VLOG LA REVOLTOSA. VIDEOS OF MY LEARNING PROCESS AND DEVELOPMENT OF MY PROJECT

VLOG LA REVOLTOSA

Every week I upload an episode to my podcast LA REVOLTOSA

Check my VLOG where I talk about what we have done during our classes and where I am with my perfomance.

Check below the videos of every week here:

WEEK 1: THE FIRST CLASS. STANISLAVSKI 

In this episode, I spoke about what we did during David’s class on the 31st of May. Prior to our class, David checked our final dissertation and adjusted the classes for helping us with it.

In this class, we did some exercises based on Stanislavski's method. We did an exercise about visualization, given circumstances, actions and objectives. In the first exercise, with clear given circumstances set, we had to get our objective without taking. In the second exercise, after the given circumstances were given, actors can talk to each other and should aim to get their objective. In the last exercise, after clear given circumstances, we were encouraged to see, to use our imagination for helping the audience see what we saw. Both actors had an objective and played an impro where both of them were givers.

I mention my experience doing impro before and being aware of being a giver actor and helping/supporting my scene partner with the impro.

We did an exercise based on the seven states of tension of Lecoq. The seven states of tension are the following ones:

• Exhausted or catatonic. The Jellyfish.
• Laid back – the “Californian”
• Neutral
• Alert
• Suspense
• Passionate
• Tragic

I talked about what point I was at with my final performance and the difficulties I was encountering while developing the performance.

WEEK 2: MORE ABOUT MY PROJECT

In this episode, I spoke about my project and where am I with it now. David helped us with the research skills: What were you investigating and what were you going to find out that you do not know already?

My question was how the interactions between family members changed during the pandemic and what was the role of social media in that change.

David made us question what we thought we would find out after our research. I explained where I got my idea for the project and how I am developing it. I mentioned the project is largely based in personal experiences and that is the reason why I am allowing myself to be subjective about the topic.

We did again an exercise using the seven states of tension of Lecoq. We did a little improv where each of us had to represent two states and David should guess what state those were.

I discovered while doing this exercise that comedy can be easily achieved just by doing this exercise.It reminded me of the British comedy sketches of the 70s like The Monty Python or Mr Bean.

I discussed a performance I went to see and how that performance influenced the development of my own performance.

I talked about Grotowski and the influence Grotowski’s teaching have on me as a performer and over the development of my performance for the end of this term.

WEEK 2 EXTRA. THE INCORPORATION OF FLAMENCO IN MY PROJECT 

In this episode, I spoke about my performance and its development. I knew I wanted to include an element of modern dance in my performance that would represent pain. The stage would be a space of pain where the story unfolds. I revised my original draft of the idea I designed in Jack’s class and decided to be the mother of the main character and tell the story from her point of view instead of the child’s. At this stage, I devised the idea of playing two characters: The narrator and the mother. I am influenced by a Spanish pop group of the 80s and a particular song ‘Hijo de la Luna’ for the creation of the character of the narrator, for their tempo at the time of speaking and the movement of their body. At the time of writing the script for the narrator, I felt the influence of the poems of the Spanish poet Federico Garcia Lorca.

In this episode, I also spoke about the idea of introducing masks and the idea of the narrator wearing a mask. It was important to me to depict the narrator as a character without any feelings on their face. I thought about the variety of expressions the mask could get on stage with the lighting and the idea of letting the light change the character and mood of the narrator. Considering the seven states of Lecoq, the narrator impersonates the ‘stage manager’.

I mentioned the influence the Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan had over the creation of my puppet. I looked to make the audience think about the abusive use of screens by children during the pandemic and after the pandemic. The puppet would have represented that idea.

To my surprise, I observed how my identity in the country I was born started to make its way to my performance. I considered adding flamenco a saeta to my performance to represent the feelings of the mother towards the child.

I mentioned how I wanted to make the audience think with my performance. To think about the relationship they have with their family and what are the things that have changed and what could be improved.

WEEK 3. THE INFLUENCE OF MARINA ABRAMOVIC IN MY PERFORMANCE 

In this episode, I spoke about the feedback I got after I showed where I was with my performance. I explained I did not have my performance fully prepared for that first show and where I was with the development of my idea. Which performers and artists influenced my performance and the challenges I encountered when I first tried to do on a stage.

I realised it was very difficult to do the multi-rolling on stage in a one-person show. My original idea of the puppet did not work as planned and I had to rethink it.

I explained how I felt pressed for time and concerned about being able to create my performance on time because of the circumstances around my personal life at the time.

I mentioned how I was thinking to redo my performance into a stand-up comedy, thinking about simplifying it and doing a monologue without multi-rolling. The topic is a difficult topic and reminded me of the type of stand-up comedy that Trevor Noah does.

In my process of thinking about changing my performance, I talked about the influence of Marina Abramovich and her performance ‘The Artist is present’ at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York in 2010. I was considering breaking my dissertation/performance in to different parts for being uploaded in Tiktok and each part would represent one area of study. I considered creating a performance in the park for the people to participate based on her performance at the MoMA.

WEEK 4. THE SHORT: THE WORST AND THE BEST DAYS OF MY LIFE 

In this episode, I spoke about where I was with my project after the meeting with my tutor and teacher and the last class we had with David.

In David’s class, we discussed the book ‘On the technique of Acting’ by Checkov, and we did an exercise about it. The understanding of the body and how important that understanding is for an actor to perform. One of the exercises we did was to have different parts of our body leading us… A hand, the hips, the noise, the shoulders…

David asked as to which was the part of the body that was leading the movement of our characters in our performance. I found that exercise extremely useful for my performance. One of my characters, the narrator, moves following their hands in a theatrical manner. For the mother, the movement is led by the chest and for the son, the movement is led by the head.

We did another exercise embodying an idea: The idea we were working with was the idea of perfection.

At this stage, I felt very lost with where I was going with my performance because I didn’t have still clear what I had to do and my different ideas were not working. I needed guidance to come to terms with my final performance.

I had the idea of creating diverse content for my project investigating the different techniques, influences and areas I wanted to deepen my knowledge in like masks, multi-rolling, immersive theatre, performance, naturalistic acting and Bretch.

WEEK 5. LAST PRESENTATION: WHERE ARE WE GOING 

In this episode, I spoke about my performance and where my project is developing.

I decided the mother would also be the innocent. I chose to show two different monologues for the mother for this presentation to show the steaks of the mother and to portray the use of various techniques we did during our classes. I referred to the seven states of Lecoq.

I mentioned how inspired I am by the Epic Theatre of Bertolt Brecht. I aimed to make the audience think and not let the audience get lost in the play, but to be attentive to a performance happening.

I spoke about the research I did in puppetry for working on the character of the child that is represented by a puppet. The aesthetic of the puppet of the child was influenced by the Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan and his piece "Charlie don't surf" (Maurizio Cattelan - Castello di Rivoli, 2022). The tradition of p uppetry in theatre plays a decisive role in my performance. I wanted to have a character that would be motionless unless another character (in this case the mother) would interact with it.

The way how the puppet/child speaks is rapping, portraying the reality of how children of the age group of the child of my performance, talk (influenced by the music they listen to). Using rap was also influenced by the idea of considering Shakespeare a modern rapper (the language of Shakespeare, as presented by Baz Luhrmann in a documentary about his film ‘Romeo +Juliet’).

I pointed out how writing a script for my short ‘The worst and the best days of my life' helped me with the script for my theatrical performance and how to put it on the stage. Parallelly I am doing additional research in my short movie about repetition in performing arts and the idea of repetition and time.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

BBC Bitesize. 2022. Brechtian staging - Epic theatre and Brecht - GCSE Drama Revision - BBC Bitesize. [online] Available at: <https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/zwmvd2p/revision/5> [Accessed 6 July 2022].

Bell, J., n.d. Puppets, masks, and performing objects.

Brecht, B., Ryland, C., Willett, J., Silberman, M., Fursland, R., Giles, S. and Kuhn, T., n.d. Brecht on performance.

Brecht, B. and Willett, J., 1965. On theatre; the development of an Aesthetic. London: Mehtuen

Castello di Rivoli. 2022. Maurizio Cattelan - Castello di Rivoli. [online] Available at: <https://www.castellodirivoli.org/en/artista/maurizio-cattelan/> [Accessed 4 April 2022].

Chekhov, M., 1991. On the technique of acting. New York, NY: Harper Perennial.

Cooper, A., Cooper, N., Cooper, S., Cooper, A., Cooper, D., Cooper, F., Cooper, L., Cooper, C., Cooper, R., Cooper, S. and Cooper, L., 2022. A. Cooper. [online] SoundCloud. Available at: <https://soundcloud.com/anthony-cooper-777378961> [Accessed 8 July 2022].

Espeland, T., 2022. The Eight Efforts: Laban Movement. [online] The Theatrefolk Blog. Available at: <https://www.theatrefolk.com/blog/the-eight-efforts-laban-movement/> [Accessed 5 July 2022].

Freemusicarchive.org. 2022. Free Music Archive - Artist: Ketsa. [online] Available at: <https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Ketsa/#contact-artist> [Accessed 8 July 2022].

Jung, C. and Hull, R., n.d. The archetypes and the collective unconscious.

Laban, R. and Ullmann, L., 1971. The mastery of movement. Boston: Plays.

Lecoq, J., McBurney, S. and Bradby, D., 2020. The Moving Body (le Corps Poétique). London: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc. (Lecoq, McBurney and Bradby, 2020).

MIT Global Shakespeares. 2022. Distancing effect (Brechtian Verfremdungseffekt). [online] Available at: <https://globalshakespeares.mit.edu/glossary/distancing-effect/> [Accessed 6 July 2022].

MIT Global Shakespeares. 2022. Hamlet Unplugged. [online] Available at: <https://globalshakespeares.mit.edu/hamlet-unplugged-lu-po-shen-2005/?video=ramparts> [Accessed 6 July 2022].

Theatre-rites.co.uk. 2022. Theatre-Rites - Puppetry. [online] Available at: <https://theatre-rites.co.uk/puppetry.php> [Accessed 6 July 2022].

Youtube.com. 2022. [online] Available at: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-LnZkFBd-cM> [Accessed 6 July 2022].

Youtube.com. 2022. The Odessa Steps Scene. [online] Available at: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sEPFd-1Dm8> [Accessed 6 July 2022].

*This is a project for my MA Acting for Stage and Screen at UEL, London (2022)