On the 23rd of February 2017 I wanted to help the company to become relaxed in their bodies. As we are looking into a lot of movement to be used throughout the performance itself, I started with a simple exercise. I asked the company to lay in the space and close their eyes, i then played two pieces of music and told them to go with their bodies. I wanted them to feel their bodies move and loosen so they are confident when it comes to movement choreography. Eventually, throughout the process I got them to open their eyes and react with each other. Some results of this are shown in the photos below. The movement exercise revealed to me as their choreographer how much the company members could move with their bodies which helped me to understand what movements I could assign for this scene I was in the process of choreographing.

Movement exercise with the company. Photo Credit: Kerrie Crockford

Photo Credit: Kerrie Crockford

Photo Credit: Kerrie Crockford

Afterwards with the collaboration with the company we worked to choreograph what I will call for now ‘The Erratic Scene’. As we are still in the process of ideas and devising at this point, this scene creation may not necessarily be in the final production but it was interesting to see what came out of the creation and idea I had for this scene. I asked the company to think of a movement, could have been an everyday task, and asked them to repeat it. One by one they entered the stage and performed their movement. Jacob Toon was riding the bike, as he is powering the show. Gradually I directed that they get more erratic with their movements and bigger to create chaos on the stage. Throughout the process of choreography for this scene was all about being random, the idea of being erratic was to build up a tension and feeling for the audience. Yet the movements to be used throughout were to be random and confusing for them. As Hoggett and Scott from Frantic Assembly write: ‘allowing even the most random event to shape and alter and exercise, to leave the path or idea prescribed maybe only moments earlier and to free up the room in order to make the most of a newfound impulse, influence or inclination.’ (Hoggett and Scott, 2009,26).  Following from what Hoggett and Scott wrote, we use the idea of repetition and randomness to add creativity for our piece. In particular our piece is exploring the methods and stages of madness and within this scene I wanted to represent that with the random movement.  The end product show and increase in pace, tempo and rhythm of movement representing, in my eyes, a breakdown of the character that Jacob is playing. As he cycles faster the movement of the ensemble builds and becomes more intense creating ‘The Erratic Scene’.

Reference

Hoggett, S., and Scott, G. (2009) The Frantic Assembly Book of Devising Theatre. London: Routledge.