Reflection of Performance

Today in class we each performed our One Hander’s. I believe that my performance was about as good as I could have hoped for. I was rather relaxed, which allowed me to think clearly of what I was doing, so I was able to everything, as I had planned. This is important, as I had to remember to at times freeze and show my expressions and gestures. Therefore, overall I think that it went well.
    Through my body language I showed first the anger, by being tense and purposeful but then the frustration and anguish, by being lose and unclear in some of my movements, as well as almost crying. This fits in with Grotowski’s philosophy of the actor being the centre of a piece- they one who brings the scene alive. This is also reinforced by the fact that I had no props or special costumes, make-up or sets.
    My voice use was rather articulated I think. However, I might have used volume a little more, as I feel that I didn’t speak extremely loudly. However, on the other hand, this suits with the woman’s depressed and anguished feeling. However, I was able to use my voice in conveying anger in the beginning by using enunciation, and a slower tempo, and the anguish in the end talking with a slow pace and using a lot of breath as well.
    Overall, I believe that this unit went well and that I became more conscious about how I can use myself- by body and voice- to enhance a performance, to build a character and to bring out emotion. This is something that I was not fully aware of at the beginning and the concept of physical theatre, using only your body to convey messages, like DV8 seemed a little strange and was not something I was used to. 
I also learned a lot about how to apply techniques into a performance. It was quite a challenge with Grotowski as he did not have too many definite techniques that could be used, however I did get better at it. By looking at a philosophy of a practitioner and seeing what their most important messages are, you know what to focus on. If the practitioner uses specific techniques then you can try to incorporate it into the performance. However, it mainly is about looking at what is key and important to the practitioner, and applying those same ideas into your performance. For instance Grotowski believed in “Poor theatre,” which means simple theatre, with the actor as the centre of the performance. So, then if you were to use his ideas, you would not use special costumes, lighting, make-up and such but would create a performance explains even props.