Community Performance Written Evaluation
Written Commentary We were given a topic area of study of the Salt industry and its relation to Northwich. A decision was made, based on separate performances presented to the group and the staff of different topic areas that could be used for the local community performance project; these included the legend of the white woman and legends surrounding Beeston Castle. ... We felt research was vital to the performance as our stimulus has a lot of history, we felt we needed to borrow and retrieve inspiration from other play writes and practitioners and depth of research allows us to communicate with the audience on a variety of levels. ... The college’s library provided many interesting articles on different aspects of the salt industry and gave many groups an idea of what to base their performance on such as transport and the slave trade. ... We were to devise a piece an integrated performance not only stimulated by this industry but also incorporate clear styles and genres, motif development, characterisation and integration of the art forms. ... Most importantly we wanted to communicate to the audience their own heritage and past in a way they would find interesting and enjoyable, bringing the audience together to appreciate the history behind their community. ... We watched a performance called “Strange Fish” and saw how they used their bodies to create emotion and physical structures such as a bed, this had an unbelievable, powerful affect on the audience. ... In our group we each started to improvise and develop rhythms using, to begin with everyday objects such as chairs to create unusual timbres, however within the final performance we used actual artefacts from the salt mines to create even stronger, remarkable timbres than before. ... One scene that stuck out in everybody’s mind was the final funeral scene where the voice and guitar are used to create an emotive atmosphere, this was originally towards the middle of the performance but because it had such a profound effect on us we assumed it would have the same effect on the audience and so made the decision to end the piece on this, the audience would therefore recall this vividly and hopefully do the same with the rest of the piece. Rehearsal is an important feature of the performance process as it is a way of shaping and refining a concept into a complete dramatic statement. ... Particular methods adopted in the rehearsing process to enhance the piece included a Brechtian technique of shouting out stage directions to ensure that everybody knew the exact running pattern of the performance. ... We shared sections of our performance with another devising group and received two pieces of positive feedback and a few pieces of constructive criticism, such as “Watch the angles on the machine motif, as we think they need to be really sharp to reflect the actual machine. ... The dictionary describes performance as; to carry out (an action); fulfil (a request etc); act, sing or present a play before an audience of any kind. ... The technical skills improvising, rehearsing and performing we introduced and used as a way of devising the performance material. ... I felt our performance was extremely successful because of the different aspects in the piece. We included technical features and costume to enhance the performance and each of us dressed in a costume we felt appropriate for our character, aswell as using emblematic costume, such as the miner’s hats to make it obvious to the audience what role we were playing at that time, an influence from Brecht. The reason I felt our performance was successful was because we had focused rehearsals where objectives were continually set and techniques to achieve them employed.