so much for banging that last post out....took me a couple of hours!!!!

design

why is it taking me soooo long to blog!!?? im going to try and bang this one out... here goes...

Having been assigned to the design team, we had our first meeting with Tina last week where we began to discuss possible ideas for costume. the main issue that arose is the fact that there is no chance of us being able to design individual costumes for the 3,000 or so people that are going to be involved. Instead we began thinking of themes to use for costume. Colour was an idea as we felt it was nothing personal to a specific community group like country for example would; everyone can relate to colour, and it also sticks to the idea of a carnival which is what we imagined this event to resemble.

We came up with vision of a rainbow making its way towards Ham House. Different colours will be given to different groups within the parade(colours shall be repeated further down in the parade)which they will base their costumes on. We are going to have an undercolour of white, as it will be bright in the darkness and it is a popular colour resulting in people being likely to own some white clothing.The colour they will be given will then be added to the white e.g (green- scarfs, hats, masks, flowers, karate belt etc). The white will also bring the whole parade together as opposed to seperating the parade through block colour. During one of the last meetings, we have also decided to use colour as the given theme for each community to base their project on. colours have strong enough connotations with things to get ideas for the project, yet it is not specific enough to restrict these ideas.

It has recently been discovered that Ham are trying to win the reward for being the best eco friendly. As a result we thought we could incoporate this into our design and use recycled materials as a way to create costume and props. As the costume will be fairly simple we thought we could use props as a way to make the percession visually attractive although the colour of the costume will support this further. Combining this idea with using recycled materials, we have decided to do workshops with the different communities to show them how to make objects which they can use during the parade. This week Tina demonstrated the many ways in which masks can be created. The most effective would be to use masking tape which is layered over a mould of a face. Eventually it becomes thick enough to be used as a mask. This tactic is cheap and unmessy and is strong enough to have other elements attatched to it, such as hair etc. Next week we are learning how to make flowers.

A good start to design i think!!!....

12 hr musical

For our musical theatre assessment the class presented the idea of putting on our own musical within 12 hours as opposed to doing a presentation. We felt that we would benefit and learn far more by going through this process than simply reseaching information and presenting it to the rest of the class. It was going to be a real test of how we could work as a group under such a huge amount of pressure. The point of the musical was the development of the process and the journey we went on in order to create it as opposed to the final product, which the majority of the audience was unaware of. As a result there was a complete lack of support from audience members. Despite the final performance consisting of forgotten lines, repeated lyrics and improvised dancing it was the fact that we had worked and battled through as a mini community to even reach the final product at all.

There were many times throughout the 12 hours when we wanted to throttle one and other, but it was the support and encouragement of the rest of the group that pulled us through and gave us the courage to carry on. The extent of the pressure to write, direct, design, organise, rehearse and choreograph a hours show was extremely high. It was difficult to manage how to distribute the time we had fairly so that everyone got a fair amount of time to rehearse with the resources they needed. This was a problem that arose during the day. As a large group the chorus needed far more time to rehearse singing and dancing with the piano, but this was not given to us and as a result we were cut out of the singing all together, despite spending several hours learning the lyrics for multiple songs. The dancing was also extremely out of time as we had rehearsed using a C.D to dance to and the switch to live music confused the counts and beats of the routine.

The significance of the day was on the team work that was required to get to the end product. I learnt a lot form the experience, including how to deal with emotion and how to effectively disagree with something without wasting hours argueing about it. It gave me a real taste of drama within a community where issues will arise and disputes will occur. It was one of the experiences that I have learnt most from whilst being at university.

espannniaaa!!

...Leading on from my experience from the christmas project at ham house, my trip to Spain really re-inforced my idea of what drama in the community should be about. I not only learnt about drama in the community, but it also made me realise that dramatherapy really is what i want to do for my career. The project affected the villagers in a very personal way, it addressed the problems they were facing within the tiny village of Belvia in which they live. Spain having suffered from a 'silent' era, in which its history and political issues could not be discussed openly and freely by its people, made people very afraid to have the freedom of speech and to document both the history of their country and their opinions. This drama project opened the possibility for people to do this. I identified the project as a form of therapy. Having created the performance themselves in terms of characters, storyline etc, some of the villagers found it extremely difficult to come to terms with the fact that what was written down (the script) was their work. But through encouragement and support they were able to overcome this difficulty and instead feel proud of what they had created. The direct involvement of the community within the performance is how i imagine the final product at Ham House to be like. Having seen a project like that for myself, see it succeed and be able to witness the joy it brought to so many people has gave me hope and encouragement to do something as rewarding as the project in Spain for our performance at Ham House.

I learnt so much about the Spanish culture whilst I was there. It was interesting to see how drama and theatre is run differently there then it is here. Many of the villagers, particulary the older members, had never participated in a performance before. It was also lovely to witness how the project actually brought the village closer together. the youngest perticipant was 8 and the oldest was in her 80's and she was death, which demonstrated how everyone can be involved in a project and how everyone can work together. There was a couple of women who had previously had a disagreement and yet they were still working together to create the project. I think this was project was also therapeutic for their relationship.

I would love to go back and work with Spiral again. This kind of work is what I want to spend my life doing. Despite enjoying myself to the full, it was more about the enjoyment of the villagers and the sense of achievement they felt. I felt extrememly proud.

ooops havnt written in forever!!!

where to start...

the storytelling at ham house has finished and looking back it wasn't quite how i imagined it would be. I think I was imagining it to be full of hustle and bustle with music playing along the hallways, packed full of stalls selling christmas souvenirs, with the smell of food wafting up to the buttery upstairs where I was performing. But it wasn't. I feel the only event going on was our storytelling, that people had come into the house just to be told stories. I had thought our performance was going to be an extra to the event already happening. It is for this reason that I feel it was not drama in the community in the context i was expecting it to be. Of course all drama is essentially drama in the community because it involves the rest of society even if they are just observers. However, through this module i wanted to discover and explore drama as a way of working with the community, to include them in the performance process, for them to have a say in what is performed, how it is performed or to be the performers themselves. The performance we originally rehearsed (the Q and A) was i think performed once at the most due to the lack of audience members and their age. As a result our performance became more about christmas characters meeting and talking to the children. while writing this it has just made me think that this version of the performance was more of a drama in the community concept through the interacting with the public then a rehearsed performance would have been.

a lil update!!!....well perhaps it wont be so lil afterall !!!

Haven't written for a while....whooppps!!! so im afraid there's going to be a bit of waffling happening now!!! sorry!!!
Well here goes.....

We had all decided to search for our own stories or to write our own, however having searched on the internet I couldn't fing a story that really grabbed me. I didn't want to just choose a story that I felt was standard and unoriginal. I wanted a story that excited me when I read it. I think that was for two reasons....the first being that I didn't see the how I could expect strangers to spend their time listening to a story that I didn't particulary care about or to find a story interesting and stimulating when I didn't even think that myself. I thought it would be a bit hypocritical. The second reason was that I couldn't stand the thought of repeatedly telling a story that my heart wasn't completely dedicated to. I want to enjoy this experience as much as the children and parents.

During a rehersal one Wednesday morning, we split into groups to help direct each others stories. Still not having found one for myself I helped somebody else. At the end of the lesson each group performed their stories. It became recognisable that shorter stories worked far better, as they required a far less attention span. It is important to remember that children have a far less attention span that adults. After watching one of the performances, I think it came clear to me as to why I was struggling so much with finding a story to tell. Since coming back to uni for my third year, I have found it extremely difficult to sit down an attempt to write. I have felt constricted in the way that I can work and have felt tied down. One of the performances was a question and answer performance, which consisted of two people asking questions to father christmas, mrs claus and an elf. This would then be opened to the audience, allowing them to ask any questions they wanted. I felt this would allow me to be more free, and I became excited at the thought of improvising something in the moment, through interacting with the audience as opposed to being limited to a set performance. After the lesson, our friend Frank came in to give us a demonstration on how to story tell. During our storytelling lecture last year, we explored the significance of language to help hold peoples attention and the use of space through which to direct our energy. He demonstrated this perfectly...despite the fact that he had written the story within around 5 mins sitting at the back of our class whilst waiting for us to finish our lesson. It is easy to recognise Frank as an amazing performer, he uses words remarkably as a way to express things. Yet despite knowing this I was always unaware of how he was able to achieve this. It was only when Mark pointed out that he was fearless of experimenting and using words, that I realised other people would perhaps be able to achieve a performance as fascinating as his. A whole new world to vocabulary had opened. Not because new words had been created, but I had finally realised that already existing words CAN actually be used.

During our next lecture at Ham House we began rehersing our stories. At this point I had slightly began to worry as I still didn't have a story. I approached the question and answer group and asked whether I would be able to be the elf. They thought it was a good idea and so we started creating a character brief for mr and mrs claus and the elf. During this discussion Mark joined in and began to question our choice of using father xmas. We realised that there was no one believable to play him (as all the boys in our class were far too young). We also realised that it was nothing different than the children visiting the local shopping centre and seeing him. Instead we created the character of father xmas' son, who hated xmas due to him constantly being surrounded by it. We also decided on general question for the perofrmance too. Storytellers were to wear a xmas jumper, fingerless gloves, scarf, hat, wellies and braces. I really liked this costume idea I thought there was somehting old fashioned and rather sweet about it. I think it remeinded me of christmas at home. During the snow fall earlier on in the year my brother was helping my dad shovelling snow off the front garden. My mum managed to capture a picture of my brother sitting in the doorway in almost exactly the same outfit. My dad printed it off in a brownish colour and hung it up in the hallway. I like it bacause it looks really old fashioned. Anyway....a bit distracted sorry...

For the elf, Mrs Claus and her son we decided on seperate outfits. Mrs Claus would wear a suit, her son, would be dressed as a goth and the elf in a traditional elf outfit.

For this weeks lesson just gone, we were told to learn our performances so we could do a proper run through for the first time. The stories all went well, and there was a good variety for both children and for adults, which I felt was important for the family day. When it came to our performance, I think we thought it would be easier than anticipated. Due to it being an improvisational piece you can never prepare 100% as you never know the way an audience will react. When discussing it after, we were told the Mrs Claus and son part went on too long. We also had no where to leave once we had finished our part of the interview. We also felt that perhaps the interviewers should ask a few more questions before inviting the audience to get involved. To prevent the audience being intimidated we were told to invite the audience as a whole what they all wanted to find out about the characters, as opposed to singling out individual members. We came to the conclusion that it needs some directing before we perform it on saturday. With a little bit of direction I believe it'l still work.

We had another tour this week...which inspired us as to what stories we could include for the christmas fair. There was a carving that we came across during the tour, which was of a girls name on one of the windows which had been etched on by a member of staff many years ago. The same man had eventually committed suicide by jumping out the same very window. The root we took is not taken for public tours, and we thought it a shame that stories from those that actually used to live and work in the house were not shared with visitors. Having had many tours of the house and having seen many of the rooms more than once, most of which are empty rooms, we felt these stories made the tour more interesting. Our tour guide also read to us several sections from what I assume was a diary he wrote when he had worked there many years ago. It was interesting to hear how workers had felt whilst working there and the extent of the hard work they had to do. I felt that for the first time the building had come alive. I felt there was substance to the house. A history that wasn't just dates and the names of families that had owned the house, but of the people behind the hard work of the house, the characters that no one cared about. I feel excited at the fact that there are more secrets to be unlocked from the house. Intrigued to find out more of these, a group of us have decided to go on the ghost tour, which will perhaps open more possibilites for stories we can use.

After hearing the last of the stories from our group (it was set as homework) we made progess by deciding the type of stories that should be told. We felt that stories to do with winter/christmas worked the best, as we felt it will help set the atmosphere for the christmas fair. We also felt that unknown stories would work better, as they would be more intriguing for the audience.

For the first time since going to Ham House, I am really excited about participating in the project. If I find more secrets about the house, I would also be interested in reworking the tours for the public.