8.05.15

Today we were at Pelham creating the stage and trying out different ideas.
Our original decision for the staging did not work as we set it out very long, and it just looked like steps and did not look like a stage at all. This idea sounded good on paper, but when we made the stage together we saw that it will not work. We wanted to use the steps idea to incorporate levels, and it actually did work nicely with Scene  1, but with the other scenes it just does not work as it is not wide enough, and it is closed off from the audience as it did not look or feel like a stage, it just looked like steps.

The idea we had today was a T shape, so from a birds eye view the legs of the T are where the traditional stage is, and then a long platform moving out to the audience...
This idea works so much better and we all sat in the audience to check if the staging looked good and none of the actors were blocking each other and the staging definitely works, so this is the idea we are going to keep.
We began to block Scene 4 today which is set at Dogsborough country home, a very grand and wealthy house, the scene involves Dogsborough, Young DB, Roma, Ui, Gaffles & Goodwill. I have gone into detail about this scene and our progress today in my other blog called "scenes" 
We spent most of the lesson setting up the stage and running the opening dance a lot of times, seeing how it works on our T shaped stage, and we decided to have half of the dancers on the T shape stage and the other half on the main stage. We decided this purely because the having everyone on the T stage was TOO loud and really restricted. As it is not that wide, and to fit 12 dancers on it is risky and it felt restricted to move freely and dance properly. So half of us are on the main stage, including myself. The dance is still the same as we originally choreographed it, but we have changed little things and made it much more sharp and as we kept running it today I feel it is looking much more neater and all of us are in time with each other.

We have changed the section of the dance where we take little steps out towards the audience, and then to the right and left. We have made these changes in order to make the dance look more swing style and to make it easier for everyone to keep in time because before all of us were at different tempos when rehearsing the little steps. So we have simply changed the steps to a slower tempo, moving forward 2 steps, then bringing our arms up high to the right, then to the left, then LOW to the right and low to the left.
This video to the left I found on youtube whilst I was researching 1930's dance moves, and the dancers use a lot of similar moves we do in our dance, particularly the Charleston and the way they use their arms and hands throughout.

I also found a piece of music by Benny Goodman, called Sing Sing Sing. And I do not think we use this in our performance but I really like it and I think we should include this somewhere in the show! I really like the tempo and how lively the song is, I can definitely see it maybe being played at the end of the show, so it will end on a lively note...or in the background in one of the scenes? I have posted this song on our group page on Facebook and already 2 people from our class have agreed on using this song, so I am happy I found this song!

So today's lesson I feel was productive as we finalised our staging arrangements and have made the opening dance work on the stage, and all the scenes will work nicely on this stage. We have a point at the end of the stage where we will have UI stand in most scenes when he has a speech, as we want him to reflect Hitler when he would give speeches, and having UI at the front of our T stage, will look really effective and will portray his power and importance in this play. We tried this out today with Yunis playing Ui in scene 4 when he gives his speech to Dogsborough about needing his help and he becomes very distressed and emotional, and it works so well with the staging, as the audience will see Ui standing tall at the front of the stage, and Dogsborough standing lower on the sides of the staging, looking up at UI looking very frightened and uncomfortable, as I feel this is the scene where Ui's insanity is slowly unravelling.


We also tested our the shadow screen we are going to be using in some of the scenes, to portray the characters, mainly Ui. I was really impressed with how good it looks! We set up the flood light behind the stage and the projector, and Heta and Sophie stood behind the projector and made various Gests and movements, and they would get bigger and smaller, it looks really cool, especially when one person looks really big and the other looks really small. This will definitely work when portraying Ui, as it will show his status and how he believes he is bigger than everyone else. I recorded some videos from today's rehearsal of the projector....
I really like this idea and it will work really well in the scenes, I feel using the shadow screen in scene 1b will be a good idea, as this is the first scene Ui is seen, and it is Mine and Jades scene when we are talking about business, and then we spot Ui glaring at us, lurking in the distance with Roma and a bodyguard. So using the shadow screen for this will be a great introduction for Ui and his gangsters, and will emphasis Ui's dark character, and the audience will know that he means business, rather than Ui just walking on stage and lurking in the background, we should see him blown up on the projector, using his gests, and myself and jade can look up at his shadow in curiosity.