Cabinet of Curiosities Evaluation

Throughout our work and development in our experimental term I feel as though we have successfully created an experimental piece of theatre that leaves the audience with a curious and bewildered mindset. I loved the un answered questions the audience had as they left the show and the variety of interpretations that can be perceived from each group piece. 

When performing our trio's at the start of the piece we managed to quickly gain audience members - I think the audience thoroughly enjoyed being able to read about our work as though we were in a exhibition; it helped to give a insight and depth to what they were watching. The audience had strong responses to Jack pushing and moulding our bodies, as we had no control. The reaction was just as we had hoped - sympathetic, shocked and judgemental. I felt that the audience each had a separate response to the piece and it was a good microcosm for what our piece was representative of - societies growth in sexism; now it is frowned upon with disgust, in contrast to when Le Diabolo was first sculpted. 

Our trio could have been improved with better planning and organisation. I really liked the idea of having a bar connecting all the strings together; making the "dolls" look more like puppets. If we had spent more time we could have made that idea work, therefore create a more professional styled piece. If we had used our rehearsal time in and out of class more efficiently we would have created a piece with more depth and detail. These would be changes I will take on when working in a similar/all environments again. Nevertheless, our piece encapsulated the message and was well received by the audience. 

Our group performance was performed with punctuation and a great focus. Our group really connected and worked of one another's energy to keep the piece consistently together. I am proud of the way we worked in both rehearsals and final performances as we faced the piece professionally and effectively. I found myself becoming completely "in" the performance and not returning to reality until after. This aspect allowed me to forget all inhibitions and completely perform to my best extent. I found that with the cloths it was easier for me to perform more comfortably. No identity when performing, for me, can sometimes make me more open to interpretations and step out of my everyday persona. As a group performance I feel as though we successfully created a intricate piece of physical, experimental theatre. 

The Lovers

This is a painting titled The Lovers by Rene Magritte. We were showed this painting in class, it was the inspiration for our final piece and we were asked to capture the thought process we had when looking at this image. We then were given a paper and pen and told to continuously write our thoughts without stopping for five minutes. I chose to write a list of every word that popped into my head at the given time. Words like 'lust' 'blue' 'depression' 'love' 'sex' 'entrapment' 'misunderstood' 'determined' came into my mind and slowly it became and unconscious movement of just writing whatever I thought. When looking back at at the words I wrote I notice they all appear with many sinister and dark undertones. This image has more than meets the eye and I feel that could be beautifully expressed in a performance. We were then asked to pick a partner and create a piece including someone else's words from the painting. We has muslin cloth as our prop and we would move our bodies and twist and control the cloth through one another to convey a slow moving piece of physical theatre style work. Our piece contained turns and manipulation of the body with the cloth and we soon created a piece that flowed well. Our piece was meant to show love and hate in a relationship and the secrets you keep hidden to protect one another. We wanted to convey how love is an internal emotion and exterior is something that is unlikely to change feelings. We were then asked to add whatever words or phrases we wanted from the piece of text a peer and written. My partner and I chose the words that stood out for us the most and told a story beneath the lines. We chose the words "connection" and "love" to be said at the same time with a movement to reflect the narrative.The class itself consisted of a semi improvise piece, every cast member had muslin cloth over their face in order to reflect our focus image; "the lovers". We then continued by walking in an imaginary grid at different speeds. This particular section of the piece looked robotic and industrialised. In some ways I felt in contrasted dramatically with a lot of our duos. It has aspects of encapsulating what humans would be like without expression and individuality; blank and machine like without "feelings". Our next section was a transition into "becoming fire"; the physicality of fire and actually being fire. We transition in slow motion movements that make the piece have more ease and flow. I enjoyed "being" things, I like creating representations with my body; having the ability to discover a variety of movements that are usually "dormant" - similar to the "names" exercise we began the term with. The piece continued with "becoming lava" and group work of "fire". With the group exercises, I enjoyed the motion of moving as one and all becoming separate personalities within a group fire-like movement. I think the piece as a whole contains an understated message of an industrialised world, and whether the place we live in today is places love over materialistic items or not. 

Performance Trio's

The next step we took towards creating our final production was creating our performance trio's to encapsulate a live art cabinet of curiosities. These trio's were asked to based upon our discoveries and favourite works of art found at the Tate Modern.
I found myself inspired by many pieces of art at the gallery and, as mentioned in the last post, I was seemingly drawn toward pieces that revolved around equality of the sexes. My favourite piece of art that encouraged me to make a performance piece was Le Diabolo. This piece was based upon woman's place in society in the 1900's. The piece had many sinister overturns that we could incorporate in our group trio.
We began by creating a mind map on all of the ideas we had on the piece so far, also adding ideas

we discussed on creating a piece of theatre. Our first idea for theatre work was a literal interpretation of the sculpture; two women tied down with string, trapped by a man with ultimate power and control. A second idea had a deeper meaning, a black woman and a white woman, segregation between the two. A black woman in 'worker' style clothes, and the white woman dressed upper class. However, both women are taped at the mouth to show that women are still voiceless. We thought this idea covered both racism and segregation of the time and also sexism. We would be able to show how a black man and a white man were treated differently but a black woman and a white woman were still suppressed by man in similar ways. We were sure on adding a physical interpretation to our piece; women's struggle and distress portrayed through body language in order to further encapsulate no voice for women. Our third idea was to highlight the objectification of women. Two women, dressed as sexualised dolls to represent women's objectification and archetype from a mans perspective in society in the early 1900's. The women are doll-like puppets being controlled by a male puppet master. Our final idea incorporated aspects from everyones input. We used the sexualisation idea of women, two women were dressed doll-like and were being played with my a male puppet master. The puppet master would begin by playing with the women, kissing them and gently moving them. Then we wanted to further incorporate a more sinister overturn so we made the piece gradually become more aggressive. The master would move the women around throwing and hitting them toward the floor. The puppet master forced the puppets to hurt each other and do things against their will.
I believe our concept was intelligent and creative, however if we had put more time into our trio's and use more props and facilities the trio's could have become a physical performance. This idea would work well when choreographed and in sync with other trio's. Cannon's could be used and a story could grow.

Tate Modern Top 3 Picks

 Title of the art piece:

Diabolo – Le Diabolo  Bronze

Artist:

Germaine Richier 1902 – 1959

Artist Rationale:

Women’s entrapment within society – a piece with sinister overturns

Materials made of:

Bronze and Wires

Why it inspires you:

The deeper meaning within the piece; a representation of an unequal society throughout time. The wiring, a representation of women’s lack of pathways and opportunities. The sculpture shows struggle and an almost desperation for escape and freedom.

Potential ideas for theatre work:

Women’s growth and battle for a place in society throughout time. A timeline piece displaying a variety of time periods of inequality between sexes.

Title of the art piece:

Facism - The Most Evil Enemy of Women. Everyone to the Struggle Against Facism - 1941- Nina Vatolina 1915-2002

Artist:

A collection of works drawn by David King.

Artist Rationale:

A feminist piece based on the suppression of facism against women

Materials made of:

Works drawn by David King, the display accompanies a Tate book Russian Revolutionary Posters.

Why it inspires you:

The feminist stance behind the picture encapsulates women's vulnerability through time. I enjoyed the feminist art pieces at the Tate as they all represented a deeper meaning than what was on the outer layer. 

Potential ideas for theatre work:

A fascism society where women are faced with lack of opportunity and power. We could show a slow change in social order and women taking full power and control, standing on the men and taking over their freedom in a more sinister way to women's loss.

 Title of the art piece:
Nude Woman in a Red Armchair 1932

Artist:

Pablo Picasso 1881 - 1973

Artist Rationale:

This work belongs to the remarkable sequence of portraits that Picasso made of Marie-Therese Walter at his country property at Boisgeloup. Marie-Therese is presented here - as in most of her portraits - as a series of sensuous curves. Even the scrolling arms of the chair have been heightened and exaggerated to echo the rounded forms of her body. The face is a double or metamorphic image: the right side can also be seen as the face of a lover in profile, kissing her on the lips.

Materials made of:

Oil paints on canvas

Why it inspires you:

I love the experimental shapes and colours used in this painting. Picasso embraces a woman's curves and features with beautiful undertones and traits.

Potential ideas for theatre work:

Beauty of women in society and embracing flaws of women. Exposing a womans body and features and examining all of perfections an imperfections that make a woman a woman. 

I have noticed all of the choices I have made from the Tate are experimental but also woman orientated pieces. A lot of the pieces are feminist views.

Antonin Artaud

Antonin Artaud was our focused experimental practitioner for this terms work. Artaud is considered among the most influential figures in the evolution of modern drama theory. Antonin Artaud associated himself with Surrealist writers, artists, and experimental theatre groups in Paris during the 1920's. When political differences resulted in his break from the Surrealists, he founded the Theatre Alfred Jarry with Roger Vitrac and Robert Aron. Together they hoped to create a forum for works that would radically change French theater. Artaud, especially, expressed disdain for Western theatre of the day, panning the ordered plot and scripted language his contemporaries typically employed to convey ideas, and he recorded his ideas in such works as Le Theatre de la cruaute and The Theatre and Its Double. Most critics believe that Artaud's most noted contribution to drama theory is his "theatre of cruelty," an intense theatrical experience that combined elaborate props, magic tricks, special lighting, primitive gestures and articulations, and themes of rape, torture, and murder to shock the audience into confronting the base elements of life. I feel that this element of Artaud's work was highly reflected in our group piece. We highlighted many taboo subjects of the life and the world and encapsulated this is our performance trios especially. Although Artaud's theatre of cruelty was not widely embraced, his ideas have been the subject of many essays on modern theatre, and many writers continue to study Artaud's concepts. Artaud's creative abilities were developed, in part, as a means of therapy during the artist's many hospitalizations for mental illness. His work was sinister and his addiction to opium reflected within his work, the obscene ideas and extensive interpretations were often a product of his hallucinations.  

Name Exercise

We began our experimental term with an exercise that allowed us to use our bodies to spell out our names. This allowed me to discover new ways to move my body and broadened my mind into how an experimental piece of theatre can be made through a collection of movements. With experimental theatre opportunities are endless, for me it was a case of realising this and being able to filter the unnecessary movements that wouldn't benefit a piece from the movements that would grow into a performance.
The exercise worked on my focus, it was a case of being able to multi task with actions and memory. We had to be creative with our movements and try and use parts of our bodies to spell out our names that we wouldn't usually use. I used my nose, elbow, knee, ear and fist. I struggled with putting my mind in a focused position to remember where I was putting these body parts to spell my name correctly. In rehearsal for this I managed to grasp the concept quickly however it was a mind over matter situation where you had to really get into the zone and not be distracted by peers or influenced by other peoples work.
We then added music to our pieces and the three separate groups had three separate tracks. When performing I had a fast beat, loud bass track that changed the piece altogether. We were asked not to change our movements to the sound of the music and I struggled with this at first as it is normally my natural instinct to move to the pace of the music. After a while I was able to block out the music and just primarily focus on the movement; continuously repeating the movement correctly. The music itself impacted the piece massively and I found myself creating a concept of where this piece could be placed in a performance. The intensity of the bass made the piece harsher and angrier and that reflected on the movements of my fist as it felt as though I was in a fight scene. The response from the audience was similar as they felt it gave the piece a more sinister undertone. The other two I saw had a completely different feel. One piece had slow, contemporary music that made the piece a lot softer and had more flow. This piece had a more romantic feel to it and certain people that used less harsh parts of their bodies I was drawn to watching as in my mind there movements fitted the music best.
This exercise was a great start to the experimental term, I felt more in tune with my body and able to do anything asked that term. It helped me to forget inhibitions as that is usually my main set back when it comes to physical movement in theatre.