tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-42098587565934836882024-02-20T18:27:41.911-08:00community theatre thinkingEmma Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07260756962067304069noreply@blogger.comBlogger31125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4209858756593483688.post-20961499289155590072009-10-01T15:52:00.000-07:002009-10-01T15:57:55.532-07:00Breaking inI moved to Manchester about 4 weeks ago, and I was just thinking about how when you move somewhere new, that isn't for uni, its quite a strange and exciting thing. I am starting from scratch, apart from my house mates, who consist of my partner, and two good friends I knew from a work based community, back where I went to uni.<br /><br />I found myself getting 'tasters' of different communities since I have been here, dipping in and out of small social circles through one of my house mates. I took part in a meeting tonight which was about organising a big arts festival, and offered my experience towards it, now does that mean, since I am offering to contribute, that I have become part of that community. I worked for a temp agency last night, and worked with people I had never met before, who, by the end of the shift, became friends.<br /><br />I don't feel that I am part of any social group as it were, but maybe all I need to do is to keep dipping in and out of different groups, and see where I fit in the best.Emma Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07260756962067304069noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4209858756593483688.post-26409142689286622302009-06-27T07:07:00.000-07:002009-06-27T07:12:13.022-07:00I need a blooming job I tell you!I found my dream job the other day, it's for a 'Creative Learning Practitioner' in a theatre in Lancaster, now unfortunatley thats too far from where I will be living, but it sounds awesome! You get to create and run workshops, do things within the community, and direct shows for the youth theatre! How good does that sound?! Unfortunatley they want someone with 'experience', but I don't have that much, but how are you meant to gain experience, when every single job you want, wants you to be experienced! arrrggg! It's a vicious circle. Also, there are millions of voluntary jobs available, but I need to be paid for it! Volunteering, unfortunatley, isn't really an option any more. So, if anyone hears of anything, like the job I described above, let me know!Emma Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07260756962067304069noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4209858756593483688.post-34091921518261826532009-05-06T07:27:00.000-07:002009-05-06T07:34:12.851-07:00oh no, what will our local councils do next!Rosie told me something rather disturbing earlyer. Sutton Council, yes Sutton Council are pouring an un-affordable £4million into a youth centre that....wait for it. That will have a virtual street, with virtual drug dealers and peodofiles in order to teach primary school children, yes, primary school children about street crime and violence. What? Why? All a child needs to do is, watch the news! Or go out! or talk to people! We say that children spend to much time inside being unsociable playing on there computers and then some mad person decides, lets make a virtual reality, to teach them about reality! What? If you want a child to gain life experience, send them outside to play, they will see, and hear things, but no, lets coop them up in cyber space and teach them about reality in hyperreality! ahhhhh!<br /><br />This makes us worried to, I want to go in to community theatre, I want to be able to teach people things, through community theatre, how am i, and a bunch of other just about to graduate theatre fanatics, going to do this when virtual reality is taking over the world? How I ask you?<br /><br />How?Emma Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07260756962067304069noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4209858756593483688.post-20433767443060772462009-05-05T14:49:00.000-07:002009-05-05T15:00:35.781-07:00Pub communitiesI work in a pub called the Cabbage Patch, in Twickenham. Its a big put right next to the train station and is very successful and nice place to go for the family, for friends. Its a good place to meet, eat, socialise, party, get smashed, make a mess of the toilets, start a fight with your best friend...<br /><br />I like pubs, I like drinking, but when the time comes when you've had a enough to drink, you can't stop? Personally, I have some self control, other people don't. I was in the pub one time when two best friends started a fight with one another, the stronger one of the two grabbed hold of a pool que and smashed it over his best friends head. Why? Because he was angry and pissed. Not a good combination. The influence of alchol on our bodies and minds also holds a certain degree of influence over the decisions we make when it comes to the people around us. I could be drunk, someone might innocently bump in to me and I might hit the roof and swear at that person, not because I'm a nasty person, but because I'm drunk.<br /><br />I love the sort of drunk you might get when your feeling over confident, you talk to people you might never talk to, tell someone you like there outfit, and ask them where they got it from when your in the loos. When your dancing (of a sort) you might grab the nearest person next to you and dance with them, just because you like the song and want someone to share a moment with you. I find it strange how little social groups might form or fall apart, just from the influence of alcohol. The enjoyment of a football match might unite one side of the pub, and not the other, or vise versa. There's the people in the resaurant and people by the bar, people outside smoking, all these small social groups that form, shift change and dispearse, everyday. Interesting is it not?Emma Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07260756962067304069noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4209858756593483688.post-83603127300171857132009-04-26T06:41:00.000-07:002009-04-26T06:46:55.503-07:00The end of the first weekMyself and Rosie have just completed the first weeks worth of rehearsals, it was hard work but I think we got somewhere, especially on friday where we created to new scenes and even tried running through everything we had so far. Mark asso came a long and helped us make the scenes a bit jucier. He said that it needed to be a bit ruder so we tried this, I think we might have been letting the barrier of 'there just children be present to much and I think we underestimate at times what the children will like. Therefore we worked on making the performance style a bit more 'older' but still tried to keep the blocking simple as to keep a clear focus.<br /><br />We have founf problems this week with regards to blocking as we cannot start rehearsing in Chiswick part yet, therefore we have to try and think about the park's lay out as well as the blocking of the scenes. We decided not to worry to much, as long as the actors know the scenes well enough, re-blocking shouldn't be to hard.Emma Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07260756962067304069noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4209858756593483688.post-12092449795841501832009-04-20T14:44:00.000-07:002009-04-20T14:53:58.340-07:00The first rehearsal!We had the first rehearsal for 'The Shrinking Land of Kalku'. I think personally that it went very well, we have pretty much made the first scene, just needs to be rehearsed and scripted more but otherwise a very good start to the rest of the rehearsal process. We will be rehearsing with the different character groups on a seperate basis but then having full cast rehearsals on the friday so we can begin tying scenes together.<br /><br />This was my first experience in directing and I quite enjoyed it, I didn't really know exactly what I was doing but it worked and Rosie and I pulled it off and I feel we did a good job. I think once we get confident in our roles and comfortable with being directors and making bold decisions we will begin to flow well and get a lot done.Emma Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07260756962067304069noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4209858756593483688.post-36041395169205837562009-04-10T09:55:00.000-07:002009-04-10T10:01:27.386-07:00I got back from Manchester yesterday, and I believe its true what they say, people are a bit more friendly up north. I don't know why, and I'm sure (as I am a southener myself) that southern people are very nice people, but perhaps don't show that they are in front of strangers as much as the northern lot. It's just a thought, disagree or agree with me if you want.<br /><br />It's strange that In London that when you walk around, whilst on a day out that you feel rushed, don't walk slow, they will trample you, or take you with them, regardless of whether you want to go that way or not. In Manchester I felt as ease, relaxed and calm and walked around at my own pace.<br /><br />Is it the city that makes the people or the people that make the city? Why have londeners got this mentallity of go go go? Why do mancunian's seem to be more laid back? It's a mystry. Lets not even talk about Scotland!Emma Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07260756962067304069noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4209858756593483688.post-3541141623070405362009-04-03T05:32:00.000-07:002009-04-03T11:22:20.914-07:00Casting the showThe casting yesterday for me was very successful, myself and Rosie got to see everyone working together and on an individual basis. We went in already casted the show as we had an idea of who we wanted to play each character. However, after having watched them play out a scene and a monologue each we found we had very different ideas of who would be good at what. We played a character based game with them where they had to stand on chairs and play out all sorts of different characters in different situations. I found myself drawn to people who were the most playful and who started doing something the moment the stood on the chair. It showed us who would suit a playful role, who would suit a serious role and thus helped us see who could play each character.<br /><br />The casting also suprised us and we ended up casting people in roles that we might not have expected to cast them in, which i think is a good thing as everyone exceeded expectations. Myself and Rosie are looking forward to directing the show as everyone in the community project is commited and excited about the final project therefore making the rehearsal process (hopefully) very enthusiastic and fun.<br /><br />We will be rehearsing with the four main tribes people very closely while infusing that with working with the more cameo based roles such as Milky Magician. We will then have a full company rehearsal every friday so we can start running things and working together as a full company.<br /><br />Rosie and I have also decided to meet together with Skye in order to prepare for the following weeks worth of rehearsals, by doing this we hope to be able to keep on top of everything and resolve any problems we might have faced in the previos week.Emma Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07260756962067304069noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4209858756593483688.post-24200949069833134702009-03-29T10:17:00.001-07:002009-03-29T10:25:09.421-07:00Giving the story away.It felt strange last thursday telling the story because it felt like we were letting everyone else on a secret. There was a lot of hype about it and we felt that there was a lot of pressure on us to come up with something original. I also tried to keep an emotional distance from the story as I knew that it would have to be up to the design team to make it come to life, and as I director, I don't want to have too much ownership over the story as I know it will probably change and shift in direction when we start working on it. Therefore, looking at it from an objective angle from after easter is good because the story will start to create its own identity when myself and rosie start directing it.<br /><br />I have never directed before so I am very keen to start and I think Rosie and I will be able to work together well. I want to, before anything else, do a lot of company ensemble work as I feel that being in four seperate teams for so long has hindered us ( in some respect) from working as one. Therefore I want everyone to get to know each other again and get used to acting in an ensemble.Emma Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07260756962067304069noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4209858756593483688.post-7711410197215803942009-03-29T04:06:00.000-07:002009-03-29T04:28:13.205-07:00The shrinking Land of KalkuOn our last meeting the creative team told the rest of the Golden Travellers the story for the play at Chiswick house.<br /><br /><em>The story is about the land of Kalku which starts to shrink after the oldest member of the land dies, the rest of the dwellers then lose their faith in life thus causing the magic tree (need to think of a name for it) that provides everything they need to survive to die which then causes the land to shrink, pushing the dwellers into the human world. Once out in the human world members of different tribes are forced to come together to try and save Kalku. They are given clues by the elders of the tribes and so go on a journey together. On their way they meet Milky Magician, Kenneth the sad Caterpillar, The queen of the Water Nymphs, The Sphinx and the tree tricksters who give them tasks to do in order to gain pieces of a puzzle that they need to solve. While all of this is happeing the tree tricksters pop up now and again reiking havok and playing pranks on the protagonists while they try and complete the tasks. They also capture Hapu (one of the main characters) when he decides that he doesn't want to work together with the rest of the tribes and leaves to try and save Kalku by himself. </em><br /><em></em><br /><em>The rest of the tribes people, when they get to the magic tree, discover that Hapu has been imprisoned and have to try and let him free. Hapu refuses to apologise so the tricksters go to roast him on a barbeque (maybe) when they are stopped by the rest of the tribes people when they say that they want to abolish the tribes and live togehher happily and peacefully and that they don't mind that people die, they accept that there is a circle of life. The tricksters are touched by this and let Hapu go. They then get to complete the puzzle causing the tree to regain life and the world returns to it's normal size. They then celebrate by having a party. </em><br /><em></em><br /><em>For me, the story is about forgetting differences and learning to work together. As the schools we have been working in are vastly multi-cultural, we saw fit to make this a theme in the story so that perhaps the children take away from it and begin intergrating more with their class mates and thus when growing up take a more intergrated approach to their lives. The story is also about belief and faith, where faith is lost but regained and shows that if you keep faith then good things might happen. </em><br /><br />I think that the play will work well when all put together as the children will be taken on a journey with the characters and will also give them a chance (in the second show) to be with their parents on this journey and also perhaps make parents see that culture shouldn't be something that keeps us seperate but something that brings us togehter.<br /><em></em><br /><em></em><br /><em></em>Emma Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07260756962067304069noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4209858756593483688.post-16215878132539222422009-03-12T14:40:00.000-07:002009-03-12T14:46:26.653-07:00In order to make more head way on getting started making this story myself and the rest of the creatve team decided that we needed to find a stimulus to begin with, we need something that we can develop and play with. I find that just throwing in ideas doesn't work as we begin to get bogged down on wanting to do too many things, and we begin to get ahead of ourselves. Therefore we are going to research Egyption and Greek myths to find a story we really like and want to explore.<br /><br />Also in our meeting today we talked a bit about culture. In going into the schools in the last two weeks I have noticed how diverse they are in culture, many children have English as their second language, thus children are from different cultures and countries. I want to perhaps address this in our story, can we find a way of celebrating difference and perhaps bring different cultures together in order to make a wider and more diverse community? I want the story to perhaps detail a confrontation and resolution to perhaps take a children to a dark place in order to bring them out of it. Also the ideas that the children have in the workshops are very interesting and I am excited about pulling out maybe characters and situations that arise in the workshop environment.Emma Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07260756962067304069noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4209858756593483688.post-58939048013766634152009-02-28T06:04:00.000-08:002009-02-28T06:21:30.695-08:00The Golden Travellers!There has been some progress in the big community project and we are now beginning to run workshops in primary and secondary schools. Crane Park Community school wants it to be about <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">Egyptions</span> as they are learning about it in class so last week we took an <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">Egyption</span> Myth and ran a workshop about it. We were very well <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">recieved</span> by the school and the children responded to the workshop material very well. I played the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">Pharoh</span> throughout the workshop and was constantly in role which kept the children engaged all the way through as they kept reacting to me when I walked over to each of the three groups. It was a good device to have as it brought the story to life and children really <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">believed</span> in what they were doing and it allowed their imagination to be further extended as they believed the tasks they were doing was for the benefit of the <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">Pharaoh</span>.<br /><br />We are also doing a workshop at a primary school which is aiding their Book week which therefore will give myself, Rosie, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">Hardeep</span> and Maria to chance to see what sort of stories the children like to tell or be told which will hopefully help us begin to devise a structure for the story of the final project. It's exciting because we are beginning to get an idea of what children like, what devices in stories children find effective and the sort of characters that they will respond well to.<br /><br />The venue is also looking very promising as it has statues and temple like buildings which we could <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">incorporate</span> into the story. Perhaps the house could be a Kings Palace and the Bridge could become some sort of <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">challenge</span> to cross and the temple could be a magicians cave. It's a very inspiring place and <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">definatley</span> the sort of venue we could unleash all sorts of possibilities.Emma Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07260756962067304069noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4209858756593483688.post-81428585938322015192009-02-18T10:03:00.001-08:002009-02-18T10:10:06.396-08:00Story workshopIn the last community theatre meeting myself, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">Hardeep</span> and Rosie led a workshop about story telling. We did sentence bu sentence storytelling around in a circle but this wasn't that successful as the story failed to make sense as everyone wanted to tell a story and not aid the creation in a collaborative sense. Therefore in the story that was created, nothing really happened that made a cohesive story. However in the last exercise we did creativity was much more interesting. We did helicopter story telling so everyone got to tell a story and got to act and chose their peers to be the other characters in the story. There were many stories that were very interesting and <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">structurally</span> very clear, therefore we could start looking at their stories and perhaps use them as a starting point for the final product. This <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">activity</span> would also be useful to take into a workshop setting in a school as we can begin to get a sense of the kinds of stories the children want to tell.Emma Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07260756962067304069noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4209858756593483688.post-87446609125501329922009-01-18T14:03:00.000-08:002009-01-18T14:20:04.911-08:00Keith ParkLast Friday I went to the globe to participate in a workshop with Keith Park and two schools from North London which had students that had complex disabilities.<br /><br />The workshop was based on Shakespeares 'Romeo and Juliet' It was split into eigtht parts all said as call and response with a very definate rhythm through out. Everything was done in Makaton, and some words were said in Hebrew. Although Keith Park was involved in the workshop the person driving the workshop itself was an autistic teenager called PJ. It was very interesting how he remembered all the lines, made up jokes when we were playing a name game. It was successful because he had so much passion for what he was doing, in some sense it seemed that Drama had allowed him to become a confident individual and to be able to express himself in a way that best suited him. I also felt that having a child with high support needs in charge of a workshop helped the other children feel more enthusiastic about joining in the workshop, perhaps there was a stronger sense of identification?<br /><br />Drama had helped him do things that are considered to be un-autistic, he made eye contact and was incredibly social. In my opinion Drama might have played a part in helping someone with a learning disability do things that would never have been expected of them.Emma Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07260756962067304069noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4209858756593483688.post-79649208064394418702009-01-14T06:07:00.000-08:002009-01-14T06:13:01.794-08:00It's Starting!Over the last couple of days myself, Rosie Maria and Hardeep have met up to begin thinking about the big project. We talked about possible research areas, types of stories and basically had a think about our role as the creative team, what we can do and what we can create. I see us working closely with the design team in creating initial ideas and I also feel that it would make it more collaborative. I feel that working with the school laison will be important as making and doing workshops about the story we might want to do will be important.<br /><br />We also went and had a look around Chiswick house to get some inspiration and it is a very beautiful place which we could transform into something magical, I can see a lot of fairy lights! There is also an amphitheatre there which is a possible thing to think about within creating the performance.<br /><br />If anyone has any ideas for stories or characters or themes or structures or anything please tell us!Emma Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07260756962067304069noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4209858756593483688.post-24746551372470055632008-12-28T12:17:00.000-08:002008-12-28T12:23:45.817-08:00Christmas!Was just thinking about how a community forms at Christmas, certainly in my family anyway. For one day a year this community meets, eats and opens presents together, has a sing along or a very long game of pictionary, and then splits up at the end of the day, all to their separate homes. It's funny, because although we only meet for one day a year, we still have the same (ish) routine. Meet, eat, presents, general chitter chatter, pictures and games. This community that thrives on one day, it never changes, it's never awkward or boring but it's there, it happens, and then it disperses as quick as it started?<br /><br />What is everyone elses opinion on this, is it the same in your families? Or do you think I am chatting a load of rubbish?Emma Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07260756962067304069noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4209858756593483688.post-69557443290395182722008-12-21T12:46:00.000-08:002008-12-21T12:54:07.199-08:00What is a utopia? aren't there many problems with it? I think I have a problem with something being a utopia, perhaps I find the idea of something being perfect slightly uncomfortable, slightly creepy even. I believe you could, say in relation to creating multi-sensory environments, that you are trying to create a utopia for very young children, or children with complex disabilities, but how can you avoid the fact that one or more child might not like balloons, or any kind of sound? Thus how do you create a utopia because everyone has very different ideas of what their utopia is, therefore can such a thing exist? Could perhaps utopia be something that isn't perfect? Something that doesn't work quite the way it's supposed to, but personally to you, its utopia? So how do you go about creating a utopia for a community? What can you do to make something perfect for a large group of people? In some ways I don't think it possible, if I were to go into a community and give them something and expect them to have no problems with it I think I would be somewhat naieve, however perhaps if I were to consult the people I was working with and taking into account the ideas and skill of other people, then perhaps a utopia would be possible.Emma Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07260756962067304069noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4209858756593483688.post-65454119814602894792008-12-18T08:52:00.000-08:002008-12-18T09:02:46.519-08:00The big one!I am very exited about our meeting today in community theatre and can't wait to get started. I think that the possibilities are endless in creating theatre with people from all sorts of back grounds and abilities, especially after watching exodus last week, it makes me think that anything can happen! I like the idea of integrating children with learning difficulties with 'average' children children, creating multi-sensory environments and completely different worlds and wacky characters and things to touch and to play with! I liked what Danielle was saying about dreams and nightmares and teaching children and their parents to deal with it and begin to think about more positive things that might be lurking in the closet.<br /><br />I am exited at the prospect of being on a creative team and working collaboratively to create a piece of work that could be amazing! I think perhaps people should look at lots of different childrens (or adults) theatre company's to start getting some ideas about what we could do! Oily Cart is a good one for examples on multi sensory theatre for young children and children with multiple disabilities, you can find some of their stuff on youtube! Maybe look at things that the unicorn theatre puts on on polka theatre too! Maybe we could do something with puppets and shadows and things! I am very excited!Emma Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07260756962067304069noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4209858756593483688.post-83287128776220516462008-12-12T07:22:00.000-08:002008-12-12T07:26:40.806-08:00ExodusA film that we watched in class that was done with the people of Margate, Kent. The actors were all from that community and it was filmed in Margate. If I hadn't known that it was essentially a community play I would have thought it was a film with professional actors in it. I thought it was incredible what people in a community can do when they come together and are encouranged. When walking through Twickenham looking at the people go past I thought anyone could do it, there is nothing stopping people from being creative if thy get the right encouragement. We look for shows put on by amazing traditional shakespeare actors when in actual fact there could be some brilliant actors walking past us in the street, we just don't know it, and neither do they.Emma Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07260756962067304069noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4209858756593483688.post-36227328916436704452008-12-04T07:15:00.000-08:002008-12-04T07:41:51.857-08:00Community Plays<ul><li><strong>A community participating in the telling of a story</strong></li><li><strong>A Play that would have a strong narrative</strong></li><li><strong>A pantomime or Nativity</strong></li><li><strong>Could perhaps refelcts on key issues rife in that particular community</strong></li><li><strong>Unification, demonstrates ideas in a safe environment</strong></li><li><strong>Conflict resolution</strong></li><li><strong>Diversity</strong></li><li><strong>The re-imagining of place</strong></li></ul><p>The above is what we discussed in class about what a community play is. I believe that the above is mostly true, it's about participation, involvment and unifying a community, brings people together. You can involve different age groups, gender, ability and race. I believe that in putting on a community play that it is important to play something that is relevant in that particular community, perhaps it being about that certain community itself, or the place or an individual that they all relate to and also work through together in order to solve something. </p><p> </p><p>I don't think however, when I was growing up that there were community plays, or if there were, I certainly wasn't involved. I never heard that the whole of Pinewood Park, or Guillemont Fields took part in a show together, nothing like that ever happened. No one really knew their neighbours that well, we knew names and recognised faces but that was about it. There were the kids I knew on my street but I know that our parents weren't friends, they didn't know each other. It makes me think that communities like this, ones that are on middle-ground, that aren't too poor, or aren't too rich are in some points the ones who need some kind of unification, some sense of communicating with the people who are, geographically, the closest to us. When I think about growing up I think that we could have done with that sense of community being brought to us. We needed something that would all bring us together for a certain length of time, even if it wasn't a play but an activity, or a party, just somewhere that we could have this sense of unification. And then perhaps after this happened people would go on with this new sense of community and carry on talking to the people they worked togehter with. I think people need to identify with each other, people don't realise that there could be someone around the corner who was the most similar person to them and could actually turn out to be a friend, but it seems that people didn't take the time to get to know each other or even try to meet each other.</p><p>And I suppose there might be problems with creating a community play as you might think you are being completely inclusive when actually, you might turn out to be somewhat exclusive when you didn't expect it. Personally I think I would go out into the community and find out exaclty what they like, dislike, enjoy, hate and perhaps find out if there would be certain abilities or disabilities I could also cater for. </p>Emma Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07260756962067304069noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4209858756593483688.post-18074582831202222922008-11-20T08:36:00.000-08:002008-11-20T08:50:31.783-08:00Reminiscene in PracticeToday we just did some very interesting work. Mary, A seventy-four year old and Fiona, a 59 year old came in to talk to us about their lives.<br /><br />The opening question asked by Hannah was what they were doing when they were our age. This was a good ice breaker and a somewhat unintrusive question which allowed the two women to become comfortable talking to a big group. After then they were very happy to talk about the second world war and its repocussions, childhood sweethearts, fashion, music and holidays.<br /><br />After this we then set about chosing the stories that we wanted to dramatise. My group was particulary interested in telling the story about Mary's first love when she was fourteen years old. She told it incredibly well, building up this romantic story and then bringing right back down when she said that she couldn't stand him. At first I was worried about having to tell this story as I really wanted to make sure that the information that she had given us wasn't mis-represented or taken too far out of context. Luckily though we produced a two minuete sketch that contained everything that she said and therefore she was happy with how we had interpreted her story.<br /><br />Mary and Fiona seemed very happy with all that classes work and said interestingly that it wasn't the stories we were telling, it was their lives, it was fact and real for them and evoked their memories of that particular event very well. I therefore feel that this session was incredibly successful and the participants were kept comfortable and felt that they could talk with ease thus not hiding information of feeling they couldn't talk about certain things. I also think that If you stick with the exact details of the stories and keep its themes then it will be successful and won't offend the teller themselves as they still need to have some kind of ownership over the story, we can't take it completely out of context because they might feel that we have taken their story away from them.Emma Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07260756962067304069noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4209858756593483688.post-51416166708263899252008-11-16T07:36:00.000-08:002008-11-16T07:53:47.653-08:00Reminiscence continued'<strong>In performance memory is a political act'</strong><br /><strong></strong><br />Can a memory be the most reliable thing? I know that some memories that I have would not be completely true, they might be fused with other memories, placed blurred, faces unrecognisable. Some memories might be told to me, something that I might not remember could be told to me that I then begin to believe in.<br /><br />In relation to the stage a memory could be a political act because it is all to do with our choices, what we want to tell people, a one sided view that doesn't give the audience a chance to see the other point of view. The telling of someones story that might not all be true, facts slightly off, events exaggerated. But then again, isn't that the beauty of a story? You can only tell something how you remember it and no other way, if you tried to factualise it, the story would lose authenticity and you would lose connection to it, especially if you were the teller of the story.Emma Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07260756962067304069noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4209858756593483688.post-64478196853315974592008-11-13T08:43:00.000-08:002008-11-13T08:58:15.888-08:00ReminiscenceToday's session was about Reminiscence theatre. This is something I have never really touched on before therefore it was interesting to learn about the positive and negative aspects of it.<br /><br /><strong>'At the end if the 20th century history is not what it was' </strong>(Kershaw: 1999:160)<br /><br />We looked at this quote and tried to deconstruct it's meaning, what came about was a debate as to what history is now and what history was. I think the quote means that today, we have different perceptions of past events, we view it differently. Now that we have gained more perspectives we are able to challange what was previously believed and accepted. We also talked about viewing history in a modernist and post-moderist ways. We now view history as a fragmented thing, non-linear and challange weather past events such as the holocaust actually happened where as a modernist view would say that the face is solid, you cannot deny a fact. This then brought us on to discussing memory.<br /><br /><strong>Memory</strong>: Something from your personal history, first person, fragmented and compartmentalized images. Association, memories from smell, images and objects<br /><br /><strong>Reminiscence</strong>: Something you do with someone else. Idealised and wishful, happy times. The Choice about the stories we tell.<br /><br /><strong>Nostalgia</strong>: Looking back on things with rose tinted glasses, something that generates emotions, negative in the sense that only the 'good' things are remembered.<br /><br /><strong>Heritage</strong>: Your background. Something that is well established and has a value, Part of who you are for example you sur-name.<br /><br />I shall carry on a bit later!Emma Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07260756962067304069noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4209858756593483688.post-64403173286609979372008-11-07T13:57:00.000-08:002008-11-07T14:29:48.238-08:00Interviews, verbatim, structuring a play!We listened to <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">every ones</span> interviews and it was very interesting to hear all the significant differences between them all.<br /><br />The interviews ranged from the University Nurse, students of St Mary's themselves, a pub landlord and <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">Suz's</span> mum. There were many clashes of opinion, for instance, the Nurse and The landlord were coming from completely different places, one who works within the alcohol trade and one who has spent the past fifteen years dealing with the after effects of alcohol, <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">poisoning</span>, obesity and sexually <span style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffff00">transmitted</span> disease. We listened to people talk about initiations, getting each other 'smashed' and downing three pints within thirty seconds.<br /><br />The next task was to think about these interviews in terms of structuring a show, what interviews could we use, what order should they be in?<br /><br />We discovered after having put the interviews we chose in an order for a show that you have to be incredibly careful in how you structure them. Our order was as follows:<br /><br /><strong>Jumbo The Bouncer</strong><br /><strong>Basket Ball Vice President</strong><br /><strong>Adam, Rugby League</strong><br /><strong>Stuart Green (cabbage patch) and University Nurse together</strong><br /><strong>Suze's Mum</strong><br /><strong></strong><br />We talked about our decisions and that was fine but it was then brought to our attention that it was potentially an anti drinking message and quite one sided. Therefore, to me when making a verbatim play you cannot structure things on the basis that it will flow well or look nice. You really have to interrogate the content of the interviews and make sure you create tensions, different opinion in order to get a show that is diverse in it's subject matter, so that it's not all of one thing. You have to be careful not to lecture, not to present a one sided argument because a potential audience would feel disconnected from it, they don't want to sit down for an hour and be told that what they do is bad, or wrong. Especially if you showed a play about anti-binge drinking to an SU hall full of heavey drinking rugby boys. I think you have to taylor the show very carefully in order to make it controversial but not too in your face, 'this is my message and everyone has to listen'. I believe DV8 did this somewhat well as the information wasn't so bold and shocking that I found it too intense, there was a good balance between the differences in story.Emma Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07260756962067304069noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4209858756593483688.post-55417944649641109692008-11-05T08:50:00.000-08:002008-11-05T09:03:01.130-08:00Interplay Community Theatre.Another Theatre company that I have been looking at is Interplay Community Theatre. A theatre company, Similar to Oily Cart, who primarily work with Children who have multiple learning and physical disabilities.<br /><br />They wanted to be a theatre company that took 'theatre to people whowould not notmally see it- weather for financial, geographical or cultural reasons'. They took this idea as they believed that ' for theatre to live it must remain accessible', therefore their work is shaped and devised for specialist audiences who are in communites that don't have regular or very little experience of theatre.<br /><br />The company looks at game play as the basis for their shows and workshops that are highly practicle and participatory. Everyone has an opportunity to join in and therefore share an experience together. Their work provided opportunities for the teachers and careres of the children to see their potential, to realise that being stimulated through the medium of theatre can have beneficial outcomes for the child in that their confidence might increase or they might communicate more.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.interplaytheatre.org/intro.htm">http://www.interplaytheatre.org/intro.htm</a>Emma Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07260756962067304069noreply@blogger.com0