PMD3/4 Developing Material

The above video depicts material generated as a group, based on the previously generated ideas of creating a masquerade ball, yet replacing elegance with grotesque movement. The suitcase, placed in the centre of the room, whilst of course only standing in place of a better suited prop, was meant to represent the idea of social media, and the contagion we wanted to draw upon within it, using the idea of human and digital viruses. The performers are not to take their focus from the suitcase, and gradually distance themselves from it, getting increasingly close to the wall, however the suitcase acts as a force pulling the performers back towards it, causing the laughter to turn to distress.

I would develop the material further by aiming to almost choreograph how to move during the "dancing" section of the scene, and am also aware I need to become much more confident in facial expressions and creating the soundscapes. It would also perhaps be interesting to explore what would happen if the screams were made more obvious, perhaps within the gradual change, one person shrieking sharply above all others to startle the audience and more clearly indicate the change.

The next video shows the company working on an idea generated by myself, based around the idea of Contra Dance which often features in Masquerade Balls. Once the dance finishes, the formation creates a corridor of which Iyla walks down, and will recite a monologue. In the video we used an extract from the text, however we will later devise our own extract which will be more fitting. 

We then added the idea of infection we added soundscape and actions to present the idea that all ball attendees are ridden with sickness, however I feel it was not clear due to all of us doing this at once.A development could be to only react in this such way when Iyla passes one person,  so that the intention is more potent to the audience.

PMD3/4 Run Through and Structure

These videos show us running through scene 8 and discussing ideas for how to develop it further. 

Here we make suggestions as to different ways we could portray the death of our characters. 

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.

PMD3/4 Discussion

This mind map was created during the discussion in the video below, whereby we allocated roles and considered structure for the performance. The video shows our discussion and selection of ideas we wished to take further in our performance