Performance Studies: Cross Art Project

In small groups we were given a choice of stimuli such as poems, pictures and ideas. Our group chose the idea of ‘chaos and order’ as our stimulus because we thought that there would be many ideas to develop from this. We spent a lot of time discussing the idea of ‘order and chaos’ - they are opposites - there is never a situation where both occur at the same time yet you cannot have one without the other. Order is the way most people would like things to be, to keep order we use laws and rules so that everything should stay in control, without which there would be chaos. Chaos can be shown in many different ways such as riots or personal chaos e.g. a mental breakdown. There is no order in this kind of situation, if there were to be it would no longer be a riot but a march. We began by drawing out a spider diagram with the ideas we brainstormed about ‘order and chaos’.

Using these ideas we decided to base our piece on Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) as it seem to express the idea of someone keeping order so much, to the point where their life becomes chaotic. In order for us to meet the criteria of this project we decided that we needed to research OCD so that we could base this piece on factual information.

Our group gained a lot of useful information from the Internet and books. Fears, worries suspicions and beliefs come into everyday life but when these doubts start to emerge much more excessively e.g. spending hours washing clean hands or driving round and round making sure no road accidents have occurred, these worries start becoming classed as obsessive compulsive. A lot of people who have been diagnosed with this disorder can only describe it as mental hiccups, which cannot be controlled. The cause of OCD is a medical brain turmoil in which people have trouble processing certain information. It is also caused by a ‘weak’ or unstable personality. Usually people with OCD will suffer with certain obsessions as well as compulsions, but in some cases they may only suffer with one or the other. One of our group members new someone who suffered with this disorder quite badly. They had observed this person from the beginning before being diagnosed with OCD. As a group we decided that we could use this person as a basis for our piece. This meant that we had some first hand information on the disorder so we could give our piece some realism and depth. Using all of our information, we wrote down some initial ideas that we could start to elaborate on.

Our initial aims for this piece was to show the progression into OCD. We thought we could do this by using abstract drama, movement and music. As we were basing our piece around a real person known by one of the group it was decided that we would apply everything that this person had in their life so that the audience could understand some of the real things that can initiate this disorder e.g. pressure to perform well or constant shouting because of failure. The basis for our piece is a gymnast called Kelly who is preparing for a national competition. Kelly has uptight mother, a pressurising coach who only cares about winning and a psychologist who wants to help her with her disorder. We wanted to establish the way that Kelly’s character is close to buckling under all the pressure but feels trapped, as there is no one who seems to understand. For example this character goes into a trance like state and starts to count obsessively when she is being put under external pressure because it puts so much strain on her that she starts to find it hard to process everything properly. We wanted the audience to understand that in some cases even the people closest to the sufferer might not recognise that something could be seriously wrong, involving this type of disorder. For example, the first gym scene shows the mother and coach talking about Kelly having time off because she had her first breakdown but they discuss it as if it was something everyday and simple like a cold. Our group wanted to put across that Kelly was striving to create so much order in her life so that she was trying to take back this control that had been taken from her by her mother and coach. She was creating this order by putting pressure on herself to perform in gym at perfect standards and when she did not perform at perfect standards she would make herself work until she did. By doing she was building up so much frustration that it was becoming dangerous. When she did not perform to these high standards her coach put double the amount of unwanted pressure on her. This led to her completely shutting down.

We used different techniques within our piece to show the various stages of the disorder, such as the 6 actions:

Jump
Travel
Fall
Gesture
Turn
Pause

We used these in our opening dance piece. We had a motif, which was based around arm gestures for example here is one of our movements where we all are using gesturing:

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We used different techniques within our piece to show the various stages of the disorder, such as the 6 actions:

Jump
Travel
Fall
Gesture
Turn
Pause

We used these in our opening dance piece. We had a motif, which was based around arm gestures for example here is one of our movements where we all are using gesturing:

We then developed this using the six actions. Kelly stood in the middle repeating a single gesture phrase while the rest of us circled round her doing our developed motif. We each used different gestures and actions. Our movement had a faster tempo then Kelly’s because when the speed is enhanced during movement it all feels much more chaotic and we wanted to express that Kelly represented the order and we were the chaos. We wanted to open with this dance because it expressed what we our whole piece was about. It expressed how order is trapped inside all the chaos inside the world. Using different actions and gestures to represent the chaos of everyday life and how someone can have so much to do at one go e.g. Kelly needing to cope with hours of gym then schoolwork and meetings with the psychologist while having everyone shouting at her at the same time.

We were aware that we needed to present this disorder with accuracy and a thorough understanding. We ensured that we properly research this disorder before we began devising. To give a true portrayal of the disorder we used as much realism in the piece as possible; for example when the psychologist is explaining to Kelly what the symptoms were for OCD, and what she needed to do to help cure it, we first researched it to make what she was saying was correct and how eventually that person looks for?

Another technique used was sound collages, which we decided to use because we wanted to express Kelly’s emotions as best we could in an abstract way. The sound collage worked very effectively in putting across Kelly’s confusion. We wanted the audience to gain a good understanding of the multitude of confusing thoughts in Kelly’s mind. Also when Kelly started to lose self-control she would start counting in her head in order to regain it, so we were able to show this abstractly through the sound collage.

We used abstract techniques in dance and drama as this as it help to portray things more imaginatively. Our dance was all basically abstract movement:

This was one of the movements with in the piece. Using gestures in non-naturalistic form created the abstract movement. Most of our scenes included abstract work, we got the idea of including abstract work from workshops we had done in class like the movement above. Using the abstraction helps to express things people would normally try to hide in everyday life, like emotions that make us vulnerable to others. Some of the emotions that we were able to put across through this mean included Kelly trying to hide the pressure she felt from her coach and mother and also at the end when she is in the psychiatric ward after she has a nervous breakdown. We needed to express that the strain that everyone had put on her finally left her mentally unstable but we were worried that if we had done this in a complete literal state in would have made it unrealistic and in danger of becoming melodramatic which was the one thing we were trying avoid, where as using some abstract work made it a lot more objective and interesting to watch.

The rhythm and tempo within the dance and music was very important. I think that rhythm of the music ignited a sense of feeling and atmosphere because we built up a climax. We did this by speeding up the tempo and raising the pitch in the dramatic parts of the song. We were aiming to portray a sense of isolation – felt by someone who is calling for help but no one appears to hear. I think that music and dance work well together to present this. For example we opened with a dance expressing isolation but the music really helped to explain the mood of the piece and brought an edgy and exciting beginning. Our group interpreted the music as the sound of a heartbeat getting faster this gave the audience that sense of adrenalin, for example when you can not even control your actions because your mind is spinning. In the our song, we were trying to show the idea of someone who calling for help so we showed this through lyrics which expressed this emotion, being sung by characters acting as Kelly’s subconscious (a Brechtian technique for preventing the audience from becoming too emotionally involved) and gesture work, which helped to bring out the meaning of the words and the oppression felt by Kelly.

I think one facet that made our piece strong was our sense of tempo and pacing throughout the piece. Within all three art forms we built tension. For example in the opening dance we started slow and then we began to get faster. This was really effective because as our movement got faster so did the tempo of the music. The reason we wanted this was because it was a good way to build the tension, and it represented these emotions of going from calm order into chaos. I think the tension really helped the audience experience and understand the overwhelming emotions that Kelly experiences.

Our piece was devised with a huge dynamic range. This was because someone who suffers with OCD usually has an unstable personality. We wanted to explore these ups & downs and how emotions go from one extreme to another. Our piece therefore has a lot of climatic parts with in it. For example there is there is a climax twenty seconds into the opening dance piece because we wanted the audience to understand from the start that there is just as much chaos as there is order. We devised it in this particular way because we wanted to express how unpredictable and irrational this disorder can be. Kelly stood in one place doing a four-gesture action phrase to give the piece a sense of control and organisation, while the rest of us used different gesture and levels to confuse the order of the piece.

Our group spent a lot of time working on the dialogue and physicality. We really wanted to express the conflicts of each character to an extreme point. We wanted to show the audience just how far we could take these characters so that the audience had a clear understanding of each of them. The dialogue in both drama and music dramatised our piece through the use of tone and pitch for example the coach raised her voice and added more anger to her tone so it increased the intensity of certain scenes. The physicality integrated all three art forms. Each of the four characters were completely very different and this was one of the things we wanted the audience to identify with. The dialogue was equally important to each character in their own way. For example a psychologist in real life will always consider carefully what they are saying and how there are saying it, which meant that we needed to work twice as hard when considering our script and carry out a great deal of preparatory work. The mother was very emotionally unattached but was also the only character that could explain how Kelly’s character acted at home; this meant that we needed to think how we were going to get her to explain this without sounding too compassionate. The coach was a strong, cold-hearted character. He only cared about being the best. This meant we spent a lot of time on each character improvising different things until we were satisfied that each character was expressing exactly what we wanted them to express. The physicality was applied in exactly the same way except it was also used during the song. For example during the song we decided that the mother and psychologist would sing the song as they also played Kelly’s subconscious while Kelly and her coach mimed a gym scene which ends in Kelly having her final break down. This meant the two singers needed to completely change their physicality so the audience did not confuse them with their previous character e.g. as they were both playing Kelly’s subconscious they decided to matching the physicality to help the audience to gain a better understanding. Kelly’s character had a very closed and with drawn stance to express weakness and insecure. The coach had a very open body language and approached people in an over bearing and dominating way to signify her self confident and direct attitude. The psychiatrist had very neutral mannerisms to reflect her calm and controlled approach. Finally the mother had very closed body language and always kept quite a rigid posture that portrayed her strict and un-caring personality.

Towards the end of devising each scene we spent time working on the stage plan of the piece. We believed this to be important for the piece to look real. We all sat round and together drew out a play of the stage and where everything would be, for example where the door was or where the beam within the gym was. I think this helped us to believe much more in the piece and our characters because once we all knew the plan of the stage we could image that we were actually in a gym and not on a stage. We used Stanislavski’s theory of realism on stage meaning an audience can only believe in your character and the play if you believe it yourself and this plan meant we could believe in it.

I think the proxemics with in the piece worked really well to portray the relationship between the coach and Kelly. Throughout the scenes Kelly portrayed her fear and dislike for her coach by showing a distance. She did this by either moving as far away as she could be or she would sit turned away from her. The coach expressed her dominance by constantly invading Kelly’s personal space when talking to her.

Of the whole integrated piece, the main scene that shows all three art forms integrated most closely was the mimed gym scene, which included the song. This scene is just before Kelly’s character finally breaks down. I think each of the three art forms is equally important in the scene. The reason we chose to mime the scene while Kelly’s subconscious sang a song as a third person narrative was because it expressed emotions, which could not have been as clear if we had used other methods because acting in naturalistic form would mean she would hide these feelings from people and using dance will only vaguely explain the thoughts and emotions where as a song can express everything that she has on her mind. At the edge of the scene was Kelly’s subconscious shadowing and singing a song that portrayed the emotion her character tried to hide. This is similar to the singer/narrator in Caucasian Chalk Circle (Brecht) vocalizing Grusha’s feelings and allowing the audience to consider her dilemma more objectively. Kelly’s character used gym movement choreographed with the music. This was a contrast between the gracefulness of gymnastic movement and her nervous, unhappy self when moving normally among other people, when she was not performing. By Kelly physically pushing her coach away from her showed her breaking down and away from her graceful elegance and becoming more aggressive and emotionally unstable. This tension was built through our use of characterisation. Kelly took on very closed body language, which expressed a nervous edge, she did not want anyone close to her whereas my character, the coach, became very open and dominant by strong, firm body language. Using the comparison of our expressions, Kelly’s expression was weak and uneasy expressions in contrast to mine, which was aggressive and unforgiving, which built up tension further. I invaded Kelly’s personal space, which also built up tension. It is human nature to feel uncomfortable when someone invades your own space. The song added to the tension by conveying emotions that spoken dialogue could not explain. The song described the pressure and external fears Kelly’s character felt the two singers represented the two sides of her emotions i.e. ‘order and chaos ’. It signified the confusion of her mind trying to pull her in two directions at the same time resulting in being split apart. We wanted a song instead of a naturalistic scene with dialogue.

During the rehearsal our group came across problems because we found it difficult to work as a team to begin with as there was a number of strong personalities together and we spent too much time discussing our ideas and not enough putting them into practice. During the first two rehearsals we ran through the piece to establish the weak points. We found that there was a lack of confidence with lines, cues, and we didn’t seem to have the right dialogue for our characters. The group decided that we should go through each scene one by one and go over lines, cues and use of dialogue until everyone was comfortable with our piece for the performance. Working well as team is essential when devising a performance. Once we started to get down to some proper rehearsing everyone start to participate a lot more. Throughout the piece the main things we needed to work on were knowing our movement, lines and the song. Our group were mostly always on stage doing different things so for this to look right we needed to get the timing perfect. For example while two of the performers sang, two others had to mime a scene with the music. At the end of the song literally on the last note we have to put dialogue back into the scene and be in the right positions so time was essential. This meant going over the song time after time until we had it as fluent as possible. The only other problem we were having was our characters’ relationships with each other. So with a bit of help we tried improvising different attitudes towards each other until we found one that was most realistic. I think a truly good rehearsal can make a piece so much better because after just two hours of rehearsal time we found that our piece was a much higher standard then before. This is mainly down to spending time looking for the problems and rectifying them. In the future I think we would need to plan our next rehearsal at the end of each rehearsal so no one will lose focus during our preparation time. Our group had a lot of trouble hitting certain notes when rehearsing the song. This slowed us down quite a bit because it meant that we had to spend a lot time practising and devising vocal warm ups which would help us to sing in tune. I think that in the future we need to do a full vocal warm up before each rehearsal so that our voices are fully prepared to sing. Something that I found useful in all three art forms was to be willing to put in extra rehearsal in your own time for the main reason of memory. I found that even practicing on my own still helped me remember the phrase or the pitch. It is something that I will think more about in future performances.

I think that the final performance was much better then I had expected. I don’t think there were any major mistakes that were obvious to the audience. I think that we had achieved our main aim, which was to inform and educate the audience about OCD through drama, dance and music. I think there were moments in which people including myself forgot what we were doing but we all supported each other when this happened. I think our timing was excellent during the song, which helped achieve that climax we were aiming for. Our performance did well in establishing the conflict between the characters because even while I was performing I could feel the tension, which was created by the resentment between Kelly and I during the song.

I was really pleased by the audience feedback. The overall feedback was that we had all built strong characters. The characters made a powerful impact on the audience during the last two scenes where Kelly breaks down and is put in a psychiatric unit. The audience all agreed they felt compelled to make a judgement on each of the characters and the morality of the piece. This I think was very important because this objectivity was one thing that we worked to achieve. The audience did suggest that maybe it would have help if we had more rehearsal time as there were a few points during the piece that we each seemed unsure about. Finally the audience said it might have made more impact if we had explained the transition through the disorder further, through the addition of a few extra scenes.

I think if we were able to do this piece again, I would have wanted to spend more time on rehearsing each scene so that we all had a more secure command of the piece. I also would agree that it would have been better if we had a few more scenes in which we could explain more about the disorder and the causes.

By Victoria Barnes