PMD2/3 Generating Material

In this session we split into groups to devise material based on an idea we selected from our annotations of the Mask of the Red Death. 

The following video shows Hannah and Meera's response to the idea of hidden identity.

... and our feedback following their presentation.....

This video shows Matthew and Iyla's responses to entering the Red Room....

...again followed by comments from us.

Finally, this video shows my response with Courtney, Bella and Charlotte, and the feedback we received post-show.....

Our next step was to spend ten minutes on Matthew and Iyla's response and how we could elaborate on the ideas they were developing. I think were we to refine this further it would perhaps look more aesthetic to take the style of contra dance, a genre typically adopted at such masquerade balls whereby dancers take a modified ballroom position; looking each other in the eyes and walking around each other in the designated direction, without touching each other but palms facing one another. This I feel would not only look better, but also be more accurate to the story, and also would be more clear from an audience perspective. Below is the result;

Next, we did the same with my group's work, adding the other members of the company into our existing motif, depicted in the following video. 

In our next lesson, the group presented improvements for how Hannah and Meera's duet, resulting in this new version of the motif;

[video]

Next we set out to hone in on what we were going to draw upon from the story of the Mask of the Red Death to take forward into our own performance.

 Above is a mind map of all of our considerations. We chose to select the ideas of masquerade balls and hidden identity.

Then we proceeded to discuss who our target audience would be and the potential meanings or morals we could incorporate. Our conclusion was our target audience would be aged 17+ as though not to cap the age limit. We elected to allow our performance to take a naturally developing moral pathway, leaving room for the audience to highlight their own morals and question the performance.

We then considered what material we had previously created and how this could be relevant to our performance, and also decided to have an underlying theme permeating throughout the performance about social media, alluding to the idea that it is the catalyst for facades and conflict between online and physical personas.

 This still image was to depict a contorted version of dances typically seen at a masquerade ball, linking to Matthew and Iyla's original idea, we wanted to evoke a sense of unsentimental practicality among the supposed decadency of such an event.

 This still was drawn from the aforementioned ideas regarding contra dance, but instead we tried to evoke the idea that partners wanted to be as far away from one another as possible, whilst maintaining the facade etiquette of the dance.

 Further building on the ideas of contortion and un- sentimentality, we created the above frame to show the clinking of glasses during a toast at a party.

 This still was our initial response to creating the image of a vast structure such as that of an abbey. It was difficult to get into position and we could not maintain it for long, so at a later date we will most likely adapt it to be more appropriate.

This image was developed from earlier ideas in the first photograph, bringing in ideas of deterioration of physical condition as a result of infection from the plague. Performers still maintain the facade of the masquerade (shown through the holding of arms in a warped rendition of a waltz position) despite how obviously damaging it is for them.