In class we created eight issue based tableaus using the stimulus of our project's theme which is persecution.We split the class into two smaller groups and looked in the newspaper for different forms of persecution that appears in everyday life. My group chose to focus on persecution in a workplace, we also looked at the victim not only being a women but a man as well - this shows the audience another aspect of persecution, forcing the audience to think differently this is also an example of anti-sexism demonstrating that any one can feel persecuted. Implementing Brecht in our images, we had to devise stylised movement including transitions displaying our professional level of knowledge of Brecht, being in second year. In my opinion we executed this well in rehearsals and quickly grew more comfortable experimenting physically with one another which evidently made our tableaus more effective.When we were first given the task to create eight tableaus, I feel as though it challenged the group to think more in depth about what it means to be persecuted and how we could portray this in our work, avoiding simple and basic movement. For me this meant a lot of time had been wasted more on thinking rather than producing and I worried that this would effect the outcome and quality of our work in a poor way ; we were over thinking because we were trying really hard to be different and abstract . To resolve this we had to finally decide on one idea and develop that one idea. This helped us because we were then able to use our time more constructively and produce more work and we could judge as an ensemble if that idea was working or not, then we had time to change it if need be. Brecht was successfully implemented in our tableaus because we did not put our tableaus in chronological order, as Brecht shows are usually random and not scene after scene. This reminded the audience that they are watching a play as it stopped the flow of things and captured their attention giving them a chance to process the information. We also use placards as part of the 'alienation effect'. The placards are not to comment on the action but further deepen the audiences understanding of what we were showing them. We directly spoke to the audience,which broke the fourth wall and broke the audience out of any illusion that what they were being shown was real, forcing them to see the reality of it all. Brechtian demonstration of character is relevant because although we have to detach ourselves from being the character, we still have to use characterisation and gestus to keep the audience engaged.
The video below is a reconstruction of part of the piece we made,the video shows me playing the woman being persecuted by a man (Malachi). Because the scene is quite intimate and daring, it grasps the audiences attention and makes them feel uncomfortable. It also makes the audience aware about this type of persecution and may give them a wider thought about persecution in an office. Personally it gave me imagery of a woman being hugged, but inappropriate enough for her to feel uncomfortable and the video is an image of how its making her feel in her mind.
(please be informed that the video below has been sped up because the full file will not fit)
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