Category Archives: Uncategorized

Dec 14

RESEARCH P. Criterion

Criteria A- Theatre in context: The tradition- Research reaches excellent standard: 8

Criteria B: Theatre processes: Practical research- 7

Criteria C: Presenting Theatre: The presentation- 8

Criteria D: Theatre in Context: The learner- 7 for describing just one other tradition  in a more specific light

 

Dec 14

SP- Influences

http://globalshakespeares.mit.edu/glossary/wayang-kulit/ (ASIA)

http://globalshakespeares.mit.edu/glossary/jingju/ (ASIA)

http://globalshakespeares.mit.edu/sonho-de-uma-noite-de-verao-mello-da-costa-fernando-2004/ (BRAZIL)

http://globalshakespeares.mit.edu/mnd-faesler-juliana-2009/ (BRAZIL)

http://globalshakespeares.mit.edu/midsummer-nights-dream-brook-peter-1970/ (UK)

Another Midsummer Night’s Dream

http://globalshakespeares.mit.edu/midsummer-nights-dream-yang-jung-ung-2006/ (ASIA)

http://globalshakespeares.mit.edu/midsummer-nights-dream-al-shamma-james-2013/ (US)

http://globalshakespeares.mit.edu/midsummer-nights-dream-miwa-elica-2006/ (ASIA)

http://globalshakespeares.mit.edu/sen-noci-svatojanske-trnka-jiri-1959/ (EUR)

http://globalshakespeares.mit.edu/midsummer-nights-dream-peris-joan-2000/ (EUR)

http://globalshakespeares.mit.edu/midsummer-fagundes/ (BRAZIL)

 

Dec 14

Solo Project

Julie Taymor – American playwright

Performances:

  • Lion King
  • Tempest
  • Midsummer’s night dream

Theory:

  • She is an American playwright, who has directed numerous different types of plays, including the Lion King, The Tempest, A Midsummer’s Night Dream and the movie Frida.
  • She started her theatre career by going to the Jacques LeCoq School in Paris to study mime and she also did programs In India and Sri Lanka with her school. Both of these activities influenced her later works with puppetry, masks and also her inclusion of multiple cultures.
  • “In Bali, Taymor established her own theater company, Teatr Loh. She told Back Stagethat she was impressed by theater’s role in society there. “I was very taken with the fact that the theatre productions there were a part of everyday life. . . . You don’t do it because . . . you’re going to be reviewed in Time magazine, but it’s part of what it is to be a living human being.” Don shewey
Nov 15

Collaborative Project Progress

We have blocked the first scene, or the intro. Adam and I are playing the roles of the boy and girl and the intro is meant to introduce their relationship, the happier moments. The first scene consists of a waltz and movements from frantic assembly, with the intro conveying an ethereal, light moment during the relationship. This is the music that we are using for the counts:

We will continue to break down the movements and put them to music more fluidly.

In my part as costume/set, I see light colors like pink and blue during the intro of the seen, with no harsh lighting. Costume will consist of white colors, with adam wearing white shirts and the girl wearing a white, flowing dress to convey the freeness of the scene.

Nov 1

ISTA LONDON Workshops

Recently, I participated in ISTA London 2015 as apart of TaPs. I participated in two workshops when I was there, one with Mark Hill and one with Jubilith Moore. Mark Hill’s workshop was on Butoh and physical movement, and Jubilith’s was about Kyogen and dance. Both of these workshops, based around traditional Japanese theatre, were extremely interesting, as I was thinking of how I could incorporate the specific techniques into my own IB pieces while participating in the workshops. Both workshops included a lot of physical movement,but Mark’s was much more focused on improvised movement and being in-one with the body in relation to Butoh, while Jubilith’s workshop focused on the stylised theatrics behind the dance and was extremely specific to dance of Kyogen. I hope to incorporate these dances or movements, or even these theatre styles into my IB theatre projects.

Oct 8

Research Presentation: Kathakali Mock

I have been working over the past couple of weeks to write my research and prepare to present it for my mock. Our Mock is next week, and I have also been collecting more web-based sources recently, as I have collected all my books. I am surprised at how much context there is surrounding Kathakali, as in how much of the history is important to how it was developed today. I have also chosen to focus heavily on context, as I feel it is the most important. I will be publishing the draft of my written work here: (once done)

Kathakali Presentation

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

May 27

Jerzy Grotowski | Tadeusz Kantor

Jersy Grotowski

  • Polish Theatre Practitioner, born in South Eastern Poland in the city of Rzeszów (zheshuv) in 1933
  • After studying at the High Theatrical School in Krakow, he went to Moscow to study directing at the Lunacharsky Institute of Theatre Arts and it was there were he learned about new theatre trends and educators such as Stanislavsky and Meyerhold.
  • Author of “Towards a Poor Theatre” and declared that theatre should not compete with film but rather focus on actors in front of spectators
  • Poor Theatre allowed people the rethink the idea of contemporary theatre, as it didn’t focus on extras such as things like lights, sound, costumes, sets but rather the work of the actor with the audience.
    • He said the ideas of extras were just “trappings” and were unnecessary to what theatre should generate.
  • The diction of poor meant stripping the actor of all that was unnecessary and making the actor very vulnerable. He wanted the actor to be able to do anything and everything with their body without aids and only the visceral experience with the audience.
  • He overturned traditions as the focus on 19th century European theatre had elaborate costumes and stunning staging
  • His theatre was not based so much on image, but rather the connection the actor had with the audience, depending only on voice and body
  • He did use sets, and costumes but they were secondary to the actual acting and were usually very simple

Tadeusz Kantor (tade u ooj kantor)

  • Polish Theatre Practitioner born in Galicia in 1915
  • Studied at the Krakow Academy and after during the nazi occupation of poland, he founded the Independent Theatre
  • After the war, he developed many avant garde pieces such as Measure of Measure and Saint Joan, he used a lot of religious allusions and used mannequins as real life actors
  • His most famous work is The Dead Class Within the piece, Kantor himself took the role of a master of ceremonies, conducting his actors – seemly dead characters who are confronted by mannequins which represented their younger selves. This explored the persistence of memory and its interplay with time and the construction of history. This interpenetration of life and death created powerful and disturbing images at once comic and absurd, joyous and terrifying.
May 17

Vsevolod Meyerhold- Practitioner

Vsevolod Meyerhold was a Russian and Soviet theatre director, actor and theatrical producer born in february of 1874, grew up in a strict russian family in penza russia. He was not much interested in any of the arts, while his wife organized musical evenings regularly and was fond of the theater. Karl and his siblings shared her interest and often participated in amateur plays

During his first year of university in law school, he saw Othello by Stanislvaski and that was what inspired him., His theatre experiments dealing with physical being and symbolism in an unconventional theatre setting made him a highly well known practitioner in Russia. Meyerhold began acting in 1896 as a student of the Moscow Philharmonic Dramatic School and after leabing MAT, he participated in many theatrical projects. Meyerhold was one of the most fervent advocates of Symbolism in theatre, and he tried to return to the style of Commedia d’Ell Arte, he was also heavily inspired by his first play which was Othello by Stanislavski

  • Meyerhold’s acting technique had fundamental principles at odds with the American method actor‘s conception. Where method acting melded the character with the actor’s own personal memories to create the character’s internal motivation, Meyerhold connected psychological and physiological processes. It was called biomechanics
  • As opposed to Stanislavsky, Meyerhold was usually indifferent to the psychological side of acting, but he was fascinated by its visual side. He made the actors work on body movements, not on character study, and assured them that “buffoonery and clowning are necessary for an actor, and the simplest simplicity should include the elements of the clown”. His performances resembled marionette theater shows.
  • Background
  • The practice of your individual
  • Why you are drawn to his/her practice
  • How you may develop his her practice into a Solo Project (ideas as to what you could do .. e.g. for Boal, you could develop a forum theatre on Peer Pressure).
May 4

everyman

My Idea for the combined theatre styles for a new version of the play “everyman” included combining shadow theatre and the idea of post-dramatic theatre. My idea was to use the shadow theatre in order to create the god like and angel like allusions of the play, but to use the post dramatic was something that made the play much more avant garde, as I feel you cannot portray this in a realist style, otherwise I would find it to be mocking the play. With the use of post-dramatic theatre, you can keep things like staging quite stagnant but over the top and simple at the same time, also allowing for audience integration more. This play, if you really wanted to step away from the original plot, can be interpreted in the way of many religions which is what makes it so rich. My big idea is to create this play in way to showcase many religions, but still keeping with the main themes and characters of Everyman.