Public Space

week 1

After warming up for our lesson which would be our normal routine every physical theatre lesson and speaking to Eloise about what we will need to be ready for, getting into partners and standing the way you would stand at a bustop was a start to our 'Mime' performance that we will be working on during these few weeks. We copied eachothers 'bustop pose' and stood in that position, what for?, well sounded strange to me, but then it got stranger...

Standing the way most of us teenagers/young adults stand when waiting/doing nothing, our posture is quite lazy and stroppy and maybe even strange; hand on hip, lazy legs, crossed over legs, maybe even have a hunch back, who knows?, but I sure know that we wouldn't exactly walk in those awkward postures, I know I cant walk with my legs crossed over, but that is exactly what we had to do and walking with a bent leg was not easy and who knew that Eloise could make it even more harder and stranger?.

After already being given the challenge to walk in those strange postures (some people's weren't even hard) we then had to exxagerate the walk, Eloise helped us with this one by one; bigger steps, dragging foot, slow and lazy, make it BIGGER and then we had created our 'character' and while giving us some points and improvements when showing our walk, she also told us to say a word or a short phrase to compliment our walk.

As mine was a lazy walk, hand on hip, very 'tired' like, I chose the phrase 'Come On!' and said it in a very annoyed and irritated way, as if I am telling someone to 'hurry up'. It really did make the walk more understandable and effective, which I was pleased about.

week 2

The second week of Physical Theatre we were introduced to Public Space; a performance as if you were in a 'Public Space' using just mime, for eg: a train, the shops, a park. No words can be used- except a word or a sbort phrase and no props can be used- except chairs. Eloise gave us an example using three chairs and four students and asked them to use the space and imagine they're somewhere public, they became injured/ill clients in a waiting room, she made them make sure they're making most of the space around them and made sure that they used their body language and facial expressions.

Eloise then put us into groups all with our original walks and phrases:

Brogan

Angelika

Faruq

Lia

Kashanna

Sheza

and we had to think of a public space where all our characters and walks could compliment the space, so we came up with the idea of a restauraunt which I really liked.

Five customers, a waitress and a host. I thought of the idea of a table; a semi circle table for five. We are using the space more and it isn't just one big group, it's more 'public'.

week 3

Again this week after completing our weekly warm up routine, we got into our groups to really get started on our public space performance and as a group we are very open with opinions and we talk about what we dislike and like which helps eachother a lot and makes us improve things very fast and this got us started quick. Our ideas were fast and developed very easily.

At the beginning as a group knowing where to stand and how to enter to go to our space was simple for us, we knew that we were going to sit as a group and order drinks, look around at 'other people' and 'speak' to eachother; in mime ofcourse.

We were all very open with imagination,

I gave the idea of freezing while each person/pair enter the restaurant so we can focus on each character and make it more cleaner.

week 4

Week four and a new student (Lia) joined our class and she joined our group. Thing had to change a little.

I came up with the idea of adding another tabel for two and Sheza volunteered to be her 'date' at the restauraunt. We decided that Lia would propse to Sheza at the restuarant, so we had a bit of a story going on, still keeping it mime.

I think because we had more going on, we expanded the space which was good, adding another table made it even more realistic and more public. We made it look cleaner and more proffesional. Our phrases fit very well with what we are doing, so we are pleased with that and are nearly ready to perform.

I think that we still need to concentrate on making our performance neater and have more confidence.

week 5

The final week of rehersal and I think we're ready. After having some changes last minute we are quite nervous. We just want it to be clean and flow nicely, Currently we keep starting again and not going through the whole performance without stopping, but we need to focus on just going through and improvising the work.