Dear All,
Another productive day with significant progression for the ensemble as a whole and for individual characters in particular. Paul and I are impressed with the pace and efficiency with which you work as an ensemble. This enables us to create material quickly and creatively.
The growth of the ensemble was important to establish today and we did this in two ways. The first section allowed real, naturalistic interactions, allowing the community of Porto to meet each other, make friends, and remind themselves of the 'load' they carry in their bags on their journey ahead. The second section allowed a collective response to witnessing one of the character's disturbing relationship with his 'load' and his eventual rescue by another individual.
Questions for you this week then:
1. Discuss how the creation of sub groups led to establishing initial encounters. How did the revelation of the item assist to develop this encounter?
2. If you were part of the 'photo' group, discuss the strategy used to distinguish you from the larger community. How did you use these simple gestures to gradually create a community of your own? What is it about photos that makes your items a little more fragile/vulnerable?
3. Discuss the impact the second ensemble piece will have on the audience. Try to identify the key features that need addressing/cleaning up, to really maintain the power and impact of this new section.
4. What does Blake's character's breakdown and Amy's response to this represent for the community as a whole? Are they working in a vacuum or do their work resonate with the community's issues and concerns?
Royona
Bahok, Akram Khan Dance Company
Exploring Liminality
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1 comment:
1.
My initial encounter with my second sub group was rather interesting because the group formed from only me and Richard playing around until we got joined by Lizzy and Hannah. However because of being in the photo group my item did not assist this in any way what so ever. We related because of Richards item alone and no one else’s.
In today’s session the photo group were taken into a separate room and told a task which we were then going to apply to the ensemble work. For my character this created large problems because of the relationship that was built in my smaller group. When we merged the two together my character had to change to fit in with the other group. To elaborate, my character has just reached the point where he wants to make friends within Porto and he has done this with 4 people already. However with material made today my character looks like he has a split personality because in one section he is hugging them and the next section he has nothing to do with them which makes it hard to understand my character because this is not how my character feels.
2.
The section created today is very simple yet I imagine it looks good to watch. We took three movements which we were going to apply to the ensemble work to distinguish us from the rest of the group. As this progressed we then all noted what each person was doing that linked us before we all fell into the trap of copying each other and pushing the ensemble group to the side of the stage.
Because our item is a photo it is fragile to us therefore some people will not want other people within Porto to see what is because it means something to the individual alone which essentially makes it very fragile to the individual.
3.
The second ensemble piece will have an effect on the audience because it shows how every member of Porto is manipulated into the group of repetition and fast movements. This will be impactful mainly because we have Edward standing on a chair who wants help but for some unknown reason no one will help him which will make the audience question what is going on and why we will not help him.
There is a lot of work needed to clean up this section, this was the first time we had ever done this today therefore there is going to be a lot of work needed to make it clean and make it choreographed, to maintain the power the whole ensemble needs to work our how many steps we should take before stopping at each point before moving otherwise it looks very untidy to watch but again this can be improved on weeks to come.
4.
Blake’s breakdown affects the community as a whole but some more than others. Many people showed interest in this but my character was more concerned about the group he was in.
Many group members gathered to see what was going on with Blake which was interesting, what was their motive for this because earlier in the production material everyone discards Blake and concentrates more on Nicola but everyone then turns to Blake to see what is happening. When Amy helps Blake everyone also runs away if they are scared of her/him but they get close to see what is wrong with Blake in the first place. I do believe that many members are sucked in simply because others are looking too, this is not a problem because people react in different ways when surrounded with other people in Porto and this piece helps reflect this.
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