Concept Improvisations

In this lesson we looked at our concept, which in summary is that there has been a national disaster, creating a futuristic post-apocalyptic world. The chorus with symbolise the displaced refugees and the royal family will be representing the government figures. We explored both of these classes of people through improvisation workshops with different stimuli. 

The first workshop was focused on the refugees, in groups we were given a scenario; we as refugees have been deported in an unknown location, and we need to set up our camp. We chose roles within the group, I was a woman looking for her husband, we had two young girls and a man who was alone. During this exercise we had to tackle tasks such as building our tent, making fire, sharing out our food and trying to find loved ones. We had to interact with other groups in different spaces to ours and interact in the appropriate manner. I tried to take a leader role in my group, as I felt that someone would in this situation, I was not too confident as I wanted to show that they were scared and uncomfortable. When connecting with other groups I tried to ask for names and create conversation that would be uplifting as possible. This was really helpful as I could look at our concept in a practical way and gain a better understanding of it. I was able to link this to our piece, as the chorus will be like this. I am going to use this in my performance to interact with the royal family, when being told that there was food available or to make tents I felt genuinely excited and ambitious, looking up to the leader. 

The second workshop was about a higher status of people, in these same groups we created a dinner table situation, I was the mother, and we had a husband and three children. This was slightly easier to portray as we in this day have a better idea of what its like to live a rich life as apposed to a displayed life. I had a proud posture and and spoke with a snobbish voice, I spoke about things that cost a lot of money and turned my nose up at something I didn't agree with. I used very smooth and relaxed movements, in contrast to the fast  flinching movements of the refugee characters. 

These exercises gave me a better understanding of how my choral characterisation is going to form, ie- bad posture, flinching, small hand movements, timid facial expressions. The things I can take from this and use in my performance are how to interact with other chorus members, the royal family and how the royals with more power themselves are acting and feeling.