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.