Don Quixote Practice

In the few last lessons, we had done the part in which Don Quixote is dreaming about fighting a dragon and rescuing Dulcinea. First the Dragon is a role that two people play, one the lower body and one the upper body, there are 4 devils who are accompanying the dragon. Then I have to go in and rescue the princess, so I fight the 4 devils and the dragon, then I rescue the princess and hold her hand, then she runs away, and the audience looks back to reality, where all of these events are just part of my dreams because of the crazy books I read.                                                                                            
I feel very nervous when I act as Don Quixote because everyone expects that i do everything in the right moment but I constantly mess up with the timing entrance to kill the devils and the dragon, so it makes me even more nervous. Also because Don Quixote is the protagonist, and it is a big role, I feel pressure.

Don Quijote

Today we practiced the Don quixote story characters as individuals and think about what should each character do. I was assigned to be Don Quixote.

What is Naturalism?

Naturalism is the belief in which people think that every single event that happens at any given point, is the product of a natural force. Naturalism promotes what is natural, it states that the natural forces control the whole universe.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturalism_(philosophy)

Stanislavski was a revolutionary person in theatre history, he thought at first that the acting was not good enough so he was able to come up with a method that could make the actor be able to do his or her best when acting.

Stanislavski's system is a progression of techniques used to train actors and actresses to create believable characterizations for their performances. The method that was originally created and used by Constantin Stanislavski from 1911 to 1916 was based on the concept of emotional memory for which an actor focuses internally on portraying a character's emotions onstage.  

Parts of the system:

The "Magic If"

Stanislavski believed that the truth that occurred onstage was different from that of real life, but that a 'scenic truth' could be achieved onstage. A performance should be believable for an audience so that they may appear to the audience as truth. One of Stanislavski's methods for achieving the truthful pursuit of a character's emotion was his "Magic If." The actors would ask themselves how would they feel if they were in the character's position, therefore, they would be able to act very realistically.

Motivation

Through the use of the system, an actor must analyse their character's motivations. Stanislavski believed that an actor was influenced by either their mind or their emotion to stimulate their actions, and the actor's motivation was their subconscious will to perform those actions. Therefore, motivation has been described as looking to the past actions of the character to determine why they completed physical actions in a script.^[1]

Objectives

The objective is a goal that a character wants to achieve. This is often worded in a question form as "What do I want?" An objective should be action-oriented, as opposed to an internal goal, to encourage character interaction onstage. The character doesn't necessarily have to achieve the objective, and the objective can be as simple as the script permits. For example, an objective for a particular character may simply be 'to pour a mug of tea.' For each scene, the actor must discover the character's objective. Every objective is different for each actor involved because they are based on the characters of the script.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturalism_(philosophy)

Melodrama

A melodrama is a dramatic or literary work in which the plot, which is typically sensational and designed to appeal strongly to the emotions, takes precedence over detailed characterization. Characters are often simply drawn, and may appear stereotyped. Because of the long timeframe in which the style has existed, and the variety of formats used, it is difficult to give a precise definition.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melodrama

Naturalism Drama

Today in drama class we talked about naturalism plays, most of them were comedies, and were focused on miscommunication.

The play that I was assigned to do was: Night by Harold Pinter

This play is about two married people in their forties that talk about their past.

Drama Rehearsal

Today we had our last Drama class before the actual performance, this time Mr. Bywater came to see us and had commented in our play, apparently Mr. Evans seems very happy with both groups and looks like we've made an improvement.

Drama class

Today in drama class we had a life lesson from the teacher. The teacher thought us that it is not right to think about doing something and don't do it. It is very lazy and disrespectful to the teacher. We were told to do our job, but we did not manage to do it, as a compensation we should finish the script and the powerpoint so that the teacher is not disappointed and we can do our work properly. Our group is a failure because there is no teamwork between us, and I'm not being a responsible student because of the many times I did not do something because nobody did either.

Drama Practice

Today we had another drama practice with the lights and the music, this time it was the MYP Co- ordinator who was looking at our play, he recorded it so that Mr. Evans could see it. During this rehearsal, I couldn't stop laughing because Pedro forgot Lydia's character name, this is why it is important to remember the script and to follow it correctly.

Technical Run

Today in Drama class we learnt to run a Technical Run. The Technical Run consists in the testing of Lighting, entering the stage, exiting the stage, music, etc. This is fundamental for drama practices because, we need to make sure that everything is fine and ready for the day in which we will present the play.

To do the Technical Run for the Lighting effects, we need to keep track of which lights we turn on and off, and when do we turn them on and off. Another thing that we also do, is to fix the light intensity and colour of it. Lighting is very important to be able to give the audience a more accurate vision of the play scenario.

Picture above shows how how to record the lighting that is needed during the scenes, the number of the light and when it should be turned on.

Pictures above and below show how does the lighting effects affect the feeling that the audience has towards the play.

Drama Class

In drama class today, Mr. Evans told us to change the the father and mother of Claire to be their brother and sister. We finished elaborating the play, now we need to practice and remember our lines.

Last night we made some practice in the drama studio about our play. We had put names for the characters instead of using our own. We had made changes in scene 2, where Phil enters the house, instead, we just start the scene by lights on, and Phil sits on the chair being angry at Claire for disappearing. Then we had made changes, we switched the doctor and the father of Claire, because Mr. Evans thinks it is more suitable, and it indeed is. I had a really good experience acting during this rehearsal, this was because I really put the effort in acting out the character and being angry.

Drama Practice

Today in drama we did some practice according to our play, however, this lesson, Lydia was not available so we had to practice without her, which was quite hard to accomplish since she as the main character. Today Mr. Evans told us to change some of the things in our play, like in the moment the doctor call the mom to inform her that her daughter is pregnant, we cut the scene because it is obvious. Then he told us that we could make more characters by changing the costumes of the actors very quickly, to create the guy's parents, using the servant and the doctor. Summary of our play:

-There is a party where the guy attends and is influenced to have sex with his friend

-It happens

-The guy goes to the girl's house to visit her, and find out she is pregnant.

-They go to the doctor to abort it, but is too late, later on the girl's parents join the conversation.

-Parents are angry at the guy and the girl.

The Phantom of the Opera reflection

The 7th of October, we went to see The Phantom of the Opera at the Guangzhou Opera House. The experience was indeed amazing, it was indeed one of the best special effects that i saw.  The Phantom of The Opera is a play about A Phantom that is called the Phantom of The Opera, and he is deeply in love with a opera singer called Christine. But Christine has a boyfriend and the Phantom of the opera is jealous. Christine is a secondary character in her opera plays and this makes the Phantom of the Opera feel bad, so the Phantom of the Opera wants to change the scripts and the play to make Christine be the principal character.

Acting:

The acting of the characters was very real, all the expressions that the actors made were very convincing, like if they were living the play, this teaches me that to act better, the actor needs to live the play like if it was life. All the actors were following the script and i was not able to see any mistake they did if they did. The actors had a really loud and clear voice, this is really important in drama, so the audience is able to hear and understand the play. This is very important so that the message that the play wants to transmit, gets to the audience. I think that to act with such skill is very hard and need a lot of practice. The dialogues were very long sometimes, the actor needs time to memorise the play and the script, when is he or she going to come in, when does he or she have to leave the stage, its all very hard to remember. Besides drama skills, the actors also showed singing skills, thus, their voices are very skilled. 

Staging:

The stage was really complex but well organised. It could literally summon anything in just a flash in time, it could also remove objects as well. At the start of the play, there was a big lamp that was held up into the stage with strings, the lamp had many small lights and there was music playing, to make it more dramatic, the use of lights flashing and the scary music, had created a very demoniac    style of effect on the stage, this was my favourite special effect. In the stage floor, there were some rails so that the wheels could follow a track, when they came in or out. This was a supporter for the special effect in which the boat that carried the phantom of the opera and Christine, look like it was flowing, the smoke in the floor hid the wheels and made it feel like there were mysterious waters. The lights of the stage, made focus on people or objects, this made me look at what the light was pointing, very carefully, thus, lights are important to highlight something in the stage. Also, when the lights went off, and started flashing thunder lights, it was communicating the audience that something evil was going to happen, The entrance of The Phantom of the Opera was coming, this was really interesting and astonishing. At the end of the play, the Phantom of the Opera sat on a throne, covered himself up with a black cover cloth, and then vanished when Christine took the cloth off, i think this was really mysterious, but at the same time, i realised that it was a throne, not a chair, so that the staging preparations could prepare a throne that flips back and the actor can vanish instantly.

This is a picture of a flier of The Phantom of the Opera, photo taken by me.

Teenage pregnancy scene 1

Today we made a lot of changes to our first scene, we changed the fact that the boyfriend visits the girlfriend now, and there are two plays that can go on from the point that the boyfriend notices the pregnancy. From that point, we ask the audience if they want the boyfriend to accept this fact or reject her. This is a form of interaction with the audience. This makes it interactive and interesting. Also we included a part where the public can talk with the characters so they know the play better. Our instructor gave us a lot of feedback and ways to improve our play. Overall, I think that our group work is not as good as group 1, they are very organised and collaborative.

Real life situations about our TIE theme

Today we made some research about about real life situations in our Theatre in education theme and found some interesting stories but none of them were useful for our product because they were all positive and had a happy life which is something useless in drama. These stories about teenage pregnancy were all very perfect and had a happy ending. What we needed to find was how to make people reflect about these consequences and stop having sexual intercourses with anybody at this particular age. We needed to find a sad story about this, but we failed. Some of the stories we found were about people who had a lot of support from everyone and they succeeded as parents. But this is not the case, it is possible but the chances are so few, thus we want to warn everyone the consequences of teenage pregnancy.

Collaborative Agreements

Today we made discussions about what play should we do as a group, we came across 3 ideas:

-Sexual Education

-Drug Addiction

-Stranger Danger

We decided to do do only one because our teacher told us that it was too much to do and is very dissordered. So we chose Sexual education. During the lesson we disscused many of the things we could do in the play like who is going to play which character and how wre we going to perform and what material will we use.

To plan a play as a group requires everyone to be open minded.

We signed 5 agreements to make our group work better:

 This agreements can help everybody put their part on this big plan, lo let everyone talk and to respect each other's ideas. To work as a team.

Definition of Collaborative Theatre

Stimulus: The starting point of something that evokes a specific reaction creating a Drama play naturally.

It can be: An object, a person, a place, a song, smell, place.

In the video we saw today poker cards were used as a stimulus to start something, they communicated and collaborated with each other to create a board of drawings about the poker cards they just used poker cards to create so much. Its the art of a stimulus.

“Robert Lepage: MIT Student Workshop, Spring 2012”. 3 April 2012.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvHMN31u4r8. Accessed 11 September 2015.

“Engine 28 - Theater professionals on ‘devised’ theater”. 15 June 2011.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMOjCW5L3PU. Accessed 10 September 2015.

Arts as Service

Description of our personal goals:
In art as a service we are going to prepare a drama play for students aged 12-14. We will prepare the topic of what we want to teach them and how are we going to teach them. We will also have to organise the place and material we will need for the play. I want to learn how to listen to other's ideas and to be a good classmate as a part of the group. Improve my drama skills also.

Activity aim:

To teach 12-14 aged students a drama play that has a lesson in it.

Organisation:

Utahloy International School Zeng Cheng UISZC

Learing outcome:

Action: Learning Outcomes Involved in the Drama Service project: 

1.1 identify your own abilities and skills 

1.2 understand (with guidance) that your choices determine the effectiveness of service 

2.1 undertake unfamiliar or extended service activities 

3.1 initiate and plan (with extensive support) activities that are planned together with other classmates 3.2 determine (with extensive support) the roles and responsibilities to your classmates in service activities 

3.3 take minor planning responsibilities and help to ensure the event runs smoothly 

4.2 embrace a shared responsibility of responding to problems that arise in the course of service 

4.3 commit emotionally to service 

4.4 begin to persevere and show determination to follow through 

5.1 collaborate with other students or members of the school 

5.3 demonstrate sufficient teamwork during the service to run activity effectively 6.1 learn about global issues within local, national and international contexts

Identifying the target audience

Today in Drama we discussed about what our company name whould be, what would be our target audience and what kind of play we had to present. Teamwork is a very important part about drama because we have to disscuss different ideas and points of views to perform a play that everybody is comfortable with. We disscused what target audience should we have, and surprisingly we all agreed to make 12-14 olds as our target audience because they are not too young to misunderstand or play nor too old to think that the play's meaning is something they already know. This is how we agreed to make a play for the 12-14 year olds. 

We discussed about target audience, kinds of play, and company name, we came to these results:

Target audience: 12-14

Kinds of play: Sex education, Stranger danger, inspire people to read books.

Company name: Fish in a Box

It is very hard to make descitions as a group because there are many ideas in which one or two dissagree so we have to move on and think about another idea. Sometimes when making descitions as a group there is some conflict, but we try to keep it peaceful between each other. Is important to disscuss whether anyone dissagrees or not, in order to aboid future quarrels. To agree as a team and consider everyone's opinion.

Collaboration in drama

In drama it is very important the people collaborate with each other to make a succesful product. Today at the drama studion we did some co-operation exercises.

In this exercice above, we hado to stay as united and overlaped as possible, it was very unsual and funny ツ.

We also made exercises like go across the drama studio without two members touching the floor and staying connected. This is how group 1 decided to do it.

We also did an exercise about being animals and walikng across very sincronizedly. This is how Group one did. They were walikng like ducks.

At last we did some improvisation exercises about people who needed help and seek for information at a mall. This picture below shows a student begging for help because he needs to use the restroom.

Overall, today i had learnt that teamwork is very important to success, it is important to leaen to listen to other's ideas. Today's exercises train us to get to an agreement as a team, instead of quarreling around. Our group failed some of the tasks becuse we lost time disscussing while the other team has already carried out a plan.

Imagination and creativity in Drama

Imagination can be very useful when creating any play or role play. This allows you to get creative and unique ideas to make a very succesful play. Today in drama class we made 2 role plays, both were not really succesful due to lack of teamwork and lack of imagination. The first play's task was to create a play in a small space (2m squared Aprox.) and give the audience the feeling that the story is happening in a small space.  We did a play about miners stuck in a mining elevator. For reference look at the picture below.

The second play was a bit similar, the only difference was that we were given a small stage but we had to make the auience feel as if it was a big place or environment. The stage was a little bit bigger than the first play. We made a play about people having a picnic in the mountains. Picture below for reference.

Later on we were gaven four objects to elaborate a game with rules. This was a challenge for imagination and creativity, We were gaven :

1)bamboo stick,

2)white string, 

3)empty trashcan 

4)bag sealer. 

We attached the string about 1.5m long to the bag sealer and then but the bag sealer inside the bamboo, then pull the string to pull the bag sealer out of the bamboo and then try to score in the trashcan with the bag sealer. Look at picture below for reference. ( the string is missing, this is after someone pulled the string)

Overall, this Drama lesson tought us that it is important to collaborate as a team to listen other's ideas so we can agree and look after flaws in everyoes ideas. It is also very important to be creative, because   people need to give good ideas to make a successful play. There are tons and millions of ways in which a play can be made. In addition it is also important that the actor is mentally in the play's world, this is to make the play look real and the actor to be really putting the emotion, to live as the character. Finally all these tips are essential to a drama play because there is no best idea but a serie of them can make a great one, listen to others, get into the play so it is possible to perform as professionally as possible, more vivastic and intersting.