Panic. (4th November)

For some reason this semester I keep having massive panics over everything little thing I do. To sort this out I have asked Niki for a meeting to keep myself organised with my work; at the moment I am struggling to manage so this should hopefully help. I also came out the previous meeting feeling that I knew 0.015% about this process that I should do. To rectify this I have decided to really crack down on reading about the devising process.

As I was so stressed that evening I spent all night listening to the 'Book of Devising Theatre' by Frantic Assembly, are planning to fit in as much reading as possible around the devising process. To work around my memory problems I often will listen to my books whilst walking outside as I seem to retain the information better! Little did I know that, not only would this book transform our devising process but also that it would completely inspire my approach and build my enthusiasm for this theatre project. Everything they said just seemed to correlate with my core belief's and I love there mantra in regards to there work ethic. They seemed to get a spark of an idea, then at the end of the day have it up on it's feet.

There was a segment early on in that book that started talking about how the company used music in there performances - dependent on audience also - to rally up the audience, calm them or grab there attention before the piece started. At one in particular, which had older spectators, the company began to run the show themselves before the piece actually started properly. Apparently people "began to yell furiously" (Graham & Hoggett, 2014, pg 18) at the fact they couldn't hear because of the music and to turn it down. Immediately you have the audience gripped; in that way you have won. You have collaborators rather than spectators which is also part of there ethos.

I rang Kane up straight away as I think this is definitely something we can use in our performance! I was extremely excited as I am aware that the beginning of the performance starts as soon as people leave there homes. Every single external factor alters the space in people's mind's on how they take in and process a performance. I think we could utilize the space outside the theatre, to not only help the audience get in the right headspace, but also to draw the audience in. Prepare them to the fact we will be playing with there use of sight and sound. I also thought that the idea of having someone saying something really important; and then playing something over the top (maybe not purposefully) would be really good at gauging a reaction from the audience. It will recreate the feeling one get's when partially deaf and all noises heard within there hearing aid process in the brain at once.

Another part of the book I am going to tell the group about in the next session is a part about the rehearsal process. It speaks about the difference between dancing training and acting training. As a musician I can relate to the dancing training more. For an actor, it discusses how they like to skip straight into the performance and feel uncomfortable and exposed on stage. For the dancer, they prefer the rehearsal process and flourish in that environment building up technique from scratch yet feel vulnerable and exposed on the stage. After people getting all rallied up in rehearsal, not wanting to show Niki anything, saying were all not good enough, if we had so and so in the group; actually it all bottles down to insecurity within the process. There is nothing wrong with building up from scratch in front of someone else, and that is in fact how you are meant to learn! Hopefully, if I make the group aware of this, instead of pointing fingers and blaming; we can have words of positive affirmations and support.

Bibliography 

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