Blog Entry 2

Skills: Movement and ... (am very worried for the second skill)
I decided to not use multimedia because I am really not good at linking multimedia to the movement. It's so difficult!!! I'm not a mask/set/costume person... so I dont know if I should choose sounds/lighting/acting?

DV is inspired by a poem "Petals" by Amy Lowell

Petals

Life is a stream
On which we strew
Petal by petal the flower of our heart;
The end lost in dream,
They float past our view,
We only watch their glad,
early start.
Freighted with hope,
Crimsoned with joy,
We scatter the leaves of our opening rose;
Their widening scope,
Their distant employ,
We never shall know.
And the stream as it flows
Sweeps them away,
Each one is gone
Ever beyond into infinite ways.
We alone stay
While years hurry on,
The flower fared forth, though its fragrance still stays.

DV: Although dreams may be lost, the memories remain and you have grown and learnt from the experience.

This poem talks about the wide scope of possibilities that life provides and takes an optimistic approach to show how one should take risks in life to reach for our dreams, even though the outcome is something we cannot control. As long as we work towards our dreams and not allow our fears of risking hinder our path to success, it is the process that matters where we learn and grow from the obstables we face.

Okay so here my story is inspired by a book "Chinese Cinderlla" by Adeline Yen Mah. The storyline in the book fits my DV and the poem "Petals" as well. So I decided to adapt some parts of the storyline to my piece to make it more realistic because "Chinese cinderella" is based on a true story of the author. Because I feel that if I were to create a piece entirely based on original work, I will be straying very far from real life situations and it'll make the piece look very unreal. This story is something very personal to her and I think it closely relates to me because it talks about how one girl is discriminated by her family and is always neglected by her families because she caused the death of her mother. She finds it difficult to pursue her dreams but she did not give up and in the end, she still succeeded.

(STORY)
Similarly, my piece is about a girl who is born disabled (no left leg) and her mother died while giving birth to her. I wanted to challenge myself to move with only one leg throughout the piece so I made her disabled. Her family sees her as bad luck as so always didnt like the sight of her because she reminds them of their mother. She is always being mocked at her family for being useless because she is disabled and not only is she useless herself, she caused the death of her mother. She constantly blames herself for existing and hates herself for being physically dependant on others. However, she is determined to be independant and work towards her dreams of becoming a dancer.
In order to stick to my DV and contrast with "Chinese Cinderella",
I decided to change the ending of "success" to "acceptance" because realistically, disabled people can't really have the physicality to dance. So instead of succeeding, my character did not reach her dreams but she is satisfied with who she is and she knows that she has ventured out in life and she has experienced the journey of life.

Since I'm doing movement, I'll be doing Expressionist Theatre, the physical style of acting. It'll be episodic with no clear narrative and want to jar the audience emotionally. I use my own personal experience of my secondary school life where I struggled between having to sacrifice my passion for dance for symphonic band. Although I did not like band, it is because of band that I've gained the experience of teamwork and knowing to priortise, showing the angst and then a transition to acceptance and optimism. It's basically more of a life experience, where I want to make point that we should work towards our dreams despite the obstables because it's the process that matters. Because in today's world, everyone is so particular about results and not the process, whereby results in little character development and social responsibility in all of us. Oh yes and I'll be tying up my left leg so that I really look disabled and will be moving around with clutches.
Staging will be focusing on colours to state clearly the mood and tone of the play at each scene. Techniques of distortion may be used in the beginning (angsty part). I'm not too sure on costume and make up yet, probably simple costume to be able to move around comfortably but maybe faces and bared body parts will be painted? Not decided yet hahaha

For movement, I want to use the PUSH physical theatre philosophy http://pushtheatre.org/philosophy.htm but the thing is the founder of PUSH (Darren and Heather Stevenson) didnt state where they got their inspirations and traditions from, I'm very clueless here!!! http://www.yawny.org/members/pushphysicaltheater/pushphysicaltheatre.pdf
they just listed the other directors as "further study"!!!
Or do I just research on them? Or should I research on other theatre directors? But I really like PUSH's style!

Alright plot of the story I've yet to decide because I dont know if my story is okay.

The story has not much "meat" to it yet but will fill it up with more obstacles in her life and how she overcomes them. Will update with plot the next entry.