Evalutation of assessment performance

Overall, I feel my performance went well, considering how nervous I was before hand - I didn't let it effect how I moved. As I was performing in a much bigger space than i had been rehearsing in (my bedroom), it meant I was able to express my movements fully.

I believed I carried out all of my movements successfully, I had no major mistakes or mishaps that hindered my performance. This is a big achievement for me as although I had rehearsed the piece over and over, I'm not the most graceful and so there's always the natural fear of making a huge mistake in front of everyone. However, I feel I performed with fluidity and with enough confidence to carry the piece.

An aspect I had been worrying about was my speech. I stumble quite a bit when I talk if I'm nervous another issue I have is that I tend to talk quite quickly - I put a lot of effort when I was rehearsing into slowing down my speech and really working on being clear and I feel that was successfully evident in my performance. By putting the effort into making sure I spoke clearly and with clarity, I was able to ensure that my piece ran smoothly and without hiccups - this was a big success for me.

The main aspect I feel I could've improved on is my timing. It felt like it was just a little bit too short - shorter than it had been when I was rehearsing it, and I feel mainly that was because of how nervous I was. I tend to go quite quickly when I'm nervous. If I had more time, I would've liked to have done more research and development on the verbatim side of the piece - find video recordings of refugees and interviews - so I could really try and capture their voice and movements through verbatim.

In conclusion, I am very happy i was able to push myself into doing a solo piece as I was completely dreading it at first. I would've liked to have expanded it to being slightly longer and maybe with some props, but I feel my performance worked fine without it. I kept my energy up and I don't feel at any point it dropped to being stagnant or boring.

As my piece is verbatim, I went back and looked a the previous work I've done using verbatim pieces - mainly, my group physical theatre piece from last year as well as the work we did on Nadia Fall's Home and various productions by DV8. I love working with verbatim and other people's words as it really feels like you're giving someone a proper voice - though this is more difficult with my stimulus for this project as I don't know how my speakers said the words or their tone of voice, I'm still trying to be as authentic as possible.

In particular I looked at DV8s production of JOHN - a verbatim piece of physical theatre. It was extremely useful to research this as I was able to grasp how they combined one man's story with bold and interesting movements that told it extremely truthfully.

In an interview about their process with creating JOHN, David Grewcock - Assistant to the Director and Company manager stated at one point that they:  "We put the ‘finished’ edits of the interview audio recordings onto iPods and the dancers then repeat the words they hear back in real time as they improvise or complete physical tasks in order to generate material."  

This is a similar process to the one I took as though I didn't improvise using recorded word to improvise with, I did repeat my lines over and over as I developed my movements to ensure I always stayed on task and stuck with what I was really trying to say behind the lines rather than moving for the sake of it. This was very useful as it allowed me to really pinpoint and work specifically at developing movements for those particular lines rather than just generalised movements for the theme.

Techniques

I mainly used DV8s technique of working from the inside out - developing the feelings and drive behind the movements and then using them to develop and devise the work. This meant everything I created had a purpose and objective behind to colour it. It wasn't moving for the sake of moving. I worked from improvisation, using my stimulus to drive the movements rather than planning from beforehand. I went through different routines over and over to find different segment of movements that I felt work.

I looked at using different levels when improvising - working on the ground, doing smaller movements through one run then looking at bringing it up from the floor and using bigger movements. This meant I was able to develop a range of different movements and sequences that I was able to combine and experiment with, nothing was too same-y.

I did however also explore Frantic Assembly's routine of creating the movements and then adding the words on top - though in less detail. This was through the improvisation I did at the beginning by simply working on top of the news report I used as my background sound. Once I found a set of movements I liked from my improvisation, I developed them into more set and precise movements and then added the lines on top - rather than using the lines to develop the movements. Though I may not have used them in my final piece, it was very useful to explore the different aspects I could undergo to create my piece as it allowed me to have access to a large range of different movements created by different techniques that I could insert into my piece.

Scratch performance

From my scratch performance I mainly got positive feedback from everyone who spoke. I need to on something that always troubles me with performing - talking too quickly when I get nervous. I talk quite quickly naturally and I have to put a lot of effort into forcing myself to slow down and speak clearly when I'm performing.

Isabella gave me a note saying I should experiment with my piece on whether or not it works with the news report in the background. I went though my piece at home multiple times at home without the news report in the background but it didn't sit right with me. I want to show the contrast between the news report - an outsider looking in and the actual quotes from refugees.

I was told that my movements were delicate - this is a surprise to me as I definitely to not see myself as a delicate or graceful person but I feel (if it's true) that I could definitely use it effectively to power my piece. I want to really show the contrast between the delicate movements and the gritty, awful, real life things these poor people have experienced. This also gives me an incentive to create moments in the piece that aren't delicate or graceful - moments that are bold and angry - this is to try and extend my range of movements in the piece to ensure it's as interesting and vibrant as possible.

After performing my piece to the class and getting mostly positive feedback, I'm feeling a lot more confident with it than I was previously. I'm going to experiment without using the backing of the news report and see which one I feel fits best. I've also been doing more research into the issues the quotes I'm using deal with - eg: life in Mosul.

By doing this, I'm able to get a better idea of what they're talking about - I will not by any means be able to understand even a 0.1% of what they're going through, but I would like to try and gain a better understanding.

I'm going to work on really trying to push what I'm trying to show - the lengths these people have gone through to escape and what they're escaping. I'm trying to do it as respectfully as possible.

Mosul

Mosul, a city located in Northern Iraq has been occupied by the Islamic State since the 10 June 2014.
Normally, the city would be home to 2.5 million - however, since the take over half a million have fled. Furthermore, it as once home to 60-70 thousand Chaldean and Christians, now there are none. Since the occupation, phone lines have been cut and all internet access destroyed.

"Life in Mosul is one of violent oppression where people suspected of activism against the occupiers, resistance activities, homosexuality, promiscuity or adultery are brutally and summarily tortured and murdered."

"IS takes a quarter of everyone's salary as a contribution towards paying for rebuilding the city. People can't say no because they would face harsh punishments. The group controls everything. Rent is paid to it and the hospitals are for its members' exclusive use."

Women have to be accompanied by a male at all times and are forced to cover themselves head to toe. Men are forbidden from shaving their beard and receive severe punishment if they do. Public executions have been known to be taking place since 2014, anyone who goes against ISIS' word is denounced and punished. 

Syria became home...

To the Armenian refugees in 1915...

• In 1915 the Ottoman Empire carried out their "systematic extermination" of its minority Armenian subjects inside their historic homeland - modern day Turkey. The estimated total number of people killed is between 800,000 and 1.5 million. Many of the main 'killing fields' of the Armenian were in the Syrian dessert, Deir ez-Zor. After the arrival of the first groups of Armenian refugees (1915–1922) the population of Aleppo in 1922 counted 156,748 of which Muslims were 97,600 (62.26%), native Christians -mostly Catholics- 22,117 (14.11%), Jews 6,580 (4.20%), Europeans 2,652 (1.70%), Armenian refugees 20,007 (12.76%) and others 7,792 (4.97%) 

To the Palestinian refugees in 1948...

• In 1948, the Palestinian exodus occurred when 700,000 Palestinian Arabs fled or were expelled during the 1948 Palestine War. The initial influx of Palestinian refugees was between 90,000-100,000. Through different laws the government paved the way for Palestinians to be integrated into their society whilst remaining this Palestinian identity.  

To the Iraqi refugees in 2003..

• Post the 2003 invasion, the UNHCR estimates there are between 1 - 1.5 Million Iraqis in Syria in 2007. A large majority of the refugees have remained anonymous by not registering officially. 

Though there are many instances of Syria acting as salvation for those seeking refugee, I thought I would highlight a few to show that now, when Syrian's need help, they're being treated as a problem. They're not the problem, the problem lies with what's causing them to flee - why is their homeland so unstable, who allowed to get this way? The problem lies with our world leaders bickering over what to do with millions of homeless refugees trying to seek safety in our privileged countries - if we were in trouble, they would expect help. 

"Let it be written in the history books and let the generations remember, that when a Syrian needed help and refuge; borders were closed and the world looked away."

Taking Simon's advice with splitting up the piece, creating them separately and stitching them together afterwards, I summed each of the passages from the refugees up by one word or phrase. By summing my 4 passages I'm going to use for the verbatim aspect of my piece with one word, I'm able to give myself more detail to work off of. Though it arguably makes my job of creating the piece simpler, it also gives me a single word to build my objectives around which I feel will help me devise and create more effectively.

My passage of taken from HONY is a Iraqi refugee from Mosul in Salzburg, Austria. They talk about how they tried to avoid trouble but were reported by their neighbour "for shaving my beard" which caused them to be labelled as an atheist and lashed in the city centre. My obvious aim for this section of my piece to portray to the best of my ability someone possibly being trapped and punished for something so trivial - working off of the objective to be free and escape.

My second passage taken from HONY is from a refugee with unknown origins in Hegyeshalom, Austria. They explain how the war has impact his children and how it's changed their psychology - their normality is war. My aim with this second part is to discuss how the normality of war can impact people's psychologies in such a way that is irreparable - specifically with children.

My third passage taken from HONY is a refugee from Afghanistan - in Kos, Greece - who's family had to flee due to the Taliban. He explains how when the police found him and his family in Turkey, "they treated us like animals...like we weren't human." This third section I want to use animalistic movements to highlight the treatment of refugees and their experiences. We're discussing their lives as if they're a problem, as if they're sub human. They're not a problem. They're humans who are in need of grave help.  

My final passage taken from is refugee from Baghdad, in Salzburg, Austria, who had to leave as they heard "the militas was planning to kill me" - They had leave without their family, "I'm all alone here". In the final part, I want to explore the loneliness felt by the refugees. Though thousands may have travelled with their family, there are still thousands who didn't. Thousands split from their family and their homeland due to conflict. Though there are millions travelling to and through Europe, they've all had different experiences - experiences no one else will ever have to go through like they did - that can be in no doubt, extremely lonely.

I started my practical rehearsal process by using this video as a background a stimulus to help drive and inform my movements, I feel its easier and a lot more affective to use something like this related to the overall subject rather than just a piece of music.

As I was devising I found that a lot of what is said in the video actually does relate back to some of the points I am trying to make in my piece. In particular, it touches on different past movements of people - this relates to the text I found explaining all the different moments in history in which Syria played refugee to those fleeing. It also touches on after the break up of Yugoslavia that Britain took in over 84,000 asylum seekers in 2002, and yet now the government are only talking about letting a tiny percentage of that in.

This video also explores how the crisis has affected other European countries - not just Britain as I think it's very important for us to remember that we're all in this together and we, as a mainly privileged continent, are obliged to help those in need.

Humans Of New York

Brandon Stanton started a blog in 2010 featuring portraits and stories collected on the streets of New York City, he quickly gained a large internet following and as of October 2015 the HONY facebook page had 15.6 million followers. When given the brief to created a solo piece of physical theatre involving the migrant crisis, I remembered that not only does Stanton feature New Yorkers, but that he travels regularly and recently he had travelled to the migrant communities in various countries like Austria, Hungary and Greece. As someone that loves exploring verbatim to perform and create work with I feel that with using these migrant's stories and actual words to drive my piece will allow it to have an element of true authenticity.

I chose these four particular stories as not only did they resonate with me emotionally through the harrowing events these people have had to go through, but it also shows the range of lifestyles these migrants lived before they had to flee and furthermore the conditions they were forced to live in before they did. There's also a range of ages included, for example the words from a 62 year to a father talking about his young children - it shows that it doesn't matter how old or who you may be, you will be affected greatly by whatever force is causing you to flee your home, whether it be civil war, terrorism or something completely different, it will affect you in some way. I want to give a voice to the events these people have had to go through to just to get to Europe's shores only to be labelled as animals and benefit scroungers, I want to use their original words to be as truthful and respectful as possible.