#devisingprocess

“Monday, it’s just another morning

Tuesday, I only feel like living

Dancing along with every song”

 Time to pull together to make this show happen, with the help of the amazing Dalida!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFOe5sGnQK0

Monday, March 6th 2017

Rehearsal in Eliot Hall: we rehearsed our various dances quite successfully. Then we knocked at Josh’s door for the risk assessment, and finally we invaded a computer room to start creating the flyers!

 “Laissez-moi danser, laissez-moi

Laisser-moi danser, chanter en liberté, tout l’été

Laissez-moi danser, laissez-moi

Allez jusqu’au bout du rêve“

 Tuesday, March 7th 2017

We tried to re-work the weakest scenes, of which Tendai’s and Nayantara’s final scenes, and also mine, “Two Years”. But I felt that every time I was doing this bit, something was missing. Changing clothes is too simple, too flat. So Nayantara suggested me to lie on the sofa and change clothes there. I would not be allowed to sit. Rehearsing with this new configuration was hard, because we didn’t have the real sofa for the moment so we had to rehearse with three classroom chairs, which is quite unstable. But there is something with this new scene, it is quite sexy, calm and odd. I will try to develop those feelings in the coming days.

Wednesday, March 8th 2017

I wasn’t supposed to be in Canterbury today, so we ended up having no room to rehearse in. We finally found a little space for our run, but it wasn’t very satisfying. This run was about 57 minutes long, but we know there are scenes that are a bit too long and flat, so we’ll fix all that very soon and we are really looking forward to Pablo’s sound advice tomorrow!

Thursday, March 9th 2017

Supervised rehearsal with Pablo: once more the energy wasn’t fully there, and we also had to stop several times to switch sounds and lights. I also feel now that the transitions are not really working, we’re trying to make them flow but maybe this is one of the reasons why our piece lacks dynamism. Pablo highlighted this issue and also asked us to question the weakest scenes. Are they really relevant for our performance? My company is meeting tomorrow again, and I feel it’s going to be a long day.

Friday, March 10th 2017

We spent the entire rehearsal time thinking about a new order. Once again, we put all our sections on little sheets of paper and each of us presented a new structure. After many discussions, some disagreement and a lot of patience, we finally managed to have a “new Lovebirds”.

We will add projected titles and not-finished love stories to enhance the dynamic of the performance and avoid naturalistic transitions.

We gave up a few scenes: love potion (which didn’t bring anything to our piece and even slowed it down) and my slow motion running. Still I do not agree on cutting Nayantara’s coward scene, as it is one of the “most contemporary” scenes of our show.

Sunday, March 12th 2017

5 ½ hour rehearsal in Aphra: The most important thing to do right now was to devise our new transition or “incomplete love stories”. Key of success is to tell one’s story with a certain pace, directly after another one’s story without cutting and without any pause. This was a very hard exercise for me, as I am not very good at improvising at the moment and I also had to face language barriers. Staying in the dynamic was therefore very complicated, and I started worrying about it because I do not want to let my colleagues down if anything goes wrong with my texts during the final performance. I will rehearse these bits several times to be more comfortable.

We will include these “transitions” three times: At the very beginning of our performance (before introducing ourselves); the popcorn scene becomes a part of it as well; the ending scene (after the film and before the final dance).

Tuesday, January 31st 2017

Our third week of rehearsals began with Melissa’s feedback and advice. She enjoyed listening to our three monologues; however, she underlined the fact that Nayantara’s text, which is about passion and the ecstasy of falling in love, doesn’t really fit with the two other pieces of writing. It is not the same topic. A solution would then be to find two other monologues that could intertwine with 9’s and to save the two others for another part of the performance.

As for my performance, Melissa felt confused about the focus. Indeed, it is about three boys whom I met during a party and who are soon attracted to me. I may then find three members of the audience and keep an eye contact with every of them, each time I mention one of the three male characters. Melissa added that my text shall be shorter.

Furthermore, if we all share our stories at the same time, we should do similar things (ex: domestic tasks, or talking directly to the audience, etc…).

Melissa also suggested a scene about the madness/foolishness of love. As for our rough idea about a Bollywood dance in a section on romantic love or clichés, we need to get some structure around our writing.

As the end of this session drew near, Melissa gave us a task: we share our stories while sitting. We still cut each other during our story telling. Nayantara starts, but neither Tendai nor I seem to pay attention to Nayantara. Sometimes I do look at her, but it is very brief. This alternative was very interesting as it gave another dimension and dynamic to this scene. However, Melissa highlighted the importance of being careful with pace: we must share the same kind of energy.

 After this meeting full of sound advice, we wrote down a list of the sections we would like to put in our performance:

-          Ecstasy of love

-          Not finding the right love

-          Heartbreak

-          Sex (empowerment; vagina)

-          Getting out of the friend zone

-          Unrequited love

-          Flings and rebounds

-          I’m not too young

-          Marriage

-          Societal pressures

Our assignment is now to produce pieces of writing for each section, so that we gather enough material which we can build on.

  Wednesday, February 1st 2017

We all came to this session with a new monologue. Mine is a paragraph from the novel called Indigo Spell by Richelle Mead. The quote is about the feelings of a woman being kissed by her lover from the first time. I read it out loud, as if it were my own work and experience. My colleagues fell for it, until I revealed the name of the writer. We agreed that using author’s texts within our show is a relevant idea.

10 brought spoken words that fit better in other sections such as heartbreaks or unrequited love.

9’s text was about a friend who always gave her advice and pushed her to find the right love. This monologue corresponds to the section about the inability of finding the right love. Moreover, this text could probably fit with my story about the three boys at the party.

 After our talk yesterday, we thought of starting our performance with a Bollywood dance. It would definitely set high energy for what follows!

 10 rewrote her very first monologue which is about three boys with whom it didn’t work out. This time she used the 2nd person, a rectification that shows the acknowledgment of her past lover. She tells them/public directly why it couldn’t work.

During this time of rehearsal, we also deliberated about how to link each section to the other. We may use interludes/transitions between all sections which may be based on one common theme: the inability of finding the right one.

 Thursday, February 2nd 2017

Unfortunately, we are once more not very lucky with the keys: today there was a problem of organisation at the security, so we lost a bit of time…

This session started in a very cheerful way! Indeed, it was our first Bollywood dance rehearsal! Bollywood perfectly integrates our show theme, as this dance has sexual overtones and refers to desire and sensuality.

Then we had a great discussion about the potential presence of male characters on stage:

1)      10 would like to bring different male performers at different points of the show, each time for a short term only, for dialogues for example. I am not totally convinced by this idea as it would give a face to the protagonists of our stories. 9 also worries about the fact that those men could become props if we don’t use them enough.

2)      My idea was therefore to enter ourselves the roles of the men during our stories: it would be more performative and original. Moreover, it would allow to keep the secret regarding the characters’ identity and the audience would freely guess how they would look like. If we perform it well, the spectators would be able to see the male characters via our female bodies.

3)      9 suggested an alternative: In order to bring 10’s text into life, she could take a man from the audience. The implication of someone from the public fits with the subject Unrequited love: indeed, 10 would hug him or take his hand and hold it during the entire recording of a male voice. The embarrassment of the spectator would then remind of 10’s crush who didn’t really care for her.

We adjusted our list of sections, here’s the (definite?) one:

-          Ecstasy

-          Inability of finding the right love (=> interludes)

-          Heartbreak

-          Sex

-          Flings and rebounds

-          Unrequited love

-          Marriage

-          Societal pressure

Friday, February 3rd and Sunday, February 5th 2017.

First of all, we re-organised our deadlines. Then we learnt the second part of our Bollywood dance. It already looks great! We might all be already on stage at the beginning of the performance, doing different everyday tasks.

We also spent a lot of time on my monologue about Unrequited love called “Two Years”. My idea was to share my story next to a fan, an almanac in my hand. I would replace the pages of the almanac as the story unfolds, so that the fan would “blow the days away”. Yet 10 found this scene too two dimensional and too flat. Also, I entered a delicate persona, which is fine because “delicate and pretty people also experience bad times”. However, her request was to break it through. The explanation of my love is wistful and dainty: I should therefor break this mood halfway through, engage more dynamic and a more precise pace.

9 and 10 thus asked me to shout the whole monologue. It was a delicate exercise as I am quite a silent person and I often forgot to maintain the big voice. Still, this time my performance was more engaging, my anger even made sense in some parts of my story.

I then had another idea for this scene: why not use food, eat until I am stuffed until I am stuffed while sharing my story? 9 and 10 suggested another task: I should improvise a baking show in the kitchen, sharing the recipe of one of my favourite cakes. I have small confidence in my ability to speak correct English spontaneously, so this task quickly became a big challenge for me. Improvising in English is hard for me and I felt very confused. I then decided to try this baking scene once more, this time in French. My diction and my pace were quite better; even if 9 and 10 could not understand everything I said, they confirmed that I seemed to enjoy more my task and therefore I was more eye-catching and interesting. Now I need to trust my English a bit more and to allow myself to make mistakes. My colleagues suggested that if I have any big doubts, I am allowed to use French words: moreover, it may give some originality and good spirit in my talk.

9 and 10 also worked on their monologues about unrequited love:

10 danced with music, surrounded by what looked like male clothes; put some on; she finally threw them with anger on the floor and store some others in a backpack. She then came into the audience and without any words, chose a man from the public. She brought him on stage and took his other hand. A recording of a male’s voice rose while she kept staring at the man. She started dancing again, and finally let go his hand with a disenchanted expression. She took the backpack, gave it roughly to him and begged the spectator to go with a simple wave.

9 did her monologue while running on a treadmill. She pressed the buttons relevantly at different parts of her speech to change the velocity of the treadmill: she got more tired and less trustworthy along with the difficulty of the exercise, until she got exhausted.

Moreover, small texts appeared on a screen behind her as she read her monologue, a sort of conscience objecting her allegations and proclaiming the unwanted truth. Still she didn’t notice the board until the very end, when she finally saw the last word.

 See you next week!

2nd week, very busy week! My peers and I are on the same wavelength, so I’m very excited and am looking forward for our next rehearsals!

 Monday, January 23rd 2017

Nayantara led this session and shared 4 exercises.

Creating a set

First we were asked to create a set. We all thought it would look like a student’s flat, with a kitchen on the right, a bedroom in the centre and toilets/bathroom on the left. But time after time the bed changed place, finally became a sofa, then three chairs. The toilets are put in the foreground, as we think the audience should be closer to that very intimate space. We put a board at the back, it would allow us to write things on it. It can also be a screen, or a screen hiding another space behind. Finally we came up with this (not definitive) plan:

This exercise was important as it enabled us to show each other how the set looks like in our minds. Moreover. It is very interesting to cross our ideas, everyone can indeed bring a relevant aspect, so that everyone agrees on how the stage would finally look like.

Telling stories within this set

We were asked to share personal stories about love and relationship. For example, I told my colleagues about a German medicine student I met during a party in a club, as I was preparing drinks in the kitchen. This exercise is interesting because we are now aware of how we can move within this space we have just created and telling real stories while doing something else is not a very simple exercise.

Repeat and rewind

9 asked us to think about one situation in our lives that . One performer then gives directions to their colleagues, who have to recreate the memory.

Unfortunately, we lost a lot of time waiting for another space to work in because someone forgot to bring the keys back. It is a pity, but we tried to use this “free time” as much as we could to plan our deadlines and our next meetings.

 Tuesday, January 24th 2017

Time for 10 to share with us her thoughts and exercises!

Walk, take position, freeze, start a conversation

Two performers move within the space and can do whatever they want: jump, dance, imitate a situation, run… The third performer stands aside and watches the scene. If she says stop, the two performers freeze and she takes one’s place. The removed performer says “move” and the two others start walking again. At some point one can start a conversation. It can be a memory of a situation, a fictional story. It happened that at this moment we all discussed of love in a very philosophical way, trying to get different points of view about subjects such as “Is there one single great love?” or “I would never be able to experience a relationship without a phase of passion”, etc. The performers still switch with each other. 10 ended this exercise after one of my thoughts that she found moving: “I don’t want to be alone. I’ve been lonely for too long.”

Rap Challenge

10 put some instrumental rhythmic music in the background and asked everyone to write a rap song with a love theme of course. Then we would have to sing it out loud. This was a very fun time! Here’s my work:

Walking on the pavement, coming back from a party

Listening to your moves as you are walking next to me

British and romantic, it is hard to explain

The fact that I can never put you out of my brain

 Now we arrived, hugging goodbye

Your eyes are the colour of a deep blue sky

But then you smiled

As your girl arrived

 Love is big, love is cruel

A bright light from nowhere that is stealing your soul

Love is huge, love is all

I know what I’m saying I’ve never lived it at all

 But let me tell you something

Now I’m ready for good

I’m willing and I’m hoping

To live someday

 L’Amour.

 We ended up this lovely rehearsal answering questions 10 wrote on little papers. A next step to get to know each other a bit more.

 Wednesday, January 25th 2017

Once more, we missed one hour of rehearsal because of a problem of reservation: another group had booked the same place at the same time.

Because I really enjoyed one task that Daisy and Pablo gave to us last term, I decided to reuse it with our theme. So I asked 9 and 10 to write down two lists: the first one would contain sentences that always begin with “I want”, the second one follows the same outline but with the words “I’m afraid”. The results were very interesting and revealed our different aspirations of love. 10 said herself that she often used to tick boxes to find the one that would fit most to her and her family’s desires and convictions. But now she tends to get rid of this habit, even though the lists still showed a certain affinity to this method. 9 wants to have conversations with her boyfriend, she doesn’t want to get bored, she would like someone who fits with her intellectual side. As for myself, it turned out that I profoundly lack physical sensations and a presence by my side. Still it seems that I am not ready yet for those emotional attachments, which is quite paradoxical. (See my two lists above)

Then 9 asked us to write a monologue about everything we want. We just had time to read them out loud when the session ended. We would rework the text for tomorrow.

 Thursday, January 26th 2017

This time we made our monologues within our temporary set.

I was the one who started the task. We put some party music on. I tried to put some action into my reading and walked through the stage. However, my moves were quite awkward as I didn’t really know what to do. 9 then asked me to try once more without moving. I was in the centre of the room and was only allowed to take one or two steps during my speech, actions which would make sense within my story. 9 could feel my tension while I was trying not to move. It is indeed quite difficult not to move one’s legs. 9 and 10 thought that the style of my piece of writing (short sentences: “Huge space. Students dancing. Loud music.”) with this task have got a lot of potential. We could maybe use lights in order to create duplicated human shadows and a party atmosphere and add some music.

Topic of B’s monologue: “Why am I always attracted to the wrong people?”

Then it was Tendai’s turn. She recited her text with background music while mopping the floor, which created a funny scene. Adding a task gives another dimension to the text.

Topic of 10’s monologue: “I sometimes feel like a mess, but I’m definitely ready to fall in love.”

9 wanted to break the traditional Indian ideas about how girls should experience love (virginity, arranged marriage…). She therefore laid down a scarf on the floor of the toilet room. On the scarf, various jewels and bindis. She sat on the toilet pan and told her story while putting her traditional jewelleries on her. We concluded that her text was far too short; indeed, she was very interesting to listen to, and because of her task, we focused more on the acts than on her story, which is a pity. The traditional jewels are a strong image; even though it doesn’t fit in this scene, it is a striking concept that she can exploit later on. Alternative: 9 really uses the toilets and gets off her trousers. She could even flush at the end of her story! This deep intimacy provides a parallel for the intimacy of her subject: kissing and touching in her room.

Topic of 9’s monologue: “Defilement by feeling desire and loving in the Indian culture”

 Today we also had our second session with Pablo. We showed him our monologues, one after the other. Pablo then asked us to repeat our monologues, however this time we would all be on stage and share bits of our monologues one after the other. It gave a different pace and dimension to the scene.

During the creation of our set, we had this idea of a 4th female protagonist, a flatmate who is missing because she fell in love. Although Pablo agreed that setting the space together was a nice task, he worries that the idea of a fourth housemate is too restrictive, along with the scenery of the bathroom/livingroom/kitchen. He explained that the set is not very intimate, at least it is less intimate than when I stared into Pablo’s eyes during my monologue. He thus suggested us to forget the setting for the moment as it seems to be a cul-de-sac, so that we can particularly focus on our creative work. Maybe a solution would be to explore different spaces, to make a simpler set and to optimise the props.

9 underlined the fact that the space wouldn’t be linked to the housemates only; maybe it is more about domesticity. Pablo then suggested to allow the presence of everyday objects in a less obvious, representational space which would not be a set. 9 expanded on this idea by suggesting to create a representational set that would be broken down during the performance.

Furthermore, music isn’t needed for the moment. Instead of this, I personally have to raise the volume of my presence (and of my voice!), as my presence on stage is too bland and discreet at present. He asked me to develop a persona, for example the persona of the French girl being abroad. Moreover, he didn’t really get the aim of my story: three boys who like me but whom I don’t like. I shall rewrite it and make it shorter.

As for 10, instead of cleaning the floor, she could try to cleanse herself: wash her hands, or her hair, or her body? It would make the scene more poetic and symbolic: she washes to remove dirt and in the same way, to get rid of her thoughts.

9 should maybe cast the audience as the lover while telling her story. She should therefore use the second person instead of the third.

 That’s all for this week! Week 3 (or 15), here we come!

I took the lead for our first session of rehearsal. I presented four exercises:

 The drifting hug

2 performers are facing each other. They hug, close their eyes, move away and step back, still facing each other. Now there is a 33-feet distance between them and they shall try to find each other and hug again. (When there are several couples, sometimes it can happen that they reform a pair with the wrong partner).

This is a very simple, warm exercise to begin with. This led us to think about involving the audience in our show (we could ask them to hug for example).

The argument

2 performers are facing each other. Not a word is spoken. They look at each other without any particular expression. One pushes the other very gently. It can be a shoulder, an arm, the abdomen, a leg… They do this several times, but every time a bit harder and with more fierceness. The pauses in between get shorter. The other performer doesn’t react. When it becomes too violent, this one can shout in a natural way. The exercise comes to an end when the second protagonist pushes the first one back.

We all agreed that this exercise was a good warm up. It was very interesting as it was difficult for 9 and 10 to perpetrate violence to each other, even in a safe way and a professional framework. We had to repeat this exercise thrice and would like to retry it at another session.

Conscience

This exercise is about creating a scene. It can be anywhere. One character is a girl, another is a boy. One of them wants to seduce the other. The 3rd performer plays the seducer’s conscience, giving recommendation and reacting to the character’s doings.

This exercise is the first that really led us to a devising process. We all liked the presence of the conscience and would like to develop it during the next rehearsals.

The chairs

There are 3 chairs on stage. The first one refers to the state “I love you”, the second one to “I hate you” and the third one “I’m afraid”. 3 performers sit on these chairs. They should say their words according to the chair they sit on. They can say those words whenever they want and as many times as they want but they must change their tone continuously. When someone want to take another seat, they can stand up and go to this chair. The other performer should then make way for them and take the vacant seat.

The image of 3 chairs on stage is very powerful, moreover if they are put side by side: maybe this could be the beginning or the ending image of our performance. We would like to begin our show with us three on stage.

 The second part of this session was consecrated to the sharing our personal stories about love and relationships, telling about our first love, our first kiss, our beliefs, etc. This discussion allowed us to know each other a bit more, to establish a climate of confidence and to imagine what we would like to include in our performance.

See you next week!