The fifth piece we did was called “The Bank Robbery”. In-groups of about five we had to comprise four freeze frames of a bank robbery, and a cartoon script line. My group was Stefanie, Jelani, Matthew, Kristen and Lovette. We did this by using facial expressions of fear for the bank clerks and meanness for the robbers. Also we used fear facial expressions for the robbers when the police came. This scene worked well as we used over-exaggerated facial expressions to show how we felt. Also all the bank robbers held their hands in the way one would hold a gun to convince the audience that they were really bank robbers. We set up a counter in front of the two bank clerks who were Stefanie and I and used space well. Also when the bank clerks were being attacked we threw up our hands and used surprised facial expressions as well as fear.
The next section we did under ‘spontaneous improvisation’ was ‘polished improvisation’. The first title we were given to improvise was ‘summertime’. For this we had to come up with four freeze frames too represent the title. We worked in-groups of about 5. In my group were Matthew, Jelani, Stefanie, Kristen and Lovette. The four freeze frames that our group did were ‘Playing Volleyball, rollerblading, surfing and buying ice creams’. To portray playing volleyball we split the group to form two teams. We used certain stances such as looking up with our hands clenched together and holding one arm up as if we were going to spike a ball to symbolise playing volleyball. Also we looked happy and we used our facial expressions to show this. We set up a line of chairs to represent the net and we used our space well. We looked happy by smiling and looking like we were laughing. For rollerblading we took up rollerblading stances such as standing with one foot of the ground behind us and one of us pretended to fall over. We all put on facial expressions to show happiness and all of us smiled and laughed. For surfing we used chairs to represent surfboards and some of the group stood on the chairs. The rest of the group played a crowd of people watching. The surfers had looks of concentration combined with happiness on their faces, To represent buying ice cream, we had on person who was selling ice cream, on person who was buying and the rest who were eating it. Everyone had looks of happiness on their faces. We all stood holding imaginary cones and pretended to lick the ice cream.
The second title given was ‘The Birthday Party’. I was part of the audience for this. The group was LeRhonda, Sheena, Tiffani, Lovette, and Mark. Again they had to do four freeze frames. The group which performed this used looks of surprise and happiness to represent the feelings of the people at the birthday party. One scene which I think worked particularly well was the scene when LeRhonda came through the door, The look of surprise on her face was very good and everyone else was standing with their arms out as if they were shouting surprise. The piece was very good and the group seemed to work excellently together
The third title was ‘The Demon Headmaster’. I was part of the audience for this piece as well. In the group were Reuben, Sara, Sacha, Erica and Stefanie. Again they had to make four freeze frames. The group used very vivid expressions of anger, terror and pain. They all looked very frightened except for the Demon headmaster who was played by Reuben and looked very evil. The scene, which I think worked very well, was when they all held their hands out ready to be caned, the faces and body language in this scene were very realistic. This piece worked very well and was nice to watch.
The fourth title was ‘Hunt in the Jungle’. I was part of the audience in this piece. The group, which performed this piece, turned it into a manhunt. In the group were LeRhonda, Sacha, Sara, Mark and Sheena. A group of girls formed a tribal group and chased a boy. They formed a circle around an imaginary fire and chanted this made the piece realistic. The problem with this piece was that all the girls corpsed.
The final section under ‘spontaneous improvisation’ was ‘extended improvisation’. We only did one title under this topic it was called ‘Going to the Moon’. We worked in-groups of six for this piece. In my group were LeRhonda, Reuben and Kristen. LeRhonda and I did the countdown and the rest of the group were going to the moon. After mission control had done the countdown the rocket blasted off. The other four people set up a spaceship out of four chairs. When they were taking off they pretended to shake and they looked as if they were really taking off. When they got into space they acted like they were weightless and they took large steps around and acted like they were floating. To improve the improvisation we used different characters. One character was an astronaut who acted like he had done it a million times and the other pretended to be frightened yet excited about going to the moon. This made the scene seem funny. Also we used facial expressions of amazement and excitement. The scene worked very well as the group worked well together.
For the next section we used text as a stimulus. We used the Falstaff by Robert Nye. Shakespeare created the character and he is an overfed comical and offensive man. It was an extract from his diary in the last 100 days of his life. In my group were Reuben, Erica, Tiffani and Kristen. We had to create a visual image to define any line. Then we had to make up a freeze frame with a caption to represent what we think boyhood is. The lines we did were “Boyhood is whipping top”. We did this scene by all having faces of happiness and amazement on our faces. We all froze like we were whipping top with our arms extended, whilst kneeling on the ground like little children. The second line we did was “Boyhood is listening to the stars fall”. We did this by all lying on the floor pretending to have the covers pulled up to our chins and we all had happy but sleepy looks on our faces. The third line we did was “Boyhood is flying kites”. We did this by holding our arms extended from our bodies holding them like we were holding a spool of string and we looked amazed and happy. The fourth line was “Boyhood is playing hide and seek with little Margaret”. For this we created a linen basket out of four chairs and all acted as if we were looking for something. Also one boy was in the linen basket and he said the line.
Then we did what girlhood is off the tops of our heads with a freeze frame and a caption. For this task all the boys in the class were put into one group together. The captions and freeze frames my group did were: “Girlhood is having sleepovers”. For this we all lay on the floor facing each other and acting happy. Also we propped our heads up with our arms as if we were talking. The second freeze-frame we did was “Girlhood is putting on make-up”. For this we all sat as if we were looking in mirrors and poised out hands near our faces as if we were using make-up. One person opened their eyes half way and pretended to be putting on mascara. Another person was pretending to be holding a lipstick and they curled their lips as a girl does when she is putting on make-up. The third freeze frame we did was “Girlhood is checking out guys”. For this we all stood with our hands on our hips with looks of admiration on our faces. The fourth freeze-frame we did was “Girlhood is going shopping”. For this one we all stood like we were holding heavy carrier bags. The fifth freeze-frame we did was “Girlhood is talking on the phone”. For this we all put our pinkies to our mouths and our thumbs to our ears to symbolise talking on the phone. I enjoyed this piece because they enabled us to explore the themes in both a stereotypical way and then gain more understanding about what really makes childhood.
The next thing we did was do a scene illustrating the effect Falstaff had on other people in his childhood. We did this by having a Falstaff on his deathbed and all the people he had done something too walking round saying what he had done. We had the goose he plucked saying “why did u pluck me, little Margaret saying why did you knock me up. One of the boys he got in fights with saying why did you beat me up?. Also we had the butterfly which he killed saying why did you kill me. We walked around him at first whispering our lines then we got louder and louder until we were screaming our lines. Then the Falstaff screamed and we all fell down as if he had woken up. This piece worked quite well as we all collaborated well together.
After this we did a nightmare sequence using the whole class. At first we all whispered our lines to Ashley who was in the middle and we all walked round her in a circle sometimes moving forward to whisper in her ear. Then slowly we did a crescendo and kept on going until we were all screaming line at her going faster and faster as we got louder. Then at the fever pitch Ashley screamed and we stopped. This sounded really amazing and being in the little must have been quite scary. The effect of a few simple lines being repeated conveyed the effect Falstaff had on others. It was one of the best moments in this unit of work.
Our next topic was using images as a stimulus. We worked in pairs and threes to create a scene, which represented the photograph. My first photograph was of a little baby crying. Me and my partner LeRhonda did this by pretending I was a lost little girl who couldn’t fine her mummy. I did this by screwing up my face a lot and acting sad, also I spoke in a very timid was and a babyish tone. LeRhonda played the part of a caring adult by talking in a very easy to understand soothing way. We walked around a small area pretending that it was a park and looking for my mother.
The second picture we did was a child smiling with books on his head. We had to use this as a starting pose. We had two children who were doing all different contests. The first contest was carrying a book on a head. We did this by walking with books balanced on our heads and looking as if we were concentrating very hard. Eventually one child (LeRhonda) lost. Then we played hopscotch using a piece of paper to represent the rock. Then we threw it and mimicked hopscotch LeRhonda won this one and I became very unhappy then she was trying to fight and I kept saying no because my mummy said I couldn’t. I don’t think this or the first one were very good improvisations because LeRhonda and I don’t seem to work well together.
The third picture I did was a picture of two children peering round a door. I did this improvisation with Matthew and Ashley. We made it like two children were peering into a room where there was ghost. Jelani and I used looks of fear to portray how we felt. Ashley swished around in a ghost like manner. I think this improvisation worked well because we used good facial expressions and body language to show how we felt.
Some of the other improvisations, which were good, were Fajr and Mark they had a picture of two children sitting together. They did this very well as they used baby talk. It was a very good piece to watch. Erica, Stefanie and Reuben performed another good one. They had a picture of a boy holding a frog. The girls did a very good impression of being grossed out by it whilst Reuben was fascinated by it. The girls acted grossed out by screwing up their faces saying phrases such as ‘ewww’ and looking at the frog in disgust. Reuben acted fascinated by it by looking at in with his eyes open and smiling and touching it.
The next stimuli we used was music. I particularly enjoyed this one because it was fun and it gave us more freedom to express ourselves. The first piece we were given was “Dance of the Knights”. This was a very free piece of classical music. In my group was: Ashley, Matthew, Jelani, Erica and Sacha. For this piece we acted out a scene at a Royal ball. Four of us danced around, then the Queen and the Princess came in (Erica and Sacha). When they entered we all stopped dancing and bowed or curtseyed. Then they took their seats Erica clapped her hands and we continued dancing. Whenever we danced past them we curtseyed, This improvisation worked well as we all had very sombre facial expressions and didn’t corpse. I very much enjoyed this piece.
The second piece of music we were given was “Tarzan”, this was a very sad piece and we all took on the mood. The piece we did was about a friend who was leaving on a train, we all pretended to cry and be sad. Then she sad good-bye to her current boyfriend and her jealous ex boyfriend came and killed the boyfriend. After this we cut to the funeral where we all pretended to throw dirt on his grave and cry. This improvisation worked well as when the dramatic part in the piece came the killing took place. We used chairs to represent the train the girl was getting on. Also we used slow motion for the killings to make them more dramatic. All of the improvisations for this piece were good and a few left the rooms crying because the pieces had so much feeling.
The third piece we were given was “Memory from Cats”. For his piece we didn’t use the music to act with, but used it to get the right feeling, For this piece I was working with Matthew and Ashley. We did an old woman remembering the days when she was in love. Then she remembered when her love was called up for the war and died. I was the old person and I had a sort of daze expression as if remembering what had happened. Ashley and Matthew were good, as they acted very happy. We did this by having the old woman remember something out loud then Ashley and Matthew would be in a freeze and do a short scene about the memory and end in a freeze. I enjoyed this piece because it was fun to do and turned out well.
The fourth piece we were given was a piece called “Up the Junction by Squeeze”. It was about a man that gets a woman pregnant, they marry and live in a grotty apartment then she leaves him for a soldier. The first scene we had to do was between the woman and her friend. I was working with Reuben for this improvisation. Reuben did a great impression of a woman and I was having trouble not laughing. This piece worked well as it was fun to do and it must have been enjoyable to watch.
The second scene we did was a confrontation ten years later between the daughter and her father. We did this well by having the father trying to make conversation and the daughter was just giving one-word answers such as:
Father: “ So how's your mother ”
Daughter : “Fat”
Also I (daughter) just looked around then room not looking him in the eye and being very blasé about the whole thing. I enjoyed this piece as it turned out well. It came together well as Reuben and I seemed to work together well.
The fourth stimulus we used was history. W used a text about World War II to use as a basis for our improvisation. Firstly we were split into groups and had to brainstorm words to do with war. Some of the words we came up with were death, destruction, violence, army and terrorists. After this we played a word association game. To do this we all sat in a circle and one person said the first word ‘War’ and then the next person said what first came into their heads and so on. After this we discussed how most books on history focus on the main heroes not the people at home who were suffering and helping. The piece of imp we did on this topic was an interview based on a fact we were given. I was working with Matthew for this improvisation. We did an interviewer interviewing a deserter. I did this by speaking clearly and asking open-ended questions, so I wouldn’t be getting just one-word answers. Also we used a fake microphone to make the improvisation more realistic. This improvisation worked well because it was quite easy to think of and we were given a fact as a basis which helped.
The final topic under improvisation was ‘Real Life Situations’. For this improvisation we were given a situation to do various improvisations on. The situation was: there was a two-week expedition in the Himalayas, which consisted of twenty tourists including the Prime Ministers son Euan Blair. Then rebels who are members of a group called the SNQ ambush them. They take seven tourists hostage and want 7 political prisoners released. The first improvisation we did on this was a Board Meeting of the military, politicians, other tourists who didn’t get captured, Sherpa and the airforce. Erica was in charge of the meeting and she kept it in order. It was easy to contribute because she let everyone have his or her own time to speak. The topics discussed were what happened, where were they, and what to do about it. I was an army general who wanted to bomb the mountain. I enjoyed this piece of improvisation because I enjoyed working in a big group.
The second piece of improvisation we did was a re-enactment of the tourists walking through the Himalayas and then being ambushed by the terrorists. Firstly we did it in continuous action with sound. I was a terrorist we all crouched on the ground behind a wall of chairs to represent the bushes. Then when we were given the signal we all leapt out and started shouting in a strange made-up language to the tourists whilst holding our imaginary guns and rifles. The tourists all had expressions of fear on their faces and we (terrorists) all screwed our faces up when we were screaming in a very violent way. Then we did this again but in slow motion and mime. This was very effective as I could tell it looked good. Then we did freeze-frames with a caption. I really enjoyed this improvisation because it was fun to do and we were all really into it. I felt like I really was an SNQ terrorist. Also we used all the space so we weren’t cramped up.
The third piece we did was an interview between an interviewer and Tony Blair. I was working with Matthew for this and I was the interviewer. I asked open-ended questions and nodded a lot. This piece was quite effective and fun to devise.
The fourth piece we did was a monologue of a hostage. Lovette, Mark and LeRhonda performed theirs. They were all really good. They all rocked a lot and looked realistic Also they pretended to be cold as on might be at the top of a mountain. They acted very scared and talked about how they missed their families. I really enjoyed these monologues, as they were very realistic and full of emotion.
The fifth piece we did was an execution of two hostages by the terrorists. In my group were Matthew, Mark, Michelle, Jelani, Sacha, Erica, Jennifer and Sara. I was the main terrorist and I used the tone of my voice, the way I stood and my facial expressions to represent this. The hostages all acted really scared and when one hostage was taken to be killed her boyfriend went insane. I think this piece didn’t work extremely well because we had more than one piece of action at a time.
The sixth piece we did was a battle between the FBI and the SNQ. I was part of the FBI. We set up a barrier of chairs to be the Himalayas. We all held imaginary guns and we each ad a sound-effect. We fought in slow motion to enhance the scene. I think this scene worked well as it was the whole class and we all collaborated well together.
The final piece of improvisation we did was a nightmare sequence of a person who survived the kidnapping remembering it. We did this by all walking round in a circle whispering a line at first. Then we gradually built-up our voices to the fever pitch then the person in the middle screamed.
I really enjoyed improvisation because it is a really fun way to express oneself and it allows you to let yourself go and be something or someone else without humiliating yourself. Also it is interesting to see the how different people reacted to the different stimuli. All the different stimuli were very interesting and it was great fun to explore the wide range of stimuli there is. I think that improvisation allowed me to open up more and you see the quietest of people in a different light. You aren’t afraid to make a fool out of yourself and its interesting to notice how different people in the class reacted to the different stimuli.