Final Evaluation

The final performance of a Taste of Madness happened today. We performed once at 4:30 and again at 6:30, with both the performances having their strengths and weaknesses.

The promenade performance of the first piece had a stronger reaction due to the age of the audience. I believe the effect of the masks was prominent because they were younger, hence the fear factor influenced them more. I think the promenade was able to create a fluid transition from circus to nirvana. I was able to play with the fear factor as soon I started realising this reaction was present in the audience, but aimed to play even more with the masks in the next performance. They are a very strong choice of prop, so strong objectives are needed to push their intentions out to the audience.

The 4:30 show was always going too fuelled with energy and nerves as it was the first time we were performing to a public audience. I think the best part of this performance was the dedication to our characters within the bar. We got into character 15 minutes before we started performing. This gave us so much stimulus that carried the energy throughout the bar from when we started getting into character right up until the audience left. Character development was something we struggled with throughout the whole process as we got caught up in the improvisation and didn't believe we had to form solid characters. However in this performance the strong choices we made for our characters was what made this performance so effective. Being in the atmosphere of such contrasting energies created a sense of organised chaos; we had finally found the balance between the freedom of our piece within the improvised sections and the need to keep the piece clean so as it maintained its strong message at its core. I stuck with the choice of my American accent and pushed my emotion forward, aiming to fill the space, but the confidence to do this didn't come until the second performance. I believe our characters in this bar created a rich atmosphere of vibrant energies that I hope touched the audience in the same way it did the actors.

I think the worst time part of the first performance was the audience involvement. I believe this was both due to our confidence when approaching the audience and their apprehension in letting go and giving over to our concept. I think our piece works best when the audience can take away specific ideas and feel they have gone on this huge promenade journey and come to stop at our bar. Giving them that experience is very important and will push our message out to our audience.

The ensemble piece went well in the first performance and we were all able to create a beautiful portrait using only sellotape and torches. I think such a minimalistic artistic choice both looked good and created a strong reaction from the audience. One of the challenges of the whole piece was being able to immerse the audience inside a brain to express our message on mental health. It is such a broad topic that is was easy to overcomplicate our concepts, but deciding on this simple idea proved the opinion that less is more. My speech worked well alongside the piece in front of me, but for the second performance I wanted to work more with the way I used the words to enhance the piece instead of just feeding the audience lines. The second show was a chance for me to go bigger and better with my vocal choices.

The second show was intensified in energy, nerves and determination to create a performance that lived up to both ours and the audience’s expectations. The promenade performance was intensified by the timing of the second show. The sun had gone down and the moon was out and lighting was bright and intense provided from the wall lights and lampposts. It gave the whole scene an eerie feeling and highlighted the masks very well. Combined with my choice to push the effect the masks can have on the audience and the new lighting, the audience reacted very well even with the different age of the audience and their boundaries within the theatrical experience. After performing the promenade piece for the last time I am glad the audience got to get a glimpse into the strange world that we had created. They were able to dip into the weird and wonderful minds of 16/17 year old, experiencing a whole new dimension of a theatrical piece.

Our second performance of ‘A Taste of Tom Waites’, created a sense of all or nothing. We all knew the one element that our piece lacked was a sense of complete freedom and spontaneity; we had to take the last step and give ourselves over to the piece, so as the audience could too. I think the last performance inspired us to do that and we put in all the energy from our nerves and anticipation into the performance. The audience involvement in the piece made the atmosphere amplify tenfold and our bar officially came to life. The audience seemed to create characters of their own and completely immerse themselves in our world which allowed us to do the same. It was an amazing world to be a part of and the only complaint I had was that it ended too soon.

The only improvement I would have if I were to continue our world would be the way I told my stories. I wish that I could adopt the style of Tom Waites to tell my stories. Instead of telling more naturalistic tales, I would like to tell fantastic, wondrous stories of people and events that could only exist in a bar set in the brain of Tom Waites.

The ensemble piece adapted the same energy as our bar piece, with everyone adopting an ensemble sense of pride and determination for our piece, willing it to be successful so as to propel us to the very last second, pushed all the way by energy and precision. My speech adopted a new purpose, with me using my voice skill set to make the words come to life and add to the intensity and wonder of the whole piece. However the intensity made me stumble over my words at the end, which annoyed me, as it finished the piece on a mistake. However I corrected the mistake and do not believe that it ruined the rest of the piece.

The piece as a whole, I do not see as over or finished, more as an ongoing process. The world I created, the characters that came to life and the words I spoke existed in a moment and so they can go forward and develop into in new ideas that branch from the initial thought we had in week one. I have thoroughly enjoyed this process, investigating themes and ideas, that even in theatre, can get left in the shadows of silence. I created and more importantly, met people in that bar that are unforgettable. I got to access parts of the theatrical process that I have always wanted to; improvised stories, performed to an audience on a simple whim of inspiration. I pushed my boundaries and I hope the audience were pushed to. Our performance may have been rough around the edges, but I think it expressed perfectly the subject matter we set out to challenge. 

Lesson 6

Today, in the penultimate lesson, we had to work out what our piece needs to push it to be the best it can be. The first response to this question was to create the bar so we feel like the space is transporting both actor and audience. So we began to put cardboard over the walls and windows to create a space that felt like being in a cardboard box. It added that final dimension to the piece, allowing the space to become a blank canvas that we can paint on as artists. 

We all decided that character development was what was needed to add the finishing touches to our piece. So we did an exercise in which we walked up to the bar in character, took a drink, walked to the central platform, spoke a quote, walked to the microphone and spoke some lyrics. This helped us set up our characters in the bar we now have created and we can now understand and visualise the purpose and meaning our characters have in the world we have created. From this exercise we learnt that we have to let go. In week six we should have the confidence to do so, but it is now about the leap of faith, knowing in ourselves that we can do it. We now have no where to go except more, forward and deeper with our characters. 

In an experimental piece it is often easy to forget why our piece fits in this category and just do whatever we want without paying attention to key details. We discussed how our piece fell in the experimental category and we decided it was because:

• It is a piece based on Tom Waites a figure of unconformity, bold and strange characteristics. 
• It doesn't have a solid structure- both for the audience who will be moving and the actors as we do not know what will happen at certain points in our performance.  

From the run through we learnt that we need to:

• Live in the whole space- don't stay in one place. 
• Butoh dancers need to move in accordance with the emotion not the story. 
• Break out of our patterns within our peaks of energy.

Lesson 5

Today we looked at something that I have never heard of but I believe it will help us tap into our freedom and improvisation as a performer- Butoh dance. Butoh dance is a concept in which you move in which ever way your body deems natural; you are completely free, there is no right or wrong, your body is in control. We used music as a stimulus to start our movement and we all interpreted it in a different way. My body wanted to move using weight, falling, rolling and crawling relying completely on my body weight to move me. I felt supported and comfortable, but in the same way I was still energised and aware of myself and others. It was completely fluid. The idea of Butoh fits perfectly with our concept- mental health combined with experimental creates a free for all in which personal experiences can be expressed however we want. Being free to express yourself in whichever way you deem appropriate is essential if we want people to access layers of their person as both a actor and human. It can be a very empowering experience for all involved.

We then did an exercise in which we wrapped our hand in cling film. We then had to burst our hand out of our restraints. I noted a sense of frustration and desperation when one of the bodies natural movements is blocked by something. However this makes the sense of freedom and relief intensify when you are finally free from the cling film. Tapping again into our instincts, this allowed me to compare what it is too move completely free within Butoh dance and then stopping the bodies natural flow. These two opposites would be interesting to experiment with when creating a sense of chaos within our bar setting. Then we repeated the action without the restraint which was strange because in the same way I was stopping my bodies flow, it didn't have to be stopped. These feelings can be played with within the rehearsal room to portray the frustration of having no restraint to the naked eye, but your mind creates one- something that links closely to our work on mental health.

We then did another set of exercises that contrasted each other. We walked in a circle following someone, concentrating on keeping the same distant between me and them. Then we skipped around the room like a four year old. This contrast again plays with the balance between control and freedom; a balance strongly needed in experimental work- working out how to be free in our work whilst being precise and accurate in our aim as a piece.

Today we learnt a song called Blue Skies by Tom Waites which we will all sing at the end. I think that this song is such a nice way to end the piece. It sums up everything that has happened in our bar, in a simple, artistic way that involves the cast as an ensemble. Finishing a piece on mental health with a song is quite effective- sometimes spoken word fails you, so find another way to express yourself, song being one them.

Artaud, Grotowski and Brook

Each term we have studied practitioners but this term we studied three: Antonin Artaud, Jerzy Grotowski and Peter Brook. Throughout this term we have done workshops and lessons on all three. Below are all the notes I recorded:

Antonin Artaud
Artaud was a French actor turn theatre practitioner who suffered from severe depression throughout his lifetime. He believed that man was a savage and expressed this belief through physical theatre as he believed that words were not an expressive enough medium to portray human emotion; it was all channelled through the body. To accomplish this physicality, he aimed to batter the mind into submission. He thought the only time man was true to themselves was in extreme situations so aimed to push his actors and his theatre over the boundaries of the norm.

Theatre of Cruelty- perhaps due to his depression, Artaud had a rather negative outlook on life. He looked beyond the façade of society and delved into human nature and instinct. He believed if you stripped humans back, you would find a savage animal that has no regard for anyone; like any other animal, it is survival of the fittest. He used theatre to express these extreme beliefs, using it as a way to express all these opinions in an artistic environment. He wanted his audience to feel as close and involved in the action as possible, so as to expose humans and humanity to them.

Total Theatre- this concept completely defies that of Grotowski's poor theatre as Artaud believed in making use of all elements of theatre to create a complete theatrical experience for his audience: sound, lighting, props, costume, anything available to increase the performances dramtic intensity, he would use.

Is man a savage?
I think man is a complete savage. When born, a baby has three things on its mind: food, sleep and care. This is the same as any other animal; only thinking about the necessities to keep them alive. We are then warped by society into polite people with etiquette and manners. However underneath the expensive clothes, flash car, big house and seemingly perfect life, you find humans who will disregard human emotion for their own specific gain. Capitalism is a system the western world has lived by for centuries and is built by man's greed, power complex and hierarchy- a system you will see in the wild. It is a question of who is at the top of the food chain and who can stay there.


Jerzy Grotowski
Grotowski was born in South Poland, an artist who defied the normal set of rules within the theatre, veering away from naturalistic styles and introducing a new experimental genre. He was influenced by a lot religious writings like the Quran and the Bible plus the writings of Dostoevsky. He set up his theatre company the Polish Theatre Lab. Grotowski's style of theatre wasn't just a hobby, it was a way of life- his actors had to rely and trust each other from day one; working, eating and sleeping together. His training was intense. He was more interested in form than story and in the process over the performance. It was all about the growth and development of his actors both as performers and people. He was very passionate about the actor audience relationship and stripped anything else back until you were left with a cast of actors, an audience and a stage.

Poor Theatre- unlike Artaud, Grotowski believed that props, costume, lighting and sound were all unnecessary and superfluous. He believed this raw style of theatre encouraged the all important actor audience relationship. He thought that a live communion between the actors and audience and a space to perform in, was all that was needed to make a piece of theatre.

Via Negativa- this was an elimination technique that allowed his actors to rid themselves of anything not allowing them to commit to a role. They were meant to be completely and utterly in the moment. He wanted his actors to be so connected that they came to a moment of lucidity or as he called it self penetration.

His rigorous style of training made his actors run through the woods naked. He believed exhaustion was the key to unlocking true creativity as it accessed raw emotion.


Peter Brook

Peter Brook is an English Film and Theatre Director who was highly influenced by Artaud, especially his Theatre of Cruelty concept. He thought personal involvement in the work you do was very important and drawing on the life you have lived can be the catalyst for your artistic inspiration.

Deadly Theatre- this is the theatre that is produced for the production of money. Commercialised theatre that is put on with the only aim being generating ticket sales. Deadly theatre is not dead, it is very much alive and breathing, but it is alive in the wrong way; alive not present. Deadly theatre will conform to the rules of ‘normal theatre’ and will fail to push boundaries and make the audience of the work question the work they are watching.

Holy Theatre- this is theatre that is born from abstract ideas, inspired by improvisation and natural instinct, which can then be developed into something solid that can be moulded and eventually form a complete performance. This theatre goes above and beyond ordinary life.

Rough Theatre- it defies society’s rules and challenges them by investigating themes that aren't supposed to be discussed in polite society. By looking at such themes, it was meant to spark change socially and politically. It doesn't have to happen in traditional forms, both in the text and staging. 

Immediate Theatre- this style of theatre mixes all the different types of theatre- selecting elements of contemporary and traditional theatre and creating a new style. Actors are completely alive in the moment when performing and the audience should travel with them on an emotional, almost spiritual journey. 

Lesson 4- Nirvana

Inspired by the words of Charles Bukowski the poem 'Nirvana' that Tom Waites used as an inspiration for one of his pieces, we created a physical piece that in cooperated the poem too. The piece surrounded the idea of our Nirvana. Mine was being in a swimming pool on my back under the water watching rain hit the surface. To portray this, 3 people when on all fours, I lied on top of their back and they moved me up and down as if I was in water. The piece was successful and was able to access physical and vocal elements, whilst in cooperating work from Tom Waites. Therefore we have decided to use this concept as part of our promenade piece at the beginning. The concept- finding our Nirvana. With experimental, taking on something so broad and personal as someone's Nirvana, means we can experiment with form and structure when presenting it to our audience. As the audience will be walking through the promenade piece, they will be walking through our Nirvana's which flings open hundreds of door regarding the atmosphere and meaning we can create.

Today we dedicated most of our lesson time to finding the place we want to set up our promenade piece. We decided the garden area in the courtyard would be good to create a paradise scene. As a lot of people's heaven involve the outdoors and nature based features, being able to tap into the natural beauty and materials that are already available to us is an opportunity we would be stupid to pass up. We can create a heavenly garden, that the audience can walk through, picking up elements they want to, in the same way you would pick the prettiest flower.

We have also decided that we want to include Trestle masks in our piece. We think this can represent the front people put on to find their happiness, but the true emotion we feel is hidden behind a mask. We want to experiment with the idea of unmasking and masking people, in the same way you mask and unmask your fears and desires. Experimental is the perfect term to add this extra layer and be able to try out different ways of working with the masks to find how they are most effective for both actor and audience.

Lesson 4

As usual we started with an ensemble circle exercise. It experimented with mirroring another person. Everyone had one person they had to look at and copy. So if one person moved slightly or made a noise it would eventually ripple round the circle. It created a wave of movement and sound that was slightly altered as it moved around different people. It was like a live ball of energy being thrown around from each person that if dropped, sparked back up as soon as someone moved. Eventually we all went into the middle of the circle and used the movements and sounds we used most in the exercise to create a sequence that everyone copied. Transferring this idea of mirroring into the piece will help connect us as a whole cast. Being able to observe someone in detail is a skill that means the energy of a piece lives on constantly due to a constant sense of concentration and observation. In terms of how mirroring looks atheistically, there is something interesting and stimulating seeing everyone doing the same thing and yet they all interpret the offers of material in a new exciting way.

At the end of our lesson we did a rough run through of our piece and the loose structure lends itself to the experimental style of the piece. It is wonderful to be a part of as you never know what is coming and have no choice but to live in the moment.  However people become stressed and don't allow themselves to let go and be supported by the rest of the cast.

Lesson 3

We started today with another ensemble exercise, standing in a circle, we did the synchronised clapping exercise in which we all closed our eyes and had to read the room so as to clap at the same time. After we found each others beat, the tempo increased rapidly until it reached its peak, at which point it would fall back down to the slow tempo it started with. Being able to transfer this energy into our piece will help us read a room and its lows and highs in energy. We will have to read and react to each others energies, creating the highs and lows in the performance, with emotion being the catalyst for those peaks. This will created a layered performance that can range from scenes of calm to scenes of complete chaos.

This week we had to bring in an object, picture or random material to use as stimulus to create a character. Mine was a crown ring. The character I created was Delilah, a queen who had traded all the love in her life and her own ability to love, for power over all the land she wanted and all the subjects she desired. However the lack of love in her love and her inability to love caused her to become cold and bitter. She mistreated her subjects and ruled from a throne of silver and gold skulls, a reminder of the sacrifice she has made for her power. We then went into the middle of the circle and created this character, bringing them to life. I really love doing exercises like this because it activates my imagination in an improvised way. Creating characters is something I really enjoy and they often stimulate some of the characters that take bold, vivid forms.

We then did some more improvised storytelling. Again in a circle we started with one line and then each said a line to continue the story. I feel exercises such as these turn into trust exercises that relies on everyone in the circle to take your contributions and make them into something of value and worth, moulding them, not necessarily in the way you expect, but in a way that adds to the creative process. In terms of creating interesting, inspired stories that fit in a experimental form, this exercise allowed us all to take stimulus and throw it, stretch it, colour it in and mould it in whatever way we saw fit, which saw the storytellers becoming just surprised at the outcome as the audience. Having this sense of improvisation in the piece would be a risk but something I would personally enjoy experimenting with. Performing something with no set rules or form- theatre at its most free. We would put thrill back on stage.

In the afternoon many people had gone to Bethlem so we decided to do another storytelling exercise. One person took centre stage and told a story taking inspiration from a picture. The others stood around and acted out their words physically and created a sound scape on top. I was able to tell a story; inspired by a picture of hot air balloons, I did a story about one in the middle of a cornfield that a little girl went on an adventure in. Being completely spontaneous with the work was exciting for me and the people around me and felt wondrous as a performer. I love storytelling and writing stories so standing on that block was me feeling very at home. Having this sense of sharing between a whole group of people is definitely effective- you need only ask those who were in the class. Involving everyone in something that can only exist once is a sharing experience that everyone can connect with.

Bethlem

Bethlem was a real insight into the subject that we are studying this term- mental health. I expected a dark setting with stories about the mistreatment of mentally ill patients in the past. However I was greeted by a  light, bright setting filled with colour and art that highlights both the positives and negatives of mental health. There were certain parts of the gallery that touched me and inspired me to take forward into our performance:

This was a paint palette of different colours that expressed different emotions from the perspective of someone suffering from different forms of mental health. I thought this was such a simple way of portraying mental health and its connotations. In terms of how this could influence our performance, the different coloured drinks could be based on the colours on the palette and they could use the names of the colours as the name of the drinks. Or we could use them to decorate the room, almost like a Dulux colour chart, but expressing mental health. I think using something as simple as colours can stimulate all sorts of emotions for the actors and audience.

This was one of my favourite exhibits at Bethlem- a mobile of tags that use labels that can all be interpreted by different people in a unique way. The one that stood out to me was Father. This is because the link between mental health and family is something that explains my experience with mental health well. Therefore seeing this made me think about mental health when it comes back to my personal experience. Being in this form, apart from being atheistically pleasing, reminded me of a tree, interlinking all of these factors together- mental health is a tree with branches extending in all directions. It was such a simplistic, minimalistic display, but they reached all sort of layers under the umbrella of mental health.

Going to somewhere like Bethlem opened up a perspective on the whole topic of mental health- it can be art. You can express this sensitive topic in an artistic form which I hope our experimental piece can too.

Tom Waites

Tom Waites is the stimulus for our piece. He is an American actor, director, singer and songwriter. His suffers from depression and bipolar, so is an interesting role model to study when doing our piece on mental health.

This is the interview we watched in class and as soon as I listened/watched him I felt entranced by his carefree demeanour and how he spoke his mind like no one I have ever witnessed. Not only did his tonal quality glue me to each word he spoke, the undeniable resemblance to Heath Ledger's joker gave his whole person a grotesque, creepy aspect. His words were like a poet; just a poet who smoked a lot of cigarettes. I fell in love with the way this man worked as soon as I heard him. He is the voice of the voices in the back of your head that have been silenced by society and etiquette. He is not there to be understood, but interpreted, a quality that belongs to few humans who have the joyous talent of speaking there mind in the most unapologetic manner.

Looking at some of his lyrics I found one I particularly liked; a song called Alice. After backspacing an explanation to the song, I realised that is the reason I liked it- it had the ability to be loved without having any plausible explanation. You can't 'fall through the ice of Alice', but you can interpret that as whatever you want.

We have talked a lot about what is art and what makes a true artist and my answer is Tom Waites- a man who does everything just because he wants to and because why the hell not?

Lesson 2

Playing games is what theatre is all about and so playing duel in the dark reminded me of the need to play in the rehearsal room. The game: two people are blindfolded and two rolled up newspapers are placed around the room. The aim- find the newspaper and hit your opponent. Watching this game unfold is very amusing because the audience are given the power of watching the game knowing the vital piece of information that the players are scrambling for. This sense of power in turn creates a sense of dramatic irony- when the audience know something before the actors. Involving this switch of power is very appropriate for experimental as it changes the goal posts completely especially in terms of the actor/audience relationship. Having fun with a piece is important to remember; true passion cannot be faked.

Today we did an exercise that investigated how a sequence of movements can be supported through breath and a specific emotional journey. The sequence consisted of 4 moments: bending your legs and slowly raising your arms as if your were about to jump on a trapeze, swinging your arms backs like you are skiing, swinging your arms back forward and then using this momentum stab yourself in the chest and then finally slowly release your hands from your chest and examining them looking at the blood until they are raised again to repeat the movement. I really enjoyed doing this exercise, mainly because it was so simple. It wasn't a piece of complicated choreography and yet it still carried a lot of emotion within 30 seconds worth of movement. Finding simplicity in movements can be so effective when portraying emotion to the audience. In this exercise I felt more emotionally rooted than I may have in a 10 minute piece of physical. As I knew what I was doing I could experiment further and find my own interpretation, supported by the foundations that had been laid for me.

One of the favourite skills I accessed today was the ability to create a sound scape with the class. We made the sound of different environments starting with a wood. The sounds that were created included birds tweeting, tress blowing in the wind, the crunch of leaves, the drip of rain and the rushing of a stream. It created such an atmosphere and accessed a sense that is often forgotten about- sound. It really touched me; this orchestra of nature created in a rehearsal room in Selhurst. It was beautiful. Then we contrasted this with the sound of the end of the world and immediately we started screaming, making the sound of bombs, evil laughs and crying babies. When the only experience of such a scenario comes from futuristic zombie movies, it is no wonder this reaction was created. The two reactions taught me a vital skill; being delicate and careful with a piece is important. A world and appearance can shatter like glass if not cared for. By listening to peoples contributions you can decide if and what is needed to add to the atmosphere. This tool is something that can add a third dimension to a piece by simply using our mouths.

This idea of listening and responding was continued in the grieving mother portrait. In a circle myself and Eve went in the middle with Eve lying on my lap as my dead child and me, her mother, mourning her passing. My starting point was crying and then slowly the circle around me created the sound scape of a mourning mother. Someone vocalised my internal screams, the laugh of a child and the most eerie, someone sang twinkle twinkle little star slowly and quietly throughout. Being in the centre of this bubble of sadness really begins to crack through your barriers and touches your emotions. I think this has shown me that creating a true reaction can come from something very simple- less is more essentially.

The last exercise we did was similar to the passing emotion exercise last lesson, but instead we passed a cry down a line. Starting with the initial holding back of tears to the final tear being wiped away. When my group performed we did it three times through and each time it intensified and then we started doing the different stages randomly creating an opera of sobs and cries. It sounded strange, but at the same time was very clear in its portrayal of emotion. I already believe that a sound scape can be very emotive, but switch up the sounds and it becomes this waterfall of emotion that washes the audience from head to toe.

Lesson 1

The exercises we did today helped us contact our emotional extremes that will help when feeding off each other and being able to work experimentally, fully committing to the piece. We did an exercise in which we passed our emotions around a circle with one rule; make your reaction to the emotion bigger than the previous person. We worked with both positive and negative emotions. Our downfall at first was our perception that bigger meant louder and over dramatic. However when working with emotions like sadness, when you reach the extreme of such an emotion, if you were truthfully reacting, you may be overcome to the extent that you collapse and do not make any sound at all. Therefore this exercise taught me that being experimental on the spectrum of emotions can still be subtle and smooth, whilst still maintaining a certain gravitas. I think this is very important so as to keep the deep connection with an experimental piece instead of relying on its shock factor to carry it.

The second exercise we did today was a imagination exercise. Lying down we were fed situations that we had to react to both physically and vocally. The first scenario we were given was being stuck in a spiders web and we couldn't move. Having my body flat on the floor helped me push this scenario throughout my body, stiffening my joints and only moving my extremities. When in a situation where physical movement is not an option, breath and voice become the main tool that you use to express your emotion. Channelling my distress through breath caused me to make short bursts of breath when I struggled to move, creating a mood of exhaustion and distress. However the atmosphere was amplified when we were told that a spider was approaching us across the web. Therefore my breath became rapid constantly instead of short bursts and my distress became vocal. This scenario was heightened by the whole class creating an atmosphere of distress; creating a chain reaction of people becoming more frightened by others fear. We then contrasted this scenario and were told that we were in a fountain of the best chocolate we had ever tasted. I found this harder due to a block created by embarrassment. If this situation was real we would all moan or scream in delight, but with others there is sounded strange and we stopped ourselves from immersing in this emotion due to this. We then imagined that we were sinking in a bog. This again caused me to tense up and not move any parts of my body apart from my head and neck which was lifted of the floor straining for air. I found the exercise as a whole very difficult because lying down restricted me from moving into interesting positions that would stimulate my imagination and the atmosphere in the room kept breaking which destroyed some of the worlds I was creating. It introduced me to the reality that I will have to let go of all pride, embarrassment and premonitions if I want to get the most out of experimental term.

The last exercise we did today was the tunnel exercise. When I went under the tunnel I was told I was in a tunnel of jagged rocks so if I made any sudden movements I would cut myself. We then had people come and scratch the chair we were under, breath on our faces and scream out for help. It was a really surreal experience that did transport me to a world in which fear and claustrophobia dominated all of my thoughts. I think facing someone intensified the whole experience because you could hear their breath and screams as well as your own and your natural reaction to comfort was beaten by your natural survival instincts. I think this exercise showed me that extreme circumstances can be the most theatrically effective and it is okay to push our audience to these kind of extremes as it generates a reaction that touches the audiences instincts and emotions on a level that is not often reached.

Mental Health and its Dramatic Potential

We were introduced to the subject matter of our piece- mental health. This is a broad label, covering many different key issues and stories that I am sure many people in the class will have a personal connection to. However I feel the best work I do, is the work I am personally invested in. Therefore I hope investigating a topic that effects me and others in a very raw, emotive way will push us to make work reflective of this.

So, what is mental health? A question, too vast to answer directly; especially on one blog post. A better question is perhaps, what is mental health to me? Still a broad question, but one I think I can scale down. I believe it is how you are feeling in your mind. In the same way you would say, today I have a cold, I think you say, today my head has a cold. I think everyone has good and bad days, whether they are diagnosed or being treated for a mental health condition or not. When you go to the hospital with a bad leg it can cover a range of problems- you may have burnt or bruised it slightly or on the other end of the scale it could be broken; which is exactly what mental health is in my opinion- a scale. I believe someone can have a day when they feel depressed without suffering from depression. How this makes sense to me is that I may feel down, but if I see something funny it will cheer me up because I still maintain the ability to view things in a positive light. That is not to say everyone suffering from depression is depressed 24/7 because that is completely not the case; they will fall on the scale. Instead of falling into cemented categories, I think people can float on a scale with the freedom to move up and down. Reading back over this attempted explanation has caused me to see how complicated it really is. Perhaps the answer to the initial question is I have no a clue.

However as far as building a piece is concerned I believe there is a lot of potential in this subject and a lot of input to be had. Although perhaps illogical and mad, I had some initial ideas when introduced to this topic and they were:

• A food fight- an expression of the madness that occurs in your head which is something not deemed appropriate in polite society. 

• A physical piece- one of the hardest parts of discussing and portraying mental health is it is not something physical that we can hold in our hand and it hence becomes harder to explain and comprehend. By taking our thoughts, feeling and emotions in our head and making them physical, the barrier between head and hands is broken. 

• Poetry or song lyrics- one song that came to my mind is Starry Starry Night by Don McLean, based upon the life and times of Vincent van Gogh- someone who was considered insane in both his art and actions. There is so many ways to tell stories, songs being one. 

Although we are only mapping our ideas currently I think it is imperative for us make our ideas come to life- because if not in experimental term, when else can you exercise free reign on your piece? Too often I will have an initial idea and then by the end of the piece it is a distant memory. This could be for one of many reasons- perhaps I don't push my voice to be heard enough or the idea was pretty bad. Whatever the reason, this term I can discover, mould, polish and use my ideas to create a piece full of colour and just a touch of madness. 

What is Art?

Immediately when I think of art, I think of a gallery full of pictures, a west end theatre or a Hollywood film. And although a lot of pieces of 'art' come underneath those 3 categories, once thought about, art can and is so much more. Art could be anything you want it to be- the lines on your palm, the doodles at the back of your English book or the rain on a window.

Art is created anywhere and everywhere if you can give it the chance and creativity to be so.

That is the only explanation I can fathom about art and the only way I can explain it is this- Vincent van Gogh's art was hated when he was alive, as was John Keats poetry and F. Scott Fitzgerald's novels, and yet today they are considered some of the best artists in their fields. And why such a change? Because someone re examined their work with a creative mind and labelled it art. Although all three will still have their critics they are, in my personal opinion, held in very high regard as far as art is concerned. This proves that art is all around us, in all forms, but they may not be regarded so in popular culture, but in a few years, decades or centuries they may be hanging on the walls of houses.

Art is something that touches you on a level that everyday occurrences do not. It talks to you creatively and transports you to a world beyond deadlines and schedules. Art that has this particular effect on me includes: Van Gogh's Cafe Terrace at Night and The Starry Night (also Don McLean's Starry Starry Night), Shakespeare's Macbeth and Othello, the Roman Amphitheatre at Guildhall, the town of Stratford Upon Avon, doodles at the back of a textbook. Tears of a Clown by Smokey Robinson and The Miracles, Hotel California by The Eagles, Tchaikovsky's Danse Napolitaine, Star Wars (all of them), 1920s fashion and the sky (night and day.) I could go on listing for hours, because I see many things as art- possibly because I think with a more creative mind than others, but everyone, no matter their way of thinking, will have an opinion. Not everyone will see Tchaikovsky's composition as art, but that's because art is to be interpreted by individuals not the masses, although masses can interpret it.

My Initial Definition of Experimental Theatre

Theatre can be weird enough, so adding an experimental aspect to the work I will be doing strikes me as possibly quite daunting. My immediate thoughts on experimental theatre consisted of a niche style of theatre far away from my comfort zone. However it occurred to me that out of my comfort zone is exactly where I need to be if I want any chance of improving as a performer. I have come to know my strengths and weaknesses as a performer and due to both instinct and pride, I have clung to my strengths as a way forward. However if I want to continue my journey learning as an actor, both in the rehearsal room and on stage, I must start to evaluate my weaknesses and tackle them head first, even if this results in me both physically and metaphorically falling flat on my face. Experimental term is the perfect opportunity to break down my boundaries and push myself to create a piece that is personally invested in and creatively fuelled.

Therefore my aspirations for this term stretch far and wide. My first goal is inspired by the topic we will be tackling- mental health. As a young person of the 21st century, mental health is something that is presenting itself more and more in my life. As a whole mental health is not set in stone and has many definitions placed on a large spectrum of interpretations and stories. On top of that I am sure mental health is a subject that effects many of my peers, meaning there will be a lot of personal input throughout the process. The combination of these factors create a vast blank canvas for us as both actors and young people to paint a complexed, colour, wonderful picture onto. Working on something so broad as mental health is something I am very excited to do. As for breaking boundaries, putting my stamp and using my voice to propel this piece forward is something I am very eager to do.

Not only am I eager to devise a piece on mental health, I am also intrigued to see how I can do it in an experimental way. I have been given an opportunity to do anything; something that could inspire bold choices or blank thoughts. Sometimes being given complete control is too much and yet I hope being given a subject to focus on, will also focus my train of thought. I can throw paint on stage or incorporate poetry and spoken work or choreograph a group macarena (within reason.) Hopefully focusing on metal health will help source ideas that I can push forward in any direction I want.

Finally, although working independently and having my own voice is important and exciting, I think working as an ensemble is just as, if not more exciting. Especially in an unscripted piece, 20+ heads are better than 1; they are far more effective, creative and expressive than just me. Therefore I think it will be essential to our piece to incorporate everyone single person's ideas and voice as I believe it will create a performance that can speak to every member of our audience member, causing them to all leave with something different to take away with them.