London Riots - motial Termoil Beginning

For this lesson, we made a new scene and it’s based on a young man in a dodgy environment in a London based area. In the piece we show that he’s loved, hated, misguided and influenced by those around him. And due to all these emotions we’ve named the movement part ‘emotional turmoil’. It starts off with a bit of ballet and personally I find it rather hard as I’m not used to doing any type of dancing. However, we used a bit of street dancing with it which looked rather interesting as we combined them together. I found this just as hard as it was a lot for me to take in at once.

So far in our piece Ashley and Tom are working on a contact improvising piece. This is to represent the highs and lows in a friendship as well as a betrayal. Tom & Dan and Tom and I are working on a stage combat piece. This is to show the physical damage that friends or people you trust can hurt you and how it can lead to you not trusting anyone. Then Tom is going to be working on some physical theatre with Rhiannon and Lewis (separately). These two pieces will show how love can be deceiving and can manipulate you and also how close friends can betray you and belittle you.

Personally I feel as if this is going to be rather challenging as I’m not used to doing any dancing what so ever and especially Ballet and Street. However with the stage combat pieces, I’m going to have to work with Tom for a bit during lesson to make sure that we do the stage combat in a safe way so that there is little risk on Injury.

Trench exercise

In todays lesson, we were given split into groups of two and were given the task of giving a motiavational speech of some sort to persuade someone (mostly a young man) in the first world war to go over the trench and fight fo the country. In this scene I was working with Kai and together we decided that he would ply the scared young man and I'd play the officer or person who tries to get him over. For the speech I googled "motivational speeches" and found a speech that says:

"There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says “Morning, boys. How’s the water?” And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes “What the hell is water?”
(Source http://www.keepinspiring.me/7-motivational-graduation-speeches-that-will-inspire-you/#ixzz3rw4X1Q4l)

I thought that this speech was a really good piece to use as it's saying you don't really notice things around you and it may be clear unitl someone points it out. So using this speech I added in things such as "You see that young man over there, he's bringing shame on himself, he's not even fucking moving for christ sake."
"What would your dad say if he could see you rigt now being a little pansy boy and not being the man that he wanted to raise".

MP's and Parliment during the London Riots

Ed Miliband
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7ES00MQY5w


David Cameron in Houses of Commons
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WqAiVErPCQM


David Cameron at Downing Street
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvbiEmlD6-s

London Riots - ill Monors Stimuli

For apart of our devised piece on the London Riots we are using the song 'ill manors' by Plan B. The whole concept of the song is that the Rich seem to look down or those who aren't as well educated as the poor with disgust and therefore make the struggle to make a living. It also shows what the gangs got up to during the riots and the chaos that they caused.


When we perform to this song we run around the room like monkeys, acting like a bunch of animals which is what the rioters were described as when they were out on the streets. We then go from acting like monkeys and animals to then stand up in a line, giving inappropriate gestures and maybe gang signs. By doing this it makes our audience feel as if they are the police, trying to make them feel threatened and slightly scared.


We also use a song called "playing with fire" by Plan B. We use this at the very beginning of the piece as it shows what the gang life includes. It shows that people will do anything that they are told and  no matter how much they are abused and beaten, they will show loyalty and devotion to their gang.


Here is the link to both songs:


Playing With Fire - Plan B
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6Xe3CMzMIw


ill Manors - Plan B
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8GvLKTsTuI

London Riots

For one of our first lessons we looked into what gangs were like during the London riots. We focused and watched a video on what the police had encountered during the event in early August. The police encountered horrific incidents and has left many scarred for life. It all started off by the death of Mark Duggan. What started off with peaceful protesting quickly escalated into violent protesting over the first few days. Police cars were being bricked and buses were being set on fire and also many local business's were being looted and destroyed.


Over the course of the 5 days (6th - 11th August 2011) there were many shortages of police in certain areas as many police departments were having to send a majority of the officers into the more dangerous and more rowdy parts of London in which was being vandalised and burnt. Sooner the looters and rioters realised that the police were taking a long time to stop the crimes that they were committing, and therefore got more cocky with it. Taking more and targeting bigger superstores such as Curry's and PC world.


Here is a BBC video in which explains what the police encountered during their time trying to protect the streets of London.


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

5 photos/video clips that could be used in the piece

The first picture is a representation of physical theatre, I would like to include this in our piece as I like the use of physical theatre and also it could be used effectivley in our piece, showing the audience what we are able to do.

The second picture represents movement which we could use to show emotions of certain charcters and also we can tell a story using this technique and skill.

For an idea, I thought that we could use a scripted scene or piece as it is a lot easier to base a scene on and also it has a bit more of a structure to what we do. However, the issue or difficult part of this is when we have to make up the script from scratch.

Costume is something that i'm unclear on at the moment, however I'd really like to have an all black costume as it can leave the audience in a bit of a struggle and make them think about what's going on and as too whi is playing who but more importantly who could be the heirachy of the goup.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-hzoBUac9U - Finally I like the whole idea of using a soud scape because it can really set a scene without having to use any movement or facial expressions, it's just the voice and lease to a slight susspence.

Focusing on Language

Today in Mr Webb's lesson, we watched a video of the play 'blackwatch' which is based on a group of young, normal Scottish men who end up going out to a location which is similar to places like Iraq and Afghanistan. The purpose of the exercise was to get an understanding of the language that was and is still used in war zones. To me, it was an eye opener as it seemed rather accurate however it allows people to have an insight of what it's like to be in the army and in those war zones. It made me chuckle as it seems to be a kind of the soldier humour (my oldest brother is in the army and sounded exactly like something he would say half the time)

 After this we were then given the task of writing letters home but in a world war 1 period of time. To me this was rather challenging as I didn't really have a clue as to what to write, however I know what kind of language I would use. Once I figured out what the letter would include, I wrote about going over the edge of the trench and how scared my character was and how he misses home etc.

Using our Voice

In Tuesday's lesson, we were given the task of picking a crisis from our big brainstorm and then selecting an incident and then working on it, giving a story just by using our voice. We chose to do piece base on the Hillsborough Disaster. In the piece, we decided to perform in a pitch black room as it allows our audience to imagine what it was like with the sounds and make them feel as if they were actually at the football grounds. By doing this we came up with a line or phrase that we then repeated over and over again. It went from someone saying "dad" in a scared mannor to then someone crying for help. We then broke into a silence by someone screaming. After this we then gave facts about the incident, as some people in the audience might not have realised that our piece was based on this incident. We gave facts like:

• The Date it happened
• What teams were playing each other
• How many people died
• How many were injured
• What stage of the FA Cup the teams were playing in
• How many police officers changed their statement

Here are some photos of the inncident to show what we were trying to capture in our audience's mind.

                      

London Riots - Police Theropy Starter

Before today’s lesson we were asked to watch a video on YouTube called ‘The riots in their own words part two’, which included people of the public who had recorded the events of what happened in London from their perspective. Then in the lesson we were given the task of being police officers in a therapy session and how they dealt with being on the streets during the London Riots. Like the rioters interview that I had worked on, I liked to improvise as it helps me get into character and but give more realistic/ natural response. In the interview Lorna asked me questions as to how my character was feeling on the day and what sort of things he had encountered whilst being on the front line of the police whilst rioters were running around everywhere.  My response was based on what I had seen on the BBC documentary and was based on how the police would react.

London Riots - Rioter interview

In today’s lesson or objective was to come up with an interview scene with a rioter. I was in a scene with Dan and Lorna and I played the Rioter. At first I wasn’t sure as to how pursue the role as most of the rioters seemed rather thick (from watching the bbc documentary in my spare time called “The riots on their own words) however, some of the people that participated in the riots actually done it for other reasons than just wanting a new pair of Nike shoes. Some people participated in the riots for financial reasons and other people joined in because they were pressured into it by some of their mates. So for my choice of how to come up with a back story, I had a range of pathways I could go down.  So I decided to play a young man that was pressured into looting by his mates but has really bad attitude problems and decides it’s funny to mess around with the police. When showing it to the class I wanted to improvise my answers as it helps me get into character.

Our class showed each other what we have come up with in our groups and I feel as if that it helped everyone in the class as it helps us get influenced by each other and give each other ideas as to how we might be able to improve something we have worked on or how something goes well in the piece.

Brainstorms for the Armenian Genocide and views on the WestbrookBaptist Church

Here are 2 brain storms which I have made based around a few of the events that we mentioned as a group for the 'humanity in crisis' bainstorm. The following ideas are either apart of the actual tragedy or words that would be associated with them.

Research into the Riots - The People

In today’s lesson we cut out and glued images that we found in our last lesson into our book and annotated them. The images include a burning bus, a hooded youth walking in the middle of all the chaos, a gang all walking somewhere to maybe loot or cause trouble and a lady jumping out of a burning building. The reason we done this is so that we could write down our own interpretation of the picture but also so that it could maybe help us with any ideas for costume or the way that we walk (movement). I think that whenever I look at the pictures, I feel as if they could be anyone, I feel as if I could be prejudging someone who’s respected in their community, however that’s their problem.

 

Destroying public transport as a message to say it needs to be cheaper, or could be a political message behind it.

Looking to be an alpha male as he tries to look intimidating by covering his face and wearing a common piece of clothing that is known as the Adidas Joggers.

Looters thinking they own the streets. They would roam around in big groups like this and would organise any crime they might commit in that night.

Jumping to safety. Community coming together to get each other get to safety