Evaluation

Our opening was really strong and I felt as a group we adapted really well to the audience size and the movement of the L shapes to lock them all in. There wasn't too much fuss either times if something went wrong or not to plan in the formation of the L's, we all managed to play it out and keep the piece moving. This meant that our piece was off to positive start and I feel this really helped keep everyone going and motivated to follow the positive vibes through. One particular area I feel everyone improved on from rehearsal was staying in the moment - I felt that that every member of the cast in all three performances were completely committed to simply working in that moment. We had struggled with this in rehearsals as many people would come out of the moment or not commit enough energy into their actions but I felt it was apparent in the final shows as it ran so smoothly and seamless due to everyone being so dedicated.

One of the strongest aspects of our piece I feel is how we all kept up the energy throughout the entire performance. This is the first performance I have done this year that I feel the entire cast put their all in the entire show. This was also one of my personal strengths as I personally did not drop in energy in my performances in any of the 3 shows and was utterly exhausted once we finished - but, that's how I knew we did extremely good work. In particular I feel we carried out emotional riffing extremely well each time, no member of the cat falling flat. This was also apparent in the exercises in which we had to interact with different audience members; blowing on the hands and telling them our childhood stories. I feel that a large percentage of the cast completely committed and gave it their all to keep the piece alive and flowing as it definitely would've fallen flat if one member or so had not put as much effort in. I felt the points of interaction were extremely effective as we were able to completely involve and confront audience members, completely affecting them and engaging them into the piece directly. On a personal note, I was dreading these points in the piece due to the audiences reactions - however, I found that I was completely focused on being in the moment and getting my message across and that no matter how the different audience members reacted, I kept on track and fully committed to the piece and to the art I was creating.

One of the aspects I really liked Sarah's group was the use of multi-media. I feel it worked extremely well with the way they were experimenting with it and it provided a creative and unique experience for audience members to take part it. They completely plunged the audience into a world of darkness and sound to effectively send their messages across; it done in an almost humorous yet light hearted way, that left me as an audience member left feeling both touched and inspired. This contrasted vastly against Simon's piece which took a more direct approach to experimental theatre. Their use of scarves covering the faces was extremely interesting as it completely took the identity away from each actor, allowing them to simply be experimental bodies and actors in the moment. They combined movements and spoken word to create a world that left the audience both entertained and informed. I really liked the use of ensemble in both group pieces, every single person had something to carry out - no actor had a more prominent role than another. Without one member, the whole piece wouldn't work and would carry less effect therefore leave less impact. I thoroughly enjoyed both pieces and found it extremely interesting to observe how different every director approached the experimental term.

One of the weaker aspects of the performance was that we did tend to shift the action down stage so that the audience were only watching from one side. However, I did personally try to bring the action over to the other; for example in emotional riffing when everyone was in a huge clump on one side of the stage, I would deliberately try to pull it over to the opposite side. I didn't want any members of the audience left unaffected or uninterested due to not being able to see, so this was an attempt to keep them all engaged and involved. I feel I was partly successful in this as other people in our group did also follow over to the other side which meant we were able to bring some action over to where it was lacking, however, it also made it harder to follow the different changes in emotions throughout the emotional riffing making it more of a challenge to take part in and fully commit to.

I felt my group piece with Chem and Georgia went particularly well on all three occasions. All three of us put a lot of effort into making our piece come alive and making sure our message got across and I feel we achieved that successfully. One of the weaker aspects was when Chem lost his pen on multiple occasions, however, he managed to play it out by carrying on chanting as if that was just part of our plan. It didn't throw any of us off and kept our message going on a continuous loop. We also managed to successfully adapt to the lack of paper we had taken out to the actual performance - instead of writing each statement separately on one piece each, we worked it out so we repeated it on the same page then turned it over when we changed. Not only did this mean we used less paper and was slightly more environmentally friendly but it also showed how we were able to morph our ideas to fit the performance space and adapt to our problems effectively and efficiently so that the audience did not catch on. One of our strongest aspects was our use of vocals - our use of chanting the same thing over and over again was supposed to echo the mechanics of machinery and conforming to rules; I feel this was captured as we all managed to keep in time together, meaning no impact was lost due to mis-spoken words or out of time chanting. I also felt when we turned on the audience and spoke directly at them was particularly strong as we involved them directly into the piece rather than letting them simply spectate and view, we wanted them to confront their own lives and views about society and I feel that was achieved. If we had time to improve, I feel I would've liked to explore using different multi-media within our piece as we were originally going to use a projection displayed behind us, however, we felt it would have been too much hassle to sort out and adapted our piece to fit without it.

One of the biggest strengths of our piece was definitely the ending. By ending our piece using botoh and "chasing a rabbit", I feel we effectively used two completely contrasting exercises to display a really important message. Botoh is extremely calming and demands a lot of energy to produce the correct sound, it leaves me feeling free and disentangled from everything else going on - allowing me to completely focus on my breathing and producing the sounds. I also felt focusing on the idea that it was representing the atomic bombs dropped on Japan really allowed us as a cast, and myself personally, to carry it out as effectively and honestly as possible. Though its an extremely challenge task, I believe we were really able to portray the horror of that situation through an extremely subtle exercise, yet it was able to hold so much meaning behind every movement and sound that we made. Our botoh exercise contrasted really effectively with the franticness and desperation of the chasing rabbits exercise. We were really able to end the piece on the note of how desperate and worthless humans can cause others to be and feel like; how our impact on other's lives could cause them to completely transform into an animalistic state and mindset. We treat each other like animals, rather than equals. This was shown completely through both the displaying of the Japanese atomic bombs through the botoh as well as the complete dehumanization of people during the rabbit exercise. We were able to tie up our piece effectively and thought provokingly in such a way that, I felt, left the audience questioning society, our views and the human race on a whole.

Overall, I am so unbelievably happy how our piece turned out. It was so liberating and freeing to completely allow my body to experiment with different movements and techniques that I hadn't necessarily explored in great depth beforehand. I have thoroughly enjoyed this term and being able to completely let go and experiment in everything I did. I will definitely transfer the skills and knowledge I have gained throughout these last two months into my future acting development and career.