Combined arts project Hansel and Gretel

 17th November

Focus: The forest

2 skills we explored in this workshop were physical theatre and rhythmic accuracy. Me, lola and caitlyn came up with a sequence in which we incorporated bamboo canes that represented the aggression of the forest in the story. We then progressed our sequence to fit into a 6 beat rhythm. Changing our rhythm made us think more about the aggression of our movements, As seen in the video. almost all of our movements are sharp and witty. 

We then taught our sequence to the rest of the class to create an ensemble piece. We created this to establish the environment of the forest for the family to travel through and action to happen within.

Knowledge:

The key practitioner that influenced todays work was ‘the forest’ episode from ‘Sutra’ 2008 by Sidi Labi Cherkoui and the Monks from the Shaolin temple. The use of props to tell the story, including the bamboo sticks, influenced our work in lesson.

Understanding

Looking back at previous skills workshops, the work of the practitioners have influenced my own creation of the forest in hansel and gretel.

For example, Akram khan combines physical theatre and props on stage. he did this in 'Zero degrees with the two dummies on stage. After a while of them being on stage, they started to come across as actors and more than just a prop to the audience. Akram moved them so that they helped to tell the story. This made the audience pay close attention whenever they were on stage because it was all about trying to figure out what was going on. 

Matthew Bourne combines ensemble movement, sound and expression to portray the mood and environment in Nutcracker. As no one in his works uses spoken word, the music and facial expressions are really important for the audience to see what kind of mood is happening at the time. A good example would be the scene before Clara can get into candy land. All of the different types of candy characters are portrayed through different styles of music, different body language/movement and different facial expressions. This made it really clear if they were a friendly, manipulative or big headed character.