Brecht Workshop 1: Introduction to Style

On February 7, 2017,  we had our first Brecht workshop. We learned before the workshop about Brecht's work briefly. Mainly about the ways he uses to stress non-realism in his work to allow the audience to have the ability to think and judge rationally. We worked on 4 workshops on that day.
During the first workshop, we were told to act out something we do everyday (i.e. morning routine). Then later we were told to act it out again, but narrate every single action done in the act.

This workshop's aim is to introduce us to Brecht's style of narrating what is exactly happening on the stage. This style he uses helps fulfill his purposes, since it gives the ability to think and judge clearly to the audience. This workshop helped us to be introduced to the active theatre used in Brecht's workshops. It started us off to be more comfortable to be acting exaggerated moves. I thought that it was a good start for the day. 

Rehearsals: Implementing Lights, Sound, Projection

During this rehearsal, we had implemented lights, sound, projection in the production. For the lights, we had moved the lamps directing to the centre part of the stage, drawing the focus to the centre of the stage where all the scenes are happening. The lighting has made the stage and space of our production become more theatrical and professional.  Also, it centres the focus towards the main actions of the production.

For the sound of the production, we downloaded sounds from the internet that corresponds to certain actions involved in the production. For example, we had downloaded sounds of locking doors to show clearly to the audience, that in one scene of the production, that the door was locked. Through the involvement of clear and loud sounds, it passes a direct message to the audience that something has been done in the scene. 

For the projection used in the production, we moved the projector in the drama studio to a certain position where it would be able to project on the curtain behind our scenes. We created a power point and projected it to show the change of scenes and certain messages we wanted the audience to understand without stating clearly in the context of the production.

These implementations were very useful and helpful for the production. They helped the context of the production become more clear and aesthetically presentable. 

Rehearsals: Finishing the Improvisation of the Scenes

This rehearsal was mainly focused finishing the improvisations of the scenes. We had been working on the main scenes of the production for a long time and had not have great progress. Therefore, we had decided to restructure the scene. 

First, we had gave another thought to our theme and purpose of this production. Also, we had thought about the ways to implement the message in to the production with humour that would interest the audience. We found ways to play with theatre techniques and implement them into the production, to make it easier to understand and more interesting to watch. We had known that the improvisations we had before were dry and the context were quite confusing, therefore, we needed a change. Through these two rehearsals spent on improvising the scenes, we had changed the way we presented our message. We had changed from a small scale discussion way of presenting, to a large scaled and humorous way of presentation. After the changes, the scenes have started to make sense, and become interesting to the audience.  

Artistic Intention

Today, we were working on our posts, and we started talking about our production as a whole. Then, we touched the topic of the artistic intentions and our intentions through our productions. We discussed that our intentions were to let more people understand the truth about the stereotypes that the Chinese local students have on international students. Delivering this message would be our intention for the product. The artistic intention is that we would like to deliver this message through to the audience with the involvement of the theatrical elements, such as, lighting, sound, etc. In this aspect, we would be able to let our students understand our

Rehearsals- Opening Scenes and Improvising the First Scenes

In the recent rehearsals, we tried to create the opening scenes where all of the students were equally distributed over the stage. The opening scene would be surrounding the topic of the local student's stereotypical thought on international students. The statements we have come up with earlier would be implemented in the scenes. Every one of us are going to have different statements, and the statements are going to be spoken in a "random" order so it would look like a discussion but also will construct "balanced" focus across the stage. The statements will be implemented in a way that the international student that are placed with these stereotypes is known as "she". This would create a sense of mystery in the play. This idea originally comes from an existing theatre production that also uses a "she" throughout the production. We practised the opening scene multiple times and implemented all 8 statements in the opening scenes. 

These are the images of the opening scenes: 

Later, after we finished the opening scene, we decided to chose two statements to create the first scenes. The statements we chose to use were the "use of devices" and the "homework stereotype". For these scenes, we started to implement statements in the scenes, including the local students and international students. This is still an on going improvisation that we are still working on at the moment. 

Rehearsals Part 1

A few days ago, we started our rehearsals for the TIE production. We started off with confused ideas about the theme that we had set up: "Western v.s. Chinese" and focusing on an international aspect for the theme. We had very scattered ideas at first that confused us for what do in the production as a whole. Later, we further discussed how the international student aspect could be fixed to the theme and how it can be focused. After this, we were more focused on what to do for the production, since this was the major idea that we were confused about.
We started thinking about the opening scene for the production. Before this, we had come up with different improvisations of different ideas of diversity between the cultures. For the opening scene, we started thinking about eight statements (one for each of us). These statements were based off of different stereotypes given from the two different cultures on international  students. We also found three different tracks of music that could be played in the opening scene that were "hybrids" of the two different cultures.
I thought the most important value I got from the first rehearsals were that it is very important to improvise scenes and ideas through acting on the spot rather than planning everything out before acting the ideas out. I think it is a value that is very important to know for the future not only with theatre productions but with other areas of expertise. Therefore, I thought that although the first rehearsals was a confusing process of developing ideas but it was a great learning process for me.

Review: Drama Performance by the Year 12 class

On September 29th, we were invited to view the drama performance by the Year 12 Theatre Class. Their performance was designed into a maze involving spaces for each scene on the way through the maze. Throughout the performance the performers used dramatic actions that were large in scale. For example, in the office scene, dramatic actions were performed while working on the paperwork.

I think the dramatic actions would place actions in the scenes that everybody would notice and focus on. Also, it would presents the scenes to be dramatic and lively. 

Another point I thought was interesting was that the settings and the space organisation done to the total space they had was very well done and sophisticated. For example for each setting, there were many props included and it included a lot of detail to the scenes. 

Also, I thought the way that the performers perform in ways of speaking volume, clarity, acting skills was overall good. They were mindful of their speaking volume allowing the audience to be able to understand the story. 

I liked the performance. I thought it was a very interesting plot and it was a very good performance concerning all the points stated above. I hope that the Year 12 would earn their achievements they hope for their performance.