personal, autobiographical atmosphere with my own interests and feelings as a relationship with the performer is crucial to this level of drama. Indeed some examples included:

• Creating the environment of an old tall ship on sea – to reflect my interest and hobby of ships, pirate history and how I became so interested
• Poetry reading – reading certain pieces from my own favourite poets such as John Keats, Seamus Heaney and Robert Frost and how I personally relate towards the pieces
• Creating an environment of a fantasy environment like a wizards’ tower or fortune teller- reflecting upon m interest in mythical fantasy, favourite characters and how they have influenced me, maybe concluding with star-gazing outside or reciting spells and incantations for the participant.
• Musical-soundscaping – Playing a degree of different songs softly to the participant and reflect what they mean to me
• Creating the environment of a deserted Island – some sound items ‘washed up’ and relate them to back home and how they are important to me personally

I am very excited to continue developing and expanding upon my final practical project to incorporate and envelop the themes and structure already touched upon in this performance.

 

Write up of Professional Placement

29^th February

Module Lecturer – Karen Tomlin

This week, unfortunately was the last session we would have with Karen and personally I was disappointed, in regards to presenting and constructing a workshop Karen has provides such fantastic and insightful information. Indeed from her sessions we have been able to understand what aims and objectives are required for us to discuss and address during each of our own workshop session as facilitators and collective what should be achieved over the entire workshop period. In responses to these activities I have started creating my own mock workshop utilising the techniques she has shown us and intend to upload this onto this blog in the following weeks.

Regarding this week’s session, we utilised the room to work on some examples of session structures with both dissecting specific examples created by fellow peers and written examples of drama planned workshops that Karen presented for the group.

We began by working with a few of our peer within the group and their own unique construction for their workshop by running through their own mock sessions. From this, their methods were examined from us, collectively as dramatic students and peers, but also Karen, a knowledgeable facilitator. We were able to recognise a few traits that were present, what things could be expanded upon and what techniques may be proven to be ineffective for drama-based workshops when working with a specific group:

 

Being a facilitator

In terms of the individual being the facilitator, having a clear structure regarding what needs to happen in each session is vital for working through the aims and objective and utilising all the available time within each session, and so as the facilitator the action and focus must be given from the participant to them and vice versa. Depending upon the group itself the facilitator can working in a tailor fashion that they deemed appropriate and controlled for not only the shared group but also for individuals within the group.

An example of this would involve working with young students; these students may not admit when there are problems personally or as the group and the facilitator must pick up these subtle hints from the second the person or persons entering the workshop space. Allowing the opportunity to bring about an issue or situation before it becomes a big problem is an important part of continuing the pace and dynamic nature of the workshop, furthermore the ability to be dominant and uphold the room is required if focus begins to waver away from the activities or facilitator.

Clarity for each activity and allowing the participant to know what each session will entail allows the aims and objectives to be tackled smoothly and precisely without wasted time and efforts and this clarity is present is every aspect of the session to reduce confusion and a sense of being lost by the participant which can allow focus to be dragged away.

Physical engagement

Regarding drama workshops and exploration of a certain topic, the need for physical engagement and ‘doing’ rather than ‘talking’ is particularly important. The ability to move around and become both mentally and physically engaged removes the barriers that becomes common with groups such as boredom, a lack of interest or general un-enthusiasm to participant with discussions and the topic. Continuing with language versus actions, explanation and over-directions can also bring this negative state within the group as the increase of speaking and over-analysed justification brings a degree of stagnation during the session and disallows any action or engagement towards the activities.

That being said, activities that are used and presented with the group, must relate back and be relevance towards the aims and objective set out in the facilitator’s session plan and must be asked by the facilitator, when constructing the plan, what relevance does this have and is it needed? Following this, the use of items and objectives during a session plan can effective dramatically the response, time and energy of how an activity plays out; for example one of our classmates discussed the use of a ball during their opening activity, passing it from one person to another. With this item brings about certain points that can be assessed, particularly about pace of the activity, if the ball is dropped each time thereby stopping and starting the activity over and over, would some participant not receive the ball or be excluded merely by accident or on purpose, and how can some response when also holding an item in which the focus is immediately drawn from the meanings and aims and culminates towards catching and wanting the ball.

Despite this, items and objective to bring about activities could be used within the session but these would have to be brought forward and working in, introducing them through different sessions with different means to allow a progression and building up pace each time. For an example, to begin with, giving the ball physically from one person or individual picking up the ball and passing one at a time around the space shaped in a circle or collective allows the ball to included everyone and can be used to bring focus to the individual talking, furthermore if the ball is used as a prop for performing it then allows the facilitator a means of taking ideas and methods from the participants and implementing them within the activities as a staple action or gesture.

Continuing with the physical activities, understanding and knowing what the group the facilitator is working with is paramount in order to bring the correct level of engagement with the activities and topics trying to be brought across. Indeed young students of eleven and twelve working with a piece of text will respond, act and react differently to a group of adult doing the same piece of text and so a facilitator must tailor the sessions towards the group. For example students of fifteen and sixteen would not engage and acknowledge well with an activity in which the facilitator has designed and presented in the mind-set of them being much younger, furthermore this ‘speaking down’ effect upon the group could bring about tension and negative relationship repercussions for both the facilitator and group.

 

Introducing Characters and Text

Following on from the physical engagement, once the group have become more accepting of the facilitator/participant relationship (however that is accomplished within the first/first few sessions) the further introduction of the primary aim is needed to be uncovered and expanded upon. For one example, the workshops were entitled ‘introducing themes and story-structure within Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream to young students’ and therefore the characters, themes, plot developments and Shakespearian language had to be introduced however these explorations would take time and could not be too broad or elaborate for one session that may be between forty minutes to three hours long. Similarly other facilitators would have other workshops with different artistic aims and objectives such as introducing one form of physical theatre or introducing repetition as an artistic form with items as a means of choreography in a certain field; either way whatever was being presented over the sessions have to be manageable, focus and collectively underlying the aim title of the project.

With this in mind, regarding Midsummer Night’s Dream, for the first week the activities may involve getting to know and develop the group collectively and building the facilitator’s relationship and understanding  of what the group knows about Shakespeare collectively, maybe even reflecting upon very common things associated with Shakespearian text if many of the group know about Shakespeare, such as what plays they have heard of, different countries of the plays, and introducing dramatic words like protagonists, antagonists and chorus.

From that initial first small step with the opening session, the students are more knowledgeable with the facilitator, themselves and things familiar with Shakespeare; then from that stepping point the further futures sessions can bring about a greater depth towards Midsummer Night’s Dream specifically and allow the activities to relate with the play and the facilitator’s long term title aims.

 

To conclude the session, Karen presented us with some examples of other students she had worked with and their own session plans, ranging from simplistic structures to much more in depth planning methods, from these I intend to construct my own workshop looking at key aspects including, but not limited to:

• My overall aim for the sessions
• The group I am working with as a facilitator
• The number of sessions that have been before this plan
• The Aims and Objectives of this session
• Activities that are introduced

This particular work I can implement straight away as I have been using plans each week for my placement of Speech Bubbles however they have mainly been used to reinforce what activities would be happening. With these planning sessions I want to apply them towards my placement planning to fully utilise all my time during the sessions and bring about strong aims and objective that my sessions will explore.