Collaborative Project Ideas
Piano somewhere in the performance
Mirror and then writing "Object" in lipstick
Blade Runner:
Rebels against the totalitarian state and the peolpe rebelling are hunted for
3 Different female characters who are struggling with the same problem but different personality types
Somehow wound up in a government situation and meet
Orphan Black
Black Mirror
https://www.buzzfeed.com/jarrylee/celebrate-women-in-fiction?utm_term=.lhKAJzBw9#.ns6P68Ngm
Projection screen of shadows
Stylistic movement in "dinner party" and it ends us lined up bowing and saying "yes sir" or something to show that we are all submissive in some way no matter what the hierarchy.
The scenes we have thought of so far
1. Dinner Scene
2. Ceremony Humiliation (Projection)
3. Red Room Scene
Firstly, the dinner scene is at the moment our starting scene. It consists of the highest woman on the hierarchy, Madam V, in downstage centre, elevated on a block. Then Aunt Lydia who is patrolling her ladies and finally Offred who is running around tending to all possible tables in a hurry. The stylised performance for this scene is to suggest that Madam V is confined to her block and has little to no movement, Aunt Lydia moves a normal amount and Offred has the most available space to move. This is to show the different levels of the hierarchy. However, to end, we will have them all end up in the same position, either bowing or just slightly looking down as they line up next to each other and say "On your command, sir" To suggest that the hierarchy in their society is irrelevant to the gender division of the actual world. All 3 female characters are still in a way all submissive in this world and it is them coming together and realizing this issue.
To tie this scene to the next one; Ceremony Humiliation we will have Offred violating one of the rules being conversing with someone of a higher power as they are not allowed to due to the distinct division in society. During the scene, myself and 2 other people will be in the "crowd" representing other handmaid's as I am called on stage to where Aunt Lydia is giving a speech to crowd welcoming the 6th generation of handmaid's. This will be done by pre-recording a scene of Aunt Lydia's character giving a speech and then coming closer to the camera so appear smaller and closer to the audience and whilst I will also be walking closer to the projection until we meet and will basically use a Complicité style version of interacting with the projection. The projection will proceed to hit the real life version of Offred but the lights will blackout and we will suggest that she has received a punishment by making a sound of her either whimpering or falling to the ground as a humiliation and consequence of her actions.
Finally, the 3rd scene we thought of (not necessarily following this order) was Madam V coming to the house where the handmaid's are and demonstrating a sequence that she once did to "please the men"
The sequence is as follows, with every command of Madam V, the handmaids do actions accordingly and repeat after her:
"Legs down, back straight, Legs down, back straight"
"Stand up and curtsy, Stand up and curtsy"
"Hair back, collar up, Hair back, collar up"
"And now respect is shown, And now respect is shown"
"To our leader, with our head, with our heart, with our body and soul"
"And what is our goal"
"To please, to praise and produce a better race"
All of this is done with a metronome playing in the background to give a strict and routined atmosphere.
One incredibly interesting idea we had, to tie in the entirety of the performance and the hierarchy was to, under our general costumes, wear something tight and black like a shirt and tights with a certain number on the back. When these are revealed it will show "NO.1" on Madam V's back to represent that she was once too a handmaid before becoming of a higher power and marrying one of the men in the government. Aunt Lydia's number will be around 50-100 and Offred's number will be high showing that she is new and that there have been many generations of handmaid's. Since the handmaid's aren't allowed to form friendships, Offred's name will not be used throughout the performance, however, she will be referred to by her number which will be known to all handmaid's when she is humiliated in front of them during the 2nd scene with the ceremony.
Many other uses of Complicité works are as follows:
We thought that this kind of use of technology would be very effective in the performance. We can place an iPad with a screen of an eye represent the government and evoke a sense of surveillance, on a stool with wheels similar to the video and use it throughout the performance. Maybe even create a stylised scene that uses physical theatre in conflict and presenting a physical encounter with the technology as a metaphor of pushing away the unjust laws of the society:
In addition to the list of scenes we have prepared this is a Puppet Scene where the 3 hierarchies are lined up on the stage infront of each other with the highest one on a block on the stage, the middle on the stage and the lowest on the ground. The initial idea for this scene was for the two higher power people to be controlling a handmaid as a puppet for a physical theatre scene. However this then progressed to become all 3 of us being controlled in our different hierarchy statuses because the whole point is to show that no matter how much power we have or dont know, we're all still being controlled. The way we did this was by firstly working in pairs. We played a dystopian battle type music that fit the atmosphere we wanted to demonstrate very well. By getting in pairs we started by facing eachother and basically coming up with simple moves to control eachother. The very first move was by one of the people pulling on the other person's tie which then resulted them in reacting in a harsh way of being dragged. We decided that that was a very good move and built on that by using slaps, pushes, hits and everything else that would symbolize being controlled without wanting to. We then eliminated the person causing the punches or pulls and it turned out to be like an invisible force controlling us. We then picked the best 8 moves and put it into a sequence and wrote it on the board so we could refer to it when necessary. The beginning starts of with the highest power starting and then the middle joining after one and then the bottom joining afterwards like a canon effect. Then when the music gets really intense we all end up doing the same thing in unison. Finally the last 15-20 seconds is the most intense where we decided to improvise dialogue to fit our character and how we would react to being controlled with sayings like "Please stop" You can't keep me here forever" "I'm doing everything I can" "I just want my family back" etc:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w75AYAN4BDc (music used)
Mirror and then writing "Object" in lipstick
Blade Runner:
Rebels against the totalitarian state and the peolpe rebelling are hunted for
3 Different female characters who are struggling with the same problem but different personality types
Somehow wound up in a government situation and meet
Orphan Black
Black Mirror
https://www.buzzfeed.com/jarrylee/celebrate-women-in-fiction?utm_term=.lhKAJzBw9#.ns6P68Ngm
Projection screen of shadows
Stylistic movement in "dinner party" and it ends us lined up bowing and saying "yes sir" or something to show that we are all submissive in some way no matter what the hierarchy.
The scenes we have thought of so far
1. Dinner Scene
2. Ceremony Humiliation (Projection)
3. Red Room Scene
Firstly, the dinner scene is at the moment our starting scene. It consists of the highest woman on the hierarchy, Madam V, in downstage centre, elevated on a block. Then Aunt Lydia who is patrolling her ladies and finally Offred who is running around tending to all possible tables in a hurry. The stylised performance for this scene is to suggest that Madam V is confined to her block and has little to no movement, Aunt Lydia moves a normal amount and Offred has the most available space to move. This is to show the different levels of the hierarchy. However, to end, we will have them all end up in the same position, either bowing or just slightly looking down as they line up next to each other and say "On your command, sir" To suggest that the hierarchy in their society is irrelevant to the gender division of the actual world. All 3 female characters are still in a way all submissive in this world and it is them coming together and realizing this issue.
To tie this scene to the next one; Ceremony Humiliation we will have Offred violating one of the rules being conversing with someone of a higher power as they are not allowed to due to the distinct division in society. During the scene, myself and 2 other people will be in the "crowd" representing other handmaid's as I am called on stage to where Aunt Lydia is giving a speech to crowd welcoming the 6th generation of handmaid's. This will be done by pre-recording a scene of Aunt Lydia's character giving a speech and then coming closer to the camera so appear smaller and closer to the audience and whilst I will also be walking closer to the projection until we meet and will basically use a Complicité style version of interacting with the projection. The projection will proceed to hit the real life version of Offred but the lights will blackout and we will suggest that she has received a punishment by making a sound of her either whimpering or falling to the ground as a humiliation and consequence of her actions.
Finally, the 3rd scene we thought of (not necessarily following this order) was Madam V coming to the house where the handmaid's are and demonstrating a sequence that she once did to "please the men"
The sequence is as follows, with every command of Madam V, the handmaids do actions accordingly and repeat after her:
"Legs down, back straight, Legs down, back straight"
"Stand up and curtsy, Stand up and curtsy"
"Hair back, collar up, Hair back, collar up"
"And now respect is shown, And now respect is shown"
"To our leader, with our head, with our heart, with our body and soul"
"And what is our goal"
"To please, to praise and produce a better race"
All of this is done with a metronome playing in the background to give a strict and routined atmosphere.
One incredibly interesting idea we had, to tie in the entirety of the performance and the hierarchy was to, under our general costumes, wear something tight and black like a shirt and tights with a certain number on the back. When these are revealed it will show "NO.1" on Madam V's back to represent that she was once too a handmaid before becoming of a higher power and marrying one of the men in the government. Aunt Lydia's number will be around 50-100 and Offred's number will be high showing that she is new and that there have been many generations of handmaid's. Since the handmaid's aren't allowed to form friendships, Offred's name will not be used throughout the performance, however, she will be referred to by her number which will be known to all handmaid's when she is humiliated in front of them during the 2nd scene with the ceremony.
Many other uses of Complicité works are as follows:
Very interesting use of props to demonstrate a violent scene as a confetti styled pieces of red string pop out as some one is hit can be incorporated into our performance as we want to suggest the consequences of not obeying the laws without making it explicitly graphic:
Complicité used this in one of their performances as they had a screen with projections across it, however, the screen were 2 faced and the performers used it as a transition method like a door that you crawl under:
We thought that this kind of use of technology would be very effective in the performance. We can place an iPad with a screen of an eye represent the government and evoke a sense of surveillance, on a stool with wheels similar to the video and use it throughout the performance. Maybe even create a stylised scene that uses physical theatre in conflict and presenting a physical encounter with the technology as a metaphor of pushing away the unjust laws of the society:
Finally, from the showreel of 2011 for Complicité was decided that this was the most relevant and most effective piece of performance style that we can derive from Complicité. This is because suggesting silhouettes behind a drapped screen and only seeing their shadows adds mystery to the performance as well as making it easier to create an atmosphere with such little people:
One way to interact with the projection was this (keep in mind that this was improvised and would look so much more synched with practice) :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w75AYAN4BDc (music used)
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