Ellen Marshall FINAL blog task.

1)

As went came to the final performing stage of RSVP as a member of the company I had last seen each individual sections when we were still scoring, therefore they could all have changed however the community as a whole stayed consistent with themes and issues. Entering the space at the beginning of the performance to find Blake’s character already there started a theme of entrapment. After the black out every one tried to express their own individual characters but then suddenly became sucked into the same routine making them also a slave to Porto. Those characters with the chairs facing in the other direction managed to resist joining in but instead of escaping it they got drawn into a routine just for being different until they gave in to be accepted with the rest. The community through out had signs of trying to belong in a hostile place and finding conclusions before they could move forward. Of what I know of the subgroups a lot was based on male female relationships:

‘[To Pina Bausch] Do you have themes? Specific themes? Or does this change? [Pina Bausch reply] Well, I’d say they sort of move in a circle. It’s always the same thing or similar things. Actually the themes are always to do with man-woman relationships, the way we behave or our longing or our inability, only sometimes the colour changes.’ (Michael, H and Witts, N. 1996. P.54.)

Every character wanted to leave the space but couldn’t which relates to what Pina Bausch said on ‘longing’ and ‘inability.’ It would also appear that there was at least one villain, one victim, one hero or all three in each part. Nicola seemed to be all three as some people in the community were scared by her, some wanted to help her and some would be helped by her. We all entered the space alone but all left together and as Nicola was left behind it gave the impression that the same thing had happened to Blake and Porto would always be occupied but the residents would always change.



2)

Porto is about a community in a space between places although a lot of it is metaphorical I personally believe that the space of Porto soon got associated with the drama studios we had been working in. Because of this when we had to move into a new performing space it felt like we had left Porto to come into an unfamiliar place. Although the initial confusion may have set us a few steps back as a group, emotionally it woke up the performance. When we were still in the drama studios we had become so aware of everything our body memories took over so much so that even when Nicola had a hood over her face and no vision she still knew her way around.

‘Body memory is a term, originating in dance, that describes the body’s ability to “remember” movement as an embedded resonance. A totally non-thinking process, it is intimately related, as we shall see, to the entire aspect of physical awareness.’ (Zinder, D. 2002. P.134)

As a result of such a high recall of body memory a purpose behind each movement began to disappear and emotions in the movements started to lack. By being in the new space the company could now have a true sense of being in the unknown. It was impossible to say if a chair would not be put in the right place or if there were too many so we all had to adapt to that and solve it in character. The space had also changed in size and shape we had more areas to work with people who we were working with in the peripheries in the studio could now be on the other side of the space. At first is was a weakness of ours as we were so set in our ways that we didn’t use the new free spaces available to us but the company soon started to explore even more. By having more space it gave more freedom to develop the characters even in this late stage of RSVP.



3)

Over the 3 final shows there was still scope for change although it would have been unrealistic to create a whole new performance it was still possible to make slight changes.

‘ Training should remain free-form for as long as possible, devoid of anything “concrete”.’ (Zinder, D. 2002. P.8)

The quote above relates to the way in which we approached things through all the RSVP stages. For example in the first show I decided to open the letter I had as my item on stage. I’d never before done this as it was something my character was quite protective over so, by doing this was just a huge progression from the start of the process. I realised in the 3 shows I became less and less attached to my bag and more protective of my character I think this was due to the change in emotion I felt towards Mikeys character. He was no longer my protector and more of a representation of being hurt and controlled. When I changed these feelings it impacted Mikey to the point where his character was getting upset. This was not a reaction I was expecting and caused implications as it made my character feel bad and nasty – something that my character was not. It almost became impossible for my character to source the emotions I needed for our section. Performing for the last time seemed to make something click which enabled us to get the right balance of actions to reactions that heightened my characters perpous.

The last time my character walked off stage I felt a relief -my characters journey had been consistent all year then it really intensified in the last few shows. My character had gained real emotion, real fear, real satisfaction and real exhaustion and it only seemed to appear for the first time in the actual shows. This seemed to be the case for the rest of the company, which allowed us to all feed off each other. Given the change in location and addition of an audience the atmosphere altered greatly this in turn made everyone more focused. In rehearsals the company had an element of working separately and increasing with each one of the shows the company became a whole. As a performer the ensemble pieces all felt like we were thinking in time, the tempo and pace fell into place quickly there were no hesitations.

‘The process cannot be reduced to a series of predictable episodes of a fixed scenario. An effectively structured dramatic process will achieve development, articulation and significance while avoiding the repetition of a carefully prearranged sequence, the transformation of process into superficial product, and the destruction of the spontaneity that is at the heart of the work.’ (O’Neill, C. 1995. P.xviii)

None of the three shows were the same, which makes this genre so unique if each performance was exact for each movement and each emotion, and then chances of it being superficial are high. Although the above quote relates mainly to the beginning process that process does not stop until the final performance is over as we are constantly developing.




Bibliography

Michael, H and Witts, N. (1996) The Twentieth- Century Performance Reader. London: Routledge.

O’Neill, C. (1995) Drama Worlds a Framework for Process Drama. Portsmouth: Heinemann.

Zinder, D. (2002) Body Voice Imagination a Training for The Actor. New York: Routledge.