Week 3

Today we continued building, exploring and developing our piece for our performance of the tiger who came to tea. We built on ideas we had created last week after additional research and created new ideas to fit in and follow on from them.

Are the ideas effective? Are they theatrical and if not can they be made theatrical? Will they appeal to 'little people'? Why/why not?

We started to put together our idea of creating a human pyramid. Holly had done some additional research which was greatly needed as last week, the pyramid we had created hadn't worked. Though the initial idea was great- something very visual for the children to look at, when put into action it was clear that the pyramid was unstable and not polished enough, yet, to be able to be performed. Therefore we needed research to experiment with other people's ideas and adapt them for our piece and the space we will be performing in. Holly's idea was, instead of having everyone on each others backs, to have people at different levels, different spaces and different positions so we could support each other and keep our legs, arms and core strong. I think Holly's version of the human pyramid was very effective. We are now able to smoothly and safely build and exit the pyramid. In the pyramid formation we started to add speech. This is every effective as the speech is spoken at different levels; ranging from the top of the pyramid to people on the sides on the floor. Therfore the audience will be looking all over the stage, grabbing their attention and also meaning all sides get to see different angles of performance keeping the performance more interesting the pace quick. I think the only thing that needs to be worked on is the tone of voice in which the lines are said- if you're meant to be nerdy fully commit to that character trate as bold, strong characters are going to stay in the children's minds more. Overall I think the pyramid is very effective. Through trial and error we have been able to perfect our technique to make a physical statue that will be interesting for the audience to look at and for us as the actors to work with. I think we have been inspired by our previous physical work, giving us confidence to be able to build the pyramid. I think it will appeal to children a lot as long as we fully commit to our characterisation and live in the moment.

One of the most important parts of Theatre is your transitions. Therefore as the pyramid should be a peak in energy we need to keep that same energy going after we exit the pyramid formation. We have created a transition that I believe will do so. In this part we are following the objective to search. We go around saying "Here Kitty Kitty." and making kissing sounds as we go. With torches we are looking for a tiger. We will have a pair of torch tiger eyes which will be turned on at certain points for the explorers to look at and subsequently be scared by. I think this is effective because it will maintain the energy from the previous scene and by the explores becoming more and more scared we will be building the tension. The complete darkness lit by the torches both on our faces, around the space and the tigers eyes will create drama and a scary, almost dangerous atmosphere for the children, keeping them entertained and wanting more. It is very theatrical as we are saying the lines in unison and also the lighting is very dramatic. Through our voice and lighting we can set the scene for the children and we will have the power of controlling the energy in the room; we just can't let that energy dip. I think it will appeal to little children as it is dramatic and different from previous scenes. This change in scenery will help them stay focused.

Finally today we looked at a different art; dance. We are trying, through dance, to create a tiger like Chinese dragon to accompany our Tiger Tiger song. I think this is a very good idea because at the moment the song is sad and durge like. Though we plan to make the song more upbeat it would be even better to have a visual piece so the song has meaning and so the children won't lose focus. We will move like a snake in a line around the stage holding butterfly nets that will form our Chinese tiger. I think it is effective as we can experiment with levels and positioning. I think the children would appreciate if we moved the tiger into the audience to make them feel involved. It is very theatrical as Chinese Dragons are used in pieces to create large animals and mobilising them, bringing them to life for the children. The children will love the tiger as it makes it more believable and real. Also the mixture of song and dance will appeal to many senses.