domingo, 14 de marzo de 2010

Kill me with your bare hands

Oh wow... it has been a day since I saw a puppet show "play" and still cannot get the hang of it... AWEFUL is the lightest word I could use to describe it. It was such an aweful torture, like no one could imagine. I mean, kids were enjoying it, but us from the Theatre IB were about to kill ourselves to stand no more torture. Oh wow... I just had a flashback of it and seriously I think twenty thousand neurones died at the thought of it.

Well... I'll just mention the important things about that play, like the different puppet techniques that can be used, the motives why we went (our teacher hated us ¬¬ LOL just kidding RR), and I don't know, different things that have been important throughout the performance.

For beginning I wanna say it sucked at so many different levels that it is really difficult for me having to write this blog. The voices were so ridiculous at some point or another, that it would've, without a joke, been better to just stay quiet throughout the whole play. The first small puppet play was about a fox eating a puma's food, which actually began a little bit interesting and funny, though some things were repetitive, like slapsticks (i.e. fox crashing to tree) but funny for the kids obviously. Throughout that small play I couldn't stop thinking how many characteristics there were from the Italian theatre period called Commedia Dell'Arte. I couldn't stop thinking about the zibaldone (a small register/book where they used to keep record of what things made people laugh the most so they could interpret them in future improvisations) because of the repetitive hitting and punching throughout the first three plays. As it made the kids laugh it might have been something they all copied from each other to get the audience's attraction. It was one of the reasons I couldn't almost stand it. It also seemed somehow like Latin Comedy, more accurate the Roman Mimes. They used to be barbarian, for which they enjoyed constant hitting, hurting, yelling, falling, etc., which was seen from the first to the third play. It was very explicit and sadistic, like when the puma ate the llama.... won't even talk about it for the explicity that was shown to minors....

Oh yeah.... forgot to tell you the motives we had to see the play. At first I thought it would've been to learn different puppet-play techniques, like for example the live animation and the behind screens techniques for the human performers. After that, after seing the first play our teacher (Roberto) told us that the motive for watching it was: "What NOT to do ever in a play." LOL! Was that hilarious. We learnt not to do FAKE voices, not to over-do some comedic acts because at the long-run it becomes boring and repetitive, not to do boring scenes, not to take way too long for a change of scene or character makeover, etc., not to leave empty spaces with no actions being done, and not to over-act so it looks comedic.

Well, I guess that was everything that I actually learned throughout the performances. What do kids see fun in these kind of performances?

miércoles, 3 de marzo de 2010

Hurts to realize...

First off all... this blog isn't made for fun (trust me... ¬¬) but rather for my thoughts, feelings, my absurdness (LOL) after everything theatre-related like my IB Theatre classes, plays, Operas, schoolplay, etc. Just clarifying... so if you're bored by now (which I betcha are), BITE ME! ;)

If you seek Amy did it hurt too much first day of school... whole day BORING... but theatre class we had to do some physical activity... I still hold it in my memory.. traumatized: Jump, fall, back, forward, roll, roll, voice, jump, back, roll, jump, fall... what the flurp??? INSANE! Seriously... we had to creatively make any sound out loud, jump, fall and roll in different ways, and make different types of movements that went forward and back. Crazzee...


Well that's a summary of the jump I made for the after-presentation... but of course that ain't me... I'm a boy... plus my arch isn't that amazing LOL.

Anyways... so it hurt, but the ending result was cool... when we had to deeply analyze the whole exercise, I was impressed because I figured out how from simple draft movements and sounds we could actually create a sequence and a story... like mine actually a friend of mine titled it "Michael Jackson" (R.I.P. <3)
This was the whole idea of the exercise, create sets of movements to see how different people interpret different things.. UNBELIEVABLE! It turned out great after all :) I'm happy with the end-results.

But if a dancer would have seen my performance what could have s/he interpreted it as?