Session 4

Our devising process has become very text based. It informs all the movement. We used the idea of having an object help the movement development. We having be playing with the idea of having lots of poppy petals in apron pockets in our piece and we pick them up and crumble them out of our hands to enhance some of the gestural movements. This works well and often seems like the poppies are representing bloodshed and tears in the way they move.

We decided on the narrative, slightly different from the poem, where there is a romantic relationship between a woman and a soldier who has gone away to war and she doesn't know where he is. We explore this idea of post traumatic stress disorder, but in the women. The angst of a woman awake at night missing the man she loves who could be in great danger. We convey this through floor motifs. It worked really well as a starting point to lie on the ground with our eyes shut and physically show we were having a bad dream. This meant we were wriggling on the ground, screaming, hitting the ground. These informed the final movements we created.

As we are a female pair our piece is only representing a female story about world war 1. This is the part of the war me and my partner thought it be interesting to represent. This is because world war 1 was such a pivotal moment in changing the world for women, it is important to know how, why and what those women went through to make the world the place it is today.

Session 3

This lesson we started looking at different stimulus we could use to create our duets or solos. Me and my partner bought in a few things to start off. We had a poem called ' Poppies' by Jane Weir, a book of photography from world war 1, a family heirloom book full of memoirs and a poppy. After talking about how the stimulus made us feel and what inspired us the most to create movement we decided on using the 'poppies' poem. 

 

Using this stimulus we created our opening which is inspired by the beginning of the poem. We decided to have this opening sequence extremely slow and facing the audience. We came up with the sequence as synchronizing gestural movements. We showed this to another member of the class and they said they thought it was effective we just needed to make sure we were totally sure of timings and the movements were exact. We then went on to work out timings and on the precision of the movements.

Session 2

We explored a group movement exercise. It started off with one person in the middle of the room, they would move around the space in straight lines, turning whenever they got to a corner or edge. When someone felt like it they would also join in. Whenever the direction changed the leader changed as well. This became more challenging as more and more people joined in.

After getting the hang of the basic movement exercise we began to change the dynamic of our movement. The leader would control the movement. The idea was to change leader, direction and movement, seamlessly. Almost so an audience member wouldn't be able to tell who was the leader at any given time. Mostly the movements were abstract and play like, with lots of gestural arm movements and over exaggerated walking. This could represent children playing before the war.

We developed this movement on to create a uniformed marching. This worked well as a way of moving on from the child's play movement. It could show a story of children growing up during war. Starting off the naivety and fun and then growing up to fight or to have their brothers and fathers fighting. It shows the child's view of war to the reality of war. This could be a nice exercise to use to develop material to create our final whole year piece.

World war 1 lecture

This lesson we had a lecture on world war 1. This was so we all began to understand our stimulus more as we all have different levels of knowledge and understanding of the subject. I think it's important to have factual basis for everything we are doing around this topic as to give it the respect and dignity it deserves. It is also important it is honest and truthful as opposed to a fabrication based on war in general or the wrong war. During this lecture we took notes:

• world war began on the 28th July 1914 and ended on the 11th November 1918
• 70000000 troops were mobilized 
• 20000000 troops died
• There was many causes
• One cause was an arms race in Europe among Britain, Russia and Germany.
• During the war it was Britain, France and Russia against Germany and Austria
• Being a soldier and fighting for country was seen as a brave and honorable thing to do
• War was also shown to be fun and exciting, because of this many young men would lie about their age to get into the army
• Britain at the time was mostly white and hugely patriotic 
• Women played a very different role in society and were viewed differently
• Middle class women tended to wore lots of big house and long thick dresses and corsets 
• England had a huge empire: Australia, Canada and parts of Africa and Italy
• The majority of the population were working class, very poor and often had no access to clean or hot water 
• Most homes didn't have an indoor toilet
• The life expectancy for a man was 50
• The life expectancy for a woman was 54
• Developments in the economy meant rural farm work was beginning to die out
• Most women didn't work
• Women didn't have the vote
• Women's place was in the home taking care of children and other domestic tasks
• Homosexuality was illegal, you could be imprisoned and be put to forced hard labour as a punishment.
• Foreign travel was rare and only for the middle classes
• The war was started after the Arch Duke Ferdinand and his wife were assasinated by a student
• Britain entered the war on the 4th of August 1914
• In November 1914 Turkey joined the war
• in 1917 the Russian Tzar empire fell and the Russian people were starving
• 1918 came the armistice ( the war was over)
• After the war 4 major imperial powers joined together to create the league of nations (now known as the united nations)
• After the war Germany was blamed for everything
• The treaty of versailles was created which put harsh restrictions on Germany
• It forced Germany to pay a huge debt to the other countries which out Germany into a terrible depression, inflation was huge and nobody had any money
• It also put massive restrictions on Germany's ability to have an army, create weaponry and start another war.
• This humiliation of Germany eventually lead to the rise of fascism and the election of Hitler and of course world war 2. 
• During world war 1 the fighting was basic
• Chemical weapons were invented then banned after
• Many soldiers came home with shell shock, also known as post traumatic stress disorder

Session 1

This session we were introduced to what the stimulus of our final common ground physical theatre performance would be - world war 1. We were also given the task of creating a solo or duet based on some element of this stimulus, like a book or poem, for an assessment at the end of term. This presents a new challenge as we have not yet performed physical  theatre in pairs or on our own before. I have opted to devise and perform a duet with another member of my class.

In class we looked at an exercise where we had to act within a small square space on our own. We were given the situation of being in a broken down lift. I found this quite simple. The main challenge is to not overact a situation and to feel it and react instinctively. I found myself getting panicked at first at the unusual event of a lift breaking down. Then over time I got bored as all I felt I would be doing at that point would be waiting for help. Some of the movements I was doing in the lift initially involved a lot of pacing and button pressing. As it went on and the boredom of the situation kicked in the movements got slower and more tiresome  until I eventually found myself sitting on the floor, and then lying down waiting for time to go by. This exercise was interesting to help you think about the benefits of working with small spaces and the different meanings these spaces can convey.

We developed on from this exercise to being in a situation where we were in a confined space with another person. The setting was a prison cell. We were still working on our own within this confined space. We were told not to necessarily interact with this other but be aware that they are there. This also allowed for more internal acting as opposed to external. I found it hard to not embody a stereotype of a prisoner. I found myself having my guard up quite high and being confined within a small corner within my small square space. I was aware of there being another person in the room however I didn't interact with them. I got the idea that I was scared of them. This exercise was interesting as it allowed us to focus on how a space changes or how we change within a space when someone else is there. Especially confined spaces.

We were then shown a series of objects: A banana peel, a plastic bag, a ball and a feather. We were then told, within our space, to embody this object and how it moves through the air and develops. I chose the banana peel. When it was dropped on the ground it fell quite sharp and direct. When it reached the ground it didn't really move. This wasn't particularly dynamic or interesting in my opinion. I decided to embody the banana peel molding and folding over time. My movements were floor based and slow. They required a lot of effort and involved me slowly crumpling inwards. Using objects to inspire movements can be a useful devising technique. It allows you to automatically find movement qualities which can be applied to different circumstances and stories.