Drama 2019

Welcome to my Drama 2019 blog

New Zealand Theatre:

• Māori Performances - https://www.maoritelevision.com/news/regional/maori-theatre-show-first-its-kind-tour-north-island
• Pacifica Performances - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egL3Gm19Swo
• Bollywood Performances - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zden0QwqoBY

New Zealand Society:

Māori, European, Pacific Islander and Asian ethnicities all come together to form our culturally diverse society in New Zealand. Although our founding cultures are Māori and European, over the past few decades immigrants have bought a wide range of cuisines, languages and customs to our country, as well as American and global culture being observed everywhere from cell phones to streetwear. Therefore, from having such a multicultured nation, the way us Kiwis speak and act is unlike nowhere else in the world as it truly is a combination of all of our cultures.

Viewpoints:

Using the text below, we focused on viewpoints - a technique of composition that acts as a medium for thinking about and acting upon movement, gesture and creative space.

“Rumour is a pipe

Blown by surmises, jealousies, conjectures

And of so easy and so plain a stop

That the blunt monster with uncounted heads,

The still-discordant wavering multitude,

Can play upon it.”

So we started the lesson by just moving around the space and acting upon each individuals movement etc; Then we partnered up and did a trust exercise of letting your partner guide you while your eyes are closed and you just had to know your surroundings by using your hearing, touch and even sight (even though you cannot see you can notice the different shadows and lighting when you walk) Then for the remainder of the lesson we do some more viewpoint exercises using the "Rumor is a pipe...." etc; and just doing what we felt right for the scene, whether it be interacting with the space, the audience or each other. In one group's scene, I really enjoyed watching Frank interacting with the audience using a humour approach without even having to say anything. As well as Rania's sudden movement and decision to walk away out almost completely out of the scene.

Devising

25/07/19

This term we are devising a piece of theatre, with a concept.

We were introduced to this standard at the begining of the week by watching some of the NZQA Exemplars which focused on the theorist, Antonin Artaud, and the theatre of cruelty. 

I was particularly impressed with the female soloist who did her piece on the Māori Battalion in World War 1. Her use of conventions and Artaud's viewpoints were very cohesive and supported the development of her concept to show how quick the young Māori tāne had to grow up. I also felt a very emotional connection to her piece because of her use of Spacial Relationships between her body and the architecture in the space eg. floor, and walls etc, as well as Gesture through incorporating kapahaka actions and positions that represented death. 

We then went on stage and did some physical theatre. In particular, we used Anna Bogart's viewpoints. One of the main viewpoints that we focused on was Kinaesthetic Response - a spontaneous physical reaction to something which occurs outside you; the impulsive movement which occurs from stimulation of the senses.


Breaking up into smaller groups we then did smaller scenes using the following conventions:

• Music
• Repetition
• Space
• Gesture

This week we also got into pairs and did a practical exercise where we got to choose a convention to act out that we could possibly use for our devising. Lina and I got 'Telephone' and so we did a conversation between two best friends who were talking about a girl they did not like etc; but it wasn't very etched out properly. This definitely challenged us, especially given the 10-15 minutes time frame we had to do it in.

But it was a very helpful exercise in terms of watching what the other groups within the had come up with.

I was really interested in what Te Rama, Keiran and Jordan's group did as it inspired an idea for my own devising concept. They had the convention of a 'News Report' which I was thinking would be cool to incorporate at the begining of my piece, as a way to get some statistics/facts/information across, as I have already started to brainstorm ideas around societal beauty standards which I think I will use to develop my concept around the pressures that females have to deal with in our society.

30/07/19

This week we did some more mahi around conventions.

During the first lesson, we read the book called "The Island" which is about a man coming to an island on his raft and he is instantly outcasted and stereotyped by the entire island of people. We then chose pages of the book to use to devise a small performance, incorporating the mime mask convention.

Mya, Lina and I were in a group and we decided to all use masks. Although, Mya was wearing the lizard looking mask that almost looked really empty in the face which represented the emptiness of the character that was being outcasted. And me and Lina were wearing other masks to show that although we are all different, in some sense we are still the same - as we are all human. We were acting as if we were in a choir and we were better than the man who we were bullying whereas in reality we really weren't. Overall, we wanted to show that we really aren't any different or any better from those we judge and ridicule.

I think there could be a possibility of incorporating this convention into my piece as I could create different masks to portray what is classed as "beautiful" and "what is not" etc;

I was then away due to an injury for most of week 2 & also week 3.




13/08/19

On Thursday last week, we focused on "isims" such as racisim, feminism ect; and we looked at political theatre.

Today our lesson was focused around rituals.

We all gathered around the table in Drama and ate cake, discussing the different kinds of rituals that there are. One of the elements apart of the ritual is a karakia/prayer which is a ritual in itself. Although this was a really cool activity, I don't think it is something that I will incorporate into my performance.

Yesterday we focused on storytelling which was also another really interesting activity where there were four chairs and we had to come up with a story as a collective, while only speaking one at a time. It was really exciting seeing what stories people were coming up with, but I don't think it's something I will incorporate into my performance either.

I had some time off during weeks 2 & 3, but have tried my best to keep up to date by looking in the devising folder our sheet in class so I can catch up and see what they have been doing. One thing I saw, in particular, was that they used signs for narration. I particularly thought this could be useful in my performance to either add to what I am feeling or contrast to how I am feeling.




19/09/19

It is that time of year when everything starts to get a little hectic, so a lot of things are all over the place at the moment. But I realised that I have not updated my blog on my devising process for over a month now. Therefore, I just wanted to use our "working from home" days to update it.

So we only have a week to go until the school holidays, and our devising assessment is on Tuesday.

I will admit I do not think my piece is 100% ready yet as I have spent a lot of time in the last 2 weeks just going back and forth, being really indecisive and procrastinating a lot which hasn't left me with a lot of time to practice. Although, I plan to just keep consistently practising over the next few days, and give it my best on Tuesday so I can say that I did give it a go. Then hopefully I can just continue practising over the holidays and then resubmit it again in the begining of Term 4 for a higher grade.

A lot of ideas I had in the begining of this process has worked and been a success. But I think having so many ideas is what I struggled with for so long because I needed to narrow it down and uncomplicate it a bit more. But I am really happy with what I have planned, now I just need to turn that vision into a reality!!

To the left, I have attached a collage that shows some of the things I have been working on in the last few weeks - showing the stage layout for my performance, as well as the signs I have made and the mask/lipstick props.

Instead of having to repeat myself from what I have already written, I have also attached the link below to the Google Doc I have been doing all my mahi on throughout this process.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1k9xrx9ne5qVuFkxMYhV36aX5RY0HXORBKDtLcXYdjm0/edit  


This link contains a really in-depth explanation of the ideas that helped me form my devising concept and the theorists and techniques I am drawing from to convey my message.  If you would like to check it out and understand WHY these elements are relevant to my performance,  anyone at Hornby High School with the link is able to access this. 




26/10/19

On Tuesday, I did my assessment just to give it a go... I think it was an absolute fail but I knew I had to give it a go just to see what I needed to improve on and what I could possibly change.

I am now glad that I did give it a go because I have since decided that I will no longer use the mask or lipstick as it was just way too hard to transition into but everything else I am going to keep the same and just keep practising it over the holidays and nail the transitions etc;