Rehearsal 2

This lesson me and my partner taught the class the opening to our duet. This was a gestural piece representing a wife brushing her husbands jackets. This piece originally used petals but if we use it the final piece we probably won't have them. This piece works well as an opening.

We also all brought in real letters written to wives from husbands in world war 1. We are using these real letters to develop the box sequence. We brought in boxes to use, but the for the final performance we should have all had the same box bought for us, so it looks like an official parcel the army might have sent. With these letters we all cut them up and picked a few lines each from the various letters. We then all sat in a space and took turns to say each line. We then kept this order and started off by opening the boxes and taking out the jackets and smelling them. This is because scent is extremely evocative and when you have a connection with someone or an attraction you know how they smell. Smell can often trigger memories or remind us of certain people or things. After the smelling we put on the jacket and look through all the letters until we find the one that is written to us from our husband not the other way around. We then begin reading it, by saying our lines one by one.

This piece allows us to extend our physicality whilst maintaining a grounded and realistic emotional connection to the characters and relationships we are portraying. It allows us to personalise the movement, and take our time in doing so. It isn't fast paced or gimmicky, it is an honest representation of the pain someone women went through when their husbands or sons died in the war. It also shows how significant some of the little possessions left behind can be.

First rehearsal for final piece

This lesson we decided we got into new classes based on the different subject matters we explored in our solos and duets. This meant we were split into 3 different group types:

• Wives and mothers (role of women in the war)
• Soldiers
• Couples

Within these groups we can develop on these 3 sub groups within the war and develop our duets into group pieces and create new work. I am in the group working on the role of women. To begin we got back into our partners or by ourselves and went through our solo or duets to show again to the class. This was to remind us of what we had already created and what parts of each others pieces we could develop.

We discussed the idea of one of the solos, where she uses a box with an army jacket and letters within it. The piece showed a women looking through a box of possessions sent to her by the army, which belonged to her husband who passed away during the war. We discussed bringing in boxes and making this a group piece. Next lesson we are going to bring in boxes and develop this idea.