UNIT 1 Principles of Performance

Principles of Performance

We've been working on our greek theatre plays, I had to be Antigone and my partner was Sara, her role was Ismene, Antigone's sister. After our performing we started working with Rob at "The Cherry Orchard", I was Ranyevskaya, the old,silly and sophisticated mother of two girls who has been through a lot lately and she was about to lose her home in the scene when I was playing her character. My partners were helpful and we tried to understand the subtext together, we worked all the time as a team and I liked the results, we also received a good feedback from Rob after the assessment, he said "Well done! Everyone progressed." , I felt like our assessment went really well. We've used Stanislavski's acting styles and techniques, for example : the classical acting, using the expression of the body, voice, imagination, personalizing, improvisation, external stimuli, and script analysis. We also used Uta Hagen's exercises, I think they are really helpful, my favourite exercise says "Keep it simple by avoiding melodramatic situations", I know that I'm not melodramatic but I love how this exercise can help the others, I don't know if they can see my evolution after using these exercises but I can see theirs and I like it!
In Sharon's class, firstly, we had to work on "Medea" as an ensemble, I said in September's and October's blog how the rehearsals went, the main idea is that the end was good, our performance went good and we managed to work together as a team. After the performance, we had to work on our story telling and on classical monologues, I choose to do Helena from "A midsummer's night dream" by William Shakespeare, we didn't had enough time to rehearse it in class so we had to rehearse it at home, I used Uta Hagen's exercises to become more familiar with the text "The exercises will all take place in your re-created room - where you live now. Do not set them in any other environment.", I feel like the assessment went really well, again. I felt confident on the stage, Sharon gave me a good feedback, also Jessica B helped me with her feedback, she enjoyed my moment and I enjoyed it too. After the assessment we had to write down our work, as usual.

Characteristics of Greek Theatre

1. Identify two things that greeks gave to theater
Festivals and playing on the stage

2. Who was Dionysus?
Greek God of wine

3. Identify and explain the parts of the Greek theater
-Theatre
-Skene: A large rectangular building situated behind the orchestra, used as a backstage. Actors could change their costumes and masks. Earlier the skene was a tent or hut, later it became a permanent stone structure. These structures were sometimes painted to serve as backdrops.
Rising from the circle of the orchestra was the audience. The theatres were originally built on a very large scale to accommodate the large number of people on stage, as well as the large number of people in the audience, up to fourteen thousand.
-Orchestra: A large circular or rectangular area at the center part of the theatre, where the play, dance, religious rites, acting used to take place.

4.What is the function of the chorus?
They comment on the action and fill the audience in on what is not seen.

5. What was the function of a mask in Greek theater?
It was used instead of makeup

6. Describe the scenery used in Greek theatre.
There were no scenery changes; instead, these changes were accomplished through a messenger.

7. How is Greek theater different from the modern theater? 
In Greek plays, the audience members had to use their minds and think about what they saw; they had to use their imaginations to create the setting and events talked about, but not seen. In modern theater, generally, the viewer doesn’t have to use imagination to supply the setting and other aspects of the play because elements of production—lights, scenery, costumes, etc.—tend to be employed.

8. Why do you think so many people attended the theatre on festival days?
It was their only form of entertainment

September 2016

Introduction

First of all, we introduced ourselves telling our name in the circle's order then we were saying our name with a gesture in the same order, after this, we had to say our classmate's name and to copy their gesture, one by one, the whole group at the same time. This exercise helped us to get to know each other's name and to pay attention to details. After we finished the exercise, we started another game in pairs, my partner was Hayden, we had to introduce ourselves in 1 minute by saying what's our favorite song, what's our favorite book and which person we'll choose to be left with on a deserted island. Then we had to count up to three in turns trying not to get confused and lose, when we've finished this part of the game, Rob grew up its grade of difficulty by making us do gestures instead of numbers. We had one hour break then we've done an one hour English test.

Working with Rob
In the first week, we were getting used to each other so we've played the "names game" every day so we can get used to each other's names, a circle game where we had to look at each other,make eye-contact, spell our partner's name and then change places with him.
We've played different games that were supposed to make us get to know each other, to make us observe the small detail, to be patient with our partners, to always say yes to challenges when it comes to acting and we've practiced our improvisation skills. We've done vocal exercises and physical warm-up before acting every single day.
We've played a game in groups of 4 or 5 where we had to make a group photo which should represent a country and in the end, we had to choose one country and Rob had to guess what country it is so we choose Romania and he guessed so we've lost all of our points. Rob gave us the line "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to" and our group had to improve a short scene, based on this line in the beginning. We've done a lot of improvisation based on this principle, we were receiving lines from him and then we had to improve. Improvisation helps us to be prepared for everything and to handle every situation in the drama field. We started to work on a piece of theatre and I am playing Antigone and Sara is playing Ismene, we were practicing in our break and to help us keep in mind the lines we were saying our lines in our first language, no one told us to do this but we thought that this will help us to learn it faster.  

Rob talked to us before starting the rehearsals and he asked us what difficulties we will have and then he told us what to do for us to be easier to learn the lines and to be prepared to play it on the stage with an audience. Every day, before we finish the lesson, we have to play our scene in front of everyone and we receive feedback and advice from Rob that helps us improve our interpretation.

Every Friday we have a blog hour with Rob when we have to write our blogs, in one of our lessons he asked a bigger student to talk to us about the importance of the blogs and to teach us how to do them better. The blogs help us to be held, to be aware of the work that we've done, to know every each step that we've done in order to achieve our goals.

At the end of this month at the beginning of every class we've done the vocal and physical warming, as usual, acting games like "Alphabet Conversation" in pairs of two where we have a conversation on where each sentence begins with the next letter of the alphabet, this game help us accomplish our improvisation skills. We've also played "Count to 20" where we stayed in a circle, we had to look down so we can't see each other and we had to count together by turn, not at the same time from 1 to 20, this game help us to feel each other's actions, it's a focused game. We've played "Essence Machines" game where a machine is created by members of the group, using repeated sounds, words, and actions this is a game of mime and movement. We are always playing a large wide of acting games every day we are doing different games that help us perfect our acting skills. After the games, we were rehearsing "Antigone" and receive a different feedback and advice from Rob every day. He told us that we should stand still, stop "dancing" and let the words do the work, we have to watch pronunciation, he said that we have to do the deep moments looking up not down and to not let our hair cover our face so the audience can see what we're doing and feeling on the stage. I filmed his feedback for me and Sara so I can keep in mind his indications and correct my mistakes.

Working with Sharon

Week 1 - Introduction to Medea text

Our lessons with Sharon are every Wednesday morning, we are making almost the same games and improvisation that we are doing with Rob but with Sharon, we have to make more movement. We are doing the "circle game" and the "walking exercise" at the beginning of every lesson with Sharon as a warm-up. These games are making an atmosphere of work and woke me up in those mornings.In the first lesson we've done the "circle game", we've walked around to fill the space in neutral position, in my country they were calling this exercise "Brownian movement", as Sharon was elevating the grade of difficulty of this exercise, we had to walk faster, to smile with the eyes to every each person we were making eye-contact with,then to touch the side of someone's foot with yours before they walk past you and finally touch their elbow with yours. After this, we had to work in pairs, to tell the story of our summer to our partners, after we've worked with different partners, Sharon told us to work in groups of 4 and to choose between one of our four stories and to put it together as a piece of theatre and then to play it in front of everyone. We chose my story and improved it with some fictional elements, we worked together as a team. After performing it in front of everyone we received feedback from our classmates. One of the feedback was from Joshua, he was my partner in that exercise, he told me that I should be careful with my tonality because I tend to talk to a higher range when I'm expressing good feelings and the audience can't understand what I'm saying. Then we introduced ourselves into "Medea". We had to work in teams, every each group received a different section of the piece. Me, Joshua, Laura and Midi received the last section of the piece, we divided the roles and directed the section and then we practiced it for one hour. We managed to get along with each other,we worked together as a team and the result was successful in my point of view. In the end of the lesson the whole class became an ensemble, every each group worked another part of the piece, we said those parts in order so that the audience can understand the meaning of the piece.

Week 2 - Working on a section of the text

In the second week, we had to introduce 3 new group members in our team, Joshua and Midi were late and Laura didn't come. I have learned that it is really important for us to be in time at classes and not to skip them because the whole team depends on us, every each member is important in a piece. The beginning of the lesson was the same as always, and we've also done a game where one of use stayed at one end of the room and the whole group at the other end, the person who is alone in the front of everyone has to turn around when he/she wants to, the others have to arrive near her so they can touch him/her, when he/she is turning around everyone has to freeze, whoever touches that person wins the game, this game is helping us to be more observant and to feel our partners future actions. We've also played the "Mirror game" where we had to do the exactly same moves as our partner, this game helps us to observe little details. After the acting games we had a 15 minutes break and then we started working at "Medea", I had some troubles with the new members, Georgia, Juan and Dejuan because they wanted to direct the scene completely different and I couldn't agree with this because we already learned our lines. Our problem, as a group, was that even if we were communicating we couldn't get to a common point where everyone can be happy because they were too busy to argue on who gets more lines, they couldn't understand that it doesn't matter how many lines you have but it does matter how you feel in the skin of the character and how you share the emotions you feel with the audience. When Joshua and Midi came everything came back to normal, Joshua has the ability to make them work and he is a good leader of the team, we didn't decide that we have a leader but he acts like one and this is good because everyone is working when he is there. I don't have the ability to be a leader because I don't want to be "bossy" with anyone and I don't want to make people hate me but sometimes you have to be in charge so you can keep things from falling apart, also you have to listen to every opinion each member of the team has because we don't want anyone to feel left behind and everyone has an important role.

Week 3 - Combining the sections in a whole piece of drama

We've done the usual warm up, acting games, the one with footsteps, the one with synchronization where we had to feel our partner's future movements and the "Yes, let's!" game where we had to say yes to every proposal our partner said, this game help us to be more creative, open to new things and be prepared to accept any challenge. We had a break then we started to rehearse "Medea". We've had arguments again because everyone had different opinions and I decided to stand apart and let them argue all the time because I felt like nobody is going to listen to me anyway, so they finally get along and added more movement to our moment because they felt like it needs improvement and it ended up good, when the whole ensemble performed the piece of drama it was a good atmosphere and it looked impressive.

Conclusion

It wasn't hard for me to be new in this college and even in the city because everyone is friendly here and everyone is trying to help you when you don't know something and no one is judging me for my language mistakes because English is not my first language and I am trying to get used to it. I was surprised when I found out that we have 2 hours breaks sometimes because, in my old school,the big break was 10 minutes. I like this College and I am glad that I came here, this past month I've learned a lot of useful things for my future and I've also improved my acting skills.