physical theatre

Physical Theatre puts emphasis on movement rather than Dialogue. Physical Theatre is anything that puts the body at the centre of the story. It’s often abstract in style, using movement in a stylised and representational way. DV8 is arguably the main practitioners of Physical Theatre as a “full” art form. They look at potential that can be unlocked from movement and tend to be described as existing at a crossroad where dance, Sound and drama meet. They use Physical Theatre to explore complex aspects of human relationships and or social culture aspects. Although Physical theatre focuses on movement, it can be separate from the spoken word and explore it’s meaning.It may well be devised or contain substantial elements could be other art forms such as music, dance the use of media or visual images.

Techniques

Mime – stylised movement but can be comparatively realistic

Gesture –may be something small but can have a powerful impact or a movement that defines a character

Status – Executed by use of levels or by distance or strength or contact or a combination of all voice work

Proximity

Stance

Harshness and Tenderness

Movement

Not moving

Mask Work

Dance Work

Contact Improvisation

Is a developed form improvisation usually a duet, between two experienced dancers.

Our interest here is the starting point – point of contact.

To absorb an impulse by the partner

To resist or ignore it

Piece one:

For this physical theatre piece we were given the stimulus of religion. As a group we decided to focus on how religion can repress an individual and how they are safe in numbers. To show this we had Danny play the character who was getting repressed and the rest of us would be the religious group attacking him for not believing in what we do. The performance would start of with Danny kneeling in the centre of the stage saying a pray in latin. Then in pairs we would come in and change him into what we think he should be.

As the movement piece goes on we lift Danny up to represent how he is above us for believing in something different and how he is a better person for it.

Throughout the movement we change Danny and force him to do things such as kneeling down and praying. We wanted to show how someone can be shunned by a community for not fitting into the world they belong to. At the end of the piece we do the movements backwards and revert to the beginning to show that we could not change Danny’s characters mind and we were not able to convert him to our ways of life. Overall the performance went really well. This was due to the amount we rehearsed it and how we all managed to work together in sync. We all had the same vision for what the movement piece would be and this helped us shape what the final piece was. If we could do the performance again then I would like to make the piece more physical than dance. The feedback we were given told us that we need to make it more of a physical theatre piece as we accidentally made the performance more dance that physical.

Piece two:

For this physical theatre piece the stimulus we were given was a picture of a stage, on the stage there were actors and one man stood out the most as he was raised up holding a gun above his head. The way we interpreted the stimulus was that it was a revolution. However we did not want to go for the obvious. Instead we wanted to show a different type of revolution. Instead we showed a self revolution and how one decision can change a persons life forever.

To show this we had Liam and Kyle play the same person and they separated and took completely different paths in life. Liam becoming a drug addict and Kyle becoming a respected business man. To show this, in groups of three we represented what Liam and Kyle are. Liam and Kyle then get pulled apart and join in their respected movement.

To show that this is a physical piece and not just a dance we had dialogue and we used our bodies to represent inanimate objects such as chairs, doors and desks.

We wanted to make sure that the performance we made was not a dance and that it included as many techniques as possible. We used synchronised movement, not moving, music and status.

The movement piece overall went a lot better than we thought it would. The final piece flowed well and we all knew what we were doing. Seeing as we didn’t rehearse for a week because we were helping out with the school show, I think this is an accomplishment. If we had more time, I feel we could make the piece longer and more complex. due to us only having a couple of lessons to create an entire movement piece, the end product was a lot more impressive than I thought it would be.