Week four

Performance rehearsals

We started our week with lighting and finale cut pro tutorials, they went very well and have given us enough information to start the tech side of our performance.(Technician Tutorials) Starting with my to do list last week I emailed all the sources we needed In order to move forward In our performance I emailed the technicians about future tutorials, to hire the photo shoot room for our marketing and to arrange tutorials with Tim about our performances and portfolio. I have also been working on creating songs to put In the performance I have re written the song ‘eyes of you by Frankie Valli’ and changes it to ‘eyes of food’ it is very comedic and quite awkward as I imagine when performing the song we will be singing to food in a lustful way. I have sang it through to Shannon and she loves it and again we already have ideas on how and where it will fit in the performance. we found that when we were singing it though we already stated creating movement as a joke but it actually worked well with the lyrics. In this video this is Shannon and I going through the song in her bedroom. The song came from what Tim shown us In last weeks rehearsal it started to make me think about what the lyrics are actually about and I asked myself when can I transfer those feelings to the love of food and the answer was yes! I had to picture myself singing to the food and ask myself what would I say.

Eyes of food lyrics

after listening to the lyrics I made a few changes as it turns out my love for potato’s is stronger than lasagna I had to make a quick change.

Shannon:

You taste too good to be true

Can’t take my mouth off you,

You’d be like heaven to touch,

Wanna digest you so much,

Bree won’t see for a while

Means I can indulge and smile,

You taste too good to be true,

Can’t wait to put my mouth round you …  

Brittany:

Pardon the way that I stare

Sorry there’s dribble everywhere

The sight you make me weak …

Ill regret it on the scales next week  

I know you know how I feel

Don’t judge, the smell is unreal

You taste to good to be true…

Can’t wait to put my mouth round you ….  

Chorus both:

Bree:

I love you potatoes

You taste so fine,

Shannon:

I love you burger, plenty mayo on the side

Shannon & bree:

Oh, your delicious trust in me when I say…  

Shannon:

Oh, tasty burger, I like you medium well

Bree:

Oh tasty potatoes red sauce goes with you well  

Shannon & bree:

And let me eat you baby… let me eat you …..

Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. (1967) Eyes of you. Phillips

In the rehearsal on Wednesday We wanted to make this session fun and playful so we used some drama techniques from complicite -teachers notes and devising. Jacques Lecoq developed an approach to acting using seven levels of tension. These changed and developed during his practice and have been further developed by other practitioners.(Key practitioners Jacques Lecoq) The following suggestions are based on the work of Simon McBurney (Complicite), John Wright (Told by an Idiot) and Christian Darley. In total their are 7 levels of tension exhausted, laid back, neutral, alert, suspension, passionate and lastly tragic. At first we used it without speech so that we could learn how to show it through more than tone of voice, the first trial we found that we just went straight to level 7 which was tragic so we had to teach ourselves to build up to that. Once we got the hang of that we then started to look at playing on different levels for example one of us would be level 3 and the other level 6. It was a good contrast and worked well with our positioning on stage and the ‘discussion’ we would be having, it felt natural for one of us to be angry then calm because that how heated discussions happen. As you well see in the video this technique worked very well.

After using the levels of tension without speech we then decided to incorporate speech using the levels of tension. We just used the stimulus of a normal argument of what we are having to eat. At first this was difficult because we found that we were just shouting, so we just stripped it back to the basics and started again, we found that after a few times it worked naturally and you could see the levels off tension coming though tone of voice and body language.

Reflection

This week I feel that we have come quiet far in terms of charactersation and movement and really getting to grips with what our performance is about, In saying this I still feel that there is deeper work to be done by this I mean there is still more developing and brainstorming to do. I feel that we are on track and at the perfect stage for where we are in terms of the semester. In terms of personal goals I think I’m focusing on acting too much when really all I need to be is myself and let my true personality come through at it’s fullest. This is something I intend to work on for next week. As a group I think Shannon and I work well together we bounce of each other Shannon is the idea generator I am good at taking it that one step further, which feels like a perfect match.

Tasks for next week

• Write the lyrics to therapy
• Master Levels of tension/ Try it out whilst learning ‘Therapy’
• Brainstorm more ideas for new scenes in the performance