Lesson 4

Finding Wastage

We began the lesson by going around Selhurst and searching for things that have been throw out in order to make noises with in a soundscape in class. Firstly, I went to collect the bath which would be used in our piece before going around afterwards to find more stuff. As a class, we found a loads of things lying on the streets including a drum, a fridge, a tyre, an ironing board and a pram. This was interesting and I wondered how we could incorporate these into our performance. I think this will allow the piece to be aesthetically pleasing and captivating for an audience as the idea is original and strange. I enjoyed this activity because it taught me about the amount of stuff that gets wasted on a daily basis, as well as learning about what rubbish makes the most unique or most interesting noises.

Putting On/ Taking Off Layers

We were all told to bring in a few different layers and the girls were also asked to bring make up to wipe off.  The boys put on more layers in order to appear larger and more intimidating. This hides our insecurities of feeling small or unimportant. We put on the layer while maintaining a hard/ aggressive facial expression to emphasize manliness. This showed how men were preparing to go for a night out or a party. This was quite effective as it shows how we hide how we really feel and shows that we, as men, try to cover up our emotions and keep them hidden on the inside as it is considered weak or not masculine to express emotions such as fear or sadness. However, the message we were trying to convey wasn’t as clear as the girls’ message. I believe that the message needs to be made cleared in order to have a more significant impact on the audience. We could do this through spoken dialogue or making noises or having a small gesture to represent hiding our emotions before putting on our layers. The girls wore red lipstick and mascara to smear across their faces. They took off layers of clothing which contrasted to our piece. They looked upset and rejected as they had just come back from a party or a nightclub and felt ignored and lonely. The girls used their hands to rub their lipstick off their faces. I thought that taking off the layers while looking blankly straight ahead was very effective. This was because it really conveyed a powerful message about revealing our true emotions underneath. By taking off layers of clothing, the girls were exposing their bodies in order to show their vulnerability within society, this vulnerability can easily be abused as girls can be very sensitive. I believe this is an effective metaphor. As the gesture get out of control, we begin to question where the line between our everyday lives and our own control of our movement is. This is a metaphor for the line between sanity and being insane. The audience will question this and wonder when it is that we take things too far in society and are no longer able to control ourselves.

Gestures

The piece began with us all putting on several layers of clothes which completely contrasted to the girls, showing a clear divide in how different genders differ when hiding their emotions. We were all acting tough and manly. All the boys stood in a space around the room and we were told to create gestures as if we were going on a night out and wanted to hide our emotions and insecurities so that no one would suspect anything. We had to put on a mask to cover up and act overly manly, strong and intimidating. I created very stereotypical moves of a man preparing for a big night out. My first move was brushing/ doing my hair in the mirror in order to appear good looking and attractive on the outside. I think all men want to look good in order to impress people and feel good about themselves. Usually, people think it is just girls who like to make themselves look as attractive as possible, however many men are also insecure about their appearance. Therefore, I think my move was very effective as it conveyed issue from a different perspective. My second movement was flexing my muscles in order to appear strong and manly. Many men do this in order to show off what they are proud of. This is a way to distract yourself from what you are not proud of or feel insecure about. This was effective as it shows a temporary method of distracting yourself from your true emotions. My third movement was drinking alcohol, this is usually considered the sociable and cool thing to do at a party. Furthermore, it represents how alcohol is a major influence in ‘drinking away your problems’ to stop you thinking about them and pretending that they’re not there. Many people drink to forget so I decided this would be an effective was to show how we hide true feelings. I was unsure of what to do as a fourth movement so I decided to go for a basic option of looking cool/ posing. I will probably change this movement as the impact and meaning behind it isn’t as clear as my other moves. I then repeated all these movements in a short sequence. I thought these set of moves were very successful as bringing together a lot of different ways that men usually use to hide themselves.
All the boys then started performing the same movement. This movement included walking forwards looking intimidating, smoking weed, going down on one knee to appear comedic and funny, the final movement was flexing muscles. When we repeated them all together, it took a while to get in sync with one another however once the music started getting quicker and louder, we all increased the pace of the movements and went crazy by doing it; although I could not witness how it looked to an audience member, it felt as if it looked really good and manic. We watched the girls movement which was a similar layout to out movement. They then got into a space and did a similar thing to us with the gestures. All the moves were different but then all copy one person's moves. I really enjoyed watching the girls copy Nicole's moves, at different times, as it showed how girls hide in different, individual ways to one another however there comes a point when they all result in doing the same kind of thing to show that they're all the same. After the gestures, the girls all collapsed, as if it had got too much for us, This was effective as it showed how it all became manic and chaotic until they could no longer handle it. 

Soundscape

We used everything we had found previously on the streets to use as our instruments, we began to use them in our piece to create a soundscape. This was visually effective as it showed the chaos of the city and the thoughts inside the character’s head due to her mental illness. Also, the rubbish and old equipment we found was a metaphor for how she feels inside as she feels pathetic and worthless, like the rubbish we had just collected. However, although the noises were manic and unorganised, it didn’t sound very effective. This is because everyone was randomly hitting whatever they found and there was no build up in volume or pace which meant that the character had nothing to build up to, the sound was all on the same level which was quite boring to listen to.