In just the space of 4 weeks Novus Arts produced a devised piece, "What If?", which was inspired by the venue of St.Margaret's Church. When we found out we had about 4 weeks to produce a piece you could say that some of us panicked but now looking back I'm glad we had this amount of time. The reason for this is because during our rehearsal time we knew that time wasn't on our side, compared to our other productions anyway. Moreover, because we knew that we couldn't afford to waste time we made sure that all of our ideas, techniques we wanted to use and the outcome we wanted at the end were the first things us as a company would discuss and write down.
When we first visited St.Margaret's Church we made sure we took plenty of photographs so we could all evaluate the space they had together as a company. In my opinion, this was a big part of our development of the piece, because as soon as we got back to school we put the pictures up on a slideshow and individually we wrote down words that we associated with that space. For example, the room that ended up being mine and Jay's I thought could portray power and status due to the levels that we could potentially use. After we did this for every picture, we stuck them on the wall so that every time we go to devise a scene within a space of the church we can look back on to them and this would somewhat guide and inspire us. This is then how we decided on the church being a safe haven due to something going on outside. However, the more we got into our development of our narrative the more we wanted to know what type of character each of us would be playing. As a company we all sat down and discussed various characters that would appear in this type of situation - this didn't actually take us very long and I think the reason for this is because we were all so enthusiastic about this piece and we were all determined to use our time wisely so it will be a strong performance.
I would say that all of our rehearsal time as a company was nothing but effective and enjoyable, and surprisingly there wasn't as many arguements as I thought there were going to be. Furthermore, I don't think I could of asked for a more focused, motivated and determined company. Each and every person pulled their weight in every rehearsal and really opened themselves to try new things. For example, all of us had strengths that we wanted to use in the making of this production, mine being choreographing. When we all decided that at some point we wanted to include some sort of reflection I thought this would be a good moment to incorporate dance movement, and this is why Birdy's "People Help the People" was chosen as it was relevant to how the characters would be feeling at that particular time. As soon as the song was chosen I got up straight away and started choreographing and teaching. I was truly moved and inspired that the people who weren't dancers were so enthusiastic and gave it their all and in the end could manage to pick up and perform this piece, this made me extremely happy and confident future performances that I might be able to choreograph.
I definitely feel that a big part of making this production was down to the people we had within our company, after losing some people within the year I feel made us more determined to show people that we could do anything without them and hopefully this was shown.
When it came to the real performance and everyone really got into their character I thought it was one of the best performances we have done as a company. The beginning of our piece was the audience outside the double doors with Joe, Dave and Stevie begging to be able to come in as the rioters were not long behind them. As soon as the doors opened and all of our extras were creating the frantic and panicked environment that we wanted it even made me really scared and on edge and I wasn't actually able to see what it looked like due to being in another room, it was the acoustics within the church that made it so effective and real that I feel that the audience definitely felt that there were riots happening outside - I know I certainly did.
The piece was also effective when we put all the lighting, set, sound and props up. When we were able to cover windows in dark cloths due to there being too much sunlight, the LED's just looked amazing amongst the stone walls and the colours really helped us create the mood we wanted to capture. The sound system was really easy to use and filled the whole church when music was heard, everyone was definitely able to hear. Moreover, what looked most effective to me was when we started putting up sheets around mine and Jay's room, putting a lot of scruffy duvets on the window sill that Jay and I used as our squatter bed and scattering boxes around the church. I think this added a sort of homely feel and conveyed that some of us in there have been there a long time.
CREATIVITY.
Due to how long we had to create this piece I do feel that we could of been even more creative. However, at the start we all knew we wanted to use as many techniques as we could, physical theatre, contemporary dance, story-telling, slow motion, freeze frames, music, symbolism etc. Looking back at what we done and produced I think we were very imaginative and for a lot of people took themselves out of their comfort zones, I know that if a lot of this was said to us last year we wouldn't of been able to do it because of confidence and lack of trust within the group, however, all of that has definitely changed now.
A lot of the time we worked within separate groups to create scenes, and every time they were shown to the rest of the group it was always something new, nothing was ever boring or slow moving. Every one made sure that they weren't afraid to think outside the box which I think was key to making this piece. However, as an individual, I do feel that I could of been more creative when suggesting ideas and not always thinking about movement/music as that is what i'm most confident in. If I could do the piece over again I would push myself to do more mime as I feel that is one technique that is my weakest - we did in incorporate mime into one scene, however, it was a scene that I was singing "When Will Someone Hear?" so I was unable to do it.
Although at the start of making this piece we knew exactly what we wanted, putting it together was the challenging part. We had so many ideas and didn't want to lose any of them, however, we had to be inspired by the place and that was the most important aspect to remember.
Once we all had chosen our characters and worked out what spaces within the church we wanted to use our narrative started to build, and then so did the creativity. Here are a couple of examples:
- the 'squatter's' room which is called the 'side chapel' had a beautiful window-sill where a massive stained-glass window stood behind it. We wanted to take advantage of the the different levels to reveal status and power, and we did this as well as creating contemporary movement. This was the first time that the audience will be seeing us and before they do enter our room an arguement between Jay and I is heard. The contemporary movement that shortly follows this conveys conflict and love between the two characters showing dynamics and contrast in characteristics between the couple. The movement includes using the altar, the window sill and even the audience. After this scene it then moves into Jay and Dave's where they use monologues and freeze-frames to tell the story of Dave being the reason Jay lost his job and Jay being the reason that Dave has nothing.
- building the barricade to the song 'Angry Dance' from Billy Elliott. We wanted to be as creative as we could when building the barricade as we didn't want it to be the whole stereotypical us just putting boxes on top of one another. We decided to use the song "Angry Dance" as is shows aggression, power and strength. As we have the prop of the boxes we thought we would take advantage of this and experiment with the different sounds we are able to make with them, whether it was stomping them on the ground, slapping/punching the sides, doing all of this whilst the song plays on top so it generated even more aggression and frustration. It sounds confusing but it worked really well and in my opinion was effective and creative - it also reminded me of the show 'Stomp!'.
Overall, I definitely feel that creativity is essential and key to any performance you undertake and for some it's not easy. At the start of Year 12 I would say this was one element I found most challenging but now at the end of Year 13 I would say its one of my strongest and that is due to my group giving me the confidence to experiment and to not feel stupid in front of each other.
EXECUTION OF VOCAL AND PHYSICAL PERFORMANCE SKILLS.
As soon as we had a clear narrative and assembled all of the scenes together we discussed about the acoustics in the church. It was said that we should really take advantage of the acoustics that the church holds and use them effectively. I knew that if there was shouting coming from a lot of people it would have to be slowed right down otherwise it will just layer on top of each other creating an echo that wont sound effective. This was something we definitely had to think about for the opening and when it came to scenes that included arguements in it as it was significant that the audience heard what the arguements were about and why it is causing so much conflict between the other characters. However, when it came to dialogue driven scenes each person needed to make sure that we spoke louder than usual otherwise the voices wouldn't carry so far. A lot of the time some scenes took place near the back of the main altar whilst the audience sat in the congregation pews and they are quite a distance from one another. We all needed to make sure we found the right balance and really work with what the space was giving us!
When it came to scenes that included singing, Joe and Kieran's scene, Barricade scene and the final scene I knew that they would all sound beautiful as the vocals just filled the air and blended so lightly and clearly. However, when it came to low notes within songs it was most difficult as it is very hard to make a low note loud when you only have one person/two people carrying it. Although this was difficult all that was needed was to make sure the head was lifted so that the voice would travel upwards rather than downwards.
When it came to playing music that we use movement to, we were able to have access to the church's sound system that was very easy to use. It looked very much like a radio mic that you could plug your phone into and play the music from there. This was extremely useful as our tutor was then able to play the all of the music required from her iPhone and was able to put it in her pocket as she watched the performance as she knew when each piece of music needed to be played.
When it came to our physical movement I was slightly worried when arriving at the church on the performance day as it looked like we over-estimated how much space we had on the main altar and were so used to rehearsing in a much bigger space. However, with the help from the church we were able to move things off the altar that enabled us to gain more space. After this, I felt more confident but still maintained spacial awareness when it came to rehearsing and performing. Even though the space was smaller than we thought we still managed to adapt to it and reconstruct positioning's and movement. Within the whole church the only space that did affect us was only the main altar, the side chapel where myself and Jay dance in was perfect, the aisle space was good and the very back of the main altar was very spacious, it was just the middle where the choir pews unfortunately were unable to be moved due to being screwed into the floor.
Despite some setbacks, looking at how some of the space was small in a way worked really well because it made things more enclosed and made the audience feel part of the performance.
Overall, I think the execution of vocals and physical movement in the end worked nicely. If i was able to go back I would continuously remind people to be louder in their dialogue but a apart from that I think we adapted really well within the space.
FULFILMENT OF OBJECTIVES.
The one fulfilment I wanted by the end was seeing a contrast in myself from Year 12 to now. I wanted to make sure that my main objective was to develop as a performer and to have the confidence to try new things without feeling embarrassed. As previously mentioned, I wouldn't of been able to do half the techniques last year if it wasn't for Miss Cordell, Steve Langley and of course my peers as they all have taught me not to let what other think bring my confidence down. I wanted to develop as a performer in regards to my acting as I feel out of the three (singing, dancing and acting) that it is my weakest. I wanted to be able to leave Year 13 knowing that if someone ever said to me 'I want you to tell me a story ONLY through movement' I would rise to the task and do it.
However, as a group I think that this piece definitely helped us achieve the aims and objectives we set at the start. I definitely feel we captured a lot of emotion within our own stories and characters, especially with Joe and the death of his daughter. I think our biggest aim was to make the audience feel that these riots are going outside and there are people who will kill us eventually - the whole illusion of them always being on edge waiting for something to happen. I think the soundscape, barricade and final song "Us Against the World" enhanced this and engaged them throughout.
We always said from the start that we wanted the beginning to be frantic, quick moving and panicky and then as the story goes on it begins to become calm, reserved and reflective. This contrast showed the development of not only our characters but the piece itself, the more the story unfolds the more devastating and harder it gets - I think this was definitely achieved.
I think "What If?" has definitely proved to all of us that we shouldn't be afraid of showing people how you can convey different styles of acting and hopefully inspire others to be as creative as we were with a good group of people. If it wasn't for the group I had for this performance it wouldn't of been as strong as it would, it was because of everyone's motivation, enthusiasm, creativity and talent we were able to make this piece as good as it was.
AUDIENCE RESPONSE.
I was extremely chuffed with the audience feedback that was given to us when our performance had finished. What really touched me was that audience members went on their Facebook and credited us on what we generated, here are some examples:
Claire Butler is teacher from 'The Malling School' in Maidstone and she bought her Year 12's who are due to do their Site Specific next year to our performance to give a taste to her students of what elements/techniques/effects/skills they could use in their performance. I really hope we inspired them as much as Claire says we did and I hope I will be able to see their piece next year!
Claire Butler is teacher from 'The Malling School' in Maidstone and she bought her Year 12's who are due to do their Site Specific next year to our performance to give a taste to her students of what elements/techniques/effects/skills they could use in their performance. I really hope we inspired them as much as Claire says we did and I hope I will be able to see their piece next year!
Above is a comment from Steve Langley who worked with us within the first week and a half of starting our Site Specific Unit during his period of work experience at our school. Where he lives in Maidstone we were so happy that he managed to see us perform as it was good for him to see how we developed using the skills and techniques he taught us (and hopefully we used them as effectively as he would of done!)
Overall, we had good feedback from everyone that took the time to come and watch us, they enjoyed that it was something different and really liked how effective it became with it being set in a church. Also, it was so good to see some of our current Year 12's coming to support us during this piece as in their next lesson they were asked to create a story through movement to a piece of music and I like to think that after seeing us perform a lot of movement we inspired them and gave them the confidence because in my opinion if they were asked to do that last week I think they would of been self conscious and wouldn't put in the effort they did the other day - it was rewarding that we could have potentially inspired them!
POTENTIAL FOR FURTHER DEVELOPMENT.
In my opinion I think if we didn't have just 4 weeks but longer we would have a completely different devised piece, a different narrative and different characters. However, if we were to use this piece and develop it further I think it would work really well at 'The Edinburgh Festival" in one of their churches. Here are some images of 2 different churches in Edinburgh:
I really like their use of red throughout the church as for us it could symbolise either death or danger that carries throughout our piece, therefore, making it more effective and powerful.
With looking at both churches one thing that could be a problem for both of them is the volume of our dialogue, it would have to be projected a lot more than we did at St. Margaret's due to their ceilings being much higher and where it goes back a long way.
In addition, if we were to perform in spaces such as these I would definitely put in more extras, so at the beginning we can put different scenes in different spaces of the church, for example, a doctor trying to give medical help to a lot of patients or someone screaming in a corner because their scared or injured badly. I think creating more of a panic would be essential for spaces such as these as there is a lot more space to fill.
With having more extras I would request more rehearsal time in order to create the above example. As much as our extras at St.Margaret's had a clear character, with more rehearsal time they would be able to gain a more thorough understanding and maybe even give us their input of their ideas of what they could do and even what we could do.
I definitely think we have potential to perform in a venue like this if we could, although it would mean more hard work I think we have the right people to make this happen if we tried! Looking at the images I wish we could travel up there and perform our piece to a new and different audience!
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