Entry Four

Reflection on Progress we have made thus far

1) Movement wise
Alright, we have made considerable progress in terms of our movement. Our original deadline was to actually have our whole performance choreographed by 30th July, so that we can start on full-dress rehearsals, but we realised that this was quite an impossible target. Considering the fact that we had little experience in physical theatre and that we had to re-choreograph plenty of our movements to make it less "dancey". These comments were made after our showcase of the first scene.

Therefore, we realised that we could make the movements less "dancey", especially for the first scene, by moving off-beat to the music. Basically, it means that we do not move to the music, but rather the music should fit our movements. Therefore, we tend not to follow the rhythm and tempo of our music. We plan to incorporate this in our following scenes.

Currently, we have completed 4 scenes out of 6.

2) Multimedia wise
Currently, our lights are pretty much already done. We just need to have more tech-runs to make our light changes more fluid.

In terms of sound, we are currently facing a problem. Miss Norzian commented that one reason why our movement piece seemed "dancey" was because our music were songs instead of sound. Songs have their own specific beat and rhythm, and when we perform our movements, we perform them according to the beat of the songs. Rather, we should have choreographed our movements first, before either designing or finding a sound that fits our movements.

Therefore, in order to tackle this problem, we have re-choreographed the "narvas" portion of the first scene as this portion was the most "dancey" part of our whole performance. We are also going to change our song choices for the remainder of the scenes.

3) Set/Costume wise
I think we are pretty much done with the set as the props we need are pretty much already acquired. The only major problem we have is regrading the screen. We are still trying to come up with an idea to implement the fish-eye effect for our projections, but at the same time we have to find a suitable screen. Our original idea to use a black cloth fell through, so we are thinking of using a white one. But if we use a white one, we might as well just use the current projection screen, no? The problem with this though is that it might pose a distraction. Therefore, we are trying to remedy this by doing a freeze-frame whenever words are projected on the screen.

In terms of costume, it is still work in progress. Steph has been coming up with the sketches and they are quite promising. We are going costume shopping soon so we should be able to get the costumes done and over with as soon as possible!

Entry Three

No Strings Attached Script Synopsis

Characters

1. Child
2. Parent
3. Sibling
4. Friend 1
5. Friend 2
   

Scene 1

• Parent, Child, and Sibling appears.
  
• A happy scene is shown whereby Parent is trying to develop a close relationship with his children.
• However, Parent is soon affected by society's view on how proper "Parenting" should be.
• In turn, he takes it out on the Child, as the Sibling is sent off, and watches helplessly.

Scene 2

• Child and Friend 1 appears in the scene.
• Child attempts to hide her father's mistreatment but fails to do so.
• Friend 1 tries to cheer her up by playing games with her.

Scene 3

• Suddenly, Parent enters the scene to bring Child away, sending Friend 1 away at the same time.
• Parent introduces Child to Friend 2 and wants them to befriend each other.
• Child tries to befriend Friend 2 to no avail.
• After a few awkward situations, Friend 2 finally manages to get Child to study.

Scene 4

• Scene changes to show Parent and Sibling.
• Sibling suffers from bipolar disorder, and informs Parent that there is no cure.
• Parent, enraged by this news, starts verbally abusing the Sibling.
• Sibling tries to persuade Parent to accept her, but fails.

Scene 5

• Sibling enters to meet Child.
• They laugh at the awkwardness between Child and Friend 2 previously.
• However, Child upon mentioning Parent, causes Sibling to have severe mood swings.
• Sibling's bipolar disorder kicks in, causing severe changes in emotions.
• Child, not knowing that her sister has this illness, is extremely disillusioned and shocked.
• She runs away.

Scene 6

• Child turns on TV and watches a video.
• She realises that everything is connected and that one person's actions has an effect on others.
• This is portrayed in a subsequent movement scene.

- Scene 6 is still tentative and will be subjected to changes!

Entry Two

Secondary Role in Group Piece

My secondary role in the group piece is that of the scriptwriter. My role is to come up with a script that is compatible with that of a movement piece, and yet is able to bring forward the directorial vision of our piece. Being a novice, my perception of a script for a movement piece would be that of a succint one, as a single line could translate to a series of movements.

I have based our script based on "A Doll's House" by Henrik Ibsen. But rather than adapt directly from the play, I have decided to come up with a piece, drawing inspiration from real life. Just like how symbols were used in the play, I have decided to use the same type of representation in the script in order to represent the moments in which the main character is being controlled.

Expressionistic plays are usually depicted in multiple short scenes in order to potray the emotions. Rather than present these emotions to the audience in a drawed out piece, expressionistic plays aim to shock the audience in a sharp manner. Therefore, I have decided to write the script in such a way that the range of emotions is presented to the audience in a series of short scenes as well.

The play is still currently a work in progress however, as I still need to include more elements similar to the play of "A Doll's House", as well as make the plot more realistic, and adaptable to movements.

Entry One

Task: Devise a short piece of ‘total theatre’ (i.e. drama which consciously attempts to
involve other art forms) based on the theme of ‘Politics of Identity’.

Inspiration

We read up on the required texts beforehand, keeping in mind that we needed to either adapt or come up with a piece of our own, drawing inspiration from these texts. However, we didn't gain much inspiration from these texts for we felt that it was very difficult to adapt these plays, let along try to put up a form of "total theatre".

Creative Process

At first, we decided to adapt our piece from Macbeth. However, it was later changed to Ibsen's "A Doll's House" as we felt that the our directorial vision could be better presented with the emulation of this play.

Directorial Vision: "We are all connected; one person's actions influences another."

Performance Traditions

The two skills that we are going to do for our piece are Movement and Multimedia. We will be Contemporary dance as our movement style, with Multimedia being the only support as there will be no reading of lines. In order to achieve this, we decided to follow an Expressionistic style.

Expressionist Theatre - Theatre with expressionistic goals in mind. As opposed to having the primary aim of creating theatre to educate (like Brecht), to entertain (like Commedia Dell'arte), or to be realistic (like Stanislavski); expressionistic theatre's main aim is to express emotion.

Expressionistic theatre is different from realism - actors will behave how most people wouldn't in real life, their physical and vocal qualities exaggerating their emotions; set designs will be exaggerated to emphasise the tone of the setting. The artist is not concerned with reality as it appears but with its inner nature and with the emotions aroused by the subject. To achieve these ends, the subject is frequently caricatured, exaggerated, distorted, or otherwise altered in order to stress the emotional experience in its most intense and concentrated form.

Therefore, in accordance to our DV, we are planning to show the relationship of how everyone is connected, through the literal use of strings as well. Furthermore, we are basing our play on a web-like structure for the characters that we have come up with.

This relationship web will help us to show clearly how each character is interlinked, as well as the butterfly effect of each person's actions.

Turning Points

• We changed our style from Human Puppetry-esque actions to Contemporary Dance because that allowed for more movement and expression.
• Macbeth was intended to be a potential play to emulate, but that changed to Ibsen's A Doll's House.
• Our DV was changed once, and the new DV allowed us more room to work with.
• Our original relationship structure was more of a linear one at first. However, it was then changed to a more web-like one (see above) to bring out more fully the different connections between the characters that affect each other.