Devising: Day 23

Today, we took a step away from our actual performances and looked at the practitioner Augusto Boal. However, instead of our teacher standing up and giving us all the information required, he decided to give us a selection of information and divide us into groups. My group looked at the idea of Image Theatre. Our next task was to write down a short presentation using only 20 words from our information that we could relay back to the other groups. The main idea I gained about the use of Image Theatre was that it was performed in the absence of language, hence could be interpreted by all. The actors would tell a story by sculpting, modeling, playing statues and so on. The idea behind this style was that the emotional stimulus and emotion portrayed could never be changed but allowed others to have different interpretations.







Afterwards, we had to explain our findings to other group members. However, in the style of our topic. This was easy for me as all I had to do was remain a mute and simply point to words and try an gesture what I meant. We then learnt about the other groups topics before moving onto the subject I forum theatre. Which I gathered was essentially how an audience can change the situation and that the performers would have to react as a result.







We used this technique to help improve each other's groups scenes. The other grouped performed one of their scenes and we interacted and gave them ideas of how to do things differently. Which they replicated in the piece we showed them. I found this part very helpful as it have our scene another layer. Made it more interesting and realistic. For example, they picked up upon the different characters trying to break through, and offered opinions on how we could allow this to happen.







Our final task was to get into pairs with someone from the opposite group and give them some targets or praise on their individual performance. We were tasked with coming up with at least five targets for each other to help improve our own performance. For me, I needed to move around a bit more, perhaps go and get a bag or pick up a pen to show my characters juvenile and jittery attitude. I needed to keep my skittish behavior up throughout the piece, maybe by laughing nervously or twitching my legs. One huge target we needed to look at was the staging. We really didn't know how to position ourselves but the way we did meant that not all of us could be seen, we needed to add layers to the performance, have some people standing or position the cast in more of a square so everyone could be seen.