An action is performed, such as opening a letter (What). The letter has been sent because it has some important information about the characters family (Why) .The letter is opened anxiously, slowly (How). These physical actions, which occur from moment to moment in any performance, are in turn are governed by a characters overall objective in the performance. Performers do not act alone; they react with/off other people.
“The Actor must first of all believe in everything that takes place onstage, and most of all they must believe what themselves are doing – one can only believe in the truth! “
Constantin Stanislavski
We were very aware during both Improvisation and Rehearsal stages that many performers tend to stop acting or lose concentration, whey they are not in the main action of the scene or someone else is talking. This tendency we found could destroy the through line and cause performers to come in and out of role. This in turn could cause the whole performance to crumble.
We discussed the idea of motifs (sequence of movement used as a theme and repeated throughout the piece) in performance and decided dance was made up of motifs and would be a good starting point for our piece; motifs create different moods and styles which are powerful; audiences become familiar with motifs and see distinctions of different movements and they way in which they create emotions Our dance piece has several motifs, which doubles up as transitions on stage to create smooth movement and full use of proxemics on stage. . Even though we had been first introduced to motifs as a Dance element we soon discovered that motifs link in and work well with music when thinking about structure; with this in mind we based our music on Rondo form (ie: A B A C A D A) and used the repeating motif of an Ascending Pentatonic scale in C’maj
We decided that we’d use open fifths in the music piece to aid the structure and create polyphonic textures throughout which helps to create interest/focus and draw the audience into the piece – The Journey Of Life with our stimulus being, ‘Pictures at an Exhibition’ by Mussorgsky.
All the way through each of the Improvised Workshops we were very aware that we had to keep in mind what the audience will get out and perceive from our pieces. I have discovered if the performer truly believes in what they are creating/performing then the audience will accept/believe completely in what they are seeing
Every performer has moments of self-doubt. The great ones, however, overcome every obstacle to reach their full artistic potential
Mae West
Rehearsal
The next stage we did was rehearsal. The function of rehearsal is to polish a piece thoroughly and make it effected, to make it show what it was initially aimed to covey; thus communicate all of this to the audience.
“If anything is worth trying at all, it’s worth trying at least 10 times”
Art Linkletter
In our music piece we could add dynamics by doing something as simple as layering instruments and then swapping to a single instrument which is a good way of transiting from one section of the piece to another…we used this method in our piece to help show the ageing of the main character, at first we had used male voice as the main character but after rehearsal we felt that a female voice conveyed to greater affect the texture/ atmosphere we had wanted from the start, this was because the female voice has greater warmth and vocal range for what we needed . Our music performance was based on the journey of life and we wanted to work further on the following features of it: Dynamics, volume, tension and precision. We felt that the tension/ dynamics were flat and needed to be built upon to give it greater affect on the audience. Dynamics were added to the piece by using the Timpani, human voice, snare drum (timbre) and congas in conjunction with each other and layering the following rhythms. Not only was tension added but texture also. This meant we had to concentrate on pacing during rehearsing as simple changes in beat/rhythm can effect/impact on what the audience felt, this also links in with our drama in the rehearsal stage. We felt that the contrast in sounds helped in building the tempo and climax of the piece. The change in mood/aging was clearly showed to the audience with the reoccurring transition of open fifths on both Xylophone and Metolalphone and crash beat of the cymbal; this also helps in keeping the audience in tune with the piece.
In order to develop our pieces more we added elements of the other two art form we have used for this module such as in our dance piece where we added a music track by Franz Ferdinand called 40’, which reflected perfectly our desire to show controlling movements. Influences for our dance piece included Christopher Bruce and Bob Fosse. Fosse was known for his thoroughly modern style, a signature one could never mistake for anyone else's. Snapping fingers are omnipresent, swivelling hips and strutting predominate, as do white-gloved, single-handed gestures. Fosse himself often called the amalgamation of these moves the "amoeba", and that word as much as any describes his particular style, one at once fluid and angular. By studying Fosse and Bruce and experimenting with different styles of music and movement we transformed the piece into a lively intriguing piece that can be enjoyed at many different levels of understanding. Our dance piece was very much based on the Bob Fosse style ie; swivelled hips and fluid movement
All art forms perform a different function for the audience in turn; Dance is an “artistic representation through choreographed movement” and exhibits emotion for the audience where as drama coveys often-definite emotion such as death.
The Dancer believes that his art has something to say which cannot be expressed in words or in any other way than by dancing... there are the times when the simple dignity of movement can fulfil the function of a volume of words. There are movements, which impinge upon the nerves with a strength that is incomparable, for movement has power to stir the senses and emotions, unique in itself. This is the dancer's justification for being, and his reason for searching further for deeper aspects of his art."
Doris Humphrey
Music on the other hand is different, it can make the audience both see and hear emotions as it can generate distinctive and emotive sounds. When used alone any of the three art forms are capable in creating total focus in it such as becoming immersed in a music piece or drama but when used in unison ive discovered heightens the experience tenfold!
With everything we do in performing arts we have got to consider how the audience will perceive the meaning of each performance we do. To achieve this we had to experiment with proxemics and physicality in relation to the audience. We discussed and used the idea of incorporating the audience (final combined) within the piece-dramatic irony, which by involving the audience help to keep the audience in tune with the action. We found that by changing the distance between people can convey a desire for intimacy; declare a lack of interest, or increase/decrease domination.
We also experimented with the placing of set during rehearsal. The proxemics of the furniture/set itself and how it defines the use of distance establishes a key factor in what we consider to be a cozy, comfortable, family atmosphere in the audiences mind. In my opinion the audience should always be able to pick up the mood and relationships of characters from the proximity to each other and in the manner in which actions and lines are delivered. We did however have to be very careful with our use of proxemics, as audiences may feel uncomfortable if the distance is too cold or too intrusive. This also applys to figurative senses of distance, such as emotional distance.
In our performances we tried as much as possible to be in close proximics to the audience creating intimacy and accessibility. This allowed the audience to connect with the performers in different ways and gave a greater sense of involvement. It was very important for all to play with use of space from the start, including working both near and far the audience and taking into account visual impact/angles for the audience
According to Stanislavski’s principals every rehearsal is a performance in its own right which it’s true as I think it’s important to have the same focus from beginning to end in order to have a believable performance. By doing so you are preparing for any problems that may arise in the final performance however I think the stress and tension felt by actors is higher when performing than rehearsing, this is because I feel that actor is always aware of being watched and the audiences have expectations.
In order to convy deep feeling durinng my performances I stuck mainly to Stanislavski principal of Emotion memory (Emotion memory is when an actor uses their personal experiences and emotions to portray the emotion which would be felt by the character which they are playing. These memories are brought back by the actor in rehearsals and also on stage to help show emotions) and living the part – Forth wall principal however I discovered during rehearsal that sometimes standing back from your character can be more affective in separating where you end and your character starts! Personally I think that the forth wall principal has its downfalls as it doesn’t allow the actor to develop fully real emotions of a human however by combing many different theories such as raw feeling you can still create a successful performance. I believe that purposeful actions are assume to fulfil characters goals and are the most direct route in finding emotions.
The photo below is of our final combined piece and clearly shows the use of proxemics and use of the audience within audience to create fear and intensity. I feel that even though we had set out to achieve this in the first place our vision was only realised when there was an audience in position; we had arranged our action around the audience in rehearsal.
Performance
To me performance is the result of hard work developed and improved on over a length of time and has to have a point to it. All our pieces had links to the initial stimulus and conveyed our starting ideas. I think that all our ideas led up to the creating of our combined piece and by working on different aspects of performance we were able to understand the links between the art forms and identify the best way of combing them, as a group we discussed how we would have to make our intent clear to the audience as only we would know the true meaning/link between stimulus and action on stage.
Our combined piece relied on the stimulus that we had been given (Years ago – Alice Cooper) as it helped to create a dark atmosphere, which gradually got darker as the piece went along and also made it easer for the audience to understand what was going on because it followed a specific genre
We concentrated on the three art forms and how we could best involve them and discovered that all the characters could exploit the link between dance and music, enhance the situation of conflict and build upon the feeling created by the small performance space.
We used a simple four part round to create a menacing climate of fear for both audience and main character – our aim was to make the audience uncomfortable and in the place of the main character through physicality and characterisation. Three part round relied on complex rhythms and timing. We selected different voices for different line based on the timbre of the voice and used it to best effect in creating harmony and texture.
Full potential of movement was maximised potential by the main character to reflect the change in pace and mood of the piece. This helped the audience, as at this point no vocal
action was present so the plot has to be got over through movement/music alone which I give more power to the piece than just stating through words what was going on. I feel that communication is created by expression, expression being movement, sound (voice, music) and drama. Audiences get a sense of deeper understanding/satisfaction if they have to think for themselves what is going on however at the same time there is a fine line between allowing your audience to think and loosing your audience all together! Audiences feel things rather than understand straight away – rather picking up meaning through the performances and subliminal conscious!
Audience reactions and feedback is important in performance, as, it allows the actor to understand how to better and build upon their performances to great affect through constructive criticisms. To me I found that compliments helped in seeing/pin pointing the effective techniques and why they were affect/successful for the audience. Even comments on bit that didn’t work so well were helpful as they allowed us to see where we had gone wrong and made us think about how we could improve in future performances. The legitimate purpose of all criticism should be improvement and leads to ongoing development. I think that only if we are aware of problems can we do something about them. Few of us are honest enough and discerning enough to give ourselves the impartial objective view of ourselves which we can get from a friendly critic on the outside, mainly because an audience member can see the whole stage and therefore all what’s going on and get a better perception of how things work and the interaction of characters.. By exposing ourselves to criticism we give ourselves the opportunity to improve in unexpected ways.
Through out the combined final piece, I’ve found that when used in conjunction the three art forms releases there full the potential and can affect the performance and perception of any piece. I enjoyed the final combined piece as it had the most vibrancy out of the four pieces. I feel is for two reasons, to start with we were feeding of the electricity and excitement that an live audience gives and also simply that the merging of the three art forms created a different style of piece that appealed to everyone, each art form had qualities that capture the minds of the audiences and in our piece were combined in an effort of larger art – The Art of Performance! (Language is a fluid, ever changing)
Combing all three means enhanced influence and connected with a larger majority of the audience
I feel that during my study of “The language of Performing Arts”. I have come away this section of the syllabus with a sense of enjoyment and feel I have learnt lots; I have been able to look deeper into my understanding of its meaning and I have discovered that there are so many different elements to it. When used on their own each element makes a small difference but when combined make a huge difference and impacts on the understanding of performance for both actor and audience. I agree with Stanislavski principals of performance and found his methods to be of the most use in discovering the true language of performance arts.
To me performance is about both audience and actor, as without an audience you don’t have a true performance but however performance is about expression and creative feeling!
