All entries for Monday 14 March 2005

Final Preparations

In our final run up to the piece we did a quick run through (with outside advice from one Mr Denard – thanks alot kid! …

Me and Zoe rehearsed our argument, forgot words, shouted a lot etc….
We tried to create a real sense of universal anger between the sexes whilst still maintaining an amount of underlying affection this came from me trying to joke with her and accidental smiles between the two parties.....Hoever we tried to conveyed real anger and aggression that got worse and worse. In our rehearsals we tried to make the transitions between points as smooth and natural as possible so it seemed like a real argument whilst still getting in all of our complaints. By the end our points were really quite nasty and we felt we had done well in that we would easily convey tensions between the two sexes

The booths were a constantly changing element.
I felt they were necessary as we had to have as many different elements and mediums in the piece to give the spectator a total sensory experience and keep them engaged constantly. Though they went from walk in booths with headphones > walk in booths with directional speakers > mere decoration with sound coming out to intrigue they ended up as the base for the protagonist (i stood in my booth at the start, zoe in hers).....The work Ian and Owen and others had done to dress them up meant they perfectly framed us and created an effective picture for when the spectators entered and perfectly encapsulated the main focus of the piece. We had sound coming out from them which would draw audience around the space - though this final thing was only decided at the last minute!

We had a problem with the audience moving too far into the performance space (into the video area)
We changed the chorus position to block this off and it also made them the main focus of the whole performance as they were in a traditional front focus place (ie in front of the eyes of the spectator rather than in and around like the collage and me and zoe)

Owen pointed out the movement of the two tableaus behind the screens was at different speeds
We decided that both should move in a more slow, stylised way to keep with the dramatic, darker, eerie nature of the installation and so this was just a matter of conference between Rhys (representing male brutality) and Sophie (representing female evil)

: 14 Mar 2005 19:26 |  Tags: Medea |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

MEDEA PIECE – my work

Everyone was very proactive and got involved with each element, and i made a concerted effort to try and keep updated with everyone's progressand checking to see who needed a hand with anything..

However, it would be fair to say that my main achievements and efforts in the group were:

The opening introduction featuring Ed Greig describing the play's themes in layman's terms (and with a male bias)
This made a good opening to the piece because:

-it set up an instant divide between men and women

-told those not familiar with the piece a bit about it

-immediately set up a bridge between the classical and modern as Edward talked about the Tragedy using modern terms and opinions "she was a bit of a psycho"

-it also created a nice dramatic opening because it was eerie and slow burning and allowed the audience to come to terms with the surroundings and have a clear start to the piece despite it not being a traditional performance. The nature of the clip was that it was fairly engaging and weird so it kept them interested and also on the backfoot and curious as to how the piece was going to unravel…..

The ten minute sound clip that brought in issues of feminism and equality
Though me and Ian originally thought this might be used in full from speakers throughout this soon became obviously unworkable. I was quite happy with the way it was used in the performance….coming from booths occupied my examples of female and male (zoe and myself)...was effective as it drew the audience towards these booths (it was our intention to get the audience moving and investigating things for themselves).
It meant that the audience only heard little bits which was our intention (to create a different experience for each spectator) and also made them think about issues outside of the specifics of Medea Vs Jason (using, as it did, clips of Margaret Thatcher, faminist authors, Germian Greer, abortion clinics, US senators etc)

These two pieces of work were conducted with Mr Ian Carter

and you can hear our masterful work thanks to the wonders of twenty-first century technology (ignore the part where it says 'Ian Carter's work!!!!! Top two are us too, bottom two are Ian and FleeceRhyyyyyyyyyyyyyssssssssssssssssss

The second half of my 'personal journey' was working closely alongside BingBongTheRothelite (jamesrothwell to you) in opposition (and amicable collective working) with Zoe, Sophie and SarahDeeks.
We created a contemporary performance piece that was an argument between men and women exposing the preconceptions andf typical complaints from both sexes. They went from humourous and silly to more serious truths that caused universal rifts between the sexes.
Me and Rothelite's list has been split into sections to denote the seriousness of each point, and the progression we thought the argument should take

When we were done carefully considering the most effective points we worked with 'The Girls' to match up similar complaints and work out a coherent arguement structure using their list
I believe the arguements are good because they are familiar, universal complaints and also bring the themes of Medea into the contemporary arena…with our complaints (like The Girls levelling against Boys that we are insensitive) mirroring Medea's arguments against Jason in the text.

: 14 Mar 2005 17:02 |  Tags: Medea |  Comments (1) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Run up to performance…..

In the build up to our performace i felt that the working dynamics in our group was the best it had been. Every member of the groups was ready to lend a hand or volunteer to complete a task whilst allowing each section to have the time to polish and hone their pieces….

We had a couple of quick walk through rehearsals but the nature of the piece meant that we couldnt really properly create the experience before the actual event.

Our technical support team(!) did an absolutely sterling job creating design effects that i felt were essentail to the success of the piece.
Though we had some solid, lengthy performance elements i think that the nature of an installation piece is smaller elements that can maintain interest for the audience. This is because, though we were creating a piece that did have a loose linear narrative there were moments that were not part of this so the spectator has to have elements to interest them. These included the curtains with male and female signs, the booths on the side of the stage that added a differetn dimension with light and the doorways and other things.

We came up with a definite structure for the piece and assigned a job to everyone but we were constantly changing the structure in order to maximise interest and effectiveness for the audience.

: 14 Mar 2005 15:22 |  Tags: Medea |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem