Coco Smith Portfolio

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Dance Evaluation

Lesson Logs

Duologues

Dance Research

Theatre Review

Stanislavski

By Coco Smith

Perfoming Arts

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Some of his books

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Konstantin Stanislavski, born in Russia 1884, was a seminal soviet Russian theatre practitioner and playwright, who came up with different techniques for actors to use when performing/ making a performance/acting. He was influenced by the works of Russian playwrights like Anton Chekhov and Nikolai Gogol and wanted actors to use naturalism and realism when acting. He believed that “the actors should really inhabit the role that they are playing” meaning that they “shouldn’t only know what lines he needs to say and the motivation for those lines, but also every detail of that character’s life offstage as well as onstage.” This meant that actors would be able to have a connection with and portray their characters realistically and be truthful with their experiences, allowing them to also have new experiences themselves. In 1887, he was given his fathers approval and later became eminent, which meant that he was then able to spread his work and ideas/system for acting with the world, known as "method acting." He became into a habit of evaluating and making notes on his work to improve, which later lead him to writing major texts on the art of performance. For example, He wrote a book called “My life in art”, which is about “a fascinating window onto the actor’s mind, recalling his almost scientific preparation for each new role, his creative encounters” and his day to day struggles. Examples of other books he wrote include: An actor prepares, Building a character, and Creating a role. Stanislavski started acting at the youthful age of 14, consolidating his family's passion for perfroming arts. His skills were self-taught through watching his parents act. His name of "Stanislavski" came from a "fellow actor" he had met. 3 Years after he changed his stage name, he married Maria Perevoshchikova and they both pursued in the career of performance.

Stanislavski

Blank by alice birch is a play that focuses on women who are caught up in or affected by the criminal justice system, it showcases the hardship of working class women who struggle to contort their lives to fit the justice system. Birch is a british playwright and screenwriter, she has written maybe plays such as; Revolt, She Said and Revolt Again for which she was awarded the George Devine Award for 'Most Promising Playwright'. Blank is a play that many say is quite spesificdue to the fact that it includes many short scenes with different characters and different plots for each one. All these scenes are unique but share the theme of struggling home lives and criminality. The play focuses on the wrong type of intervention on young adults in the criminal justice systemand how it can heavily effect their ability to maintain relationships and family contact, which perpetuates crime, however, getting these scenes right can help and inspire young people to try and move away from crime and negative forces and improve the life chances of their own children.

[BLANK] By Alice Birch

Link To Rehersal

Link To Makeup Process

For costumes we looked in our own wardrobes to try and find clothes that subtly embodied our characters, we thought about all the tiny details that should be used in our costumes, down to tears in clothes and leaves and twigs in our hair. Furthermore, we practiced the makeup look and hair beforehand so we knew what we wanted to do for the scene.

We got a feel for the scene by visiting an actual canal to really draw inspiration to the time and place of the scene, this was also very helpful, we took pictures and filmed ourselves to further help with the scene, furthermore, we researched a lot about Alice Birch and our given scene in particular.

The process of creating our scenes included having to specsify a lot of things, breaking down the text word for word and finding out the intentions and meaning of your character, me and my partner went through out text many times, annotating and breaking down lines and creating the intent of the characters, this took some time but was extremley helpful in creating the final piece which we were very proud of.

Duologues

As you can see from these pictures i took from my sccript, we annotated, sectioned and wrote out our intentions for each section of the text. This was really helpful to properly get into your character and really make it your own, furthermore, I also annotated subtext onto my script which definatly helped in understanding me character much better.

CONTENT

ABOUT ME

I believe the performance went really well and I was very proud of both me and my partner as we really worked hard and went to extra mile to make our rehersal process worth it and eventually help create and bring our scene to life. It was extremley helpful to visit a real life canal as we really got a feel for what the scene would actually feel like in real life. One thing I think I could've worked on is speaking a bit louder, I felt at time I was rather quiet and probably the audience found it hard to hear me at times. Some skills I used are pace when saying my lines aswell as changing volume depending on how i want to say the line. However I think the scene went great and that I used the skills ive learnt so far to the best of my ability. I look forward to doing more pieces in the future and working with others in my class.

Evaluation Of Duologue

CONTENT

Things I Know Now is an emotional drama play that follows a family struggling through life with various issues coming to conversations, it's full of emotional, heartfelt and captive scenes, followed by an initiative sound track to match the scenes and help the play flow. It was written by Andew Bovell, directed by Geordie Brookman and Scott Graham. Throughout the play, the story of a family with more problems than it seems on the outside gradually unravels, one of the children coming out as transgender to their parents, a daughter struggling with her partner, a lost daughter not knowing what to do with her life and a son who's facing drug addiction. All of this fits with the characters' parents who are somewhat blind to their children's problems yet still have very strong opinions. I think what made this play effective was the constant change in tone and pace, it made it more gripping, more tense. I found that despite watching the play on my ipad, I was still as invested and interested as I would be if I was seeing it in person. Moreover, I found that the aspects of physical theater really added to the piece, breaking up scenes and showing the audience the deep emotional state of the characters in movement form instead of voice, i think this was incredibly helpful in making the scenes raw and interesting, i felt as if i could really understand the emotions the characters were going through and how the dynamics are between each of the characters. It almost feels as if you are watching inside someone's real life with their family and spectating what goes on which really entices you into the play itself. I think one weakness in the play that stook out to me and made me slightly confused is that they're all speaking with british accents but all of the places they talk of going or mention are places in Australia, i'm not too sure why its like this but it made it a little bit confusing and took away from the realness of the piece slightly. Another moment I found to be a weakness was how the space was not that engaging, I felt as if there could be more props and backgrounds instead of a few props and a black background, although I do respect the lighting used throughout the piece. One thing I would improve would be the level of sound during the arguments. I felt as if when it's just shouting and shouting throughout a whole scene it can get a bit tireless and long, I feel like it should have more dynamics and levels in all that casts voices.

Things I Know To Be True: Review

Diversity use several different genres of dance through their work, for example; Streetdance, breakdance, popping, roboting, acrobatics and contemporary. With every performance they bring the stage to life, with crazy tricks and impressive skills that wow an audience through the whole performance, after winning Britain's got talent in 2006, the group went on to do several tours including a royal Variety show performance where they performed for the queen, since then, Diversity have continued to reach out to fans and and even organise flash mobs!

Ashley Banjo is group leader and choreographer for diversity other members include Sam Craske, Mitchell Craske, Perri Kiely, Warren Russell, Terry Smith, Nathan Ramsay, Theo Mckenzie-Hayton, Adam Mckop, Kelvin Clark, Jordan Samuel, Shante Samuel, Starr Kiely, Georgia Lewis and Curtis Butler. Founding members Ashton Russell, Ian McNaughton, Jamie McNaughton, Matthew McNaughton and Ike Chuks have left Diversity. The dance group is currently managed by Danielle Banjo, Ashley and Jordans mother, and based at dancework studios.

The troupe consists of 12 members who are all extremely passionate about dance and put their all into ever performance.

Diversity are a british street dance troupe formed in 2007 and based in London, they are well known for winning Britain's got Talent in 2009.

Diversity

Dance Research Task

Dance Evaluation

In this evaluation, I am focusing on the techniques we used, the preparation/rehearsals and the overall performance. The main things I learned throughout this unit is the various movements, simple or complex, that I am able to use to convey specific messages or reveal a story through the performance to the audience. I was able to use the skills I had and use them in our piece. I also learnt how to be open minded to different opinions and open to trying new things. My experience on the whole of the project was interesting as at first, I struggled to get properly involved as I'm not a very good dancer and have no experience but as the lessons progressed i think i became more comfortable. The main challenges I faced throughout the performances are lack of confidence and pushing myself outside of my comfort zone to work with people I'm not used to working with. This was challenging as I struggle to embrace my vulnerability and I'm used to staying within my comfort zone. However, by working with someone new, I was able to challenge myself and allowed myself to be vulnerable and trust in my partner

CONTENT

Day Four We spent the lesson today focusing on using intentions in scenes and really going into detail as to why, which is the big question, everything must have an answer to properly understand your character and their place in the scene

Day Three Tube game/exercise, practice real life reactions, familiar situations and how your real self would react. using opposites to contrast a scene and using our inner monologue rather then our words to convey our emotions to an audience. by doing a cool down at the end of the lesson, we are able to release the emotion and power used in the lesson, helping us come back to ourselves and finding peace in reality.

Day Two We also played a lot of simple warmup games but then took them a step further by adding new rules and making the games dramatised to practice improv. Moreover, we all agreed that by playing games together, it gets in touch with our inner child and helps us become loose and imaginative so our ideas can flow more easily and eventually come together as a finished piece. We worked on teamwork skills and how to work together as a class, I think this was extremely helpful as we are all very new to the class so it made us communicate and work together.

Day One Today we brought games to life by adapting them adding new rules and situations each time, this was a good activity as it made you use your imagination which is crucial to becoming a drama student. We also did a lot of work on including small details in a scene, for example; making sure your acting out every movement when doing propless scenes and making it look as realistic as possible

Lesson Logs

Coco Smith-915618

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