Voice Portfolio

Describe your Vocal Characteristics:

I feel like when I speak faster not all my words are pronounced clearly. My voice is shaky when I am nervous after speaking too quickly, my words aren't articulate any more. The shakiness is something that happens during my performance.

I don't seem to have a 'falsetto', 'high in head' voice, or to speak too breathy. The way I talk seems to all be in one monotone. I need to change the tone and intonation of my voice because it can pull the way I speak down making me sound quite dull.

The volume of my voice varies and becomes quiet when I get shaky. I don't think I use projection that well either, which could help raise my volume. I am able to take into context the size and acoustics of the place where I perform or rehearse. However, I need to imagine how many people are in my audience to take into consideration about how quiet or loud I am.

Reflecting upon my voice and posture:

To stop the shakiness, I need to improve on my breathing control because it is probably to do with irregular breathing. I need to breathe when I need to, not wait till the end of my sentence, otherwise I won't have enough for what I say next. By breathing and using support from my diaphragm, I will be able to control my nervousness and make sure it works for me. In order to control my breathing rate it's important for me to slow my speech down. 

My posture isn't good because I don't use my height and tend to bend forward or slump. If I stood tall it would show confidence but, also expands your lungs. When finding out about my bad posture habits I can find a way to stop them, reduce stress and strain on my spine. If you don't sit up or stand up straight it reduces the chance of deep breathing. When you come to the time to try and have a good posture, your muscles and tendons have already adapted to be more comfortable in the slouching position. The body's posture feels more tightened and causes certain restrictions of breathing easily. 

I feel like my back has tightened as when I sit up straight or stand up straight it does feel tight. I need to change my poor posture habits. However, if the muscles in your body don't work that well the neck muscles will help out however, if they overwork you get headaches or migraines, shoulder pain or neck pain. I need to start to include core strength exercises each day of my vocal workout to help balance out my body. 

Projection is something I need to improve on at times along with articulation. The exercise "What to do to die today" is a good exercise which contains a lot of buzz sounds with a difficult combination of words in this tongue twister. It's possible to do but, controlling the air that you are breathing out is important. Articulate every sound is a target of this exercise, 

Voice improvements:

My voice improvements are to relax better to get rid of tension in my body and facial muscles. The importance to me is to do exercises for example in lessons to massage each other really helped me to get rid of any tension I had. However, I felt a bit too relaxed and sleepy. So, it would be a good idea to do a massage in the tense places and not a full massage before doing work. The massage got rid of too many tensions and made me a bit too relaxed. I think it was because the person giving me the massage hit the right places that had a lot of tension e.g. shoulders, neck and back.  It sounds best maybe to have a full massage that Max a led in class to be a cool down activity instead.

My Tone needs to change instead of being just one tone. In order to improve I need to try to make sounds based on diaphragmatic breathing whether I'm laughing or speaking I can develop the habit of my projection.

What are my vocal strengths?

My vocal strength is fluency.  Slow speech allows to learn other fluency skills. This has increased my confidence when I speak.  However, my strength still has room for improvement. By practically speaking I need to imagine my upper and lower teeth attached together but, are stuck together whilst I speak. This would increase my vocal volume and increase local muscles effect. To expand this effect, it has been suggested to show your teeth too. 

Observations and improvements of my vocal workout


My breathing control is improving a little but, I need to include some more tongue twisters like unique New York or red lorry yellow lorry. These silly tongue twisters I'd benefit from because I struggled with these exercises in class and it would be a good thing to help me improve my articulation. 
An usual but simple exercise, is yawning which will help stretch, but open my mouth and throat. It can help to release tension in your neck and throat, the easiest way to trigger a yawn for me was doing the pumpkin and raisin warm up like if you're eating one whole one. As soon as I opened my mouth big as I was eating the pumpkin it made me yawn and I decided to use yawning as exercise for every morning. 
A gentle way for me to warm up the voice is to hum. Either humming a 'm' in different pitches is an exercise that I do. I do sometimes hum along to the tune of the song that I am listening to or have listened to. These are all different things that I now include in my vocal workout. The different hums exercises vary though but, I can end up doing them when I need to work on monologue. 
One of my favourite warm ups in my vocal workout is to do silly exercises whether it's to massage your face or make odd faces whilst doing exercises. It may be strange at first but, it has shown me lately that it helps to articulate words when I warm up in a silly manner and I feel less tense. 
I need to cool down to make sure my voice is not tired after all the vocal exercises I've done. Perhaps any of my vocal warm ups could be a cool down, I could possibly use lip trills this would release any lip tension and may be a healthy cool down after working with my vocal workout. My target is after the cool down exercise I need to feel comfortable and relaxed but, not tired. 

The Stimulus - Devising

Week 1

Gene Krupa Orchestra and Anita O'Day - Let Me Off Uptown (1942) [2]

We were introduced to our stimulus as a song which was definitely something we weren't expecting as a class. I loved the Jazzy upbeat and it made me tap my feet quite a lot. I felt like this music really captured me as I started to imagine a band playing in this room with flappers and gangsters. The theme I thought about was a Jazz era, the time of the 1920’s.  The beat wanted to make me get up and dance. 

At this time in the 1920’s many people would go to celebrate the joy and happiness after the debt in the country. The money in the country was worth nothing as without money people could still be happy. A distinctive sound portrayed by the Orchestra, music brings people together. However, even if you’re at home with your family you can still have a good time e.g. someone playing piano and someone else singing. 

My second and third response made me imagine that those who were dancing in our class to this song were the people at the concert. The atmosphere lifted our hearts up, making us all smile.  One of lyrics ‘a rhythm that you feel’ gave a knock on effect to everybody and we all felt the rhythm. To me it felt like a crazy feeling to have fun and release yourself from the person that you really are. 

I could now picture flappers and gangsters the way that people were acting whether they were watching each other or having the time of their lives. However, some of the people in my class looked like they wouldn't want to join in and thinking back to it now represented those black people by law couldn't mix with the white people. In the south, it was practically impossible for black Americans to rise up to the challenge of segregation.  Blacks felt scared and threatened by the power of the white people. [1]

1920s flapper and gangster [3]

When I thought of the 1920's, I thought about black, silver and gold, this is because these were common colours in pieces of clothing. They are vintage colours, they brought to life the colour of the party and the rich personality of each character. For example, the money they had and the power they had from after the great depression made them the way they were. The wall street crash happened as a consequence of The Great Depression, the two crises were economical and financial. One consequence of the crash was the nation's fall of stock market money which was loved by so many but, then people weren't investing and companies weren't giving out dividends from shares. Fall in production ruined farmers because they didn't get money for their crops and also production was ruined. This left a lot of unemployment for many people. [4]

Group discussion

Keeping an open mind, I spoke about how I wanted to learn the piece of music on my saxophone which was a strange thing to say however, Karen suggested that we could include our musical skills whether we play an instrument or sang. It made me think that even a strange thought like that somehow sparked off an idea. I also mentioned about crime and money thinking about the gangsters but, also the flappers. I felt like all our ideas were linking.

Listening to Rhys talk about The Great Depression and Prohibition, were Becky explained more about Speakeasies and moonshine that were people who sold alcohol privately. Al Capone was well known for being the leader of Chicago Mafia and it made others think that it attained fame through Prohibition. Prohibition was created when the public people demanded others to sell alcohol illegally.

Authorities are pouring alcohol into the sewers during prohibition (1919 -1933) [6]

Around the time of the 1920s, the 18th Amendment was passed but, people carried on drinking and gangsters supplied liquor illegally which led them to have huge sums of money. There are four main reasons why Prohibition happened. Firstly, America entered World War One in 1917, this meant that the mood across the country was nationally negative towards alcohol. Secondly, banning alcohol would mean that supplies of grains such as barley would increase. Also, people felt that drinking anything alcoholic went against God's will and lastly, most Americans thought that consuming alcohol was wrong whilst the country was still in the midst of a war. [5]

Each idea we listened to as a group really gave me images about the way of living in 1920's UK and 1940's America. Chloe S' idea was about a murder mystery that really made us think. However, there was a lot of crime at the time of the 1920s and I really liked the fact she thought of something different but new rather than picking out the most common thoughts of the 1920's in the UK.

With two pages of ideas on the sugar paper, we started off with Yasmin's idea of having 4 chairs in a square shape and one in the middle which were all facing towards the front.  The five guys would sit on a chair each ready to be seduced by the flappers.  Me, Yasmin, Beckie and Chloe were the four flappers.  Yasmin was picturing the idea of what Pau imagined with the black guy and the white lady they way she seduced him in the whore house.  We felt like we needed to try and find a different idea because it felt like something was missing. As a group we needed to research about the whore houses and different races, this would help us define our characters for this scene.


We were led by to Chloe S's idea to try out a scene based on a murder mystery which made Mike suggest the idea of us all being Cluedo characters but, we decided to try that idea. For example, I was basing my character on the rich, snotty character Mrs Peacock. It felt like it was difficult for each one to embody the characters for a long time.

Cluedo Party Tudor Mansion Edition Game [7]

The game pictured above is the closet one to our ideas that I think could have been used to base our characters on. For example in the scene that we did, we had two young maids based on the character Miss White. Also we had Miss Scarlet, a highly attractive female along with a young Reverend Green. We left this idea in mind in case we could develop it next time.

After learning about the Stimulus - 'Let me go off Uptown' by Gene Krupa Orchestra  

Learning a little bit more about the stimulus has been interesting so far. We now know the drummer Gene Krupa was white, the female singer Anita O'Day is white however, the trumpet player Roy Eldridge is in fact black. I'm not sure what people would have thought about the idea of letting black and white people mix because in the 1930s the blacks and whites rarely worked together. Also they lived separately. You didn't see many men go 'uptown.' For example, in Of Mice of Men something we discussed in our group was that the character Crook didn't go out to town with the guys on the ranch because he was black and there was a lot of racial prejudice.[8]  They didn't have equality at that time so, equality must of happened in America after The Great Depression which made those relax and a time to bring others together whichever race they were.

Research 

We decided to research about the different ideas we had on our sheet. I researched about money and crime in the 1920s but, then realized later that they actually wanted me to research it in the 1940's. This research was still good because the idea of a prison later became used as an idea.

A library book - social and war 

In the top left hand corner, a women is seen giving her job back after the men come back from war. It shows that women didn't have a right to keep their jobs and men expected them to kindly hand back there jobs because it was only temporary. They seemed to only be seen as housewives.  I included this photo as it was linked to research about money.

Also in the bottom left hand corner we see a picture of men trying to get employed as there was a lot of unemployment due to the war.

I wanted to get accurate information and didn't want to take ages to find something that wasn't as resourceful as the books I used. Local libraries are useful when looking for certain events of the 1920's as the money also linked to The Great Depression but, I tried to get information based on two topics including less information about the other topics that the other group members were researching.  A way of organizing and finding out information for me was to use small post-it notes on certain pages to mark where the key information was (see above).

Spider diagram research 

Using pictures and shortened topic titles, I made a spider diagram for money and crime in the 1920's. I made numbered headings and wrote a brief explanation including what each topic was about. For example, I spoke about the dates that coincided with the closing of prisons. Also the figures of how many prisons still remained.

Week 2

After research, we took ideas that we were interested in from each piece of research done by the members of the group. We started off with James' idea about a mental asylum and we watched a clip, [9] (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76y9tR4CY4U), of American Horror Story the TV show, it was weird but the music linked to the theme of eerie that Chloe H suggested after hearing the stimulus the first time around. The idea of eeriness linked to the music perhaps being in the heads of the residents of the mental asylum.

My prison research linked to the idea of the asylum. Following that, we as a group researched what prisons in the 1940's looked like. We also looked into what diseases and illnesses the patients would have suffered from, e.g. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and Paranoia. Then we experimented by taking a disease or illness per group member and listened to our stimulus according to the reaction of which illness or disease we had chosen, I for example had Paranoia and thought everyone was after me.

A cat and mouse scene was also looked into where we would be paired up and link arms in different spaces as Pau's character (someone in the Mafia), was after James' character and we decided that whoever James linked arms with, the person on the other side of that person would become the one who was being chased by Pau's character. Then developed it more to not linking arms and added some music e.g infinity. 

As a group, we used four corners which, Frantic Assembly, a physical theatre company we have looked at. We based it on the Hierarchy which included the land owners, ladies, farmers and workers. In these four groups, we were introduced according to the Hierarchy, starting from the top and working up to the bottom and what we thought of the workers. 

Week 3

Our starting point needed to be happier as both groups chose negative responses to the stimulus. After listening to it again, it reminded me of the Great Gatsby's film and of the TV show Downtown Abbey. It pictured the images of an the characters in the either the film or TV show dancing to an orchestra or perhaps a record player.

Jack Ross and his Orchestra in Downtown Abbey [10]

The character Jack Ross is a black American Jazz singer, with his orchestra, reminded me of the music and the fact that Jazz meant that black Americans were accepted and could perform with the orchestra. I wanted to show something to do with equality, rather than racial segregation.

We were split off in pairs from our group and came up with brief scenes using the masks available. For example, me and Pau, came up with the scene based in a pub where the flapper was cheering up the black American who wasn't sure if he should be mixing with her, this related to the stimulus with Roy Eldridge and Anita O'Day. My character was trying to show that it was okay for black and white people to mix together. Relating to Downtown Abbey, I thought about the relationship between Jack and Rose from the show. However, I felt like not everyone accepted the two of them together which showed the uncertainty between our characters at the beginning.

New idea - Kids Playground

The group thought about ideas for a new starting point to provide a more positive side from our stimulus work. The game of tag is something so simple it proved to be effective.  The idea at the beginning of the week was to explore games like stuck in the mud, tag or cat and mouse to give us a strategy of exploring each scene, the character and plot. With everyone being open-minded we struggled to focus on ideas for a new material since we knew we couldn't use our original ideas we had. I felt that we were all too open minded because we couldn't think of any ideas. 

Fireflies experiment with a game of tag with my group 

After considering the ideas recalling the tune in my head, I thought about each notes. Maybe each note must tell a story of the song. This made me wonder if we could base every note or several notes of a tune on a character in our piece. I was contemplating whether I could use different heights based on the different pitches e.g. high note - depicting tall and elegant. This could be used in comparison to a low note.  These differences would show the physicality between all the heights. I felt it was extremely difficult to explain at the time because I was confusing myself which gave a knock on effect which confused others. Next time when explaining an idea I need to be more clear. 

Pau suggested that we should have arguments through the song and someone suggested maybe stamping. I felt like he meant the instruments in the piece were arguing with each other. We could of included our musical talents of singing and playing instruments of certain notes but, we wanted an idea that would show the bad factors of this song.

We showed the idea that we had of fireflies to Karen, who really liked it, which made us think it would be part of our final piece. The different themes we included were slow motion, reversed, fast, serious, posh, ninja, spy and clockwork which was James' idea. Chloe S' idea was to include Commedia, e.g. Zani and Pantelon, but we wanted to keep this scene simple and didn't want to over-complicate it.

Cat-house 

Cat-house scene rehearsals

The seducing scene was difficult for me and I struggled to get in the role of my character. I also complained that I couldn't be sexy as I felt uncomfortable even though the girls in my class said I could do it. I continued to put myself down and this effected the performance from not looking as realistic as possible. A target would be to be open minded next time when we did this scene so I can be a sexy seducer in the cat house and not worry myself, I need to act that role, otherwise the audience would not believe that they were with me in the scene.

The songs we listened to were Ain't No Sunshine (When She's Gone) and Fallin' on YouTube [11]. We re-capped the scene because we also tried to remember each movement that we had changed it to based on the ideas that we had to make this seducing scene more sexy. The 4 different sequences were based on Yasmin, Chloe S, Chloe H and Becky's choice. Next time, when we perform the scene I wouldn't let me team down because I was scared to attempt to be sexy when they managed to do it even if they told me afterwards they were nervous. After rehearsing a few times after that. I started to develop my character without being as scared as I was earlier.

We decided instead of dragging the chairs off, we would take them off in a physical way, one after the other. It looked effective when they did it one at a time rather than just all at once. When the we watched the guys end scene fall in to place when track 3 came on Chloe H and Becky thought this music was more fitting for the scene than the other music. Working with track 3 ('I Can't Make You Love Me'), we all decided that it was a much better song choice to the track 1 and 2 on the Soft Jazz Sexy Instrumental Relaxation Music playlist. 

Week 4

We performed our devised piece so far to the second year of the Acting course and the rest of my class. Everyone loved our opening, however a few said that when we ran around, the shoes made a lot of noise and in a way ruined the piece. Next time, we need to wear softer and less noisy shoes, so we don't lose the beauty of the opening scene. 

Eye contact is definitely key, because at times, we looked distracted or didn't seem focused enough. In the club scene, the audience didn't seem convinced that we had enough trust in each other as we were relying too much on the music, which is a rule you must not follow. Another point in the club scene, a member of the audience suggested clockwork and we decided to have the same four movements throughout the piece. However, when we rehearsed it next, my four movements changed when I sat next to Logan's character and mirrored his movements which looked good. 

Also this week, we created our final scene, the court and prison scene and Chloe S decided we should have the chairs in the formation similar to the cat house scene. Using the masks, the guys wore it for the end of the scene showing they were still the Mafia, but we would remove them at the same time to show the guys different reactions. However, later on we decided as a group based on each member's crime that was read out, we would take the masks off one by one. To completely end the scene, we tried to hold hands creating half a semi-circle around the audience, saying ''guilty'', but when we performed it to Karen, we were in hysterics as we couldn't keep a straight face. This ending scene is either going to go one way or the other, but hopefully we can pull it off. 

Running through the performance twice, we timed it to be 22 minutes and 30 seconds long. This meant that we still had around 7-8 minutes to come up with another scene. It made us think about the couples scene we hadn't done, as most of the group had concentrated on their couples scene more than the other scenes. The decision was that every couples scene performed for one minute to create another scene.

Me and Mike's duet was something we both struggled on because he wasn't always in and when he was, we focused on the other scenes more. The chair duet was an idea that Frantic Assembly had done that we were interested to incorporate into our piece. Throughout the chair duet, I seemed to be making it complicated so we went for a simple idea which became easy to remember, however I didn't think it was as great as the others work. My target would be to work on the chair duet and accept that it is in fact a good scene according to my other classmates. I just need the movements to flow more than make them look out of place. 

Week 5

This week has been a difficult week since everyone hasn't made a commitment to coming in and we have struggled with certain scenes that we wanted to fine tune. The 'Slip' scene where Yasmin and James do their couple scene, Logan stepped in for but I suggested that the understudy should step in, the worst bit was the understudy wasn't in.

I was worried especially when we are performing after half term and that people aren't wanting to commit to this piece. We've been staying after college to rehearse but it has shown that people think this performance will be good, however I feel that we still need to polish up scenes that are incomplete.

We have also sorted out the lighting queues when performing parts of the scene with help from the technician to decide on colours and if we want a follow spot or not. It has shown that our choice of clothes, by completely wearing black, doesn't show us very well, this is why the girls will be wearing a white top and the guys will be wearing orange tops to foreshadow going to prison.

Also, the green chairs that we are using aren't good to use in the light, according to the technician so that is why we will be using black chairs. The follow spot use of colours represents the type of relationship being shown, e.g. a pink or yellow colour.

When we wanted to plot the sound, we couldn't, which has left us in a difficult position and a target for next time is to get everyone or a few people in our group to put the music on a memory stick instead of relying on one person.

This is our final whole week before our performance after half term, I will brush up on the scenes that I have been struggling with, including the Cat-house and duet scenes. I hope that next week, everyone who is in my group, turns up so we can polish our scenes and show that the hard work we have put in has paid off.

Bibliography 

[1] = http://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/higher/history/usa/race/revision/2/
[2] = https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHCaxVCXNIc
[3] = http://vampirediaries.com/04252012-a-look-at-the-roaring-twenties-fashion-slang-and-culture/?gallery_post_slide=2
[4] = http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3977969.stm
[5] = http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/history/mwh/usa/prohibitionrev1.shtml
[6] = http://www.history.com/topics/prohibition/pictures/al-capone-and-prohibition/police-emptying-beer-barrels-during-prohibition
[7] = http://www.cluedofan.com/cmerch/entertainment.html
[8] = Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
[9] = https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76y9tR4CY4U
[10] = http://downtonabbey.wikia.com/wiki/Lotus_Jazz_Club?file=DA-42-1381267712-1-.jpg
[11] = https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3_tw44QsZQ

Voice and The Actor

Task 1 - Family member - Mum's voice

Observations 

What kind of tone is the voice?  My mum's tone of voice is calm and reassuring.

How fast or slow do they speak?  The reason is that my mum's tempo changes through excitement and if you're sharing something that is happy, like a memorable moment that is either happy or funny. It changes with the emotions.

Do they pause a lot? She doesn't really pause a lot but, pauses when someone talks after she has said something.

Do they find it difficult to project? I feel like she does struggle to project clearly.

Do they articulate their words? Listening to her speak she does articulate really well because she has worked with older people with poor hearing and this has helped them to understand what she says.

What is the pitch like? Her pitch is a mid-range but, soft pitch.

Do they speak on one tone? No, her voice varies and changes tone when she shouts or if she speaks in a friendly tone.

Do they emphasise certain words? The only words she emphasises are commands like "no",  "dinner" , "bed" etc. This is because she's been ignored and she becomes cross then raises her voice.

Do I like this voice? I like her voice because it's a familiar voice that I grew up with. It's been a comfort and reassuring.

Is the voice loud / voluminous? The voice varies from times she shouts or calls to people but, most of the time voluminous.

Is the voice quiet? At times her voice can be quieter than her normal medium tone of voice.

Is the voice deep? The voice isn't deep at all.

Is it high or low? I'd say it's medium between the two.

Is it strong? Her voice is in-between weak and strong.

Is it weak? Two pick in-between the two, it was stronger than weak/

The other questions where asking about if it was distorted, shaky, crackly, nasal or even clipped but, there was nothing I could hear that pointed out to show these other ways to show the type of tone my mum has.

Task 2 - Famous person - David Tennant 

Observations 

What kind of tone is the voice? He's tone of voice is welcoming but, an excitable tone.

How fast or slow do they speak?  They speak fast, it's the normal pace.

Do they pause a lot? Sometimes, where we're left thinking about what he said.

Do they find it difficult to project? He projects really well, as I do understand him most of the time but, when he talks quickly I struggle to understand it at times.

Do they articulate their words? They do articulate their words quite well but, at times can't understand the way he spoke because of his accent.

What is the pitch like? It varies because of his excitement he brings to the character or the way he would portray a character.

Do they speak on one tone? No.

Do they emphasise certain words? Yes, only if they are trying to make a point.

Do I like this voice? I like his voice because when he speaks he's enthusiastic and

Is the voice loud / voluminous? He's voice is loud.

Is the voice quiet? If he tries to speak quietly it still clear and loud to hear.

Is the voice deep? For a man, he has a range where I don't think he's voice is that deep.

Is it high or low? About mid-range.

Is it strong? He has a strong voice but, with an accent. When he played The Doctor he used something that he was a habit of an accent he has and he's voice isn't weak but, confident when he speaks.

Is it weak? He's voice is defiantly not weak.

The other questions where asking about if it was distorted, shaky, crackly, nasal or even clipped but, I only think he mumbles at times after saying a lot but, he may sort of have a raspy voice too.

Personal Vocal Assessment 

A 5 would be strongly agree whilst a 1 would be strongly disagree on what I am assessing myself.

I would rate myself a 3 or 4 for a good, clear voice production because of my shaky voice and the amount of fillers I use when my nerves kick in. I struggle to remain focused. To sort out this problem is when I'm on stage I need to stop going through my lines and take deep breaths concentrating on the breath then speaking. I believe it works me up and leaves me to show that my performance would be better if I was more relaxed as an actor.

My articulation about a 2 because I need to practise tongue twisters and massage the areas that are most tense in my jawline. I still feel some tension when I am on stage which showed me I don't warm up properly and this also make me feel nervous. So, the cure would be to improve on vowel sounds A, E, I, O, U and the baa, caa, daa, faa, gaa, haa, jaa sort of march where it can help me articulate the sound. My warming outside of class with these exercises I can articulate better.

DV8 Essay

If you’re looking for something that can leave you speechless and after watching something can leave you in a shock from the way a certain company perform, DV8 defiantly shows that.  Lloyd Newson the choreographer, founded the group and DV8 was established in 1986. The company has toured internationally and nationally plus they have completed 19 highly renowned dance pieces.  DV8 Physical Theatre is an Arts-admin associate company and also are a member of Dance UK and ITC. 

In my opinion, DV8 is a strange but, unusual company based on performances I have seen online.  Through "the company’s work’s it’s all about taking risks and breaking down barriers between dance and theatre."  As a company, they do create some unforgettable body movements through the interpretation of dance which is something Newson likes to do. Newson interprets a clear way of the typical British lad culture in modern day times. It's through stereotypical perspectives of the male sex, male's behaviour and especially male relationships.

Throughout the performance I feel like Newson would ask us 'Why should it be acceptable for someone who does footwork around a football but, not acceptable for someone who does footwork in dance?'  I will review why the choreographer would ask us that but, explore the benefit of movement and techniques.

Men in pub during the lad culture

'Enter Archilles' is displayed to us as showing a surreal but, a way that is displaying masculinity or the appearance of the way they show it.  It looks on issues of the society at that time where it was about the lad culture.

The character who speaks out a lot for me is the young lad who wears the superman costume.  He conveyed a different side of the lad culture and the way he was but, he looked the same as all the other men from his appearance.  As soon as he started to dance, the other lads "allowed" him to show the way he behaved.

However, this showed homosexuality at this time was not acceptable because men had restricted themselves to "masculine ways." Then the scene of his feminine side is all of sudden crushed when other male characters don't like the idea of the way he was moving by doing pirouettes and graceful movements.

The sad man's tenderness for the doll - film version

The blow up doll is a metaphorical woman. The tenderness that a sad man in bed makes love and is caressing the doll.  However, he's happier with the doll because he doesn't reply to the phone call which I think someone wanted to date or be with him.

The climax changes later on in the play when one of the guys find out what that sad guy has been up to then brings it into the pub.  The doll is thrown about a lot but, seems the other guy don't really have feelings for woman and just want the woman for sex.

The doll being thrown about in the air by the other men

It gets worse when the guys look like they are punishing the doll with a beer bottle  just because they feel like it's a real offence and it's sounds like some sort of crime has happened.

Some of the lads sing 'I vow to thee my county,' it's a hymn but, originally a poem.  The first and second verses refer to the UK and also when the sang to those who died in the first war.  The may be a war between the lad culture and the tenderness side which led to this event but, they end up laughing about what they have done afterwards leaving the sad man to mourn.

When he holds the doll which is deflated and broken, he still tries to caress it but, his tenderness is still there and he struggles to think because of what others think of him at the time. Also we're sure if he really wanted something to just caress or he actually wants to be with a woman. I feel like he's not like the other lads but, if that was a real woman he would lose her due to his other friends in the lad culture. Deep down I believe he's scared of what happens next if he does date a woman and what will the men think of him them probably the same when he was will that doll.

The point is working class males in this country can't relate well to each other or to woman. In a way, you may argue that there was only one specific emotional meaning which seems quite negative and shown in the play in a different way.  Each of the men is allowed for him to have a distinct personality and how vulnerable they really are.  The theme of this play is filled in with strange surreal comedy but, odd interruptions of physical excitement and enthusiasm e.g. when the superman guy joins in, in a contest based on dance.

The men in the pub with abdications aka the alcohol 

Their main focus was on the pints and it was like their life source, something they all shared.  The pints are a symbol of the weakness and clarity for the men. Sometimes you had them swimming in the alcohol enjoying themselves this shows greed that they are using something they take for granted too much.

If you get greedy then you'll have the want for more and the way it showed that men didn't care about anything but, alcohol. It was something that would always be there and to have.


It proves to show society in Newson's own response to homosexuality but, men more specifically. He's showed how men all act in this way, it has shown a true impact of the lad culture. In order to be a man, they feel like they have someone e.g. a stereotypical guy to look up on and that's the image that every man should be like. This play showed in depth the look of men where us as an audience maybe confused whether to laugh or to be serious about it.

Frantic Assembly Essay

Frantic Assembly is one of the physical theatre companies who create memorable performances with lots of energy.  This attracts new and young audiences, the work reveals us about the contemporary society.  Their physical style is a mixture with movement, design, music and text.

The artistic director, Scott Graham formed the company with Steven Hoggett and Vicki Middleton in 1994.  Also they continued as a company with other inspiring artists today. The company has worked with more than 30 different countries over the world. 

Love Song is a fantastic piece by Frantic Assembly.  To me, this performance is so beautifully pieced together.  We start off with a couple in their twenties called Maggie and Bill who also collide with their future selves later on in life (elderly couple).  

Love Song - Digital Theatre picture. Left - Older husband Bill and wife Maggie. Right - Young husband Bill and young wife Maggie.

They show that throughout the performance their love hasn't changed even thought there have been many ups and downs in their lives.  However, there is always a sense of affectionate closeness between this couple.

In my opinion, I loved the way that both couples interacted with each other through the movements either with the opposite age of their partner. The young wife dances with her older husband, this is his memory of his wife Maggie in the past. However, the young husband Bill with his older version of his wife, Maggie. She implies the importance of this decision that she wants Bill to help her solve her end of her illness.

Those memories where something that we can’t always see but, the one who’s in love with the other person and has grown up with that person can see them the way they could be or used to be.  I believe it was shown in perspective to how time and our lives can change but, memories are never forgotten.
  The emotional truth is revealed through the movements of young Bill and older Maggie scene when they make love because love conquers time but, time is running out and it's precious to any one. Like any other couple, they don't want to lose each other because Maggie's illness is pushing them down.

The thoughts and imagery felt like they were depicting the way that they always remembered each other or what they could imagine them to be like.  Time is melting away for the older Maggie since she is making a decision of what happens next because she's very sick.

I noticed that through Love Song we could see the habits or the things that made the person who they were like e.g. women moved her hand over head, brushing her hair slightly.  This action was used for both characters as it was something that the character would usual do. It was recognisable and show that action hadn't changed. 

Another memorable scene was the bed scene in this play. With the younger and older selves diving in and out of the bed in such a way, that it was incredible to watch. I think they were either reminding each other of what's happened or what's to come. So, possibly haunting each other in this dream or nightmare. The actions and the way they moved made me think of a bad dream because they turned into something strange. The music related to their movements building up tension and speed created a new meaning to this dream. 

A few weeks ago, we watched some video clips on YouTube including Frantic Assembly's version of the chair duets. Chair duets is where in partners you work by creating a scene through movement but, it's a different way to create a story.  It's a devising method and I believe it will help me but, also many others benefit ideas to incorporate physical theatre into future performances.  Relating to the music, the speed can relate to the way they act.  http://cdn.makeagif.com/media/10-03-2015/ZXxpl1.gif

For example with this video, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJ_9Eaog2yw these students have used a upbeat video with quite a quick tempo and it shows a story that they keep pushing away or working together but, not all the time.  If the music tempo was different then we would have got a different. 

The chair duets that I did with Rhys was difficult to keep up with but, as soon as you have got a rhythm you remember and enjoy this new technique of creating a story.  I thought it was very creative, you had to improvise but, we had chance to improvise.  I had an idea to hide my face or cover my mouth too since it could mean I didn't want to see something or couldn't talk about what just happened.  The feedback we got was the idea of relationship but, had lots of problems from the actions and the times I kept cover up certain features of my face.  Not everyone wants to the facial expressions so, I thought my body language needed to be clear too. 

The other members of the class's chair duets due to music choice it could end up something quite sweet like a happy relationship or perhaps like a sibling fight. The amount of energy would determine the mood.  However, you need to concentrate a lot, focus and need to have the right rhythm for it to work really well. The main thing to remember is to focus on the rhythm and pattern than what's going on around you. Performing in front of a class audience when something goes wrong showed me I didn't have enough focus but, if I did it for a longer period I would hopefully be remember it much better than I did a few weeks ago. 

There are many other lifts we tried including jet packs or the superman type of lift but, we had to put a lot of trust into each other. Without trust there would be no teamwork. It was tricky because you needed to try and not only lift them for a long period of time but, navigate them. In shows, the actors really bring it to life and feel like we are on an adventure to space with them. From clips that Frantic Assembly performed, the lifts showed how creative and how the sound effects hid the fact that someone wasn't just being carried but, in fact created a story for the one who was being lifted up.

Personally, I believe that Frantic Assembly's methods is something that I would love to explore again or explore some new methods. If I involve their methods in my work it can encourage me to create more ideas for performances because their methods are inspiring and different to what I have found out about other physical theatre companies before. 

Bibliography

Websites

- http://www.sparknotes.com/drama/cherryorchard/context.html

- http://www.sparknotes.com/drama/cherryorchard/themes.html

- http://www.shmoop.com/cherry-orchard/characters.html

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Images from websites

- http://www.bawds.org/kathy_wholley1.htm

- http://orion.neiu.edu/~stagectr/CherryOrchard/CherryOrchard.html

- http://www.gradesaver.com/the-cherry-orchard/study-guide/character-list


These are the sources I used for my research that have helped me with my blog. Also these images are references to those who have performed the character Chalotta and this has helped me with my character choices.

The Cherry Orchard Evaluation

The Cherry Orchard by Anton Chekhov was a difficult play to perform and I played the part of Charlotta Ivonana. The themes were about loss, memory, old Russia and how had changed. My character in each performance really showed the way I saw than the way Chekhov saw her. I feel I didn't capture her in the same way he did. Through my evaluation, I will also talk about the strengths and weaknesses to how each performance developed.

Basics

One of the weaknesses in the basic skills of the performances a few of us were unsure of our lines.  This was due to being under rehearsed which effected the pace, timing and confidence of our performances. It was lacing pace and at times made the play less interesting e.g. in our first performance in Act 4.  However, we did pull together in the other performances and would the play to life with high energy.

In a short space of time the play proved to be more difficult. Not knowing our lines also led to awkward silences. We were under rehearsed because we had short allotted amount of time to properly rehearse and punctuality was an issue.  


Characterization

I found it difficult to keep my character because I felt like I was acting like myself at times, letting the characterization slipped away. Most of the characters managed to keep completely in character. Personally, I think my character on the first was too soft and I didn't reveal the outer shell of this character but, revealed what was hidden underneath her. A character like Charlotta you need to be a strong woman, someone who has lived but, experiences things that the other characters haven't. She could be a different woman if she wasn't a governess but, the character needed to be a strong individual.

Someone who really had great characterization was Jack's character, Simeon. He kept the clumsiness and really changed the character. It was nothing like himself. In a way, he helped me out to get back on track after I performed my monologue at sat down. Also the emotional memory helped to think of past experiences where you'd have to be the stronger woman. It raised the energy and helped me continue my character.

Also I improved in my next two performance, developing gestures that were obvious for my character and remember my physicality of what I did last time. The confidence grew with my character, especially when the ideas this time was not to reveal my soft side. The difficulty was I felt like I revealed myself a lot rather than character.


Stylistically

The style of the piece showed that all the time it may have been realistic but, I felt the costume for my character was unclear to show what status I was. I would of thought the Victorian type of lace top and trousers was an idea. In a way, I felt like I was a servant from the outfit and it didn't show my class.

However, from the (picture to the right) I was basing it Kathy Wholley's idea look as I didn't want to make it the clothing choice to feminine as it would not suit the character. Relating it to the idea about the way she presented herself and the way I presented the way my character looked way good because even if I looked lower class it showed that it didn't seem like something a governess would wear in my eyes.

Was it a naturalistic performance?

I believe we did perform and give a naturalistic performance. The set setted the scene with the type of chairs and furniture at the time. We did three simple gestures that would show that the character did these things normally.

Conclusion

I still have a lot of developments I can make to those weakness and strengths. It has depicted on each performance that my vocal tone and they way it was mostly a middle range a lot of the time. I could of experimented and explored the character creatively but, I didn't use much imagination as I focused to much on the information that I was given than exploring. Professionally I need to know the things I need to improve on which are my vocal tone, physicality and creative which are key things that I lack in my performances. To be professional to reach my career aims, I need to break barriers and be more creative and in depth of the character that was a weakness to me.