Week Three: Mon 23 September – Weds 25 September 2013

At the beginning of this week we began with another set of monologue performances.  On our Acting Skills and Techniques lesson, last week, we were assigned homework, to learn a new monologue given to us by our teacher, and perform it to the class the following week.  My monologue was from the play ‘The Gods Weep’ written by Dennis Kelly, and my character was Colm.  Just like last week two students were being reviewed by another student and rate their positives and negatives.  The purpose of all this was the same as last week, to see a student’s performance skills and see the reviewers understanding of drama strategies.  Each performance was mostly successful.

After our break, we came to our third singing lesson and this lesson had us presenting a homework in which we can understand another useful technique for a singing performance.  The homework was to research into the five singing vowels.  The singing vowels are very similar to the literacy vowels: A, E, I, O, and U.  Except these type of vowels are similar in the sense that they sound the same but the method is to put more enthusiasm as you sing them in lyrics.  The purpose of this was to get a understanding as to how a singer would pronounce their strong words, and identify certain techniques, within their singing. 

Our third Art Industry lesson had us look at some important techniques, for drama.  Such as looking at character analysis and development, as well as taking notes for when it comes to our own performance.  Note such as knowing the time period of the play, the authors intentions and plot of the play.  All of these notes have a key importance for an actor, for when it comes to a big performance and an actor has to learn their character inside out in order to give the best performance.

 

The next day we began with a lesson of Development of Drama.  Now in this lesson we were looking at the development of physical theatre.  Looking at what it is and how it originated.  Like drama itself physical theatre came from ancient Greece and was expanded over time, but became very popular when the actor Jacques Lecoq became famous for his use of physical theatre, and then founded in Paris L’Ecole Internationale De Theatre Jacques Lecoq in 1951.  As well as its origins we were to look at its methods.  How the technique behind physical theatre was for an actor to perform a mime performance and make it believable for the audience.  This all came in handy for when it came to our Developing Physical Theatre lessons, understanding a little bit more about where it originated from and how the technique is use by an actor.

After the written work our teacher then gave us a more practical piece of work.  Our teacher gave us a task to see if we were capable of performing a monologue within a group.  Splitting the class into two groups, our teacher gave us a monologue from Greek theatre.  In our group we were to decide how to perform it and how to present our lines.  This was a technique to see how our team building had developed from week one and see each students understanding of drama strategies in order to present the monologue.

At the end of the day our last lesson was our third dance Movement lesson.  In this lesson we began with our warm up technique which we learn in the previous lessons.  Then we were introduced to some new dance moves which would come in handy for our next lesson.  But the key point of this lesson was to perform and understand our warm up technique.

 

The next day we had our third Developing Physical Theatre Performance lesson, and in this lesson we began with some different tasks.  The lesson began like our last two lessons with the warm up, focusing challenge then the teacher told us to think of a joke.  A simple joke which was to be told in front of the whole class.  Then the teacher called us up one by one and he asked us to tell our joke, and without showing us he made some note on our performance.  And without any explanation he told us to repeat our joke and he kept making notes.  Once every student had performed their joke we all sat in a half circle and our teacher revealed what he was taking notes on.  Beginning by telling us about the three types of clowns in theatre.  The first type is Naïve – a type of clown that is childlike, anxious and sorry when he tells a joke.  The second type is August – a clown which is a bit angry and arrogant after he tells a joke.  And the third type is Surreal – a type of clown that is off the wall crazy when he tell his joke.  Our teacher telling us these types of clowns lead to him introducing that he was taking notes on what type of clown we are.  The type of clown I am was a Naïve clown.  This seemed, at first irrelevant, until we were given our first assignment.

Our assignment was the task of preparing for a performance of a play called ‘Scaramouche Jones’.  Which tells the story of an old clown who is about to die and is reflecting on his life.  Therefore the purpose of the lesson was to see what type of clown we were in order for us to relate more to the character of Scaramouche Jones.  The assignment is designed for each student to become this one character and see how each of us is capable of portraying him.

Week Two: Mon 16 September – Weds 18 September 2013

Our second week, lead to our second Acting Skills and Techniques lesson, which was the date our first homework was due in.  Our homework was to learn a monologue.  But it wasn’t to be a random monologue; the main point of this was for each of us to perform a monologue where the character was to be similar to our own characters in reality.  My monologue was from the play ‘Man of the Moment’ written by Alan Aykbourne.  I chose this monologue as I had performed it twice already.  The first time was for my Bronze LAMDA (London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts) award and the second time was for an audition to get into South Downs College Level 2 Performing Arts.  Plus I see a similarity between the character Douglas and I.  But when we were all performing, there was to be two other students who were to review your performance, just like I was to review two students.  The purpose of this was to show what the students’ performance was like through an audience member’s point of view; as well as give each student understands of performance techniques.

Our second lesson of singing had us handing in homework.  But this homework was to look at techniques of singing.  The purpose of this homework was for each student to come up with a technique in which allowed a singer’s vocals to be prepared for a singing performance.  For example, I came up with the phrase ‘The Tip of the Tongue and the Teeth and the Lips’ and the method was you were to sing it in rising octaves, so the first time you sing it, you sing it in a deep note, and the next time a bit higher, and increase as you repeat the phrase.  This brings your vocals up so their prepared for a performance and high notes.  Each student gave their techniques amongst themselves, and then they were to share it with the whole class and the teacher.

At the end of the day we had our second Art Industry lesson; these lessons allow us to take a look deeper into the industry of the art within drama.  In this lesson we were focusing on individual skill.  Skill which may come in handy when we come to taking a look at our understanding of ourselves, within this subject.  We listed many skills which we expanded and kept for when it comes to performances, we know what we are all capable of. 

The next day, we had our lesson of The Development of Drama, where we were looking at the history of drama and where and when it originated.  We had a look at a documentary of its origins in ancient Greece and how it became so popular and where the three main genres came from and how they expanded.  This was all useful as; again, it gave us all better knowledge of the history of drama and it may come in handy when it comes to future tasks.

Our final lesson of the day in Movement was quite simple as it was near the same as our first lesson.  The only difference was we were given the task of learning a warm up strategy, which was to be used at the beginning of every movement lesson.  After we went through all the basic dance moves we were introduced to last week, we finished up the day.

The next day, was our second lesson of Physical Theatre and we spent the day working on stage movements and techniques similar to the ones we learn last week.  It was pretty basic but the idea was to get a good understanding of an actor’s physicality on stage for when we get into different practical work next week.

Week One: Mon 9 September – Weds 11 September 2013

On our first day on Level 2 Performing Arts Btec, we began with some simple Drama games.  After a while we had a few moments to underline the purposes of the games.  These Drama games helped us work on certain strategies in which a Performing Arts student needs in order to work well with each other.  For example, team building was required in the game of muddled phrases; this helped us work together in order to make a phrase using separate words, I thought this was helpful in order for us to get to know each other a little bit better.  Alongside this were games which had us warming up and energizing, with observation to one another, and focus.  All these strategies were hidden amongst some simple drama games, leading to a good introduction to the students of the course.

After the first lesson came an introduction to our singing lessons.  Again this was a simple lesson in which the teacher quizzed us on our knowledge of singing productions and musicals in general.

 

On day two, it was our first Performing Arts Production Process, where we had a meeting with the Level 3 Performing Art’s students and we were to have a read through of our end of term project.  Our end of term project was to work with the Level 3 students as they were to be performing a pantomime version of ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’.   Our task as Level 2 students was to assist backstage.  We spent the lesson reading through the first written act of the productions script.  The purpose of this was to understand the basics of our end of term project and meet with the people we would be working with.

After the read through we went to our final lesson of the day, movement.  This lesson was focusing on our dance movement strategies.  This first lesson was a little bit different to the previous introductory lesson we had; as we were used to games and quizzed, then to focus on our knowledge of acting and singing.  Whereas with dance, the teacher  finished registering us and went to the front of the class room where we could all see him.  Then he began with some simple dance movements and we followed, creating a warm up technique.  This was all handy, because it introduced us to what the teacher had expected of us and it gave us an understanding of what was to come in upcoming movement lessons.

 

On day three, our day began with our first Developing Physical Theatre Performance lesson.  This lesson was interesting because the teacher indicated how an actor should stand on stage and become still, relaxed and focus eye sight dead ahead of us.  Then the teacher introduced certain character movements on stage, such as clown like characters moving in a tall comedic run, and an old curved back run.  This was, in a way, helpful to us because of our upcoming assignment focus on a clown character.  After the body movements, we then went onto taking a look at still images.  Now the purpose of this task was to take a look at all the students’ imagination, as the teacher created a scenario and we had to give a still image of a characters reaction of the scene.  This showed our use of imagination and creativity in improvised strategy games.

At the end of our first week we learnt many new strategies and received a better understanding of techniques and methods within the drama industry.