Akram Khan -Rush

What do we know about RUSH so far?

Rush is stylised around the idea of skydiving and free falling this is the motif of the dance. Akram Khan combines a form if Classic Indian dance called khatak with contemporary which created his own hybrid of dance. 

He shows his style of free falling by using a parachute-shaped arm line, reaching across the body to pull the chord. That's only in the beginning of he dance so it shows that Akram has thought through every move to perfectly capture the free falling effect. Akram Khan wanted to explore each sense that is alerted when free falling; look, touch, smell, feel and taste.

The music used in Rush was composed by Andy Cowton.

Akram Khan was interested in the contrast between stillness and speed and therefore portrayed this using different tempos within the dance. He also thought about space as when free falling of course you have all the room in the world but you're restricted by force so you also can experience feelings of claustrophobia. So he allowed the dance to have moments if spacial restriction and spacial freedom.

Doctor Faustus Themes, Culture and Conventions

The themes within Doctor Faustus were controversial themes which relate even now a days they were, religion, death and tragedy. The theme of religion is continued throughout the play but death and tragedy only take place when certain characters are killed and consequences of this withhold the theme of tragedy.


Classical theatre was portrayed in amphitheatre mostly were minimalistic staging, lighting and sound was used. The actors were supposedly played by men and not woman, and they would wear masks so that the audience sat far aware could still pick up the themes and emotions going on in the play. The audience traditionally sit in a semi-circle around the stage allowing them to be fully involved and this also helps the sound travel, as microphones and electrical sound wouldn't be present.


Another way that the audience would pick up on the actors emotions and themes in the play would be by the context itself. As the play continues the storyline reveals itself making it clear to the audience what is going on but factors that affect this is the sound, lighting and facial expressions given by the actor. How their tone of voice comes across, what sort of actions they portray connotating different emotions dependent on the context.


Now-a-days theatres aren't created in the way that the time period intended it to be. However, there are many ways to capture the classical setting, a common way in this century is the Brecht style, where the stage is straight on to the audience. Brecht did this to alienate the audience so that they don't get too emotionally tied down in the storyline. His set up for the theatre is usually what we expect to see in a modern day theatre. Therefore you need to find a way where you can put on a classical piece in a modern day theatre but still portray all that they used to in the olden styled theatres.

"To help make the play more sinister and threatening to a modern audience, one director chose to use dry ice sounds of howling wind and chanting at the very start of the play. She wanted to create an eerie feel and atmosphere, because she believed that a modern audience are not always as disturbed by Faustus' actions as an Elizabethan audience would have been."

E. H. D Education Resources, Doctor Faustus A Revision Guide (2009) Page no. 14 published by E.H.D Education Resources.


I have learnt that different styles are used and other have modernised the piece by included sound effects like the dry ice and howling, but to keep the sound traditional they made the sound themselves which is a great idea and interesting route to go down when trying to come up with a compromise between modern and classical theatre times. Also modern day audiences aren't as taken back by themes and emotions (they are harder to entertain) so this director came up with great ways to break this forth wall between the actors and the audiences.

Introduction To Doctor Faustus

"Doctor Faustus, is a play by Christopher Marlowe. It is based on the German story Faust and is sometimes referred to as 'The Tragic History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus'. The play is about a man who sells his soul to the devil for power and knowledge. Doctor Faustus was first published in 1604 which was 11 years after Christopher Marlowe died."

Wikipedia, Doctor Faustus(play) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_Faustus_(play) [last accessed 23rd September 2014]

This researched helped me grasp an idea of the background knowledge and lead up to the writing of the play. It also allowed me to gather information that I previously didn't know about Doctor Faustus which helped me understand the underlying meaning of the play. The concept of the man selling his soul to the devil interests me as its a topic involving religion where people have wide aspects of opinions on so portraying this scene I am looking forward too, and already it helps be begin thinking of ideas around the play.

In today's lesson we had to chose a scene from Doctor Faustus and use now-a-day situations within using the scripts to guide the situations to fit in with the style of genre and period in which the play was set. I was put in partnership with Lauren and we decided to chose the topic of anorexia, we believed that Faustus would be the person struggling with the eating disorder and the devil was anorexia trying to get into 'Faustus's' mind, and therefore sell herself to the condition. I found it quite difficult using a now a day situation and have it in the same olden day format of script. However, we found the words even if they weren't literal they still had the same morals and underlying meaning.

We chose to adapt Act 2 Scene 3.

"Within this scene, Dr Faustus curses Mephostophilis for depriving him of heaven's joys, to which the devil reminds Faustus that it was Faustus; "own seeking" that led him to this point. Faustus once again considers repenting, and the two angels vocalise his conflicted thoughts. But Faustus believes his 'heart is hardened' and cannot turn back. He questions Mephostophilis about the movement of the moon and the planets and asks the devil to name the maker of the world.

As in the case of marriage, the devil cannot deny the realm of God, and Faustus is again filled with fear and doubt. The two angels reappear, the good angel advising Faustus to repent, the bad angel threatening to tear Faustus in pieces shall he dare to do so. Faustus cried aloud for Christ to help him, but Lucifer himself appears with Mephostophilis and Beelzebub. They advice Faustus to think not on God, but on the devil. Faustus vows 'never to look to heaven', and the devils reward him with a show of the seven deadly sins. The sign delights Dr. Faustus, to whom Lucifer promises, 'in hell is all manner of delight.' Faustus returns home with Mephostophilis to study his conjuring book."

Penguin, A teachers guide to the Signet Classics Edition of Doctor Faustus (play) http://www.penguin.com/static/pdf/teachersguides/faustus.pdf [Last Accessed 23rd September 2014]

However our second task after selecting which scene we were doing was to cut it down to our own version. Which we did and within doing so we are only having 3 of the seven deadly sins to speak as these 3 sins are sins that relate to people with eating disorders such as anorexia. One of the deadly sins involves a speech within the scene about eating which we thought we would definitely include as it helps the audience understand our adaptation. One of our struggles is how we will show the audience that this isn't about the literal script, how its about eating disorder. We thought the way we would represent this would be through costume and props, and not something that will be clear during rehearsals

Mini Costume Design Project

Over the next 2 weeks understand the basic process of text/story interprestation, design.

What should you consider in the design process?

Appropriateness of costume design for childrens theatre.

The personality of the character- reflect in the colour, size, shape, creativeness of the costume etc.. what social status does your character have?

Actors measurements

The physical movements of the character amd therefore the impact on the costume.

Suitable materials/fabric for the type of style of costume.

What period is your story set?

Creating a backstory for your character

Things to consider :

1 - Age
2 - Social Status
3 - What period it is set in
4 - Where its set
5 - Gender
6 - whether they are a vilian or a hero

We have just been given our character for the next two weeks, and our character is AN ECCENTRIC CHEF.
We have made the chef's age 40.  We have also named the character Carlos, we used this name as we wanted alliteration 'Carlos the Chef' this helps children to remember his name, and makes it catchy for children's theatre.
We wanted to set this in now a day as we believed this would help the children relate, as its easier to tell a story which is slightly unrealistic and in a made up world.
His social status at the beginning of the story starts off being upper class, when his restaurant decends and ends up closing as does his status. His social status then changes to lower class but is brought up to middle class the same as all the villagers.

Storyline

One day there is this Italian Chef, he's miserable and this reflects in his meals. As the village people turn against him as he is rude to his customers (he believes he is better than everyone else) he turns into a sad chef. One day the critic comes to to the restaurant and realises where his buisness is going wrong, he sits the chef down and tells him to shut the restaurant down and says open it when you find your inner self. The chef searches for his inner self across far lands and realises that his misery came from the dishes he made and that he was rude to the villagers, he decided that he needed to be re-inspired with cooking, so he helps all the villagers with cooking their meals for free,  they then find him happy and eccentric and they help him get his restaurant back, he now lives a happy life in the small village of Townsville asternd him and his customers are happy.


The main moral of the story is help others and they will return the favour. But there are also small moral stories such as, treat everyone equal you are not higher or lower as anyone so treat them the same. Furthermore; be yourself.


Costume Ideas

As we are looking at childs theatre we have to make sure that the approiate costume fits the style of the play. Childs theatre stereotypically has bright colourful costumes which is easy for children to understand who is what character and what they play. As we are representing a chef, we have decided to go for the typical chef hat, so children can recognise the iconography of chefs usually portrayed in childrens shows, theatre and programmes. We have decided not to use bright colours even thoguh it will attract childrens eyes, it may be hard for them to understand what sort of hat it is if it isnt in the traditional white.

We needed to make sure that the hat would be suitable for movement and not fall off. This is always a task when hats and wigs are used in performances. A way around this can be fasten the hat using hair grips to the actors hair however the hat is made so that it will fit comfortable on their head.


In a ideal world i wanted to wrap to make it all out of white material. However, as we were on a budget a way around this was to make the base of the hat out of white card, this still does work affectively and makes the hat stay up right. The card is wrapped in white material. We then tried a few ideas and ways to get the hat to stay upright and to make it big and poofy. The first way we tried was by blowing up a balloon and fastening it to the card. However in the middle of me fastening it to the card it popped and i feared that this could happen on stage especially under hot lights, this could be a serious safety hazard. Furthermore, as its a costume for childrens theatre the last thing you want is to scare the audience which a balloon popping. So i then thought about scrunched up newspaper, but comprimised with one big sheet of plastic then scrunched into the correct shape for a chef hat. We will then wrap the plastic in white material so it has the affect of a chef hat.


 On the left is a photo of our layout and of our hat, if we were sewing the hat then i would have drawn out all the templates for each different part of the hat. The diagram shows what materials were used and where on the hat.

On the right is our finished product of our eccentric's chefs hat.

Performance CV Draft

Assignment 1

Assignment 1

Career and Training routes

How far would you be willing to move for training?

I would be willing to travel as far as London.

Drama School/University?

I want to focus on drama schools as its my preferred option to universities.

What kind of course are you after?

Either drama or musical theatre but my main focus would be musical theatre.

Option 1

My first option i looked at was CENTRAL where i looked at specialising in their acting (musical theatre) BA Honours degree. It's a 3 year course.

Option 2

My second option is MOUNTVIEW where i looked at specialising in a BA Honours in Musical Theatre Performance. It's a 2 year course where you can go on to extend the degree to 3 years.

Option 3

My third option is GUILDFORD where i would look at specialising in Musical Theatre, the grades required for this drama school is AAB/ABB.

Requirements for auditions:

Attendance is vital and the first thing you should be organised about, you should double the time it takes you to get there and add half an hour so you get there in good timing, which also gives you opportunity to warm up and look at the competition. Make sure you bring all the correct sheet music, and that it is neat. Have monologues prepared for what you are auditioning for. Bring with you to the audition sensible shoes like jazz/dance shoes. Food and water is important, as you could be waiting for your audition slot for a while, umbrella and warm cloths is vital if its winter but also make sure you are prepared for hot weather as well.

Appearance is also a vital factor in auditions, make sure your hair is of a natural colour and is neutral and neat, also make sure your hair hasn't changed since your headshot photos were taken. Make up should be natural. Jeans are a definite no, they are not moveable enough, dont look smart and also may not match the style of the role you're auditioning for.

Attitude to get into this industry is tough and what can make or break you, it has to be treated as a business, and you are the business. Work creates work, so dont be afraid with starting off small. Put on your own projects as this gets you noticed. Make sure your performance CV is of a high standard and that you have a show reel prepared for anyone who head spots you. 

Below is 2 slides from my powerpoint explaining moreso which universities and drama schools i will be applying to, i added this in later as it gave me a chance to look at drama schools, attend open days and explore university courses more.