We started this week by recapping what we had done or discussed the week before We wanted to create a basic structure of our set to enable us to start getting the performance up on it’s feet. We knew that we wanted to create the illusion of a living room so for now we just created some chairs to make a sofa. (Click the to see Set)
We started the session by going back through ‘Circle of food‘. It went well but it really needed some kind of blocking so we decided to get it up on its feet. As we are using it for the opening number we wanted to also try out some ideas on how the performance might start. When researching different performances in week one we really liked the idea of giving out food from Michelle Pearson’s ‘Food Cabaret’ (Research & Methodology Michelle Pearson ) So we incorporated this theme into our beginning song. To make our performance different and stand out we also did not want to start on stage to create more of a dramatic effect so we decided to begin with sitting In the audience and to a grand reveal In the audience stacks whilst giving out food, then go on stage and perform the rest of the song there. After discussing these Ideas we then began to start creating choreography for the song, we are not the best dancers so we used this to our advantage the choreography became comedic with the lyrics we had created. This did take a good hour or so as we wanted to perfect this section for when Tim comes into our rehearsal. This is the start of the basic movement for ‘circle of food’.
A couple of hours into our rehearsal Tim came In and we showed him what we had created so far. Tim liked the song from last week and enjoyed the movement that we had added to it, He thought that our idea of giving food out at the beginning was creative and fun for the audience I was pleased with that feedback However, Tim expressed his concern that it has potential but we need to think about what makes our piece original, he said that we needed to be weary that our performance was parody making but we needed to create some originality to take it further. This is when I realised that if we were making parody’s we needed to make sure we were doing them right, so i suggested to Shannon that we start looking at some in our spare time. He also said that with the movement we could explore tension as there is an aspect of annoyance between Shannon and I and a way of portraying that is through levels of tension. He gave some examples of performances for us to watch that might help influence our performance, In a mini meeting he showed us a scene from Deer Hunt which involved a group of men In a bar who randomly burst out into song, there is a comedic effect because they are all manly men singing a very cheesy love song.
We explained to Tim that we were feeling stressed with the amount of work load we had so he shared some advice about what he does when creating a performance he gave us the idea of created a time table with everything we needed to do for the performance to keep us on tack , this way we also wouldn’t fall behind. (Time Sheet)
Tim then also showed us a video on you tube which was from the musical West side story. The song he showed us was ‘Tonight’ he then went on to explain how this might be useful and that the song has many layers and different people singing it at different times and the song then has different meanings to the character depending on who is singing. This gave me an amazing idea of using a combination of speaking and singing at the same time however adding different meanings to what we were sing about or too. This would be an amazing aspect to the performance and we could show our different personalities through the music and what we say.
Introduction to new ideas/ reflection…
We decided to take a break and look into what else we could add to our performance and also to discuss what section we wanted to move on to next, we sat and starting talking about the ideas that we had.
Levels of tension- Tim had mentioned that our performance involves frustration with each other and therefore we need to research and look into how we might do that.
Tick Tick Boom- I then remembered an old performance I did back in high school which was the musical ‘Tick Tick Boom’ where I say a song called ‘Therapy’ which is a music number that is constant arguing between two people, I showed and explained to Shannon that this could be something amazing in a performance.
After Tim left we did begin to worry that our piece wasn’t going to be original enough however I just explained that it was still early days and I’m sure through development it will start to become original. This weeks rehearsal was good and I think we are on track, some of Tim’s comments did knock us back but I think it is a good thing because It has helped us progress and research further into other research and methodology for our performance. I am happy with the opening song and choreography I think it really brings out our personalities. I am feeling a bit nervous about how much there is to do but I just need to keep reminding myself that we have time. I have created mini tasks for myself to complete for next week which is just to emailing lectures and technicians but also song writing because I think I have some very good and new ideas to bring in for next rehearsal.
Tasks to complete for next week
- Lighting tutorial- learnt how to plot lights
- Emailed necessary sources
- Playing with levels of tension whilst sitting on the sofa watching TV talking about the takeaway.
- creation of eyes of food
Final Performance Project 