What is humanity?

This was only a single lesson, and what with ramadan timings, we didn't have time to do a whole lot. A poem about humanity was read to us, and we had to write the first words that came into our heads. At first it was very easy, but as we kept going, it became harder to find words to think of to describe what we felt when hearing this poem. Afterwards, we wrote down our initial idea about how to present this poem. The list of my words and the sketches I made are enclosed below :) Enjoy!

Love & Sunshine

A human

It'd take me an entire term to teach you Stanislavski...

This lesson was almost entirely spent on talking about Stanislavski's system of acting, which is basically the only and most effective way to train actors. According to wikipdia, Slanislavki's method is "based around an actor "living the part" but always staying one step away from complete belief. He felt that it is important that, whilst the actor should experience and show the emotions of the character, it is very important the actor still stay detached. The system was made as a flexible structure, a thing that actors may use as much or as little as they please in their rehearsals, and was intended to be modified for the individual."

Our teacher explained to us that in order to really portray a character realistically, you must have this character's goals in your mind (what they have and are and are about to do) and become this character. The play may begin as soon as you step on stage, but the character's life does not; he has a past that influences how he acts in the future. This lesson we concentrated on entrances, a few people were asked to make entrances depending on what happened to them before, for example one student who had a madman with an axe chasing after him.

As Mrs. Slav said, it would be impossible for her to teach the entire method in a term, let alone a lesson, so expect to hear about it in the future!
Da svidania...

Love & Sunshine

A blogger :)

Going green...

Frankly, I was a little disappointed at the stimulus that we received today. A poem on ecology? Been there, done that, then repeated the whole process at least three times. We've talked about saving our planet and recycling in almost every subject (next thing you know, they'll replace trigonometry by ecology in maths class!), so it's no wonder really that most students were not the most enthusiastic they had ever been when presented with it. But anyways, this blog isn't really meant to be a complaint to the IB Theatre Arts board, so I might as well get on with what I have to say.

We were a full class today, and this time I was so prepared for it that I jumped in with half a dozen ideas as soon as we were put into groups after reading the poem. We had to imagine a piece of theatre that we could draw from this stimulus. Our group's idea was good, according to our drama teacher: My Apocalypse. It's the story of a boy who loses his grandfather and who feels as though the world has stopped spinning; that this is the end and he cannot do anything about it. The world (represented by Celine, Farah and I) turn around him, egging him on by whispering and drawing closer as he becomes more and more agitated. The child in the middle, played by Dan, eventually realises that the world must go on and that this should not affect the rest of the people around him. I was disappointed because we hadn't rehearsed much and some of us forgot when exactly and where they had to move, when they had to whisper, and so on. Another thing that annoyed me was when our teacher pointed out that it was terribly cliche to have a character in the center and building up tension with movement and noise around him- because it was true. So next time I'll try to learn from the mistake of using very obvious theatrical devices and go for something a little more subtle.

What I did like about this exercise was that each group drew something completely different from the poem; ours was about the end of the world for a little boy, Meghna's group portrayed an idealistic world, and Marta's group was a comparison between people who believe that they have problems and others who make them realise that life is in fact, worth living.
So live life to the fullest! :)

Love & Sunshine

Soph

Remove the mask!

Our second lesson was already much easier. Having expected the grade 13's to be with us, I had promised myself to open up and provide the rest of my group with a little input, but as soon as I realised that we would only be us 12's, I breathed a sigh of relief. It takes time to adjust to new people and to their presence! I hadn't noticed how important that was to me before, but working with a group of people you feel close to is one of the most important things for you to be able to develop and grow- because you're not scared of going out there and making mistakes. Today's stimulus was a picture of an African mask. The gold and emerald green are what struck me the most about it, but in the end, it was the aspect of covering our true faces that we used. We drew inspiration from an experience that our TOK teacher had talked about in class that day; about how in one school he taught in, all of the new students entered the school as individuals, but they came our of their years of learning all the same as one another. To portray this, we used rhythm. We stood in a row and each one of us had a specific movement that separated us from one another and allowed the audience to get an insight into our personality. For example, I was an exuberant dancer. As time went by, however, our movements became increasingly stiff and uncoordinated, and all our movements became similar: we had adopted the same mask and become identical. This lesson, we also had to do our first pitch. Having no idea what they were, we introduced our piece by using a series of repetitive words, such as "identical, identical, identical," rather than actually explaining what the piece was going to be about.
The other group used repetition as well, with their phrase "remove the mask!" that they said over and over at diffrent tones of voices and either in canon or unison. I found this very effective as it really emphasized the point of their play: to be yourself, no matter what.
Advice we should all take :)!

Love & Sunshine

This actress

First Theatre Arts Lesson!

Summer is over, and we've now come to this time of the year. School has started- and with it, theatre arts! The weather is finally starting to cool down in Dubai which makes outdoor performances and wearing backstage all-blacks finally possible! All of us were really looking forward to our first theatre arts lesson- but it didn't live up to everybody's expectations....

First of all, having been used to a very close group of drama students that all considered each other family, it was difficult to have to adjust to acting and sharing concepts with people that we hardly knew. I thought that it would be easily overcome, but I was uncommonly shy and unwilling to share any ideas that I had. Our stimulus was a nonsense poem (see below), and we had to create a piece of theatre that included all of the nonsense words. The point of the exercise was to interpret the meanings of the phrases by speaking them out loud and listening to how they sounded. Our group decided that the poem sounded like a dialogue between members of a family who are getting ready in the morning, and that is how we presented it. However, as we spent too much time deciding which phrase meant what, I didn't really have time to decide what character I was going to portray and ended up being a grandmother but not acting like one.

For the next lesson, I will try to organise my time better and, more importantly, come out of my shell and become the Sophie I usually am!

Love & Sunshine