Issue time: Rehearsals, Conventions and Concepts are flying everywhere

Description:

On Monday, instead of finishing our demo versions of the first product for the IB, the presentation of a convention from a specific type of theatre, we discussed on the concept of the school play. Many ideas appeared, however either of them were the perfect one that fitted. On Tuesday and Thursday were the school rehearsals where participants interpreted different titles related to the scenes of the school play with the help of the form IV years that were directing them. The difference between Tuesday and Thursday’s rehearsals was that on Thursday while doing balancing the space as always, students were shown warm up exercises by Aileen that will apport to the physicality of their future characters. On Wednesday, we continued finishing with the presentation of our demo versions. On Thursday’s afternoon, we had our pre-production meeting where we made the final decision of our concept with outer help, “El destino es ciego, cualquiera puede guiarlo” which will be the central theme of our play.  

Analysis:

By sharing  the diverse acting conventions witnessed in Indian theatre, specifically Kathakali style;  we reached the main conclusion that all conventions have a strong link between each other, complementing, meaning that they can’t be taught by separate but joined as a group of conventions.This will be a bit difficult and challenging to achieve since we are only 6 ib former students that have studied different concepts highlighted in indian theatre that have to teach these to approximately 40 students in less than one month time. An example that I learned was that eye movements shared a strong connection with the mudras. This is since “Where the hand go, there goes the eye” because without the eye movements, the mudras lose their whole significance since “the face is the index of the mind” reinforcing the idea that the mudras are meaningless without a face expression that in according to Indian theatre, the focus is on the eyes. Therefore, eye movements are a difficult topic because they had to complement with the different mudras that conform in the diversity of hand gestures because in a slight movement in the hand,  changes the significance, affecting directly the movement of the eye.

Regarding the kalaripayattu body movements that inspire themselves in the fighting tactics of a wide range of animals,  will be difficult to teach the young actors since warm-up of muscles nad strength is difficult to have in a small amount of time. Moreover, the reason of this is that it is difficult to maintain a same posture in place since it requires high muscular strength and resistance for being able to hold still in a specific position of an animal. As a result, if there is a slight change in the posture, the audience’s credibility will weaken and confusion will be achievable because they are not able to understand completely the animal portrayal. This can be a constant problem if students do not focus and constantly miss the rehearsals because the warm up and maintenance of posture depends on the quantity of practice they have had previously. Without a good quantity of skills acknowledged by the warm-up exercises and practices of different postures of animals, our animal environment will not be transmitted as we expected it to do.

In order to present the different interpretations of scenes, we formed previous idealized groups depending on the actor’s possible or chosen character for the play. By this formation, we discovered different abilities each student had since by being given a specific scene that would fit them, they developed different acting skills and interpretations full of innovation. In the case of other students that did not have a concrete character, by placing them in scenes as try outs we discovered true potentials that made us reflect on the selection of characters.  However, in some cases, people were not able to develop their physicality to the maximum point. In order to avoid this, we must do more flexibility or warm-up exercises that will help with the development of the portrayal of different characters in scenes.

The decision making of our final concept was considered a very difficult task because we were not given a great amount of time to think of a proper stimulus or visualization of the play that will help us adapt it in the correct way. Instead, we inversed the process. We began by reading and adapting the play first, without previously reach a concrete concept that will be highlighted throughout not only the play but in the design elements too. I have to admit, it was a difficult process that we faced since we had many disagreements on the concept. In addition, we couldn't reach quickly that tiny spark that will contribute with the final decision of our play. Moreover, we were able to create a vision of the portrayal of the play, but having to reach to a concept that is similar at some point to a vision was not easily achievable, as I had imagined.

Reflection: 

Concepts are considered transcendental ingredients in the creation of a play; they are the core piece that the play relies on. We were made many questions to ourselves to reach our concept “el destino es ciego, cualquiera puede guiarlo”. However, it was not simply THAT easily as we thought before since we had to inverse the process. We had to reflect on our adaptation once again as we haven’t ever did before in such depth in order to rescue our concept that was in the bottom of the ocean of ideas. Questions of “what are we trying to transmit to the audience with our play?”, “why is our play adapted in this specific way?”, “With which reason were these changes made regarding the scenes?” and more constantly began to arise in our minds. Many questions leaded to many ideas that were usually mixed up because we had to reach to a concept that highlighted the main ideas of our play.

 This leads me to several questionings. Have we actually reached the proper concept or have we left something behind? Alternatively, how can we join important features in a specific line that reflects the entire storyline of the play?  Finally, after these questions, this main concern has constantly been in my mind: Is a concept actually essential as it looks? Because we were able to idealize an entire play completely having only a vision and having by accident forgotten the concept.