Just beginning the official IB products... Tasks 2 and 3

Description:
This week after handing in the first draft of our director's notebook mock, we went to the theatre's department library to search for plays and support material that we find interesting and useful for the official director's notebook. Also, we were introduced the IB product 3: the research product where we investigate about a convention of a theatre tradition of our choice, it's historical and theoretical context and stage it in a specific moment of theatre to prove the IB our knowledge and application of the convention chosen. As a guideline, we saw one exemplary video of this product.

Analysis:

On Thursday as soon as we handed in our first draft of the demo version of the director's notebook, we went to the theatre department's library to search for the possible plays we could use in our official IB product 2. Honestly, when I was searching, I had no expectations at all but just to find an interesting play I can stage next year. However, something curious about my random decision-making was that both of the plays chosen had one structure element in common, a plot developed from the perspective of a female character. In both "Desdemona" and "Eurydice”, Othello's and Orpheus strength masks the marginalized characters of Desdemona and Eurydice, however, Paula Vogel and Sarah Ruhl empowers them, giving them a voice so they can be in charge of controlling their destiny. Thus as a theatre maker, I have learned by reading more than one play as the IB recommends, I was able to find my interest in plays which the female characters are in battle for their feminist ideals.  

On the other side, we were introducted the IB product 3 which is the research project. One of the limitations of this task is the theatre traditions list we are given to choose from, being restricted to choose only one instead of investigating by ourselves unfamiliar theatre traditions we wish to explore. By seeing the list, I was able to recognize that all the theatre traditions are from Asia or Europe, but none are western traditions of the Americas. However I believe that instead of  restricted to a definite list, the IB could suggest it as a guideline to either choose a theater tradition within it or give the liberty and independence to the students to search of theatre tradition of their own interest which isn't found in the list. However, we just need to face requirements of this task and accept the theatre tradition that interests us the most. As a another solution to this limitation,  in the moment of a connection with a theatre tradition , I could link my chosen tradition with a theatre tradition i liked and studied before which will be quite easy for us since in the previous years we have studied several theatre traditions and its conventions such as greek theatre, commedia dell' arte, latin comedy and more.

For now, I wanted to decide on a theatre style that is completely out of my comfort zone or one i haven't ever heared before.The IB by placing a list of unkown theatre traditions (not from the entire world...literally Asia)engages the students to do theatre practices in their own style to develop into future authentic theatre makers.It is true, there are so many unknown theatre traditions I didn't know they existed such as the noh theatre, rakugo sit down theatre, khon dance drama and several more.However, one  problem with these unfamiliar traditions is that some are more rare than the other ones, meaning that maybe there will be a limitation of resources(that will be definetely a problem).But as a theatre maker i have learned that I should be open minded to all the traditions despite if they have limited information. If I've chosen a rare tradition is because i will attempt my best and develop a coherent and creative practical research. But at the same time, I learned that we should choose a groundbreakening theatre tradition in which we are fully interested and at the same time know we will find information about it. This is proved in our demo versions we did for the kathakali tradition in preparation of the school play.Although kalaripayattu and purulia cchau conventions we hard to find, I was still extremely interested in knowing more about them. Thus encouraging me to still investigate about these conventions despite the limited resources. Comparing my demo on kalaripayattu and purulia cchau I have noticed that they are actually quite the same, except in school we have always presented workshops as if they were performances. For instance, during one school play rehearsal we formed groups where in each group we were leading IB masters of kathakali and demonstrated our workshoop as if it was a performance, gaining confidence instead of being nervous as if it was a formal presentation of an essay.