So now weve made more progress in terms of what the plot of next year's play is going to be like, which is the story of a queen, who is robbed of her rightful throne, and has to find a way back up again. But the most difficult part of the play to write, which is how the play unfolds and ends, is still a struggle.

Im afraid to rush things too much and end up with a mediocre plot where we rely on the set design and the acting  only for the play to work, because even though the plot isn't the most essential part in theatre, it still counts, and our audience is also going to see a story, no only actors performing.

But the hardest part hasn't even begun yet. Writing the script is what often worries me the most, because there's a lot to take into account, not only the fact that we cant make language too complicated because its in English, but also that we have to think about what every single character in the scene is going to say, so its not as easy as just thinking about how a scene would unfld for say 2 or 3 characters, its much bigger than that.
Also, we must have a certain idea beforehand of who is going to act as which character, because then we can make the script accordingly, not as to put too much pressure on actors which dont have great pronounciation, or that cant learn their lines very easily, and vice versa, to give more space to actors which can.

Most of the remaining pressure comes from the fact that while writing, we are already defining most of the character's personality, because of what they try to achieve and how they achieve it, so if that comes out as uninteresting, or flat (the characters) then the actors wont have much to work with.

A lot of pressure and expectations, but i hope this is only the initial impression, and that when we actually start, it will seem to flow more easily, but weve still yet to see that.

To what extent can actors influence the character they are playing? Or to what extent should they lead astray form the text character?

This past week we've started thinking about next years play. We separated the tasks amongst the group and Esteban and I were assigned to think of the outline and write the play.

The task seemed, and still seems very challenging, since it is no longer writing for a short sketch, like before, but a full play. Which means that we have to think of a whole story, elaborate a plot in which to work on. Usually when writing or thinking about sketches, I only think of a "slice of life" like an instant in which the transcendence of the story itself is not important. But now, we have to work a lot more in terms of details and basically creating a story. What makes this job different than any other ive done before is that, when writing short stories, or thinking of plots, there is a certain openness of variables in the story, people may interpret them in different ways, or imagine different things, but with this play we have to be specific about the one proposal we are trying to put on stage, so we have to think about everything.

Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.  ~Anton Chekhov


Even if the set design team is supposed to imagine how the story will be represented in the stage, when writing we also have to take it into account, because we have to think about actions and settings which are suitable for representing, and thinking about the details in the scenes can also give us ideas on how the scenes develop, so I will start reading more plays in order to get a hint of how playwrights approach their writing.

One of the first challenges that came to mind when we realized that this was going to be a play about a Queen in England was that a lot of the works ive seen or read which have British humour involve a lot of word-play. (Not that the play will be a comedy, but it will certainly include some humour at some stage) Language aids a lot in this process as words lead to another, and discussion can be created. But in this case, we have to go easy on the words and difficult phrases because the play will be in english, for actors who are non-native english speakers. So that is one influence ive picked up over some time which im afraid i wont be able to use when im writing.

The fact that I have Esteban to write the play with really takes a lot of pressure off, because he is usually very creative and comes up with ideas very easily, whilst i seem to take a lot longer to do so, but like developing them. So I think that with our joint efforts we will be able to come up with something interesting by the end of these holidays.

Theres a lot of work ahead, and im rather excited.

So far most of our ideas for the play come from other stories, it almost seems like a collage of elements. And i cant help feeling like were doing something un-original. But then again, isnt every piece of work or art influenced by previous works?

This Wednesday we saw the play "Hebras" in the school theatre performed by the theatre group "Cuer2".

This wasn't the first time I saw the play, but certainly, by seeing it again, different things emerged which I had not been able to give sense to before. I used to have a more objective view of the play, given that there are two "characters" which seem to be involved in a power struggle, I used to think that the play was about the relationship between two people, and how humans always want to be able to control what's around them. But this time, it wasnt so.

One of the things I missed last time, and that shaped my understanding of the play in a different way this time, is the fact that the characters seem to merge at the end, they join and become entangled. That could be interpreted as two parts of a single thing, instead of two different beings.
The fact that they seem to go on a loop, or that each seems to be a mirror image of each other also helps prove this point, because it reinforces the idea of them being the same, and we all tend to fall into the same patterns over and over again.
And also the fact that they had bandages is evidence of some sort of wound, or in this case some sort of violent separation, that seemed to have occurred before.

So these things changed my point of view of the play from a play a bout a relationship between two people, and the power struggle involved, to a play which shows our internal struggle, and how everyone has more than one side to him/her.

Apart from my understanding of the whole performance, one of the things I really enjoyed about the play was the physical work. Regardless of meaning, intention or context. The way the bodies interacted and the mastery of the body is something that I instantaneously appreciated. As well as the music, which seemed to fit in perfectly with the performance.

An observation I had from the performance was that people started clapping when there was a fade-out of lights on the actors, but the musician's light was still on, which meant the play wasn't over yet. This may have been because there were some people who couldnt see the musicians because they were facing the other  way, and so when they started clapping, a chain reaction occurred, leading to the premature clapping.

La cura en Troya

Is theatre ever complete without the illusion it creates? If all the elements are there, but lacks the illusion, is it still theatre?

The play being reviewed is called "La cura en Troya" directed by Jorge Guerra performed at "Centro Cultural de la Universidad Catolica". The play is an adaptation of a play written by Seamus Heaney, an Irish Poet, which is based on the classic play "Philoctetes" by Sophocles.

In theatre, there is usually an illusion, which transports the audience to a fictional space, where the play occurs. This however, is critical to the audience in order to have a certain level of credibility towards what they are seeing, a fictional credibility if you will, and if this illusion isn't present, then the play wont work at all.

This is what I felt when seeing this play, because even if all the other elements where coherent to some extent, the lack of this credibility made me lose concentration on what I was watching.

One of the things that I felt uneasy about at first, and made me lose this credibility was the constant mention of an island, to make the audience believe that the play was happening on an island (Lemnos), but there was no hint whatsoever on stage that would give the impression of an island, and words themselves are not enough to actually create the illusion. To me the scenery were just white square columns to each side, and that was basically it. So by me not believing the setting of the play, everything else just didn't seem believable, it was like seeing characters act in the middle of nowhere for no apparent reason.

Another element that broke this illusion was the fact that at one point in the play, a table was put on stage, with two chairs. Given that the whole play was supposedly set on ancient times, and the costumes were all (except one) classic, I expected the table to be a bit rustic, or resembling that era, but instead it was a "Cafe table" and the chairs were also quite modern. So this clash between eras confused me a bit, and had me thinking. Usually these things have a purpose, but if there was one this time, it didn't get through. At least for me as an audience member. And the same can be said for the costume of Odysseus, which was that of a contemporary Yacht owner, and clashed against all the other costumes, which resembled Greek times.

Perhaps, these two elements, the lack of setting and the apparent incoherence of certain costume and scenery elements made everything that came after just seem far fetched, or that just didn't fit.

For example, at one part, an image of a volcano is projected on a long panel on the top of the stage, and the voice of Hercules is heard, while the actors remain still. It might be just personal taste, but firstly, the animation just didn't seem to fit the quite basic scenery and empty space, because it was detail-rich, and really contrasted the stage. So I think that the projection was if anything, unnecessary, because just the voice would've been enough, and would make more sense in terms of simplicity than a short video.

It seemed like a steep slope, where the first little mistake turned into increasingly larger consequences. The lack of setting gave in to a lack of credibility, which made almost anything that came after, slightly bogus. That, plus certain ideas that might not have come through to the audience, like the nature of Odysseus's costume, or the modern table just killed the Illusion for me. I was just seeing actors perform on a stage, not characters living on an island.

In my opinion, the play itself wasn't bad at all, I think that if the illusion had been created, everything else, would've had that underlying coherence that the play lacked. The acting was satisfactory, but again, if the setting was clearer, the acting would've just blended perfectly, because at times, even if i thought the acting was doing OK, the lack of setting made it look artificial. Compared to other plays weve seen this year, its fair to say that this one had a lot of potential to be an overall good play, but due to lack of certain elements, it just didn't work fully.

It is important to lure the spectator into a work of art, so that it can soak in and create some sort of reaction. The spectator shouldn't feel the obligation to make an effort to understand art, rather, let art guide him through an experience.

Script-making is something we never really learnt or practised throughout most of the drama course at school, and only became a concern this  year, while trying to make our plays, Split and Dystopia. Since little to no theory  about the script-making process was presented to us before writing the scripts, all we had to rely on was plays we'd seen or we had read, to have a vague idea of how it worked. First of all, the idea, or concept has to be clear, in order to know what to aim for. Then the outline of a story, or an already existing one, to be the vessel of this idea or concept we had previously chosen. After these two steps are clear, starting to focus on the characters may be a good idea, because when understanding the characters, and their intentions, the script will start flowing easily, rather than just leaving character development behind, and use them as excuses for the play to happen. For example, in the play "Fiesta de cumpleaños" we saw the other day, the actors didnt seem to understand their characters, thus it didn't really work, but im sure that another director, or acting group could take the exact same script and make a better job. After that, in terms of script the remaining process is free, and very dependant of the play and the approach the director decides to take. For example a consistent style, or certain patterns that are repeated throughout scenes, are completely dependant of each play. But in most plays at least, it is important no to be too direct, or objective with what you writ on the script, some of the meaning has to be given to it by pauses, intonation, or situations, so being a bit more abstract with what you write could potentially have a greater impact on the audience, and the play itself. Research is also helpful in the creation of the script, that way you can have a background of different playwrights and their style, or ways of writing, etc.

A playwright may have his ideas about characters, and write with certain tone of voice in mind, in order to give a specific effect. But once the play is published, it is totally open to interpretation. How can a certain boundary be set by the playwright?

40 le ?!?

Last monday we went to Larcomar to watch "Fiesta de cumpleaños" a play written by Harold Pinter.
When I entered the theatre, the stage was dimly lit, so that the whole scenery was visible, and my first impression was quite good, for it looked quite good, with the windows to the side, and the double-height roof, the old wallpaper, I thought it was a promising play. (Also due to the fact that the ticket costed 40 soles, a part of me wanted this play to be promising) And so the play started, with a relatively old couple living in the house having breakfast. The first thing that made me realize that something wasn't working was the volume of the voices, which was extremely low and was difficult to keep up with what they were saying, and a little boring too. If at first it may have seemed an effect to reflect the quiet nature of a cozy morning, any regular morning, started becoming too frequent, and throughout the play the volume of the voices was almost consistently too low. One thing I quite liked was the vagueness of the lines, conversation which were not relevant in themselves, but more interesting in their subtext. The use of pauses, at first, like the volume, may have worked as an effect, in this case to make the audience fill in the blanks with subtext, and create a bit of tension, but again, the extensive uses of these pauses made it painful to keep watching the play, because they created an enormously dense and monotonous atmosphere. Then, as the play progressed, it was more and more difficult to understand what was actually happening, and I don't blame it on the text, I think it was the fault of the actors, because they did not really transmit what they were trying to say with their intonation and way of expressing themselves, and due to the lack of this hinting, the audience was left with no material in order to speculate or recognize any consistent flow in the subtext. I dont think its very important to analyse every character in this play, because most of them dont deserve individual criticism , as a whole, it didnt work. The only character which I found interesting in terms of the characterisation was Meg, the old lady, which had obviously worked with the voice and physicality to convey her character. Also, the scenery, mixed with the costumes created a somewhat flat ambient, because the colours were alike, and nothing really stood out, it was a combination of opaque colours, which could've been good if it had something to highlight, or if the play itself gave sense to it through the plot or acting, but it didn't, which made it even more dull to watch.
It was certainly the worse play I've seen so far this year (excluding one-act play performances)

Is it possible to get to an agreement wether a play was good or bad, if the play relies heavily on subtext? Because in that case, different audience members could arrive at different conclusions which affect their perspective of the play. Making it different for almost everyone.

This week we've started thinking about the end of year Paucartambo play. There are two proposals we will be working on, one on alienation and the look for a Utopia, and the other which features various elements from the paucartambo celebration and focuses on the life cycle, life and death. So far we've only started working on the first one, but we haven't done much. We basically focused on the main ideas shown in the play and tried to use them to create a different play. We've been assigned a task to do, mine is to give a director's vision on the acting, and so far what I've come up with is to make it non-realistic, to make it strive as far away as possible to conventional theatre, and use that as the base from which to build upon, because the play is more about the ideas that are trying to be expressed rather than the actual characters and their personal development. Some ideas came to mind, for example how to represent the train, and since the train is an escape form the unease or anguish of a dystopia I thought about making it like a succession of still pictures, because anguish and unease is a strange feeling, and creating a fiction, or a new reality is one of the only ways out of it. So the still pictures are supposed to show the steps he takes to create it, boil it down to the essentials, rather than to show a dialogue. We are still a long way from completing this performance, but I think that if we agree on the same main ideas to be shown, or the concept, each of the parts that were assigned to us will be able to fit nicely and give off a good performance.

The idea of a Utopia has more to do with the experience of individuals than with an actual physical place. Having said that, a person living comfortably and happy in his/her society can be said to be living in a Utopia? Is it a reality?

This week we had two performances of "Split" in the Pelagatti  theatre, and both had different outcomes. The first day, we showed the play to Form 1, and even if there were a few mistakes, the audience was quite receptive and did react to the funny bits. Yet, the next day's performance was to the Form 2 students, and even though the performance itself had less mistakes, the audience did not react very much and didn't find it funny. This shows how different audiences can have different reactions to the same thing.That's why its so hard to trying to find "funny" or comical things to put into a script or play, because there will never be something that works for all audiences, taste and humour are different within each person. What we have to do when writing the script and rehearsing is to try and narrow down our audience as much as we can so we have an idea of what these people are going to react to. In our case our audience were school students, teachers and parents, which weren't english native speakers. After having done this, we put in things the audience could identify with, like chicken delivery men, or faulty technology, which we recognize in our society. But even within this audience we had set, we saw different reactions. Which means that if we base our improvements on one audience's reaction, it does not mean that the next audience will react to the things we added or improved, so its just a matter of trying to reach the biggest amount of people possible, because there will always be people that wont like the performance, or find it boring.

We just have one more performance of "Split" left, and I hope the audience will react better than in the last performance. But in terms of how I feel as an actor in the performance about our play, I would have to say that im happy about how things worked out, and I like the final product. At the beginning of the project I was completely unsure about the success of the play, due to the time we had, and that we were the ones that had to create the whole thing, but little by little as we started creating it, and it became more tangible, this uncertainty completely dissipated, and through group work we ended up having a play that worked. Now that we are finishing the PPP, I can see what most of the other plays of the festival lacked, working on a concept. Because really, that was the base that we worked on from the beginning, which made all of our inputs and elements coherent inside the play.

A good performance in the actor's point of view can turn out to be not so amusing to the audience, and viceversa, so, can there be any certainty at any time that a play is going to work?

We finally managed to make a full-run of the play and give it an ending, and were less than a week away from the actual performance. Through the last rehearsals, some issues emerged, one being the voice exploration of Esteban, who struggled to make a high pitch voice, and only seemed to be able to project his voice at a lower pitch. We all tried to help him out in different ways, but he still couldn't, so we had to go through a simple musical scale exercise to test his range of pitches. After some while of repeating the exercise, Esteban was able to find the higher pitches in his voice, but only at a low volume. Finding the ranges of our voice is very useful for character exploration, and to give one's character different ranges of emotion that can be expressed by different levels of pitch and volume. But as we saw, our full vocal range can sometimes be elusive, and can only be achieved by these warming exercises and stepping out of our comfort zone, because we become used to speak in one pitch and register and tend to stick close to it. Warming up is also essential to keep the pace of the play going, because it makes us go into the scenes already in character and with the right amount of energy, if not, the characters probably wouldn't be complete the moment we go on-stage, and the energy would probably be low. If the audience sees low energy at the beginning of the play, they feel discouraged to keep watching and probably wont enjoy it, so its crucial that we have a good start in able to get their attention. One of the things that worries me the most right now is the ending, where the lights stay turned off, and don't come back on again until the play finishes, because the original idea was to make the lights turn off so that we could rearrange the stage in order to show the audience the no-split. Now, without this change, I don't see the reason behind the turning off of the lights, and am not sure whether its going to work so well. Maybe its because I was just accustomed to the idea of showing the no split at the end, or that I dont like the idea of the lights never coming on again, but we will just have to see how it looks in tomorrow morning's  rehearsal in Hiram Bingham College.

Are different ranges of voice necessary to express different emotions? or can a character have a monotone voice and still express their emotions fully?

Its nerve-wrecking to know that we are only one week away from the performance in Hiram Bingham, moreover, the fact that we still don't have everything ready is more worrying. While we were viewing at the PPP example that got full marks, I realized that the most important thing that one has to have in order to create a good PPP is a clear vision. Once the vision is more or less concise, everything will flow easily. And that, in my case, is what lacked in this performance. I didn't have a vision on how I wanted the play to be like from the beginning, so instead I kind of started building the play little by little and let it take its own shape. I think that is why we may be struggling the way we are in the rehearsals, in terms of not knowing what is happening, or in which direction the play has to progress, because we don't have a clear shared vision. I guess that is why we made the pitch, to have a clearer idea, but even after having done the pitch I'm still unable to justify the metallic scenery for example, or what were ultimately trying to get across. That's why I still don't see the connection between what my character does and the message of the play, thus I feel like the actions are empty. The vision should be the foundations, or starting point of the play, and the fact that I didn't have one makes this whole creation fall apart at times, you need a string foundation so the building doesn't fall over. Today at the rehearsal I noticed the stage was too big for our performance, and the only way for it to work is to open the curtain just enough so it marks the boundaries of "limbo", and as the Hiram Bingham's stage is also quite big that might be a problem. The coordination in the part where Nicolas and I are being pulled to the sides is getting better, but it will be crucial that we time it perfectly so that the illusion is not lost, we need to find its rhythm. We still have a lot of things to finish and polish before were ready to present our play, and we have to move fast. Clearly by having had a better, or at least a hint of a vision at the beginning of the process would've made things happen a lot easier, so I'm unsure about the method of making the play in a group, and then working separately on the script, because everyone ends up putting their own vision in different parts, and when putting everything together it will be like trying to fit in pieces of different puzzles together, they just wont fit. The exercise we did on Friday, of creating our play based on the stimulus of a spider web was very interesting, and I think everyone felt confident about what they had created because their vision was clear, and from there we could've started creating a play with more ease.

Is it possible to create a play without a vision, to just start building out of an idea and let it take its own shape?
Has this ever happened?

During the last few weeks we have focused heavily on the one-act play. Now we have a much clearer and concise idea of what we are presenting and the script is almost ready. The rehearsals have been a bit tedious, because we could get stuck in the same scene for a long time due to some flaws in the acting or sometimes not knowing the script too well, but I feel we are making a lot more progress than we were at the beginning. Something very interesting which I've had to do is to share my ideas of characterisation with Nicolas and vice versa  because its the first time I share a character, and I have to say that it is so much easier to create a character with two people than to create it by yourself, because only the best of both points of view are selected and put into the character, for example the slightly hunched back which came from Nicolas and the position of the hands which I came up with, and apart from being faster and easier it is also so much more entertaining, because there is a stimulus to keep looking for new things and try to compete with each other to see who comes up with the best idea. Sometimes its hard to find motivation when one is alone, and competition I think is a very strong motivation to create, who knows, maybe we all should've tried and create each character in a group so that the character that is created is made up of only the best ideas of the whole group. Its interesting how much collective motivation can affect the creative process, because for example when trying to learn a script, I personally find it really challenging to learn it by myself, because its hard to imagine the other characters there, and im no good at memorizing things just like that, but when we get together and act, it seems as if the lines are instantaneously stuck into my brain once we have the whole scene ready, because the brain can give everything a meaning, its no longer loose words. Afterall words are only the medium to express something, they dont really mean anything by themselves. What I find hardest at the moment is to try and think what to do w hile im on-scene, for there are long gaps in which I  dont say anything, what I usually do is to give sense to my previous and next line through actions when im not talking, but once the gap is too wide I start struggling, maybe the key lies in understanding the motivations and personality of the character outside the actual conference, an exercise we used a long time a go in a performance I dont really remember popped into my head, defining things like age, nationality favourite music and things like that may get me closer to filling those gaps. If the characters are supposed to be human beings then obviously a past is necessary for them to exist.

Time is ticking fast, and we are getting closer and closer to the one act play, what at first seemed an impossible feat is now materializing, and I trust that we are going to be able to pull it off with a little bit more effort and most importantly, motivation.

Why are children told since very little that if they lose at something that they are still winners or that "intention is what counts"? Because as I explored earlier, competition is an integral part of the creative process, and without it we would not be motivated to improve, and in reality intention is worthless without a product.

Having not gone to the Paucartambo festival was quite unfortunate, for I know I would've understood and pícked up on things that I wasn't able to while watching the video, also due to the fact that I only got to see part of the festival already limits my ability to understand the whole ceremony.

The "Virgen del Carmen" festival takes place during a few days where townspeople dress up in costumes to dance and tell a story, some of them have learnt since very little on how to dance and be a part of the festival. Its a tradition that has lasted many generations, meaning that there has to be something in it that transcends till today.

Different comparsas (dance groups) go out and dance, some like the Maqtas interact a lot more with the audience than the others, but the main "plot" that I could recognize was the guerrilla, the fight between the Qhapac Chuncho and the Qhapac Collas. This fight represents the merging of the jungle and andes people of the inca empire, which brings us to question, how is this remotely related to the "Virgen del Carmen"?, the answer is probably that it isnt, its as if the people from the andes have used the Virgen del carmen religious celebration as an excuse and mask to be able to show their real history and traditions
 when the Spaniards were supressing any sort of indigenous religion. This idea of the mixing of both cultures is seen everywhere in the festival, from the costumes to the music, everything shows the adaptability of the Andean culture to others, and how they take all the good thinks they can learn form other cultures and integrate it into theirs, like the crafting of masks for example, which is a European tradition. Having been born in Peru, I have to say that the closest ive come to understanding my country's history is through pages in a textbook, but this kind of celebration is an example of living history, which changes and adapts everyday to our everyday needs and events.

The whole celebration seems very festive and happy, people from all around the city come together and celebrate, its a community thing, so it helps keep the community together too, this is something that I don't see much in modern cities, and maybe that is why people aren't as close and united with their community in modern cities as they are in provinces and the countryside. I do think that the celebration also reminds the people of their identity, brings them back reminding them where they came form, and i think that is important for us as human beings to know, where we came from.

Here in lima, is there an equivalent of the paucartambo celebration in terms of bringing the people together?

We have already started creating and putting together our one-act play. At first it seemed as if this was going to be an impossible task to create a play in 4 weeks, but as we started writing and thinking, and as the play started taking shape it now seems as if our goal is very much possible. As of now the hardest part is by far writing the script, for everyone has different ideas and inputs and we cant put them all in. Since its the first time ive written a script for a play, I still don't know what works or doesn't work on scene, and Im slightly concerned because something that might be funny on paper might not work on the stage. I think that by now, everyone has a clear idea of what they're character is like, and can imagine them on scene, which helps to write the script, and sometimes its fun to try and improvise how they would react to certain situations, and from there start building up, but the problem there is that most of the time we go over the top, or go slightly off topic without having an end to the situation, which is something that could bore the audience. I would say that the one thing that isnt yet clear is how its going to end, we've had different ideas that all could work, but its something we have to carefully choose, we cant risk having a boring or uninteresting ending, it has to work.
Me and Nicole are in charge of scenery and props, and so far we have some idea of how the stage is going to look like, all scenery will be metal, and it would probably be nice for the props to be metal or painted as so, so it works with the scenery. In terms of creating my character, it was nice to have a comical character, because there are so many characters I can get inspiration from easily, and its a role I would enjoy performing after having done a more serious one. The fact that I share my character with Nicolas could pose a few difficulties in terms of how we want the character to be or develop, but I think we have similar perspective of the character. So far, theres not much to be said, were still a long way from having this play ready and im certainly excited to see how it develops.

Script writing in groups is a difficult task, for everyone has their own view and perspectives about the characters and the unfolding of the situation. Does group script-writing actually occur in out of school plays? If so how do they keep the story constant if everyone inputs different perspectives?

This school play was a completely different experience than any other previous ones, I think it’s because this time I felt much more attached to it, be it for the fact that now we were part of the stage design and production, or also the fact that I came to every rehearsal this time. An activity that takes so much of your time becomes like your priority, and for the, what, three months that the play took to put together, it was basically all that I could think about, specially the last month or couple of weeks before the play, because of the pressure and excitement. I think the play was a bit chaotically arranged at first, but as time went by, everything started piecing together, the idea of each scene working by themselves separately at first seemed as if it wasn’t going to be very good, due to the fact that there were only three directors, but amazingly it managed to work just fine. In my scenes for example, specially scene five, at the beginning when there was no director, the actors would just mess about and wouldn’t take things seriously, but then as some people were kicked out or left the play, and pressure started building due to the proximity to the play, the actors started taking things more seriously and ended up giving ideas and working as a team. In my opinion, the play exceeded my initial expectations, probably because it all seemed to come together at the end of the process and seemed quite disorganized and messy before that. Only one thing concerns me now that the play is over, and it is the fact that this last one has highered the bar, and will raise bigger expectations for next year, which makes me nervous, not because I don’t think we are a good drama group, because I do think that when we work together we yield good results, but because what the IB 2^nd year group did was more than good, and sometimes these things just occur, unexpectedly, and that’s what worries me.

I’m all excited about Paucartambo and I’m all ready and set up. I even did my baggage already. We’ve done so much preparation and studying about it and Andean theatrical culture that I just can’t wait to see it with my own eyes. Obviously there is a concern, not the weather or how we are going to share rooms, but how we are going to be able to see and analyze the whole party in the very limited time that we have, and only with our point of view. By point of view I don’t mean our opinion, but the actual things that we see, our visual perspective. Its going to be challenging and I think whaty will be the most helpful in this is to have a clear research question so that we spot the precise things were looking for.

Is it possible to analyze and condense hundreds of years of culture and tradition that has evolved in the party in only one visit? What about the dynamic elements which will seem fixed if we only go 1 time?

(this post was saved in the drafts folder for some reason, as seen on the image above, and it dates 10/07/11, also the post will be published as if it were sunday because thats the original date written.)

I cant believe the play is finally over, what one seemed like a never-ending eternity now seems just a small glimpse of time. I feel that my work in terms of costumes (set design) has taught me a lot of things, but not in the explicit sense of actually designing costumes, but in the sense that it gave me a broader insight into how intense the job of a designer can be, for I had to finish designing the costumes in quite a short amount of time and one has to think about all the other design elements so that they fit in the play, taking into account colour, shape, how well they will work on the scenes, etc. It certainly made me see this "artistic" world, which I naively deemed as being about feeling and thought rather than hard work as something really labour-intensive. When I saw scenes in the dressed rehearsals I felt really relieved, not only because the costumes looked quite well with the overall design of the play, but also because it meant the realization of the work I had done with the help of Arianna throughout all this period of time. If I could go back and change some things about the designing process I would've probably done more research before starting to draw the models, so that I had more variety of styles and more accuracy in terms of Kabuki. Which is probably the most important step a designer has to take before starting to work, for without research there isnt much to work with. Overall the design experience has taught me many different things that I will be able to apply in the future. I heard pretty good comments about the play overall and some mention about the costumes which I was quite happy about, mainly about the Exorcists costume change which seemed to attract the audience's attention. I would've really liked to see the play as a whole to see how well the play worked and which elements couldve been improved, but unfortunately as designers/actors of the play we were unable to because we had to act in the dressed rehearsals and couldnt sit down and watch our design work, but nevertheless it has been a really good experience.

As an actor in the play, I have to say that this particular acting experience has been like no other done before, mainly due to the fact that this is a completely different type of theatre than what were used to, and the approach into creating a character is totally different than representational theatre. So no we had to work from the outside inwards not from the inside (feelings, psicological emotions, etc) outwards. I would be lying if I said I didnt enjoy this experience, on the contrary, it was actually pretty fun. Not needing to have a genuine emotion behind your actions is something that was quite unknown to, I guess, all of us that acted in the play, because we had never come across this concept before. To be honest, I still couldnt get rid of the old way of creating a character throughout the process, for I used the context of my character to express the hatred and frustration he had after killing his fiance. It was hard for me to get rid of the way I had  been doing theatre throughout my whole education and try and replace it for a completely opposite one. My way of dealing with this was to incorporate one with the other, try and be as superficial as possible, and focus a lot on the visual and physical aspect but still have a few guiding feeling behind it to make it feel (for me) more natural and easier to act out. Incorporation seems to be a way to survive when different ideas clash, be it in religion and cultural beliefs such as we see on Paucartambo, or different types of Theatre ideologies like in this play. I think that our capacity to merge two completely different things make us who we are as human beings at this point in history, where almost everything around us is a mixture of different things and cultures, it is definately a way forward, acceptance and integration, rather than purist ideas. Thats why I deem the Andean culture to be a very wise one, because even if it isnt the most developed one in terms of technological advances and modern economics, its fundamental principle of cultural survival dates back to inca times, and this integration is what we are discovering in modern times as a way of development. Anyways, going back to the play I really enjoyed acting on it, and it is an experience that i will certainly rememner and look back on on the coming years. Im really happy with how this play came out to be, and hope that next year we do an even better job.

1, 2, 3 MI - YU - KI

Will the world ever reach a a stage of cultural uniformity through integration? And how can small cultures survive against larger ones?

This week we went to see a play with two different acts in it. It was a very corporal performance, resembled more of a dance performance rather that conventional theatre. The first thing that I experiened was a 10-or-more  minute waiting time before the play started, and eventhough I wasnt particularily bothered by it, I think it is important to start a performance on time, to show repect for the audience that is paying to watch you perform. The play itself was visually attractive in my opinion, the performance as a "dance" was well executed, and the fact that I didnt really like it that much was due to me expecting to see something more like a play. The first part involved a female performer and two other actors, and they seemed to have a certain type of relationship, or attraction at least, the bond between them was the only thing I could work out of the performance, but all of the movements were well synched and the flow of movement seemed natural. The second performance only included the two previous male actors, and they seemed to again, have a sort of relationship, and the mood seemed to be one of comedy at times, and the blend of the performance, lights and David Bowie songs did seem to give a sort of 'nice' result. One thing I feel the need to emphazise would be the use of the lights, because in my opinion was one of the highlights of the performance, the way they were set to be invisible at times and then when actors came closer the blue lights would bathe them, or when out of nowhere the lights shut down and only left lower ones on, so that the floor turned darker and a different mood was created, overall the lights were just amazing. I didnt fully understand the play, if there was a sort of objective meaning anyways, but still found it interesting to watch, for it was a change from all of the other more conventional types of theatrical performance.

What is the relationship between dance and acting? did one influence the other, or are they totally different types of performance that sprung independently?

One of the most interesting things we did this week was to try and give sense to the play as it is and express our vision of it. Obviously it was quite challenging to create a vision after the play has been made, because a vision usually would come before the play is created, and with that vision we start shaping the play as we see fit. But what we realized as we discussed in class is that theory usually comes AFTER practice, and not the other way around, thus our vision, even if created after the play had already been started, is valid. When we talked about who and what a protagonist was, we concluded that a protagonist was the character which made the biggest effort to get what he wanted, there needed to be an object or goal that he had to make a certain amount of effort to get. But is there only one kind of protagonist? I mean, if there was a play about a character which did nothing, yet things happened to him without any kind of effort, would he still be a protagonist? I think there can be different types of protagonists, and we can only create a sort of "profile" of a protagonist depending on the most frequent one we see in plays within our context and society. I presonally think that a protagonist can be the character who's actions have the biggest impact on the overall development of the story, he can have a goal or object to get to, or simply just a bystander of circumnstances that change him/her and therefore taking their story to another direction. I havent seen many plays where I can easily identify the protagonist, I mean apart form children's stories and plays which are REALLY obvious, the protagonist seems to unfold throughout the play and at some point we realize that he /she actually is the protagonist, I preffer them to be that way, for the character to change, and be shaped, rather than staying on a flat position and not changing much. That is, i realized, what I look for in a play the development of characters in situations, for I find un-changing characters quite boring.

Can there be more than one protagonist in a play? what if there are parallel sotries with two "protagonists" whos stories merge at some point?

This week we had to include metaphor, synecdoche and metonymy in our blogs, so here it goes. I see our play as being a metaphor itself, its like saying "this play is Kabuki" when in reality we should be saying "this play is like Kabuki", because a metaphor is a comparison without the "like" part, it just is. This is due to the fact that our play, from the start, was destined to be only a vague approximation to Kabuki, and not Kabuki itself, for it wouldve been impossible to have real kabuki play (actors take almost half a lifetime mastering the technique). I realized that usually, most people who watch a play only comment on the actors performances and by their appreciation of their performances they qualify and critizise the play, but in fact the play is much more than that, they are reffering only to a part of the whole, because actors, even if they are deemed by some as one of the most important parts of theatre, are still only one of the many elements that compose it. Only when one gets an insight into how plays are actually done is when we realize how important the stage design is, and that in fact, acting is only a small part compared to all of the elements of stage design, like SFX, LFX, costumes, props, scenery and makeup. So if we were to make a comparison, acting would only be the bones in an arm, still important, but not as complex as all the other elements that make it up. And trying to look outside the box a bit, i realized the word theatre is actually a metonymy, because the word "theatre" itself only means "a building with a stage and audience seating for performances", so everytime someone refers to "going to the theatre" they actually mean they are going to see a play performance. The word "theatre" acts as a substitution for play because of common association in our society. So there it is, a blog including all three terms required, quite restrictive in terms of flow of ideas really.


Could there be a working play without actors? like only with the playing of lights and sound?

When we were having our class with Pilar on Friday, she talked about how actors try to get back to the way their bodies were when they were infants, like going back to a blank canvas so we can build something from scratch. But not only because its an un-altered version of our body, but because our natural behaviour when we breathe, and move is present when were young, and is lost gradually as we pay less importance to it. Why are we humans the only living specimen which gradually loses its natural body/breathing faculty? because animals always have a certain body movement as they breathe, usually a movement of the spine, which then has repercussions on other parts of their body, but we humans seem to forget it. Its probably due to the fact that we are shifting, with progress, from being a physically driven species to a more intellectually driven one, which does not need of the everyday physical tuning to survive any more. Thus it is the job of the actor to try and go back and retrace our steps to get back to that initial way of being, that mere physicality where body is mind, and vice versa, to reach that ultimate state of expression where ideas are as physical as they are psychological. And once we get to that "empty canvas" state, the possibilities are endless, which is, in my opinion the ultimate goal of the actor, and not only to reach that state but to be able to go back and forth from it, to be dynamic. So this leads me to question if performers which are not dynamic can really be called "actors" I mean if they only represent one personality, or slight variations of it in different plays or occasions, they're still just working from the same mould, changing superficial aspects but not the core itself. Obviously there are many different approaches to acting, and none can be deemed as invalid, yet I feel strongly that this particular method is the one that makes the most sense, and that sets a clear (and difficult) goal to achieve personal success in the profession.

Is part of the thrill of watching an actor perform the fact that we get to see that long lost version of how we used to be in their physical work? 

P.D. 

(Im still developing the Craig / Appia blog, which will probably be in next weekend or during the coming week)

This week I encountered a major inconvenient, even though my work with costumes was almost done, the budget came out being extremely expensive, and major cutbacks had to be made. This was obviously a concern because I knew that a lot of the fabrics with prints would probably have to be replaced with plain fabric, and in Kabuki prints are found everywhere. Eventually we were able to make some cutbacks but as I feared, involved replacing printed fabric with plain ones, and some by cutting back on sleeve lengths and little details. I don't think the outcome will be totally different from the last one I had pictured, but I do think it would've been much better as it previously was. Obviously resources are limited and since it is a school play we cant expect it to be the same as a real Kabuki play, and I guess that our approach isn't totally off-track. On our physical class on Friday with Pilar Nuñez, we kept exploring on how breathing leads to everything we do, and how the intake of air also means an intake of energy. Energy has to be like our breathing, we can have a lot of it but we have to learn to control it, not just let it out as fast as we can and not give it a purpose or definition. Starting an action is as important as finishing it, like breathing, we have to control it in order to give it a smooth ending, and not just run out of energy. In Kabuki there is a lot of contained energy that eventually reaches a climax and I think that it connects with what I previously mentioned about breathing and energy, because for it to be a climax in Kabuki there has to be contained energy that builds up, and to maintain this contained energy actors have to have control over their actions and performance. 

Is it necessary for there to be a build up of actions and energy to build a climax in a play? Or could the climax come first and then be the repercussion of it.

This week we had a special guest who joined us in our physical work on Friday, Pilar Nuñez, who is a Peruvian actress who used to perform in the theatre group "Cuatro tablas". She will work with us and teach us about our voices in acting. At first the class was a bit awkward, for we didn't know her very well (at all) and so it was a bit difficult to show her our voices, for as she explained later, the voice is the most intimate part of an actor, and its not easy to let it out in front of strangers at first. But as the class went along she explained to us a lot of practical things like for example how our pose showed if we were ready to react (which is done by bending our knees), and how the voice and our gaze can lead our body instead of going the other way round. She also talked about our mask, a mask that all actors have which separates us from our character, yet it transforms us completely, and how our face expressions and the direction of our eyes can create this mask that should be confident of itself, and once a certain action is done,  our mask cant fade away, it has to stay there. Which got me thinking about how some actors approach their characterization; because some actually try to immerse themselves in a character, to the point of actually becoming it and end up being affected too much by it. So being aware of a kind of "mask" is really important because if not we can end up damaging ourselves.She also told us that we shouldn't look at another direction or suddenly question ourselves about we just did after we perform an action, because confidence on what you do is crucially important in remaining in character. A very interesting exercise she showed us was to take our tongue out and open our mouth as much as we can, because we usually hide our tongue because we deem it as something quite intimate, and this way we would show no fear at all, and our mask would enable us to lose fear and be able to explore our voices fully.

Has anyone ever immersed him/herself so much into a character, that actually became it and lost their previous personality?

This week we worked hard on the play production, specially in terms of the completion of the costumes, and for the first time I rehearsed a section of one of my scenes as Akira Toriyama. When actually playing the character I felt a big relief because all of the techniques and theory I had been learning was finally put to practice. Obviously I still have to work on the character, not only the physicality but also on his voice. One of the things that make me feel more comfortable while playing the character is that almost all of the movements have a strict way of being performed, and while these movements can be bent slightly, it still gives me a very straightforward base from which to start, improvisation is almost not needed at all. While acting on a scene, I would usually just try and concentrate as much as I can, and imagine my character's reactions and feelings while i act, but now in Kabuki that method has to be over-written, because acting is not about empathy, but about physical precision and control, almost like a dance. So for the first time in almost all of my life I had to change the method by which I create my character and perform. As we saw on Ernst's Kabuki book, the Kabuki theatre is very different if not opposite to the representational theatre, while one tries to accurately depict real life and human emotion and behaviour, the other takes a more surrealistic approach and exploits the non-realistic to create visually attractive and  physically enduring performances. Come to think of it, it actually makes more sense to go and see something that is away from reality than to see something that is equal to it, because people have always been seeking entertainment when they need to escape their daily routines.

So what is the element in representational theatre that makes it work for an audience?

Last Tuesday I went to see the play "Pedro de Valdivia", about Chile's first Governor. I had an impression that, because the play was historical, it was going to be either a dramatic or a dull play. I was proven to be wrong. It was a comic approach to Pedro de Validivia's life as governor of Chile.

When the play started, the actors started telling a story while playing instruments and singing, and throughout the play there would be many of these musical bits. The actors were filled with energy, and the play was always on movement, due to a kind of slapstick comedy, it was a very basic and dynamic style of acting. The play told the story of how Pedro de Valdivia went to Chile after Pizarro gave him authority to conquer, and when Pizarro died, Pedro de Valdivia became governor of Chile, and how there were many unsuccessful campaigns against the Mapuche people, which were Chile's natives, which then after some years resulted in his death.

Even if the costumes didn't change, the roles did. At some points Pedro de Valdivia was played by the different actors, because someone else was narrating the story. Something very interesting was the use of the puppet to represent Pedro while the actor was performing the same movements on-stage, it created a nice effect. There were many transitions between characters, they had to adapt a multi-character story to a three man stage. In terms of the acting, it was quite good, as mentioned before the transitions between characters were all smooth, and in no part of the story did I confuse a character for another, thus they were well executed. The actions were quite big, as if it was directed to a much younger audience, child play alike, making everything really obvious and easy to understand. The comedy bits were all over the place, every once in a while a joke would emerge, and these little jokes started bringing the audience closer to the actors, as if the imaginary barrier became thinner, like when at the beginning a cellphone sound is played and an actor makes as if he's answering the phone.

Having read a little about Pedro de Valdivia and his campaigns, the story was far from comedic, there were bloody wars because of religious and cultural oppression, betrayal and suffering. Yet I still think the play was effective because it told an adapted, but not un-true version of the facts that happened.

Can one actor play many several characters without the use of a narrator or any aiding media like audio clips?

Last monday, we saw a play called "Interruptor" which was created by the theatre group Cuer2. And it revolved around media and technology these days, and how they affect our lives today.

As the play started, i found it hard to understand and give meaning to the what was happening because it was all over the place. The two actors would speak as children, then they would switch to news reporters, political figures and even the pope, and i just couldnt find a way to connect these, but as the play progressed, a pattern started emerging, when the actors repeated a sequence of different news stories in the same order for example, which started giving an idea of some sort of connection between the little scenes. And towards the end of the play it became clear that the characters on stage were actually children playing as if they were inside a computer or a television, thus creating these random shifts between settings as if the television was changing channels.

The stage had movable walls which were made up of an assortment of cables, discs and broken or old electronic devices, and the scenery were all broken CPU's and monitors and two cushions.and this was enough to create all of the different situations because the actions themselves are part of the character's imagination. So the scenery worked very nicely with the plot. The scenery also gave a slight impression about what the play was going to be about the moment the audience walks into the stage. The lights were fixed for the most part, but there was one light that was lit when the characters "inside" the TV look at the audience thats watching themand it created a neat effect because when one is in front of a screen, the light from the screen is refleced on one's face, and the same thing happened on the other side of the screen this time. Im not certain if it was intentional or not but it created a nice effect.

As far as the acting goes I really enjoyed the character transformations and the versatility of the actors to switch between characters instantly and still do a good performance. The characterisation was really good, and I specially remember one scene where the actors were middle-aged women and were talking about the news and broadcasts, where I really felt i was seeing two middle-aged women discussing about news, not only the body movements but also the voice, if i had my eyes closed i wouldve believed that there were two women onstage and not the actors i had seen previously. Another thing i would highlight would be the moment in which they go from being children to news reporters, in which they go through a little period of transformation as if they were made out of electrical parts, and they make very eclectic and robot-like movements, which accompanied by the sound effects blended really well.

Overall, the message I got from the play was that media and technology, instead of bringing us together as they were intended to, they actually separate us from each other. Human interaction and critical thinking are replaced by digital conversations and spoon-fed information, and that is what is happening right now in the world, the younger generations are learning everyday to use computers and digital means to do everything, and all that makes us human is disappearing.

Obviously its not as if the world was going to lose all human charisma and emotion just because all of the media and technology, because even if it is what's happening right now, our past has taught us that there will most likely be a movement that will go against that in the future, like comparing the middle ages and the renaissance, because after all the world always reaches a point of natural balance.

In the film industry, digital arts and technology have started replacing various previously man-made aspects like stunt doubles which are replaced with digital models or the setting which can now be a green screen, and even acting is being replaced by digital actors. Will this merging of the digital and the natural ever happen in theatre to the same extent?

 

This week has been full of work in terms of the school play and the production meetings, I found that the hardest part was to integrate my research about costumes to the scenery for example, because I have to adapt what I have to the colour scheme of the cyclorama for example, or in terms of props, seeing if the colours of the costumes will blend well with the ones of the props. So all these little details like lengths, colour or sizes depend on the other fields of production. When working on the physical training i found that my imagination, effective imagination, needed some work, because even if I can focus and imagine other situations with my eyes closed, when i opened them i just couldnt focus enough to overwrite the space that my eyes showed me was in front of me. When thinking about it, I realized that only one of my sense was "impairing" my imagination, so I will try and focus more on the other senses and see if it helps the process. When starting our warm-up we made an exercise where we imagined our body being disconnected bit by bit, and once a body part was disconnected then no energy would flow through it, thus remaining immobile, and then we would reconnect them, again without moving, and when finishing this exercise I realized something I hadn't seen before, because in both parts of our exercise we were immobile yet we imagined, and eventually felt all these connections being connected and disconnected, proving that effective imagination happens and we can interpret it as something physical too. When we walked imagining a fictitious imagination, our way of walking eventually changed, like having gravity on another direction or walking as if we were falling, and when creating a character, imagining new situations like that can help create a certain type of walking, even for the school play, the characters which keep they're centre of gravity closer to the ground could make use of the exercise to create they're way of walking.

Looking back, effective imagination seems to be much more present when I was younger. To a certain extent, is our understanding of the world as it is conflicting with our ability to "effectively" imagine new situations?

This week we started looking at voice characterisation in Kabuki and have just started to rehearse the outline of the scenes. This first step towards what will become of the play really gave me a much clearer perspective of what we were aiming at and how much time we had to do it, because previously, when we were just training the body, the play still felt too abstract. In the production meeting on Saturday morning I realized just how much work has to be done by our whole team to get this played finished on time, and it certainly raised the stakes and the pressure. At rehearsals most people seem to have learned what they were taught during the physical body training, which is good because the positions and ways of walking are the foundations of what will become of the acting. Right now I don't know what to feel more challenged about, the production of the play, the research about Kabuki costumes or my acting role in the play, it all seems to have come together. In drama class i was surprised to find that we as a drama group were able to perform the warm up and then the physical exercises without much guidance at all, and to be honest I felt like we even worked a little bit better without anyone supervising because there is much less pressure in the atmosphere. While exploring the costumes used in Kabuki I realized that some skill would be needed to fold and make the costumes because they are not at all simple, it goes beyond the conventional costumes, and im not sure if were going to be able to manufacture such costumes very easily. The more i learn about costumes, the more i realize about their complexity. Little things such as the direction of the folds can express big things like differentiating the living from the dead for example, so these details are crucial in order to have a Kabuki-correct play.

How much has western culture affected Kabuki since the Tokugawa period ended?

This week has been full of work about the kabuki play, not only in the production and design but also the training involved. As we research more about Kabuki, we can apply everything to the rehearsals and physical training. In terms of the physical training we started on our own projects trying the techniques that we saw on Roberta Carreri's video, my training consisted on trying and differentiating extroverted and introverted movements and even trying to combine them. The idea of the exercise at first was a little preoccupying for there would be no sort of aid or guidance, it was to be a srictly personal exercise were us and our effective imagination would lead us to explore and learn more about acting. But once the exercise started, a certain feeling of freedom soaked in, for i could choose which way and in what direction to take this exploration, so it was certainly a refreshing experience, and it also made me connect a bit more with my creative side, which i felt i had left behind a bit. The play rehearsals, even if they seem a bit slow i think are serving theyre purpose, for the people and actors involved do seem to be getting the basic outline of what Kabuki theatre is like, and they are learning the positions and exercises well. Kabuki is a particularily difficult type of theatre, which isnt very comforting to hear when the school play is only a few months away, but im sure we will be able to go through each aspect of Kabuki in a basic manner, and this will proably suffice our audience. My experience of friday's class gave me a slight boost in confidence in terms of what the creative side of designing the play will be like, because as i said i felt previously unnatached with that creative impulse. Overall it has been a demanding yet productive week in terms of the progress of the school play and my learning about acting and theatre.

To Kabuki actors in ancient Japan, was acting just a trade, or was it more of a way of life?

On our previous class, while looking at physical interaction and comunication exercises we made some lifting and balancing of 2 bodies, this coordination was easy at first, because of its simplicity, like the "baby" lifting or hanging onto another person from behind, but then as the exercises became more complicated, like when one had to be standing on their hands and the another one would grab his feet and pull them forward so he would stand up, difficulties started arising. First of all, coordination. Coordination between two people if they are looking at each other is one thing, but with no visual support if the people are facing away from each other its a completely different thing, the success lies on both trust and the connection between the weights of the two bodies. Linking this exercise to a video we saw earlier on the week called "Traces in the snow" by Roberta Carreri, she explains how there's a big difference between thinking about doing something and then doing it, and being decided on what to do from the start, body and mind have to be decided on what they are going to do in order to successfully do something right. Going back to the exercise, to be decided was the key for it to work, there was no room for doubt. At first for example when I tried to stand on my hands so that my partner would grab my feet I hesitated and wasn't sure if I was going to be able to make it so I wouldn't come up too short or too far away as to push him. And after a few tries I just decided to let go and do it. And just like the video said, being decided makes all the difference. The weight of my partner and mine once he was carrying me on his shoulders seemed to equilibrate as if the two bodies were the same, for a moment I could actually feel our centre of gravity, so this exercise made me understand that every actor has a different weight and height, but when familiarized with these actors can even go as far as to merge them and create something completely different.

Why is it that we give sight such an importance to what we do if its only 1 of our 5 senses?

Sin Titulo (review)

The play " Sin titulo" by the acting group "Yuyachkani" was something very interesting and fresh to watch, it had elements i hadnt seen before like a "moving stage" or information on the walls, and overall the lighting, sounds, and scenery were stunning. One thing ive noticed by going to a few of Yuyachkani's plays is that they almost always show peruvian culture and issues it has had, and how those issues have shaped our society to what it is now. The experience of the play started just as i walked into the corridor which led to the stage, for the walls were full of phrases and objects that showed different stages in peruvian history, specially the most challenging ones like the war against Chile or the terrorism in the 80´s and 90´s. 

The stage wasnt fixed, it moved through the acting space throughout the play in the form of 4 big tables which moved from one place to another. This is something i hadnt seen in theatre before and at first it seemed like it wouldnt be that effective because people would block your sight, or myabe you were seeing the actors back, yet as the play continued it all seemed to come together and the audience learnt to adapt. One positive aspect of having this Changing stage is that it creates a different connection with the audience, it wasnt exactly full-on interaction but it made me feel closer to the action. 

In terms of lighting and sound effects i found them really effective, for example the part in which the jungle woman and the andean woman have statements written on their clothes the "students" (actors wearing student clothes) would illuminate the dresses so the audience could see and would drive everyones attention to specific spots, so i certainly think lighting was very helpful in terms of directing the audience's attention which was needed in this kind of stage. The sound effects and music were not only enjoyable but also had aspects of peruvian culture that contributed to the play, like when the school girl rings the bell and all of the attention immediately turns toward her, so they did prove effective. Something else that is almost always present on this acting group's plays is live music, the actors playing the instruments while on character, like the girl playing the accordeon, which is totally different than recorded muisc beacuse it also comes with an expression and mood the actor gives altogether.

The plot of the play, even though i recognized a few moments and symbols, wasnt all clear to me, i did get the notion that history teaches us things and that those things shouldnt be f orgotten so they do not happen again. basically what i found confusing was the sudden transitions between the moments in time and some historical groups and characters that i didnt either recognize or know about  like the grupo colina or the judges which seemed to "play" with the economy, yet i did get the message these were trying to transmit. The educational system was something i noticed was present throughout the play, first when the whole corrupt educational system was displayed, with the teacher being specially harsh on the children and putting pressures and ideas onto them, the uniform the kids wore were all the same, which was the case in Peru when the military government was in place; it showed a lack of individuality and psicological opression that originated in government passed on to the educational system and got to the children. The people pushing the table/carts were actors dressed as students, maybe giving the impression that even if we didnt live history, we learn it.

The actors did a very good job not only impersonating people from different ages/time/culture but also in making a smooth transition between them, for example when the christ and mary start transforming to andean people and then start performing rituals, this transition was special in the sense that it passed from one religious culture to another, also, actors showed a lot of different skills, like at the beggining when they were like static staues and they remaind like that for a long while which requires a lot of concentration, and as part of the audience i felt that sort of tension to know when they were going to start moving. There was a very good use of the levels on stage, not only interms of the positions of the actors bodies but also the positions on the stage, like the man who wrote on his typewriter at the top, and the christ which was laying below one of the acting tables. And as mentioned before, the live music and singing also displayed unique qualities that blended perfectly with the play.

Overall it was a play that even if i didnt fully understand, i really enjoyed watching and it left me with many different questions about my own culure and my country's history that i want to know about, and the innovative way that they used lights sound and space really broadened my view of what theatre can be like, it opened my mind to new possibilities, which is one of the reasons i always like going to plays by Yuyachkani, they always have something new for me to see and learn. 

In the last few classes we have started focusing a bit more on the connection between the body and breathing, as well as exploring the voice and its boundaries by trying to say words at the same time as we made different sounds, this last one showed to be impressively tricky, because i couldnt imagine myself saying a sentence at the same time as i was emulating the sound of a car engine, i just couldnt find a reasonable method behind it, and apparently the only way to do it was by "just doing it". So that exercise was quite confusing. The exploration of the voice does seem very important in character creation, and i certainly agree, yet it is probably one of the toughest areas ive explored. When exploring the body i did feel more comfortable because its something we have worked with for such a long time, and one of the only limitations are imagination and physical capabilities, for some characters require high physical fitness, or flexibility. These exercises were useful towards not only our exploration of voice and body, but also towards our understanding about the connection between the two. Another exercise that i found interesting was the passing of an energy ball between two people which we had to keep in constant movement, because it was as if the enrgy controlled you and not the other way around, obviously if we go down to the core of how our mind works, we realize that what we are doing when moving the ball is to vaguely predict how it is going to move relative to its direction and force before it reaches you, and then just let it "flow", it was a really interesting exercise in terms of understanding what "energy" is and how it works on us. Overall it has been a mildly challenging week, which i sort of expected, and im looking forward to seeing what we do next.

To what extent is energy an abstract force which we channel through our bodies and not just our own interpretation of a flow of actions?

A new year just started, bringing the IB programme with it, and as far as the Drama IB course goes I am still quite nervous and full of doubts and expectations about whats going to happen throughout these 2 years. Last class we started exploring the boundaries and corners of our voice and breathing, which made me see the wide spectrum of voices one could use to create a character, for we are normally used to only talk in one register, which really limits our characterisation and exploration of a character. In terms of the breathing it was really interesting to try and understand how voice was originated in the first place, because by merely letting air through our throat some sounds are produced, and we slowly started 'finding' our voice. I felt a certain level of awkwardness while exploring my voice, and i think this is due to the fact that i am used to talk in the same type of voice all of the time and that is the voice that i feel makes me who i am, and by changing it you immediately become different to the people around you, which adds to the fact about how important voice is towards characterization. This exercise was really interesting to be a part of and I do feel i've learnt something very useful in terms of acting skills and character creation.

Why do many actors keep exactly the same voice for their roles when there's so much room for exploration?