first rehearsals of training....

for the first days of training we had to divide the boys and girls into 2 groups roberto had one of the boys and pineda the other i had one group of the girls with miss alicia some times and mauricio got the other girl group. it is hard to teach the girls because they have no enthusiasm to learn so they get tired very quickly and i constantly have to be shouting at them trying to cheer them up with no reaction form them. we have progressed in learing the basic movements of the geisha like walking sitting standing laughing crying and the princess walk, what will be difficult now will be coordinate them in order to make a sequence. because the movements are very slow and it takes a lot of control to move correctly we had to encourage the girls to start working out because it will take a lot of control and effort.

this saturday we had rehearsals and lots of people didnt come because they were on the beach or in the trekking club that is a problem because we will have to loose one rehearsal teaching the boys and girls that were absent to do what they would have learned this last saturday.
in the first weeks of april we will start rehearsing scenes and we will have to start producing dances and movements.

on tuesday we will tell them their characters, i am starting to think that when they find out some of them will leave the play...

sin titulo

i really liked the play, but i think the only problem was the excess of texts to read.
as we entered the room to watch the play there was a lot of written text in the walls with a lot of pictures, the thing is that there wasnt enough time to read all the texts because of the people ahead and behind me. Then as we entered the big space, there were again almost all the walls were written, there were 5 different settings, each of them with one actor and the settings varied, one was a writter, other was a women from the high lands, other was a nun, other was a widow, and the two other i couldnt see.
i really liked the moment when all the actors started speaking together like a greek chorus the accustics of the room made it sound really powerful.
one thing i didnt like about this play was the long texts they spoke, for example the writter appeared several times on a room above everyone and spoke a lot, it was so long that i sometimes got lost, and he just looked at the front didnt even made some actions, maybe if the texts may have been shorter it would have been better.

there was another part regarding the excess of text when two actresses dress with cloths that were printed with statements, the letters were really small and the lights were off there were just a few people with flash lights lighting the room for us to see.

the representation of the history of peru was very good, it started from the chile war and it was very easy to understand what they were trying to say, in comparison with other of yuyachkani´s plays, they are really confusing, but not this one. Other thing that contributed to the entretainment was that fact that the actors were almost all the time standing on top of this on-wheel-platform-thing which could be connected and build a larger platform, but because they were on wheels they moved a lot around the space and you had to constanlty move around the space with them. there were a lot of character changeing which i think is was great, there were a lot of blackout and during these which lasted seconds the actors changed their costumes, one thing i didnt realized at the beginning was that all the costumes that were on display were the ones they used.

when they entered to the phase when they wore the executive masks and the suits, i thing they wore masks not only for montecinos to look like montecinos, but because i think people look like that now a days, they are plastic, all they care is money, they dont have a soul, a voice of expression they are opressed by the rules of society and expectations of stereotypical bases.
a part from the message they were trying to send by saying all the destruction becasuse of the wars and corruption, i think that what they were also trying to say was the change of peruvians, how we went from having a free soul and being happy, to being destroyed by war and violence, that is the point were i think we got our wings of freedom cut off, then it came opressment by authorities, people started to live a lifeless life, until it reached the point were we dont even have our own face, we constantly wear this souless mask and that is what we have become. we dont even take on count our religion, there was a part were there was an angel, jesus and mary i think that they showed us that in order to say that we have also lost that, faith and hope.

and i think that more that representing peru´s history, they wanted to show peruvians own expiriences through peru´s history...
would the play have been more direct and concentrated if there hadnt been so many texts to read ????

1st ensayo!!!!!!

well.... it was very exciting to have the first rehearsal. for the first time in my life I have the opportunity of experiencing theatre arts from a different perspective, directing, as i have seen in other opportunities, is not an easy task. However, it is fulfilling as well. Having my thoughts, idea and inventions taken into consideration is one of the most satsfactory feelings I will ever have. Yes, the first day was incrediblby stressful, but, at the same time, it was one of the funnest theatre art days I have ever experienced. Not only did I get o know the kids that would perform in my play, but the fact that I got to know them in another level. In this experience they will get to know me as a director and Ill know them as performers.

Musicals...? more like TAZIYE!!!!!!

Well i worked in my research for this year based on Musicals, Mamma Mia! The thing is that i got the idea wrong about a research! What i did was choose two songs in the musical and analyze them depending on their chord arrangements, lyrics and body movements. This was WRONG. What i should have done was investigate about how to make a musical, not analyze it. Search how it is supposed to be done so the director, or the actor or who ever needs this information can decide if they use that information or not.
I want to get a big fat 7 so i decided to stop wasting my time in my musical research (because there is not so many information about it) and changed the theater practice. I chose Ta'ziyeh!!! This is an Iran theatrical practice which i dont know nothing about, but i will focus on costumes or acting depending on the information available. Tomorrow im going to take a look to the books and decide.

PAUCARTAMBOOOOO

we presented a play very similar to the ones in paucartmabo. we prepared a ppp for this play a couple of moths ago and we finally presented it. my task for this play was costumes, it was easy to work this because we planned it and most of the costume was already in school because they did this type of presentation last year. it did fail in some aspects, neither mauricio or carlos brought their costumes complete until the day of the presentation and the costumes didnt match the design or each other.

this paucartambo plays are all about energy, it doesnt really matter what the play is about, but it has to have a very high level of energy. That was a really weak point for us, if the people from VI hadnt come to help us with the presentation it would have been a complete fail. The convention is that the presentation takes place for 3 days, we planned 3 days but because of lack of organization we did just 2 days.

our story evolved around useless authorities, we used the wayra as the authority. we did this to represent the in justice of the authorities in school and peru and the world in general, authorities are supposed to help their people, but they dont.

the 1 day i was the chola waka waka who was grazing her bull and qollas come and steal the bull from her and tie her to a pole. There is a poster of the wayra and i go and ask him for help, of course he does nothing, he is a poster, but we did this to represent the actual intention. The problems with this 1 day were not only the energy, but the amount of people there. at first i had to run through the kiosk tables with pineda (bull) but there were so many people that it was impossible to go through, other thing we didnt expect were the small kids from nido and lower school who were there, they stepped into the basketball court and run with us, it was very complicated because the mask limits your sight so it was difficult not to hit one of them with my whip. Also, the poster of the wayra flew, it was supposed to be sicked to the ground but it wasnt and by the time i was supposed to complain with him the audience could see or understand what i was doing.

the 2 day was planned to be just the V students, but we knew the energy was even lower than the 1 day so we decided to incorporate the qollas. i was again the chola waka waka who was tied in the pole and the wayra comes out with the saqras who were like the guards. the first thing i would have changed were the costumes that were horrible.
the qollas have a much higher energy than the other characters so when we did the sequence of our actions, the qollas were playing with the audience, so they didnt really payed any attention to us. that was i think the harder task of the 2 day to catch the audience attention over the qollas. i think the sequence we did in the 2 day was much better, we didnt make as much mistakes as we did in all rehearsals.

i think we did lack rehearsals, more responsibility in costumes, masks, props and scenery, and also in direction. i think we all lack organization, the costumes were not complete, the scenery wasnt complete, the masks were badly put, props were missing. over all i think more commitment would be essential, better rehearsals and more energy.

Hebras

last friday we saw a play called Hebras directed by robbie, it was performed in the school theatre.
the stage was not the regular stage, the curtains were closed leaving a closed stage inside. the chairs for the audience were in circle and the actors acted in the center and one single light illuminated the actors from above. i came late to see the play, but i was told the actors were in still picture when they got there. i know it was the same pose as like they ended, it was twist and bend, both actors crossed one over the other. They first things that come to my mind when i think of this pose is that it was very complicated to do, but the actors made it easy, the mood this brought to the atmosphere was great because you could feel the tension but at the same time you could feel the softness of the connection between them. This first image gives an idea, but not a complete concept, does this makes it an incomplete first impression? what would a good first impression require?
the play was played by two actors, a man and a woman. this gave me a hint of what the concept would be, love.

There was no speaking, it was a play without script, just like our supermarket, it all came to actions, but not face expressions because they were wearing white, plain-expression masks. The white masks were a very important factor when it came to building the atmosphere, for me it represented lack of personality, or it could be representing all human kind divided in women and men. The interaction of both characters along the play only gave me one concept, love, and indeed it was. most of the time the man was controlling the woman, making her clean, using her as a puppet, oppressing her, but there were moments were they both were free and connected with the audience and with each other only by the actions.
one thing i thought worked very well were the movement and velocity of the actions, there were tense movements followed by slow and clam ones. for example, when the man, rollie made the woman, luciana clean they played with speeds. the change of speeds really gives the actions more meaning and strength.

the meaning of the actions were supported by the sound of violins, all the play was accompanied by violins, there were short moments of tension were there was no music too, but it was most accompanied with violins. Another sound that helped with the atmosphere was the breathing of the actors, because they had a mask, we couldnt see their face expressions, but we saw a lot of body language and we kind of listened to the story by their breathing. the collide of the air coming from their mouth and nose with the mask created a lot of different sounds which i interpreted like words. there were some sobbing, breathing which heard like crying, other like laughing, other like if they were in pain. all the breathing sounds really helped with the story itself and the atmosphere.
there were no props in the play other than each other, but, the mask other than giving a meaning, it helps the audience not get distracted from the most important things in this play, which were the body expressions.

the story was very clear, it was a couple who had some problems in their relationship, like abuse which was shown when the rollie used luciana as a puppet, but there were also moments where the audience could tell how committed they were to each other, like the part when they exchanged hearts. as i said they used no props so they used their hands to represent the heart, you couls almost see the heart, they made as if they were holding the heart and pumped their fingers as if the heart was pumping. the basic key of creating a play like this i think is a lot of discipline, because it doesnt only require imagination, but a lot of physical effort to make all this actions, i could see how demanding this physical theater is, the actors ended up sweating a lot and to do this again and again while rehearsing, which it requires a lot i suppose, demands a lot of energy, discipline and effort.

the actors ended the play with the same position as they started , crossed over, mixed. it had a completely different meaning than at the beginning of the play, it was a more complete idea and understanding.
when it ended we talked with the actors and the director this helped a lot because we could ask questions, i could hear a lot of different ideas of what the play ment, that got me thinking, is it save to make a play with no words, no face expression and so not obvious, if you know that the audience will appreciate it in different ways??

supermarket

we did a small play that lasted 5 min, for the arts evening. The play was mute and in slow motion. We had to work a lot with our body and face expressions as well as with our rhythm. Because we made no use of words, our face and body had to express it all. It was hard for me to explore faces, to change my expressions for example. When it came to body language it was even more difficult for me, because of the slow motion. I had to have a balance to make all movements in slow motion and when i tried to do something like lifting one of my feet and staying standing on one foot and kneeling to the front it turn very difficult to keep balance. Other very difficult thing for me was the rhythm. All the play moved around one music that gave the sense of being under water so our movements became slow and heavy. It was difficult to keep this pace because we had to act it with other people. For example when i walked with Mauricio we had to walk at the same time, but there were moments where he did it a little bit faster, so i had to keep up with his fast pace and that is when it looked not very coordinated.