IB Theatre - Lecture 8

Friday 25th September 09 -

After the usual late start to our Friday afternoon session we were able to make 'finish touches' to our 'What is theatre' pieces. Or in other words, to our group that meant run it through. After we got off to a slow start on Thursday we hadnt really got up on our feet to practice our performances, and to make things worse Kitty was also ill today, an added bonus. This shrunk our group to just Me, Daisy and Jenny. We eventually came up with an idea of what theatre is to us, based on the feelings you have when on stage. The idea that you are completely transformed when performing, and how all the worries you have just evaporate, whether your watching or performing theatre.

Eyes closed, walk around - What a relaxing end to a Friday afternoon, tranquill music and a wonder around the space with our eyes shut. The group spread out accross the room and closed our eyes, we then moved around the room in any way we fancied but making sure our eyes were kept shut.
This was a very strange sensation at first, worrying about who and what you would bang into. After time you became very focused but at the same time relaxed, I was able to sense where other people were through sound rather than vision. From an audience point of view, Cara was the only one with her eyes open, and she would soley be watching and guiding us if we were going to bump into certain objects. She found that it was very interesting to watch as often at certain points in the music we would move in syncronisation unaware of eachothers movements.
I felt that this activity helped me to understand the effects of music on my feelings and movements, showing that sound can be a vital part of a production.

IB Theatre - What is theatre?

Thursday 24th September 09 -

Yes, I did forget to buy a ticket for DV8, that was clever forgetting about the first IB Theatre trip. Oh well, I'm sure there will be more...

Anyway, today we started in a rather unusual way, Journals out and a quick brainstorm of ideas based on:

• Theatre in the world
  
• Theatre in the making


• Theatre in performance

As you can see from my scribbled ideas of what exactly was meant by these terms, I clearly needed to reread that little IB Theatre Arts booklet that I was given at the start of term! After a discussion in more detail of these areas we were then set another very open task - What is theatre (what does it mean to you)? This was the performance we were to show in Fridays lesson. After a long period of time planning and brainstorming the difficult task myself, Jenny, Kitty and Daisy, by the end of todays lecture had a rough idea of how our performance would look tomorrow, but have not spent enough time rehearsing and will only get 20 minutes on friday... Fingers crossed...

IB Theatre lecture 1

Thursday 10th September 09 –
The first lesson of IB Theatre Arts, WOOOP-WOOP! I walk into the first lecture and find a group of only 8 people, me being one of two guys (whether this is to be a good or bad thing I have not yet discovered). The One hour and twenty minute session was spent getting to know the nature of the IB Theatre Arts course, and familiarising myself with the course structure. I also found out what is required of me as one of the 'higher level' students in the group (basically a few thousand words more when it comes to assignments), alongside getting to know the group that I would be working with over the next two years.

We spent the first part of the lesson virtually in silence as no one knew each other. To break this tension we played an ice breaking game which encouraged us to speak to each other, which I named-

• The 1 minute talk game - The group was split into pairs and each pair was given a letter, either 'A' or 'B'. Cara (Our lecturer) would then ask either A or B to speak about a given subject, 'Your best dream' for example. The chosen partner would then have to speak about that topic continually for one minute without stopping or pausing, after a minute the other partner would be given a new topic to give a speech on, and so on...
  

The activity was very useful as it made me feel comfortable when speaking to others in the group, which would make future lectures easier. After leaving the lecture I felt that I had known the group for a long time and am looking forward to the lessons ahead :)