Amy L James Blog task 3

1.
The phase of ‘research and resource’ was the first part of the journey into creating Porto. The research enabling the performers to involve themselves in the production, by firstly being shown a series of images of a variety of different spaces in which the key word of travel was incorporated enabled the performers to grasp the concept of the piece. After doing a character was able to start developing. In order to entirely connect with this character one must research the depth of the character. ‘One must never be lazy about detail. In the end, it will define the essence of the character’ (Dennis, A., 1995: 31) The research stage is a continuous process through-out the creation of Porto as a character is constantly adapting and developing, giving new rich subtle meanings to the piece.
We have gradually progressed into the ‘scoring’ stage of devising, meaning to structure the piece, much like the term used in music for instance. The technique of improvisational play, a key feature of the genre helped to develop character relationship within the piece, relationships that are still developing as we speak, nothing is ever set in concrete. It is important to note that both these phases will be a continuous process through out the whole of Porto’s journey.

2.
The piece itself will not have an over all narrative as the art of physical theatre rarely has an overall narrative as piece’s within this genre mostly rely on ‘themes’. Our theme concentrates on ‘the liminal space’ and the idea of journeys, baggage and being stuck in limbo as such. The narrative is often left open to the audience’s perspective, to give them the opportunity to use their imagination on how they would perceive the narrative to be. D. Callery explains that the actors are their to engage the audience with the piece by allowing them to use their imagination, ‘ the actor is like the driver of the car that transports the audience somewhere else, somewhere extraordinary’ (Callery, D., 2001: 103) However through out the creation of Porto we do actually see that it does in actual fact convey individual narratives within the piece rather than a whole. Each character has there own story and this is conveyed through their newly developed relationships with others. We now see Porto deal with many situations people are often faced with in every day life, such as rejection, love, and betrayal. The performer’s physicality and use of extra daily movements enabled the piece to portray these more clearly.

3.
My character has grown a substantial amount through the transition of research and resource and the scoring phase as my character is now, although not completely, more defined than when first developed. When developing my character it was all abit vague in terms of what my character strives for and wants. By researching it I came up with the basic skeleton for my character and I thought I knew where I was going with it, but when starting the scoring phase this changed. I learnt new characteristics and physicality’s through the technique of improvisational play. Yoshi Oida and Lorna Marshall explain how you think your character is being open to the audience when in actual fact you find yourself seated with your legs crossed and you arms folded, actually making your character very introverted. It was small physicality’s such as this, that made me aware of my characters feelings and emotions. Through interacting with other characters I started to develop a relationship with one particular character, much like myself. Thos relationship is about rejection and longing to be wanted as such. I really feel the emotion and distress this character is going through, I feel my character is forever progressing and becoming more obvious to an audience.
Bibliography


Callery, D.(2001) Through the body: A Practical Guide to Physical Theatre London: Nick Hern Books Ltd.

Marshall, L. (2001) The Body Speaks: Performance and Expression London: Methuen Publishing Ltd.

Oida, Y. and Marshall, L. (1997) The Invisible Actor London: Methuen Publishing Ltd.