Lesson 4 - 22/9/15

Lesson 4 - 22/9/15

We started off by exploring year two and three curriculum.

Year 2 - Planets/solar system

Year 3 - Stone Age

We then created two mind maps on these topics and created characters for them, any info about the characters and there daily problems, we also put any facts about the topics that we could include to make the pieces educational. This task worked well as everyone could work off of eachother.

We then split into two groups each got a topic my group got the Stone Age. In our groups we then used the info and characters on the board and started devising shorts scenes that we could use in our final piece for ours we became a stereotypical Stone Age family, as the first task went well this was easy as we had a lot of ideas we could expand on from the board. We decided to do ours in the round and created different scenerys in each corner. Each character had a story of their own that tied in with everyone else's and then also had a moral with like for my character the moral was not to lie as it doesn't get you anywhere, having a moral for my character made creating material easy. We then added more features into our pieces like staging and costume to make the performances more realistic and more suitable for our children target audience, I think this is a good idea as our audience are of a younger age which makes it more appealing for them which is key as they can lose interest quickly. After this we then had to create a small musical video like an advert to get children to come and see our performance for this Olivia created a small tune, which was appropriate for our topic and target audience, in which she sung for this at the same time Sam, max and I were in a freeze frame looking all calm so that we did not distract from olivia. At the end of her song Olivia says caves we then all start to get crazy and rave about caves chanting the word getting louder, as we get louder we got closer to the camera before running and chanting away. This was a fun idea to do as not only does it link with our theme is has humour elements which is appealing for our particular target audience.

Our scene poem from last lesson:

There once was a lady who couldn't cross the road,

Afraid she would be squished like a toad,

Along came a girl with a magical cloak,

To show her all she needed was a little poke,

Together they made it on their way,

Onto to other side and alive hooray.

Lesson 2 15/9/15

Lesson 2 15/9/15

Unit 11 - Theatre for children 

Questions that ask someone to evaluate:

- what do you think went well? 

- what could have gone better?

- what improvements could be made? How?

Source material : stimulus, script

Artistic policy: what are you doing? Why are you doing it?

Children's theatre practitioners and company's :

- Long nosed puppet theatre company 

- Rainbow theatre - TIE ( theatre in education)

- Polka children's theatre 

- Unicorn Theatre

- Puppet barge

Normal theatre company's that include children's theatre:

- Glynebourne 

- Royal opera house 

- National Theatre 

With the National Theatre they have different opportunities which they use within colleges and schools such as NT connections, NT new views and NT streaming; this is good because it puts them out there for many people to see giving them great advertisement.

We were split into two groups and we were given two Dr Seuss books. I was happy about this because as a child i was really into these books and know how much they appeal to a young audience.We then got to choose poems within the books and make a performance out of them. Within my group there was four of us we decided to do three different poems so to do this we split into twos and do two of the poems and then come together for the last one. We all decided to include props and costumes as it is more interesting for the children. In Megan and my first poem we did a poem about a bird and a hat, this poem was quite hard to do at first as it had a story to it but at the same time it didn't as we had to make it from a monologue to a dualogue. I came up with the idea, which we then went with, that it should be a kind of argument between two people as there is a lot of repetition. For the poem with all of us in we did one about these animals that grow one hair on there head and have to get it cut everyday for this we decided that we needed to use more of the stage so we spread out, I thought that this worked well as it made it more visual for the audience. It was quite a long poem so we decided that one person should narrate and the others act it out. I was chosen to be the narrator, I then gave the idea that we should incorporate some choral speaking to making more interesting than just me speaking. After we had finished our piece we then showed it to the rest of the group and it was filmed on the mac the other group did the same thing, personally I felt that our performance went well even though we rushed the last section and as a result the transitions were messy. We then did video analysis by watching the videos and saying what went well and even better if, we also discussed how we could make those improvements. For our group our pace, positioning and use of props was good but we needed to improve the transitions. A personal target for myself was to not look down to much when reciting lines, to improve this I could practice looking in a mirror when reciting lines. 

After break we then sat around the board and started to create our own little town that could have whatever we wanted but the target audience for the town was 5-12 year olds. We called out town Crabapple.

This is Crabapple.

We then had to think of our own characters and how they fit in within the town.

My character was called Emma Charming she is 16 and an orphan, she lives at rose cottages, in the week she works at the wizard school and then at the weekends she works at the bouncy castle. She is trying to save up for a car so she can leave Crabapple , she doesn't really have any friends as she likes to be alone.

Dance- 15/9/15 unit 38 - Dance Performance

Dance- 15/9/15 unit 38 - Dance Performance


What is Physical theatre?:
Physical theatre is a cross between dance and drama. Its proper defintion is a form of theatre which emphasizes the use of physical movement, as in dance and mime, for expression.

Practice and practioneers of physical theatre:
- Steven Berkoff
- Trestle Theatre Company
- Frantic assembly
- Antonin Artaud
- Jacques LeCoq

Physical theatre:
 'Faultline' by Shobana Jeyasingh

Themes- Youth culture, Gender stereotypes and Identity(ganags, pack mentality)
 Faultline uses gestures and footwork from Bharatanatyam( style of indian dance)
it is influenced by martial arts, contemporary dance.

We learnt a routine from Faultline which was really fun and interesting. Within the dance there were key movements especially using our arms and hands which you could tell were inspired by Bharatanatyam. The Identity theme was also shown through movements in which we were being aggressive. Once we learnt the routine we went into small groups and changed the dynamics of the routine, Megan and I made the routine more heavy to give it more of a threatning feel to add to the themes. To add to this we made some of the sharp parts slower to give it a different feel.

In this routine I think that my focus and balance were good, to improve i need to develop my strength and flexibility. My target for myself is to complete stretches everyweek which will enable me to improve my flexibility.

Work sheet

In this lesson we focused on getting to know one another by doing an array of activities that expressed who we are and key things about us like our name origins and things we are known for.

This was good as I was quite nervous to meet all the new people within the class and made it easier to introduce myself.

We then sat down and started discussing children's theatre, we created a sheet in which we had to write down different TV's shows, books, movies and fairy tales that we remember from our childhood. We also had to think of locations that are common within children based stories. This was fun as it good to go over all the different shows.

To add to this we then had to create a small paragraph based on the different things that we came up with, this was effective as we really had to think what would appeal to children and not make it too complicated. Lastly we had to think about features in which should be included within children's  theatre which makes it more appealing for the target audience.