Group Piece Exercises

In this session we got put into three different groups that the duets all fell into. My partner and I were put into the group that looked at couples and how they were affected by the war. Straight away we started to look at the common themes and how we could create a larger group piece through the exploration of exercises. One of the themes that came through really strongly was a spiritual take our piece and looking at the pausing of time when one person dies and their reunion. A physical way of exploring this was through doing sections of our duet by ourselves. This really highlighted the loneliness and the huge gap that was left after the other person gone, consequently this lead into the first exercise.

Exercise one

This exercise started by us creating an Elysian Fields atmosphere within the room. This was made through us all getting complete control and focus of our bodies and walking around the room with all our bodies being connected. Once the focus and calm hit in the room and each person we all fell into a trans-like state. I think that this was really interesting and effective as it create the sense of an empty limbo between life and death. From an audience perspective I think that it would be really visually pleasing as it clearly creates another worldly feel on stage, building the tension on stage reflecting the tension within the characters waiting for their loved ones. When doing it I felt like I was moving into this trans-like state and that we were moving around in a limbo world where nothing really happens and time is frozen. It felt empty and that I was moving in a nothingness waiting for something to happen.

We then moved this exercise on to where half the group, for example the girls, stopped and did their section of the duet by themselves while the boys continued to walk in this empty world. I think that this is really shows the stories of the world that we have created and the characters and the pain that they are going through. I think that it highlighted the loss of the characters and how they have been stuck going through the motions of their life without the person they love the most. We then made the transitions from the walking to the movement sections have an objective and a meaning to it to push through the movement and give more depth to the stories being told. These meanings and stories were showing how the person died or got moved to this world, for the men it was how they died in war and as a woman I choose to use heartbreak as a driving force through the piece. I think that this really gave the sections more meaning and that they showed the development of the story so that the audiences can invest in the characters more.

Exercise 2

This exercise was also based on the Elysian Fields atmosphere and the trans-like walking. However this time half the group walked around the space while the others tried to balance and put pieces of paper onto their bodies and keeping them there through balancing. I think that this created a really interesting piece of theatre for audiences to watch and to use as symbolism as I think that it held a lot of stories and meanings within it. For me personally I think that the different pieces of paper could be written on with the labels that the men who went to war or the women who stayed at home were stereotyped with. I think that this would have shown how when they died the personal stories were lost and only the stereotypes and labels were left and remembered by the public. I think that this is really prominent for our performance as we are looking back and remembering these people but how much do we really know other than the labels.

Another idea that was seen in this exercise was that the pieces of paper were the letters that families and friends sent to one another while they were at war. Furthering this people putting the letters on looked as if they were trying to send it or say something but they were never sure if they reached there loved one and that there are so many things left unsaid. I also think that the paper that falls onto the floor holds a huge amount of emotion as it could symbolised that the letters never did reach the people. I think that this could be a really powerful section in our piece as it holds a lot of meaning and I think it could really pull the audience in to set up the piece for the audience.