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.