Thursday 6 September 2012

Twelfth Day of IB Theatre:

For this week, we mostly worked on our ritual theatres, so I decided to make one post on the rehearsals. After the first day, Ms. Ashley figured that it was a better idea to focus on one group at a time as a whole, so we could participate in making music as part of the audience. I had a lot of fun working on the creation myths one at a time; we could watch each other and learn from each other. The role of audience, in a ritual, has a very important part. We learned that music can have an incomparable effect on the performance. The music helps to fill in for visual effects and creates a sense of the scene being performed. For example, the narrator can state the world is empty, but ringing the triangle, loud and clear, and waiting for the sound to effuse has such a greater effect than just a statement. Sometimes, we each wanted our instrument to be heard and all played at once, thinking we were on cue. However, it was the exact opposite. The diverse instruments all playing simultaneously only created an ear-hurting cacophony. I realized that less really is more. Although it is nice to have several different instruments play a similar rhythm, saving the sounds for those critical moments in the drama adds even more emphasis than a lot of sound. I also found it amazing that we could act out these rituals. No dialogue, no gestures, simply body movement and a handful of props. Even though one person played narrator to help the story move along, it was difficult and fun at the same time to portray sequence of events simply through our actions. In the olden times, villages probably performed these rituals with no narration and elaborate costumes and masks and rhythmic music. After experiencing more of ritualistic theatre, I really want to experience how an actual ritual would be like. It's really fun because the audience plays a part in the actual performance and you get to create a whole story with your group mates.