Devising

Group work is ridiculously difficult in both drama and film
the amount of creative people skills you have to exhort are ridiculous mostly i would say tolerance and compromise. As i go into my last week of devising my final year performance i contemplate how differently we should have done things. How we should of spent more time improvising rather than random trips for pub lunch and arguing over things we mostly agree on.
I hate some of the moments we've worked together but i know i also have some amazing interesting crazy people to call friends.
It's been am odd process but i hope this final 5 days do us all proud
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start of a beginning

Just finished my dissertation on tuesday and had quite a good night celebrating it/ few days
2nights out 2 nights in :( 1 theatre trip to see some cool new work at the BAC

So what is there left to do at uni?
1 small essay & a performance one massive 45 minute devised piece which is just about to take over my life for the next 3 weeks

This brings me on to devising and performing group work and my own pieces which i hope to talk about in the next few blog entries.

It feels like the end of uni is near and i don't like it for various reasons but mostly friends, need money, need job have no clearer idea what i'm doing for the rest of the year. But then again i can always think of it of new building blocks to play with :)

1st Book

Reading my first book of 2010 Theatre & Audience by Helen Freshwater.
At first this may seem possibly the dullest book to read but bare in mind i am a drama student, have an essay to do and there is some interesting references to experimental theatre.

One of which i am slightly obsessed over is Marina Abramovic's Rhythum O (Naples, 1974) performance:
As she stood passively beside the table, viewers turned her around, moved her limbs, stuck a thorny rose stem in her hand. By the third hour they had cut all her clothes from her body with razor blades and nicked bits of flesh from her neck. Later, someone put a loaded gun in her hand and pushed it nozzle against her head.
In this performance she stood emotiveless as the audience where presented a table of various objects which could give her pleasure or pain. They were given no instructions, only seventy two objects, Marina herself and six hours to do what they wanted. You may be pleased to hear that after the loaded gun was pointed towards her head another audience member pushed it away and put in on the table again.
Many people may call this woman mad but i believe the chaos and experimentation of theatre needs to be explored and she was just doing her 'job'. The audacity to let the audience/public do what they want with oneself is such a powerful act it is both liberating and oppressive, exciting and fearful. One act which could have led to her death is broken up by anothers interaction and possibly human compassion. I myself am quite confused with the idea of baring all on stage to this effect but if the audience can't interact or create ones own experience surely theatre is just someone ranting at you.

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