Chorus 6 - Bacchus

We began blocking this chorus with quad jump. We all stand in a triangle formation and turn in cannon, each saying Bacchus with our line then back round to face the front. In the triangle, we all had groups with lines each, but not in the lines. This is more interesting for the audience to watch, and makes us seem more in sync with each other. Whilst the group you are not in is saying their lines, we all turn around to face different directions. This displays the chorus' panic and distress at the time. The meaning behind this part is that the cities people are begging the gods to help them- 'now help us Dionysus, heal us, help us Dionysus' and 'purify us, purify us'. The final lines of the chorus have a lot of repetition of 'Bacchus Dionysus', we decided to increase in volume and frantic movement out to the audience, to show us begging.

Later on in the rehearsal process- 

At this point we are very close to the performance, and when tweaking chorus sections to perfect them we noticed that this chorus brought the energy down, as it was too technical and difficult to pull off successfully. After some discussion of techniques we could use we settled on a more simple but effective movement piece. We start in a huddle in the middle on the stage facing inwards and the first group delivers our line up, whilst walking out to the edge of the circle. As each group does this we create two circles facing out. For the next lines the outer circle walks clockwise and the inner circle walks anti-clockwise. Whilst increasing in volume and a distressed tone of voice. On the line 'now help us Dionysus..' we all drop to our knees yelling, and repeating praying hand gestures, for example displaying our arms to the sky, holding our chests, and our stomachs, Showing our desperation. We then stand and run the trenches, and deliver the last section of repetition right out to the audience. Because the audience seating is raked, it looks as if we are praying to the gods, but the gods are the audience. This is really effective as we can really exaggerate our facial expressions and more our arms and hands as if we are reaching out for them, completely immersing the audience and making us vulnerable, provoking their empathy.