Monthly Archives: March 2017

Text

Writing the Text (Part 1)

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In order to structure and enrich my performance, particularly as I am focusing on storytelling, I have begun to write a text that summarise my performance and can be used as a basis to work on. Below is what I have written so far:

“The show starts with me being sat with the projection of ‘the cliff’, an audience of six enters.

My dad is an adventurer, not officially, but he loves to explore. Every year since I was 5 my family and I have always gone to the same place for our holiday, Menorca. Whenever we go there my dad likes to plan journeys and walks to different historic monuments. Months prior to going on holiday you can walk in his office to find him looking at huge maps of Menorca, all covered in sticky labels to mark out travel destinations. His favourite are ‘Martello Towers’ – cylinder shaped defence towers that was used in the Spanish Civil War, built by the British. So, every holiday I go on these walks with my dad, sometimes my brothers tag along but usually it’s just my dad and I.

Now my dad isn’t a bad father in any sense of the word, but it is fair to say that he can get carried away, particularly if Martello Towers have anything to do with it. It was in these times, when my dad was distracted, that his walks didn’t go entirely as planned.

I move over to a set of seven chairs and sit at the back.

When I was 6, a time when I actually enjoyed Maths and my biggest concern was having enough pocket money to collect and battle Beyblades, one of our journeys started to go wrong before we had even started walking. I was sat in the back of a 7-seat people carrier alongside my brothers, my dad (who was driving) and my sister’s boyfriend (at the time).

I ask the audience to sit with me, placing a cap and camera case over the audience member who is sat in the driving seat.

It was a sweltering day so we all had the windows rolled fully down. Now I know you’re not supposed to but I could never resist leaning out of the window, letting the wind blow through my hair. It was shortly afterwards that the road we had been driving on seemed to just disappear. The car started to bounce, rattle and shake on the rocks that the road now consisted of- sending me flying across the car (bearing in mind that I was about 3-foot-tall and weighing in at a whopping 40 pounds). Whilst I was distracted by the rocky road, I hadn’t realised the deep, thick forest that had started to envelop the car.

The lighting fades from a bright warm light to a dark green.”

Currently this is all I have written but I am working on creating more text and will be updating my blog when I have a substantial amount to add.

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Giggs, J. (2015) Menorcan Greenery. Unpublished Photograph.

Research

Research: Michael Rosen

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Whilst researching solo artists, I came across a series of videos by Michael Rosen, a children’s novelist and poet. In these videos, Rosen acts out and animates the stories from his books in a way that I found inspiring. Below is one of his videos:

Whilst the content is fictional, the way in which Rosen tells his story may be influential to how I tell my own story. Throughout his work, Rosen animates his stories with exaggerated facial expressions, physicalisation of movements and sound effects made with his voice.

Though I do not think I will use exaggerated facial expressions to the same extent as Rosen, it is something I will consider incorporating in my work. I find the way in which he physicalises actions with his hands, alongside his use of sound effects, effective storytelling devices that allow the audience to become more involved in the performance. As such, I may wish to use these techniques in my performance. This will aid in making the piece more interesting and engrossing, something that is still a concern with my performance.

I also appreciate the level of detail within the text, an aspect which I believe makes Rosen’s videos more appealing. Due to this, when thinking about my own story, I will use vivid descriptions of locations and romanticise the action, so as to add an extra layer of intrigue for the audience. Furthermore, Rosen’s delivery is moderately fast paced which I think will best suit my piece – permitting a lot of detail whilst also allowing a consistent flow of varying content. This is all in aid of making my performance as detailed and engaging as possible.

Therefore, Michael Rosen’s work has been a significant influence on my work and has significantly changed how I wish to go about the storytelling in my own piece. My priority with the performance is to have a high level of detail so that the audience can easily depict the scenarios I am describing.

All in all, it is vital that my performance is highly descriptive so that the audience can effortlessly visualise everything in the story, which I believe adds a level of interactivity to my piece.

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Michael Rosen Image:

DEED (2016) Michael Rosen [Online]. Available from http://www.deed.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Michael-Rosen.jpg [accessed 24 March 2017]

Kids’ Poems and Stories With Michael Rosen (2008) No Breathing In Class – Michael Rosen

. Available from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1cfVQyrQ3Q [accessed March 24 2017].

Menorca, Text

Structuring the Show

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As I am intending to tell three different stories, how I will structure these in performance is important, as I will need to ensure that there is ample time for each story and that the transitions flow together. Below is a list of the intended structure so far:

  1. I start sat near the projection of ‘the cliff’ when the audience come in.
  2. I stand up and talk to the audience about my dad and my holidays in Menorca.
  3. I walk over to a set of 7 seats, laid out like a people carrier, and sit at the back of the car. I encourage the audience to sit with me.
  4. I begin telling a story of when I was 6, based in the car. The audience member in the driving seat will be asked to put on a cap and camera case to represent my dad.
  5. I get out of the car and pick up some ‘plant props’ and begin to scratch them against the side of the car, making the noise that happened using my voice. Lights transition from warm light to dark green.
  6. I mime crossing the thin bridge and before I fall in, I stop and walk over to the other side of the room.
  7. A karaoke version of Eye of the Tiger begins to play to which I sing along for about ten seconds (pretending to be the drunk man who sung it in Menorca).
  8. I return to the bridge and fall into the Marshlands, telling the rest of the story.
  9. Transition to next story. The lights continually fade to a harsh red throughout this story.
  10. Tell the story about ‘the wall’. Pick up the rock prop to ‘write’ on the wall.
  11. Transition to the final story. Lights fade back into a warm light, sounds of the sea can be heard. I hand out scripts to the audience and ‘cast’ them as different characters.
  12. Begin telling the story of ‘the cliff’ having the audience play different characters and aiding the storytelling.
  13. Finish final story and finish performance.

I will update my blog if there are any changes to this structure.

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Giggs, J. (2015) Mini Pinecone. Unpublished Photograph.

Research

Research: Chris Goode

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As my piece is starting to veer more towards storytelling, I decided to research Chris Goode and his work – as his performances are heavily based around storytelling. Though he has worked solo for many shows, he also has his own ensemble company, Chris Goode and Company.

Speaking about his process to find and create ideas, Goode said that “The process always begins in the same way: it starts in a room with some smart people and the will to create a space for a conversation. I usually have a hunch about something I want to explore… Everything after that depends on my collaborators, and the news, and the weather.” (Goode, 2011).

Below is a clip from The Adventures of Woundman and Shirley, a show that I find interesting in how it is told. The storytelling aspects used by Goode are techniques I am thinking of using for my performance. Something that I believe is particularly interesting with this performance is the level of detail concerning every movement and location:

Though he has stated that he does not always find it easy to take strong political and artistic opinions and make them into a process, he has also shared his view that theatre is a place “to create real liveable experiences of models for political and personal change”. (Goode, 2011). He also said that “Theatre can have a crucial role in reimagining our social relations. What we do all day has never felt more important”. (Goode, 2011). His work is therefore very much a reflection on his own political and artistic views.

Goode has been termed an alternative theatre maker – a term that was founded in the late 1960s to early 1970s. It’s meaning relates to a movement that opposed mainstream theatre. Alternative performances were created with a specific set of theatrical ideas that opposed the stereotypical theatrical experience. Goode’s performances therefore remove the security and comfort that audiences had become accustomed to, and asks them to think beyond what they are seeing on the stage.

Goode advises new theatre makers to stay curious about current ideas and experiences and that it is important to analyse everything – “Always be kind in the work room. Only work with people who are smarter than you and don’t mind getting naked.” (Goode, 2011). Furthermore, he says that the process should be a place of romance, lightness and acceptance. Don’t be afraid to aspire to significance. (Goode, 2011).

Chris Goode keeps a blog of his work in which he expresses his political and societal opinions: http://beescope.blogspot.co.uk/. Speaking about theatre, Goode said that he is “really fascinated by the ways in which we imagine theatre — not the content or detail of any particular instance of theatre, but more generally theatre as a practice or a social act — and the metaphors by which those imaginings get passed around, become realised as material, as architecture and infrastructure and organization.” (Goode, 2014).

Whilst I have no intentions of my performance challenging the conventions of theatre, I have been inspired by Chris Goode to consider a new method of storytelling in which detail is vital. Over the coming weeks, I am going to try writing a text on which my performance can be based – relating to my own personal experiences of my holiday. I intend to focus on every detail so that the audience can vividly imagine the world that I am describing, much like Goode’s work.

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Chris Goode Image:

Abrahams, J. (2014) Chris Goode in ‘Men in the Cities’ [Online]. Available at https://static.independent.co.uk/s3fs-public/styles/article_small/public/thumbnails/image/2014/08/08/12/chris-good.jpg [Accessed 16 March]

Chris Goode (2014) In My Room [blog]. 24 March. Available from: http://beescope.blogspot.co.uk/ [accessed 16 March].

Goode, C. (2011) Chris Goode: Maverick Theatre. Interviewed by E. Turney for Ideas Tap. Available from: http://www.ideastap.com/ideasmag/the-knowledge/chris-goode-interview [accessed 16 March].

Hull Truck Theatre (2012) The Adventures of Woundman and Shirley. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ud5jsvC1x4g [accessed 16 March].

Experiments, Menorca

Animating the Story

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As I addressed in my previous post, Making a Show, a concern for my piece is that it will not be interesting for an audience. Due to this, I have begun to think about additional ways to make my piece more engaging and interesting for the audience- primarily by ‘animating’ the story. Instead of simply talking to the audience about these journeys (like one of Spalding Gray’s productions) I intend to direct incorporate the audience into the piece.

For instance, in one of my memories I was sat in a 7-seat people carrier when we drove through a thick forest-like area. As we did, branches and sharp leaves of the trees started to scratch against the car and eventually got in through the windows (in those days air conditioning in hire cars was a luxury). Everyone in the car (me, my brothers, my dad and my sister’s boyfriend (at the time) frantically tried to close the window to prevent getting attacked. How I would want to show this on stage would be to set out 7 seats and have the audience sit in them, as if they were in the car with me. When they were in the ‘car’ I would use prop tree branches and brush against the side of the ‘car’ so that the story involved the audience (by placing them directly into the action). I have also thought about creating sound effects to go with this, such as making a high pitch screech to replicate the sound of the branches scratching the car. I would also use lighting to display changes in locations and temperature- when driving through the forest I would have the lighting change from a bright warm light to a dark green, creating a clear transition of location and further involving the audience into the story.

What I call the 'Stone Dog'. I rotated the rock in it's eye to make it look more friendly. Presumably the eye was placed by someone else wanting to create the effect of a dog.
What I call the ‘Stone Dog’. I rotated the rock in it’s eye to make it look more friendly. Presumably the eye was placed by someone else wanting to create the effect of a dog in the first place.

I may also have the audience ‘play’ the different characters in the story, for example, placing my dad’s hat and camera case on someone whilst in the car and asking them to mime driving. I am also planning to have scripts to give to the audience so that they can speak as different characters. By doing so, I want to create an intimate and engaging experience for the audience, they are not only listening to some of my fondest memories, but reliving them with me. I am considering limiting the audience to 6 people, thus creating a fun, friendly and intimate atmosphere (thereby recreating the emotions I felt whilst on my holidays for the audience).

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Giggs, J. (2015) Menorcan Cliffs. Unpublished Photograph.

Giggs, J. (2015) Dog Stone. Unpublished Photograph.