Physical Theatre performance evaluation

Overall I feel that mine and Chloe’s performance went okay, however, it could have been a lot more successful. I was extremely nervous with performing our piece and that definitely hindered the way my body moved as I was slightly more focused on getting the performance out of the way than I was focused on my motives behind the actions. Although we had rehearsed and devised the piece focusing on our motives and the story we were trying to tell through our movements, I don't feel that was effectively presented to the audience. For my next physical theatre performance, I definitely need to work on letting go and trusting my partner all the way through to the final performance as I felt I carried those out effectively in the rehearsals but lacked during the final performance. Due to this, our performance wasn't as effective as it could have been. 

I though that everyone performed extremely successfully and it was pretty inspiring to see other people's movements and how they approached the task. In particular, I thought Ben and Isabella's performance was extremely effective and successfully conveyed the motives and emotions to the audience. Their movements flowed intricately together and they managed to remain extremely close throughout their entire performance, never losing focus of their motives and the connection they had created. The same level of emotion was also presented in Troy and Naomi's piece, they communicated to the audience extremely effectively and I could feel their motives as an audience member through their movements. 

One of the more effective and successful parts of our performance was that we both managed to remember the movements we had choreographed. Chloe and I approached our duet using improvisation to develop our piece and the movements; however, I feel that the organic-ness of the piece that we had developed during rehearsals was ultimately lost during our final performance. Another aspect I was particularly happy with was that the movement where Chloe held onto my wrists and flipped me over her back was performed without fault as I was particularly anxious that would go wrong. This was one of the more challenging movements in our piece at it involved me completely trusting Chloe with my body, something I had struggled with, however, I feel I did it successfully with this particular movement. 

If I had the chance, I would've developed the movements in a lot greater detail - focusing really on letting the motives carry the movements and colour the piece. I would have also liked to have developed a greater connection between me and Chloe in our movements as I feel that although we may have presented some form of connection between us, it wasn't an extremely strong or developed one. 

I am extremely happy with the BRIT grade I received for this performance, two 6's,  and I definitely feel it reflected our final performance. I would try and develop on the aspects I feel I need to improve on as a performer for my next performance, however, overall this term has been extremely enjoyable and I've really loved learning the different aspects of physical theatre. I have developed many skills and a deeper understanding of movement and my own body over the last term and have learnt aspects that I will definitely use and adapt into rehearsals, roles and performances in the future. 

Devising through organic improvisations.

Devising through organic improvisations is different to mentally planning it as it helps the movements come naturally and flow with a sense of purpose, rather than stifled movements planned out beforehand. By developing through improvisations it allows your movements to be devised completely with the objective in mind as you are improvising to the objective, rather than planning movements and adding the objective in after. This helps your piece and movements become more truthful to the objective which then makes the objective and story you are trying to present to the audience more successful and clear. It defines the difference between a physical theatre piece
and a planned dance routine, though you may use elements of dance - they are coloured with acting and objectives, so you are presenting a piece of theatre through physical movement rather than a dance routine.

One benefit of developing these skills through improvisations is that they help you develop your understanding of different devising techniques that you can then transfer into other aspects of theatre, rather than just using them in physical theatre. Another benefit is that you can try out different movements, allowing yourself and your partner to experiment with one another before you find a sequence that you both find the most effective. This gives you a chance to explore different movements with one another and help expand your physical skills and knowledge whilst carrying out this process. Through improvising, you can take different risks you usually wouldn't if you had planned it out before hand - you work with your partner, offering different opportunists for different moments that will all lead to a variety of outcomes. You can transfer these skills into all aspects of theatre - helping you become a more knowledgeable and well-rounded performer.

Partnering

You need to develop many sensibilities to be successful at the different exercises. You need to learn to be aware of your partner's body so you can be one hundred percent comfortable with one another. Being comfortable with one another is extremely important as it means you can let go and let the movements take over - you aren't concerned with what your body is doing or how your bodies are working together. You need to develop an understanding of your partner's bodies and their limits so you can work together as effectively as possible.

Being comfortable around one another means you are able to improvise and work together without letting anything else get in the way of your development - you don't have to worry about being safe with one another. However, you must take care of your partner whilst you're developing and moving so you can remain connected throughout the piece and offer them different opportunities to move and connect with you.

You need to allow yourself to place a large amount of trust in your partner so you are able to work without having to hesitate as you may worry that you won't be safe or successful in your movements. I found this quite hard as I am an extremely anxious person, however over the weeks I managed to develop my understanding of my partner's body and their abilities so I began to trust them and my body's movements, letting myself let go in various different exercises. I found that as soon as I began to trust and feel comfortable around my partner, the movements became easier and more effective.

Lifts

In the field of physical theatre, lifts are a extremely important technique to be able to carry out with ease and grace. Being able to carry out lifts requires extreme commitment and focus. It isn't about amount of extravagant lifts you can perform, but the quality to which they're carried out.

Pencil lift - In partners, partner 1 will jump up straight infront of partner 2 three times and partner 2 will catch them at the peak of their third jump by placing their arms around partner 1's thighs to support them. As they are being lifted partner 1 must breathe out to control their breathing - this makes the lift even more effective and successful as you are in control of your body. This is an effective lift to use when you are playing with levels and status. The person holding the other up partner could be portraying a lower status than the person they are holding up - this is a creative and imaginative way to present it to the audience. This is also an effective lift when you need to work on a transition between moves or levels as it focuses on moving someone from one place to another and could be used in a routine.

Performing lifts requires extreme commitment and the most important thing, trust. The need to develop your lifting techniques is all down to the fact it allows you to become more expressive in different ways in you work. By learning and developing different lifting techniques an actor is more diverse and knowledgeable in different ways to use their body. They're able to develop their work in different ways and in greater detail than they were able to before - they're able to play with different levels, experimenting and telling different stories through different types of lifts. They're able to present different ideas towards the audience in experimental and unconventional ways. It also helps you learn your strengths and weaknesses, you learn you can do more with your body than your originally thought.

DV8

Founded in 1986, DV8 are an extremely unique and entertaining physical theatre company. The aim of the company is to essentially have a completely different approach to physical theatre and the arts in a completely new and un-thought of type of way. At this moment in time, the company have 18 critically acclaimed productions that have all toured internationally and have 4 award winning films.

The company have won many awards over the years and in 2013, Lloyd Newson received an OBE for his contributions to contemporary dance.

Their current production is called JOHN, it's a piece of verbatim dance-theatre piece by Lloyd Newson - the Artistic Director of DV8 Physical Theatre. He interviewed over 50 men about love & sex, one was consequently called John. It's currently on tour around Europe and will be broadcast to cinemas in the UK in December as part of National Theatre LIVE. 

Their use of verbatim in JOHN adds a completely different depth to their new production. As every piece of dialogue and the stories being presented are from real people's experiences and lives, it really makes you think about whats being presented. As it isn't fictional, verbatim can be quite hard hitting as you can't really comprehend some of the things people have been through which are then translated onto the stage. I feel that DV8 use this aspect in an extremely important and successful way, giving a voice to those 50 or so men's stories and experiences whilst intertwining them with physical theatre and dance.   

Past productions include; CAN WE TALK ABOUT THIS? - which dealt with speech, censorship and Islam, TO BE STRAIGHT WITH YOU -which dealt with LGBTQ issues and JUST FOR SHOW. 

In my opinion, I think companies like DV8 are extremely important - they push the boundaries in both the content they perform and how they perform them. They present hard hitting issues towards audiences in interesting and creative ways. Though they've met negativity from the press in the past - an example is; "GAY SEX ORGY ON TV!" - the shrieking headline from The Sunday Mirror after the screening of DEAD DREAMS OF MONOCHROME MEN - it doesn't hinder the company in the slightest, they continue to knock down the barriers of what is and what isn't deemed appropriate to present to an audience. Their creative way of presenting issues to audience provides the audience with a completely new aspect of looking at situations in the world and their daily lives, they cause the audience to think outside of their own box and look at things in a new light. I think this is extremely successful and effective as it not only allows the actors and performers on the stage to express themselves in different ways, but it pushes audience members in ways they may have never experienced before. The way they use all different aspects of the arts whilst intertwining it with physical theatre and multimedia is really, really effective and completely breaks down the barriers between the different art aspects. Whilst some work has been better received than others, their work is generally extremely successful both critically and artistically and I feel that they definitely deserve all the praise they receive. Their work is extremely inspiring and eye opening, their contribution to the performing arts is unparalleled within the industry. 

Objectives

Physical theatre practitioners work with physical objectives for many different reasons. Objectives add colour into theatre pieces, it stands as a motivation behind the moves. They allow the actor to be more expressive in their movement as they have a reason for every move they perform. For example; if an actor was to express every movement with the objective of "to grab", their performance would be completely different to if they expressed it with the objective "to love". Objectives help narrate the piece in a way that enables the actor to need no dialogue to portray what the story is trying to present. Everything is expressed through movements motivated by different objectives. Objectives help pieces be developed from a rehearsed physical theatre piece into a story being presented through physical movement.

I find that using objectives help me connect more to the piece and feel more truthful about my movements. I believe the movements my body is making and how I am interacting with my partner more when we are working and acting to different objectives. It helps me develop my understanding of physical movement and how to tell and present different stories and situations towards an audience in the most effective way possible.

Bow to Boat and Surfing Banana Rolls

As it's essential to learn the basics before attempting anything, we began by looking at bow to boat rolls. For this roll, you must go from lying supine on the floor with your arms above your head and only your back support you to lying on your front with only your torso is supporting your weight. You have to use your abdominal muscles to roll yourself over onto your front whilst stretching your arms and legs away from your body to lengthen your body as much as possible. This exercise strengthens and works your abdominal muscles and the muscles in your lower back. I generally found this exercise easy to carry out, I have quite strong abdominal muscles from years of regular ballet, but I generally think i was successful at carrying this roll out.

We then moved onto banana rolls, like a bow to boat roll but continuously carried out across the floor. You have to try and carry this out without letting your head, arms, neck or legs fall to the floor - although this is harder to carry out as you have to have complete control over your body whilst in the roll otherwise you wouldn't be able to carry it out successfully. I generally found this exercise easy to do and I really enjoyed using it to travel across the room. However, I found that you really have to commit to the roll and to the movement of your body - I found altering the speeds of the roll or learning to hold it in certain places really helped me improve of my technique and enabled me to carry it out more effectively.

Then we moved onto the final stage; surfing banana rolls. With this exercise you pair up in partners and one person takes the position of a banana roll on the floor whilst the other kneels leaning across their body vertically. The person lying down has to roll over as if they would with a usual banana rolls and the other person has to let their body move with the movement as the person below them rolls over. This causes them to travel across the room then swap with the other person without stopping moving. I found this a really fun exercise to carry out as it was a really interesting exercise to use when travelling across the floor - I also generally found it quite easy to carry out and transition the different roles within the roll.