Today's Question: Describe how voice, sound and movement [were] used to create a surreal performance of 'A Dream Play'. As an audience member which performance was the most effective and why?
Well, before I get on to answering the question, I'll quickly run through what we did today. We did a few vocal warmups to get us going, and then worked on our Gibberish skills by both talking to and abusing others in Gibberish. Finally, we played around with our voices utilising a song, the name of which I do not know, but which goes as follows:
"Hey, ho, nobody's home/Food nor drink nor money have I none/Still I will be very merry"
This can be repeated as many times as wanted, as it effectively loops from the end of one to the beginning of the next. As mentioned, we played around with our voices using it, performing it as a round, whispering it and changing the volume of our voices continually among other things.
Now, the question. We were divided into groups of 4 to 5, given copies of an extract from "A Dream Play" and were given the better part of a lesson to devise a performance.
Our group did quite well as far as I could tell; we used multiple layers of surreal sound and voice - the background noise, the chattering, high-pitched voices and the constant, quiet drone in the background. Movement was also used effectively - each type of sound had its own row and its own movement pattern, making our movements seem simultaneously simple and confusing.
As an audience member, I can barely remember any of the other performances. The only one that I truly remember at all was one in which the group surrounded us in a circle, performing around us. This interesting use of space had an impact on me, but one of the things I did notice was that none of the other groups made full use of multiple layers, both in terms of movement and of sound and voice, meaning that their performances ended up being much more 'flat' and less surreal and entertaining.
Again, I feel like I need a picture here, but I can't think of anything to put (related or not).
