DOUBLE RESEARCH LESSON

30/07/14

Today we had two research lessons. Unfortunately Lucienne was away and we had to  improvise her part.

We decided that we were going to start with girls in Australia and show the contrast between them and the girls in Nigeria. We worked on the computers for a while and we found this:- 

The Taliban are a Sunni Islamic extremist group based in Afghanistan who emerged in 1944.
The Taliban wish to remove foreign forces from their country.
They claim to follow a pure Islamic value however, they’re violence and bad treatment towards women contradicts what they claim.
They claim to follow the Sharia law. The Sharia law is a set of rules for muslims about how to run their life. The Sharia law is very commonly misunderstood as it, in the past, has been associated with stoning people to death and amputating limbs.
Women have been stripped of many human rights – any education for girls often leads to death by the leaders.

Twelve of them were the parents of girls who were kidnapped three months ago by militant group Boko Haram.
The two others were Malala Yousafzai, a young Pakistani woman just turned 17, and her father Ziauddin.
"I am going to stand up for them," she said.
She decided that she must mark Malala Day by coming to Nigeria and appealing for the release of the kidnapped girls and the right of all children here to an education.
Nigeria has one of the world's worst records for education. More than 10 million children aged between 6 and 11 - 42% - are not in school. There is a shortage of more than 200,000 primary school teachers.
The parents share a powerful feeling that in spite of their loss, they have been shut out and ignored. The government hasn't talked to them at any stage. It hasn't even shown them much sign of sympathy.
Mike Omeri, the co-ordinator of the government's anti-terror campaign, insists that they know where the girls are and that they are safe.
But the families are deeply worried by Boko Haram threats to marry the girls off to the movement's fighters, against their will. Some are afraid their daughters have been raped.
There seems to be a total stalemate. Boko Haram says it will free the girls in exchange for the release of Boko Haram prisoners from Nigerian jail.

Our class then had a Millie moment, where parents came in and we all had to be very prim and proper in front of them.


We then we outside and started acting our piece out:-
1. starts off with Australian girls being very rude to the teacher
2. then quickly transition into Malala and spotlight on me with the taliban circling me.

MAFIA AND INTERESTING STORIES

23/07/14
We started off by playing 5 games of mafia:

Recounting -we all had to close our eyes and the teacher would pick someone to be either the murderer, detective or the doctor. Once they are picked, the teacher calls out the murderer and he has to choose to kill someone. Next she calls out the detective and he has to choose who he wants to interrogate someone. Lastly she calls out the doctor and he can either choose himself or someone else to be safe. Next the teacher makes up a story and the person who gets killed has to go out if the doctor does not decide to save him.
Reflecting- The more you play this game the more you see how people act after we have been told to open our eyes.
Conclusion- the trick is to look completely innocent, so no body suspects you. You also always have to blame another person.

Then we had to go around the circle and tell interesting stories about our childhood. The most interesting ones were Brodie's and Spike's.

Brodie's- when he was little, he once was on a boat. He had to really go to the bathroom but he could'nt. so instead he decided to do it on the deck.
Spike's- when he was 10, Spike was given to drive a golf cart. He managed to drive into a hot dog stand!

The rest of us then had to reenact their stories!!!

NINJA AND DOCUDRAMA WORK

21/07/14

Today started off by playing a game of ninja.

Recounting-  in this game, we had to form a circle and strike a ninja pose. We go around the circle and each person has to do an attacking move and the person who he targets to hit can have one reflex move. The aim of the attacker is to hit someone's hand.

Reflecting- This was the first time we played it in a while so a lot of people were a bit out of practice, but as we played each person got better.

Conclusion- I surely missed playing ninja a lot in the holidays and it was good to play it again J

We then moved on making a fairy tale and a song for our piece. The other group with the boys, are doing their piece on Brazil in the world cup and I thought that they were doing pretty well. They had good songs and managed to show a lot of detail in their work. A lot of people have gone off to winter school, so our class is a lot smaller.

We decided to do a fairy tale about the "Big Bad Taliban" 
We got some good feedback but we were told to make the characters much clearer. 
I am supposed to be playing the role of Malala. 

We thought that we might consider doing the following for our piece:-

1.    I sit on a chair in the middle and the song ‘titanium’ starts playing.

2.    When the words start, projections of Malala pop up on the screen. 

OUR END OF YEAR PERFORMANCE GROUPS!

16/07/14

This was the first lesson of the term and we were given our groups for the docudrama piece for the end of the year. I am put in a group with Lauren, Margaret and Lucienne. We are going to be doing the story of Malala Yousafzai, a Pakistani girl, combined with the story of the Nigerian school girls.

We were planning to show what the impact of her work was and how she is continuing to be a women’s rights activist.

For the rest of the lesson we discussed how we were going to set our piece out and what it may include. We came up with the following:-

1.      Narrator

2.      Fairy tale

3.      News report

4.      Chorus work

5.      Changing characters

6.      Non-realistic theatre work

STATUS AND IMAGE THEATRE

Today we started off the class by playing a game of status
recounting- in this game, there are three volunteers. Each had their own status from highest to lowest. And all three have roles. The teacher can change the status in the group but the actors cannot change their roles.
reflecting- this was a great improvisation game.
conclusion - even though i did not have a turn to act in this game, it was extremely fun to watch it.

Next we moved into our chocolate groups and created some tableaus that explains a particular issue. Our first tableau was us enacting a bullying scene. We had to change this tableau to resolve the scene. 

BRECHT AND BOAL CRITICAL ANALYSIS

Explain how the work of theatre practitioners, Brecht and Boal, can help your playbuilding. 

The work of Brecht and Boal can help me in playbuilding in many ways. Firstly, the development of epic theatre by Brecht was a great way of showing various socio-cultural issues which can be linked to playbuilding. Brechtean theatre is not a realistic theatre. It demonstrates realistic issues but the style of theatre is very improvised. The sound effects are made up on stage. Boal,  a Brazilian practitioner and play-writer was best known for his 'theatre of the oppressed'. In this style of theatre the spectators become spect-actors, joining in with the action on stage. The work of these two practitioners provide a wide perspective for playbuilding.

What was Brecht's main aim in wring and producing plays?
Brecht's main aim in writing and producing plays was to make the audience think. He wanted to embody knowledge in a compelling manner. He created a phenomenon called 'alienation'. When an audience is alienated from the actors, they feel for the characters. He narrated parts of the play rather than acting them. Brectean theatre also often used songs to portray their action. He would have actors interfere between the action to explain to the audience what was going on. Sometimes there were people on stage with placards that showed the date and time of the event.


What is the main purpose of Boal's theatre of oppression? 
Boal's main purpose for the theatre of oppression was to, like Brecht, 'change people'. In this type of theatre, the spectators become 'spect-actors', who join in, contribute ideas and take something away from that play. Boal created three types of theatre- Invisible theatre where a script is written for a targeted audience but its performed in a place that is not a theatre but a regular place like a playground. Forum theatre is where the spectators know that they are watching theatre. There will be an issue that is raised and the spectators will observe the scene and decide what is wrong with it. Lastly Image theatre is where the actors create a series of tableau that demonstrates a particular issue.


Which three of Brecht's techniques appeals most to you and why? 
Three of Brecht's techniques that appeal most to me are :-
1) Using songs to depict the action- this technique appeals to me because it adds a contrasting entertainment to the serious issues of the play.
2) Having actors interrupt the play and explain or narrate what was going on- This technique appeals to me because sometimes you don't know what exactly is going on in a political theatre play because at times of action everything that happens is created on stage including the sound effects. This sometimes disrupts the audience, which is why it is good to have people pause the action in the middle and explain what was going on.
3) Retelling the story with a different ending- this technique particularly appeals to me because it gives you various different perspectives to that one story. It could be a happy or a sad ending depending on the way you change it.


Which of Boal's three types of theatre appeals to you most and why?
Out of all three, i think invisible theatre appeals to me the most because the audience is not at all aware that they are watching theatre. The actors will uncover what is going on and why it is happening and it is up to the targeted audience to uncover new perspectives the scene. Also, invisible theatre is not actually performed on a stage so it is even harder to tell that it is a play. Instead they perform it infront of a live audience. For example, if the actors are in playground and one actor starts picking on a much smaller and vulnerable looking actor, showing the issue of bullying, it is up to the bystanders to step in and speculate the scene.

ABDUCTED GIRLS IN NIGERIA

In this lesson we were put into out pizza groups and we had to sit and analyse a sheet about the abducted girls in Nigeria. We had to read through the sheet and pick out the main bits. There was a narrator and he told everybody what character they were. I was four people becuase actors in political theatre played mulitple roles.