1930s dance and music

The 1930s dance steps include bits from the Jive, swing and jitterbug. 

The Jive: 

The Jive originally came from the United States from the African-Americans, in the 1930s.

the Jive is a lively, bouncy dance which is similar to both Jitterbug and the Swing Dance.

http://youtu.be/vmCOc4N_Sfg

Swing Dance:

The most well-known of these dances is the Lindy Hop, a fusion of jazz, tap, breakaway, and Charleston, which originated in Harlem in the early 1920s.

http://youtu.be/QTkRStdoH9o

The Jitterbug:

The jitterbug is a kind of dance popularized in the United States in the early twentieth century and is associated with various types of swing dances such as the Lindy Hop, The Jive, and East Coast Swing.

http://youtu.be/xS5oCLXrQLs

All of these dances were quite similar in with the style and were all very popular.

Scene 8

http://youtu.be/pOrKJcsianw

When this scene was devised, I was away, ill.

However, when I came back and rehearsed it with everyone we I noticed how Heta-(playing the judge) was playing the judge as a really laid back/not caring person. Same goes for everyone else. In this scene EVERYONE is lying!- apart from the defence council. 

I found this really interesting, considering it's set in a house of law-(a court) and everyone is lying. 

Scene 7

http://youtu.be/J8f1KvlkchI

We did scene 7 in extra rehearsals.

In this scene Ui is giving a big speech to various grocery people. 

For this scene we looked at different videos of Hitler's speeches to give Max ideas on how he should act in this scene. 

We then spoke about Hitler's movements he'd use in the speeches and how he mainly uses his arms and hands to help put across what he's trying to say.

We thought it would be a good way to show Ui's rise to power in this scene by using Hitler's gests and how it's kind of mocking Hitlers to a certain extent by doing this.

Scene 4

In scene four it starts off with just Dogsborough and his son; Young Dogsborough talking about the deal Dogsborough has just made with Butcher and Flake and how it was a bad idea. 

After their little conversation, Butcher calls and says how there was a meeting at City Hall about the deal. Then Ui and Roma show up and offers Dogsborough help, in a passive aggressive manner. 

How the scene is blocked: 

Harry-(Dogsborough) is sat in his arm chair on one of the platforms, and Young Dogsborough-(me) is stood on the main stage. When Ui and Roma arrive, Ui is at the front of the stage, Dogsborough stays where he is and Roma joins me on the main stage.

Young Dogsborough;

In this scene, it shows how much Young Dogsborough listens and does as he's told by his father and copies him to a certain extent -(even though he'd be in his 40s). 

I thought I could have some fun in this scene and take the mick out of Young Dogsborough's personality and make him really alert and really quick with his reactions. 

Because then it will make him seem like an obedient dog. 

Also, when Roma is threatening Dogsborough and Dogsborough says "I said get out" I make it so Young Dogsborough is being "mister big man" and stand up to Roma and gets up in his face, but then he chickens out.

Scene 2

We started reading through the scene. After that, we then started coming up with various ideas as to how we could set the scene out.

Many ideas were shared. There was a lot spoken about using the shadows in this scene, where Dogsborough and his son; Young Dogsborough would stand behind, while washing the glasses. 

We also thought that Jade and I could create a bar by using the blocks.

We thought using the shadowing in this scene would be a great way to introduce Dogsborough and his son, Young Dogsborough, because we could mess around with their heights. 

We agreed that it would be really funny to show Young Dogsborough as a really short man-(because he doesn't have any power, he just follows his dad around, like a lost puppy) and to show Dogsborough as a much taller man, because he's a very well-respected politician in Chicago. 

In this scene there was a slight problem, because I was cast as both; Butcher and Young Dogsborough. 

So, of course I couldn't be both. So we decided that Heta was to play Young Dogsborough in just this scene, and stay behind the screen.

Also, Jade and I found it hard to think of a well-stylised manner to get the blocks into the right positions. So, Siou put people into pairs and got them to improvise with some music, moving the blocks on stage to help give Jade and I some inspiration. 

Also, another problem with this is that I have a bad back, so I'm also limited to how much moving of the blocks I can do with causing any strain.

 

I think next time to improve this scene, we all seriously need to work on our character's gests, to show what kind of people each of them are. 

I also think I need to be a lot more charming and kind of creepy around Dogsborough, because I'm trying to trick him into giving us money.

Scene 14

In this scene Ui is having a dream about Roma haunting him from the dead.

The way this scene is set out is Ui is asleep on a chair with his two bodyguards asleep next to him on the floor. 

We thought it would be really creepy to have Roma behind the screen so we could do some shadow works. 

To make the scene even creepier we are going to have two other people-(Liam and Max) behind the screen with Roma-(Greta) and have them as extra arms, so it's almost like Roma has grown and is more powerful.

In this scene I'm a bodyguard on the floor. In earlier scenes we all decided to make the bodyguards really dopey and stupid. I found this hard to show in this scene because obviously, I'm asleep, until the very end, anyway. But to show the dopeyness of the bodyguard I tried variou different thing, like snoring, moving around loads Eric. But I felt that by doing this it would take the focus away from the important part of the scene- Roma's speech and Ui's reaction. So I thought I'd do something small and sweet, so I started sucking gym thumb and moving here and there, so it's not taking away any main focus of the scene.

Character development

I feel as though I have worked hard towards developing all of my characters over the past few weeks. 

My main character; Butcher, I've taken so much time really thinking about his gests and what he wants in each scene. 

Like in scene two, I wasn't entirely sure how he would act in that situation. 

However, now I've thought about my gests and what his main objection is, I've decided that he's quite creepy and can/thinks he can be quite manipulative and that he'd do anything for a bit of cash in his pockets. 

So to portray this, I've made him really touchy-feely with Dogsborough in scene two and really over friendly and confident. 

My other character; Young Dogsborough, I've tried to make him quite funny, by making him really alert of everything and 

given him a squeakier voice then all of the other characters in the play. His character reminds me of the cartoon character, Scrappy-Doo, because in scene 4, Young Dogsborough tries to stand up to Roma, but gets too scared and pipes down. This remind me of Scrappy-Doo because Scrappy is always trying to act harder than he is and never gets anywhere with it. 

I've had a lot of trouble with The Woman, in scene 9, because I feel really self-conscious having to act so dramatic and upset on stage on my own. 

I also wasn't sure how to act it. 

However, when I performed it to the class, I didn't do what they said too, I improvised a bit, and it felt a lot more natural. I was stood up- stumbling around, screaming, shouting and crying for help. This for me, for my character was a lot better than crawling on the floor because I felt very limited as to what I could do.

As a starting point I used Stanislavski technique of keeping everything naturalistic, then when I got used to this, and comfortable with it I made it bigger and more stylised, so it was more Brechtian, I also used the Artaud technique of pushing myself to the limit, so I could make my performance more raw and real.