Cheeky Dominion Selfie :) 

ISTA TaPS - BEST. EXPERIENCE. EVER. 
These past 4 days were the best 4 days I have ever had (I'm not just saying that either), I met the most amazing people (I'm Definitely going to be keeping in touch with them) and learned so much that is going to help me with my IB Theatre Course. We got to work in the spaces used by west end actors to rehearse their shows (now that's just amazing). My ensemble was based in the Dominion Theatre but other ensembles were based in either RADA or Pineapple Dance Studios.

So we arrived at the Dominion 9 o'clock sharp on Thursday along with many other schools from all over the world, I felt so nervous when we were waiting outside because I really did not know what to expect. Once inside we all sat with out schools and Ian (the Ista Rep) gave us the talk about "David" (long story) and we were told to introduce our school through the medium of song......
Only a theatre trip would ask that.

Ensemble C was where I was carted off to, well actually I was in ensemble B/C as both ensembles worked together in the Dominion theatre with Daniel and Georgia, I need to give a massive thank you to both Daniel and Georgia for creating the best 3 days of learning I have ever had, they worked really hard with our ensemble and made the whole experience so enjoyable.

Day 1 - After all the introduction and the admin stuff we were thrown right in the deep end with our ensembles. So first things first we were all told to find an area in the space and copy the movements Georgia was doing, they included swinging, shaking and warming up our voice.
The types of movement we focused on were;

 Percussive 
Vibratory 
Suspended 
Dropping 
Swinging 

 We were shown how we could use these movement qualities to portray emotions without needing to use any dialogue at all. Then we explored ways you could use just your voiced to portray emotions by either using pitch or volume.
We explored using Legato and Staccato to create a more naturalistic sounding type of theatre, and not so it sounds like it is just being read from a script.  Then we were given a simple script (shown below) and told to use these ideas about using voice to create an atmosphere with this script. We also had to say the first A and B lines at the same time as they contradict one another. 

Session 2 - MASTER CLASS TIME (Frantic Assembly) 
O.M.G. Frantic Assembly was an amazing experience and I learnt so much about simple movements can create massive moments of tension or happiness and so on. 
So first we had to warm up, and boy the people from Frantic Assembly didn't hold back on the warm ups, we had to do some very physical and tiring warm ups including jumping on the spot whilst twisting your torso (trust me its harder than it sounds) 
We then had to so superman jumps, these are jumps where you have one arm out in front of you and one leg in front and one behind, each time you jump, you have to swap the order. 
After getting all of us sweaty after doing this we were then thrown into the Frantic Assembly physical theatre lifts, WOW those guys at Frantic Assembly (Major respect for them) they make the lifts look so easy and they really are not. 
We started with the first lift where your partner must stand by your side and the person lifting puts their arm around the other persons waist. The person being lifted had to put their arm over the lifters shoulder and then hips together and boom the lifter had to lean onto one leg and bring the other one up thus lifting his parter. Easy. (yea right) 
The second lift involved being chest 2 chest with your partner and the person being lifted had to put their arm over your shoulder and hold on pretty darn tightly and then pick them up in a sort of hug. 
Right, third and final lift, now this one was the most aesthetically pleasing, the person being lifted had to fall back into your arms like a dance move, then move in close and they they would spin kinda over the lifters shoulder. (sounds hard, is hard) 

Master Class 2 - Devising through design, an immersive approach to performance (wow that's a mouthful) 
This was amazing, we started the session in a very blacked out room with only some ambiance lighting and boxes dotted around the place. Then we each had to work together as an ensemble to create a story with these boxes without using any dialogue. Gav (the person giving the master-class) started in the performance space and 1 by 1 we each had to take a turn in the square continuing the story that the previous people had created. This was a really cool thing to watch unfold because you could create your own story from what you are seeing. Once we had all taken a turn in the square we were told to get into groups, then were given an item and a light source and told to create a 2 minute piece of theatre without any dialogue. Our group was given a small cube that changed colour and a series of boxes that each contained a smaller box inside. 
Our 2 minute piece of theatre consisted of all 6 of us sitting in a circle and one by one opening the box to reveal a smaller box inside then passing that box to the next person, this continued until the final person (Me) got the box with the light inside. This then created jealousy from people in the circle and other people felt like this person had been chosen. 
After presenting these pieces we were given more objects and told to expand our current story, the other objects we were given included: 

6 x Little Red Lights 
Another Box series 
Big Roll of Paper 
Another Light up Cube 

We then decided that we would use the paper as a pathway and use the red lights to light up the edges of the path, then have all the boxes stacked into a pyramid and one by one each member would try to "defeat" me (the person with the cube) and only the last person would be able to. When the last person defeated me I then fell backward into the boxes and they all landed on me (dedication right there). 

Right now then, the shows we went to watch. 

Charlie - O.M.G. This show was just amazing, the visual aspects of it and the acting was just WOW. I am a massive fan of musicals so this was brilliant for me, I thought the kids playing Charlie were just amazing to be acting and singing like that at such a young age. And Douglas Hodge as Willy Wonka, WOW he is one talented guy, the stage design and special effects were pretty sharp in this show, you had impressive set designs of Mr. Wonka's factory and the "shack" where Charlie lived in. 

As you can see the set is extremely impressive, the work that must of gone into that alone is amazing. This show had everything I love in it, there were songs, it was funny, and it has a happy ending :) If you ever get a chance to go and see this show, you go so questions asked. 

Electra - Right Electra, this wasn't really my idea of fun if I am honest, the acting in it is brilliant but the story, talk about dull god it was hard to follow and really wasn't all that interesting. The main reason I didn't enjoy watching Electra was because I don't really enjoy and hour and a half of someone screaming and crying. 
Right the good points in Electra where the fact it was theatre in the round which was unusual and I have never been to a show where it presented like that. That for me was a pretty cool part of Electra, even though the story was rather hard to comprehend. 

Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night Time  - Wow, this show was by far one of the best shows I have ever seen, I was already exited to go and see this show because we had read the book version in year 8 English lessons. 
This show had it all, special effects, incredible acting and a good ending (which of course we need) 
the moves used in this play were choreographed by Frantic Assembly (who we had already had a master-class from) so it was really cool to be able to see the moves that we had learnt being put into a full west end play. The actor playing Christopher is one extremely talented guy, you could tell by watching this show that he had spent ages researching and spending time with people who have autism because he was able to move in the same way and act in the same manner. If you ever get a chance to go and see this show I would recommend it hands down. 

Finally that is everything (almost) condensed into a bite-size blog entry. I would like to say thank you to Mr. Fearenhough and Ms Alonso for taking us on this trip and giving us the experience. I would also like to thank Travel Queen Emma, Double bubble duchess Chloe and Meera-Shakira for being the awesome friends on this trip and making some brilliant memories. 

PICTURE TIME :) 





TAPS has, by far, been the best school trip I have ever been on! Not only did I get to make friends with loads of amazing people from all over the world (who I will definitely be keeping in touch with), but I also got to work with professional theatre companies such as, Frantic assembly and insert name. It was also really exciting as we got to work in incredible places such as The Dominion Theatre, RADA and Pineapple dance studios. My ensemble worked in The Dominion, for me this made the experience even better and exciting as I knew we were working in the place where real top end theatre performances went on.

On the first day we were split into our ensemble groups, I had two ensemble leaders as mine and Harry's ensembles were put together. My ensemble leaders were called Daniel and Georgia, and I really enjoyed working with both of them as they were very energetic and passionate about what they were doing. I was really nervous when we first split up as I knew I wouldn't be with any of my friends (Turns out Harry was in my group though) and that everyone else would probably have friends from their school in the ensemble, however everyone was really nice and I found it was very easy to talk to everyone. Our first day was all about exploring movement and sound. 

 Sound: 

  1. Our task was to move about the space, find a partner and say a line of speech to them that we had said in a production we had been in. We then had to memorise the other persons line and introduce them to someone else in the room using their line. We had to say the line exactly as the original person had said it. At the beginning I found this kind of confusing as I had to remember lots of lines, however by the end I actually got quite into it. It really helped me to remember other peoples names. 
  2. We continued to move around the space, however this time we were told to continuously talk about something (it didn't matter what). We then experimented with different ways of talking, volume/dynamics, pitch, staccato, legato, intonation, articulation and stress. This task made me very aware of just how many ways of talking there are and how if you say the same word in different ways it can mean different things. This could be key in future things we do eg. use of staccato/legato to mean different things.
  3. Creating a short piece using all of the ways of talking above. This was the first time working in a group and presenting to the whole ensemble and I was nervous at first but actually found it quite fun by the end. 
Movement:
  1. Our task was to walk around the room and try out many different movement types. These included percussive, vibratory (shaking) , suspended (walking as though a string is holding you up) , dropping (using levels eg. falling to the floor) and swinging. I found this task really interesting as it showed extremes of movement and how different movements could represent different emotions. In the future we could use extremes of movement in performances without dialogue or non-naturalistic performances. 
  2. We had to listen for different commands and then do the movement associated with the command. eg. Clear meant run to the sides of the room. We also had one which meant all group together, one for clocking something in the room and one for grabbing a partner. This task made me understand that actors always have to be aware of the things going on around them and listen to instructions. If these aren't done it could end up in actors crashing into other actors. It also showed me that everyone in the ensemble has to work as a team for the task to work.    
  3. Creating a short piece combining everything learnt in movement and everything learnt in sound. This helped me to understand how movement and sound fits together eg. Legato sound and slow movements. It also taught me about use of crescendos and decrescendos in voice to fit with movement and how it can help a piece to flow more easily.     
Charlie and the chocolate factory
Charlie and the chocolate factory was hands down my favourite play of the trip. I loved every moment of it and It left me with that desire to see more. My favourite aspect of the production by far, would have to have been the set design. The sets were amazing it was just like looking through a screen into another world, everything was so detailed and fitted perfectly in the play. I was also really surprised whenever something really technical happened, for example, when the elevator lifted up and when the tv came down with the actors in (that one really got me). In the production there were moments of: 
Tension - As Charlie is opening the Wonka bar for his birthday, will he get a golden ticket? When Veruca goes down to get a squirrel after Mr Wonka tells her she shouldn't. When Mr Wonka opens the door and he is in darkness. 
Emotion - Happiness, when Charlie gets a golden ticket. Sadness when Mr and Mrs Bucket say they can't afford a wonka bar for Charlie's birthday. Anxiousness when Charlie reached for the book when Mr Wonka tells him he isn't allowed to look at it. 
Atmosphere - Joyful/Jolly when Mr Wonka first takes them into the factory and they are in the chocolate room. Sad/uneasy when Charlie when Charlie doesn't get the golden ticket. Magical when Charlie and Mr Wonka go up in the glass elevator.
Meaning - "Don't be greedy" "Family is very important" "Don't take what you have for granted"

Day two was all about using space, building on what we had already done and creating pieces based on freeze frames from the plays we had seen. Day two was probably the day that I felt I had to step out of my comfort zone the most as it involved presenting what we had learned a lot more than day one.

Using space:

  1. On the floor there was a 4 by 4 grid, we learnt about the different sections of the grid eg. stage left, stage right, centre stage...Our task was to stand in a box or in-between two boxes and recreate the whole stage on the other side of the room facing the opposite direction. This task helped me to understand the different sections of the stage better as it was an actual visual representation of it. It also made me understand that actors always have to be aware of where others are on the stage. 
  2. Using the grid on the floor we were told to create different performance spaces. These included Theatre in the round, traverse, end on and thrust. I felt that after doing this I understood better these types of theatre stages. I felt it was much easier to understand as I could actually see what it looked like in real life and I could see where the audience would sit as if I were an audience member. 
  3. We then had to create a short piece in groups of three using only four squares on the grid and three lines of dialogue. We also had to choose our type of stage. My group decided to base our piece on a group of people coming home after a night out, we used a thrust stage. This was a step out of my comfort zone as we had to perform in front of the whole ensemble, however stepping out of my comfort zone made me more confident in front of my ensemble as everyone was really supportive. I learned that the movement in the piece should fit with the dialogue and that sometimes there doesn't need to be lots of movement to create a big impact on your audience. 
Building on...:
  1. Movement - We were taught theatre sign language to communicate different things. An example of this is moving your left hand from right to left in a big motion, this meant everyone. We then had to use this sign language to create a short piece with a partner, we were taught to make our movement very big and use space eg. being far away from your partner or being very close. Although at the beginning I found it hard to remember the signs, I noticed that after a while the signs came naturally, I really enjoyed  doing this task as it showed there are many ways to get a message across to an audience even without using speech. 
  2. Voice - In groups we were told to create our own language and a short piece. To do this we had to use our imagination and work as a team. After creating our language we had to create a short scene, our was set in a courtroom after someone had just admitted something terrible. This task really showed that gestures and movement really do matter in a production to get across a point. We also used raised staccato voices to show shock and horror. This task really put into perspective how important dynamics in a piece are. 
  3. Movement and voice - we had to get back into pairs and put together the sign language we had learnt and the language we had made up. I found this really hard as I kept forgetting bits of the sign language or my language, it was really confusing! After practising it I kind of got the hang of it. It showed me that things don't always go right the first time and you have to work on them. 
Creating pieces based on freeze-frames:
  1. While watching Charlie and the Chocolate factory we were told to remember one scorch moment from the play. In the session we were told to continuously write about this moment for 2 minutes talking about movement, lighting, sets and what made it stand out. We then had to get into groups and talk to the others for one minute each about our scorch moments. I found this task really interesting as it allowed me to find out what other peoples scorch moments were and how their experience of the play was different from mine. By sharing our moments it gave me more ideas about my own. We could use this method of sharing when coming up with ideas for our own performances in class. 
  2. We then had to create freeze-frames of each scorch moment. My scorch moment was the moment when the bucket family are all watching TV and the TV comes down from the ceiling. I found creating my freeze-frame really fun as I got to recreate the scene exactly how I wanted it to look. It also made me see what other people were thinking when they thought of their scorch moment. 
  3. Making a short piece based off one freeze frame. We had to take one freeze frame and create a completely different performance out of it. It had to have no connection to the original play. Our mini piece was about someone catching her husband cheating and her killing the other woman. There was a mix of comedy and violence. I thought this task was really effective at creating new, fresh pieces of theatre. It was really interesting to watch how each group got from their starting freeze frame to their end piece. I found it much easier to create an original piece of theatre from an already used starting point. We could use this in our future projects if we ever get stuck on where to start. 
Electra
I really didn't enjoy this performance at all! In fact I'm pretty sure there were moments when I fell asleep because it was so boring. I know that some people like this type of theatre, but to be honest I have no idea why! The whole play was just a woman droning on about how her parents were horrible and how her brother was dead. It was as if the whole play was on a tension level 7! It was just constant drama. And because I found the main character annoying and not likeable at all, I didn't sympathize with her at all at times when I'm pretty sure I was meant to. The only thing I actually thought was pretty cool was the fact that it was performed in theatre in the round, this was mostly because I had never seen a performance in theatre in the round. Also although the performance was clearly meant to be sad, there were also elements of humour at really random times which detracted from the play. In the play there were moments of: 
Tension - The person comes to tell her that her brother is dead. The whole time Electra is screaming on the floor. When her brother returns. When her brother enters the house. When her step-father returns. When her dead mother is carried out. When her step-father is threatened and killed. 
Emotion - Sadness when Electra finds out her brother is dead. Anger at mother and step-father for killing her father. Curiosity when her brother returns. 
Atmosphere - Sad and dark pretty much the whole way through. 


Day three was a short day however we still managed to do so much! We created pieces based of poems and a painting, used passages to create set  and explored different theatre practices and practitioners. Day three was also really sad as we all had to leave and most of the schools were going back home. At the end of the day we took it in turn to step into the middle of the circle and people would say things they had enjoyed about working with you. We also reflected on how we had worked and took it in turns to say what we would take back to our school.

Basing of poems and painting:

  1. At the start of the lesson we were given a envelope with a painting and a poem we had to read through it and create a piece based of it. We decided that our poem and our painting had the element of chaos and peace at the same time. Our performance was based around a young women who had moved from the countryside to the city, and how the city changes from the morning to late out night. Out of the many mini performances we did over the three days this was probably my favourite. I really enjoyed working with my group to try and find different ways to express out painting and poem. We incorporated everything that we had learnt from the previous sessions and used them in our own performance. I also really enjoyed watching other performances and seeing how different theirs was from our own, even though their stimuli turned out to be exactly the same. 
   Using passages to create a set:

  1. Each group was given a passage of a play and had to work together to create a set. My group got a text about elephants emerging from grass... We could've used things in the room we were in to create a set, however we decided we didn't want to limit ourselves, so instead we drew a picture of our set and explained it to the ensemble. We also used noises such as banging poles down and stamping feet to incorporate in our performance. This task made me realise how much effort goes into creating a set that fits with a section of a play, it also helped me to understand about detail and precision. We could use this idea of building a set in the piece we are creating at the moment in class. It could help us to generate more ideas on the atmosphere we want to create and what our 'storyline' will be. The task showed me that sometimes it's better to create a set even before you have the whole story planned out. 
Exploring different theatre practices and practitioners:

  1. We all split into groups and were told to research one theatre practitioner/practice. We had a choice out of stanislavski, Artaud, Comedia Del Arte and Boal. My group chose to do Comedia Del Arte and research into the different characters. After researching into the characters we also had to present what we had found out to our ensemble in a documentary style. We did this by showing an example of each character then reading out the different characteristics of them. To be honest I don't like Comedia Del Arte that much however the task was simple and got us to learn about the theatre practice. I learnt about the different characters eg. El capitano, Columbina, the innamorati and pantalone. Also by watching others performances I got to learn about the other practices/practitioners.  
 The Woman In Black
I wasn't there on Saturday night so unfortunately I didn't get to see 'The Curious Incident of the dog in the night time' (sad times) However on another night I did get to see the Woman in black! I was really nervous as I had heard that It was really scary, but it actually wasn't that bad. One thing that was clear from the very beginning was the fact that it was nothing like the movie. The play is done in a way where the actors are playing actors in The Woman in Black. In the performance there are continuous switches between the actual play and the actors in the rehearsal studio. Although I really enjoyed the play I felt that this particular idea didn't work very well as, sometimes, the play would stop just as you were getting into it. It also didn't feel real, this made it less scary. The whole performance is done by 3 actors and (other than the stuff I said above) is brilliant! There were definitely moments when I felt very nervous and excited about what was going to happen. The set and lighting (and use of shadows) was used perfectly. If I had the chance I would definitely see this performance again!



Master Classes 

Frantic Assembly - This was by far my favourite class during the three days. In this class we were taught about movement with someone else. We started by finding a partner to work with. We were then taught a lift to do with our partner. The lifts:

  • Shoulder lift - One person puts their arm right over the other persons shoulder then the other person lifts them up.
  • Leg lift - You stand side on with your partner with your two legs together. One person holds around the neck of the other person and the other person holds around the waist. The one with the hand around the waist lifts the other person sideways. 
  • Back lift - Stand back to back one person slightly crouched down. The person crouched holds on to the other persons arms and pulls them onto their back. 
  • Twist lift - one person leans back onto the other person with their arms on the other persons back. The person holding the leaning person twists them around the body. 
We also did this strange this where we had to squeeze parts of the other persons body (yes I know it sounds strange) in a pattern and they had to do the same back. We then put together the lifts and the squeezes to create a strange dance thing, which we had to present to the whole ensemble. I learned so much from frantic assembly about movement and confidence. At the end when we had to present I really wasn't confident and messed up a lot but it was okay because my partner did too! I really enjoyed working with frantic assembly. 

Diving through space and set design - I really enjoyed this master class as well. When we came into the room it was really dark apart from a square marked off in the middle with lots of little boxes. We stood in a circle around the square and our task was to "create our own story" by stepping in and out of the square and playing around with the many little boxes. At the end the man unveiled a big box in the middle which he opened to reveal a glowing light inside. It showed me that the smallest of things, such as a light, can give a huge impact on an audience, for example the light in the box represented treasure, or something good. After this the set changed so instead of little boxes there were lots of cardboard rolls standing up and little red lights littered on the floor. The main light was also red. We split into groups and had to create a short piece in the set. We did ours as though we were in a forest. Each time a new piece of set was added in and we had to adapt our play to this new set. I found it really interesting how one tiny piece of set could change the whole meaning of something, or even just a change in the colour of lighting, for example most people think red = dark/dangerous, green = happy/natural. In the end we were given bits of set to create our own scene and create a short play in it. We used a parachute some umbrellas and a piece of tarp to create a sort of hide out. We also used a little glowing light to represent an energy/something precious.

Altogether it was an amazing trip and if I had the chance to go back and do it all again I definitely would! I'd like to say Thankyou to Mr Fearnehough and Miss Alonso for organising the trip and taking us and also to ista for organising the whole event!
Some of My ensemble

Train times

Pret a manger
   

   





Hands down, the best trip I've ever been on. 4 days of intense fun and theatre left me absolutely shattered when I got home but it was so worth it. I have made soo many amazing friends from all over world who I will never forget, and Im pretty sure I will be seeing a couple of them on Broadway and in movies!

  This was my Ensemble, A for Amazing ;-). My group leader, Avital, was amazing. She poured her time and energy into us, giving us the best possible drama knowledge and techniques in just 3 days. She taught us that less is more, we did a lot of work on eye contact and how eye contact could lift the tension up and create a completely different atmosphere. She showed us that to create a piece, you didn't have to start with a story idea and then make a script ect..., you could create a story from anything. The students in my ensemble were fantastic, everyone was so devoted and everyone gave 110% every day, every activity. This really helped boost my confidence and allowed me to really invest myself in everything.

On the first day, we stood outside the Dominion Theatre at 9oclock, and i was terrified. There was about 3-4 schools stood outside as well (as we'd come early) and they were massive! Each group had around 20 kids in their Theatre classes, and we are small school in the South of France with only 4 kids. When we received our packs with where and who were going to be with, I was relieved to see that there were a couple students who didn't know anyone else in the group. I was in Pineapple Dance Studios, naturally Chloe and I freaked out about this ;-). I felt very comfortable with some girls already as we chatted on the 10min walk to the studio, and there, the games began.

To get the know each other we all sat in a circle and we had to make eye contact with someone, walk towards them and whisper each others names. Making eye contact with people I know is already difficult and uncomfortable for me, looking strangers right in the eye and whispering my name, was a whole new level. But this exercise really 'broke the ice' and took away that element of awkwardness and embarrassment. To get us up and moving, we placed chairs around the room with one chair empty, the aim was to try to not let the person sit down on the chair, so there was a lot of team work and sprinting around the room! These activities were a lot of fun and really welcomed me to ISTA and the experience I would be getting. By the end of the morning we had to sit back in the circle and say everyones name, I am terrible with names, so this took me a couple of goes!

We then got started on techniques:

  • Energy was used a lot in our work. We spent a long time walking around the room using different energy levels from 1-10 (1 being slow motion, 5 being everyday walking, 10 being running) we also did this with falling down and standing back up. We then had to create a small piece using series of numbers, walking, falling and standing back up. We then added eye contact which made the piece stick together because we started to play off each other, for example, if i held eye contact with someone as I stood up, they would fall down. This shows that eye contact can really pull a piece together and that words do not make the performance.
  • Plain White Masks were used on our first day, we had to put the mask on and make eye contact with everyone in the room. A horrifying thought on your first day! Stand up in front of 18 strangers and stare at them, but the mask took away the fear on my face and really made me feel a lot safer and made me relax because i didn't have to think about what my face was doing or if I looked alright. It also created a sense of anonymity, the mask is plain white, it has no gender, you cannot tell what the mask is thinking, what its feeling, it is up to the person wearing it to decide the story of this mask. It really made you focus on your body language, something that a lot of people tend to forget about whilst acting. Using eye contact with body language well, created a very tense atmosphere. 
  • Sight Specific was my favourite, we were put into small groups and sent outside to find somewhere and create a piece, this was to help us not create a story first and then look for somewhere but to find something that inspired us. 
  • On the last day, we used Puppets, something I used to cringe at. But this was a lot of fun, we choose a piece of music and had to make the puppet do something to the music, we choose the make it dance! It was a tone of fun and not what I was expecting. We did puppet work in, I think, Year 8 and I found it incredibly boring and time consuming. To start with it was difficult to manipulate the puppet smoothly without our arms and bodies tangling to make it look realistic.  But in my group we worked efficiently to make sure it looked clean and natural. We managed to get the puppet moving fluidly and in unison. Picking just one song was also difficult because there was so much too choose from, making a story and picking a song after would have much easier, but that was not the point of TaPS, it is to challenge you, and it sure did! 

Master Classes:
During our 3 days, we did 2 master classes:


  1. Frantic Assembly was the highlight of my trip! It was seriously so much fun, when our instructor, Neil, explained what Frantic do, I was dreading it, a lot of lifting and trust falling- My worst nightmare! But it taught me that stepping out of my comfort zone can really help. We started off with some warm up games where we had to look at someone, walk towards them and then suddenly look at someone else and walk to them ect... We then played this bounce game, which the IST student were very impressed with, it was seriously all we talked about for an entire day. We stood in 4 lines of 4 and had to jump in beats of 8,6,4,2,1 (chloe's blog post had a similar video to what we did) he then added claps and words and different movements which reallly confused me but it really got us moving and created a lot of funny memories. We then had to do a series of trust falls that all flowed together, everyone knows my fear of trust falls, but after spending like 45 minutes falling into practically strangers arms, I have the confidents to do it! We also practised different lifts; a lot of falling on the floor in heaps was involved in this;-). We then have to squeeze our partner in 5 places and turn this into a flowing piece with a lift and trust fall AND we had to be in contact at all times. I found this easier because i am a dancer and i like to believe I am gifted with rhythm. By the end of the 2 hours we had created a really beautiful and flowing piece (I wish I had filmed it) I really enjoyed it and I really hope we can bring Frantic back to our class room and use it. I loved the way it was such simple movements but with practise and rhythm it created a really great piece. Would definitely do this again and again.
  2. Commedia del Arte, unfortunately, I did not enjoy as much. Ive had past experiences with Commedia in Year 8 and was absolutely traumatised by it, I just found it so silly and embarrassing, I enjoyed watching others preform but just couldn't go up and preform because of how silly I felt. We had to do a lot of emphasising body language and voice and i just felt very clumsy and awkward. A lot of the characters are based on old stereo-types which i did find very interesting, for example Zanni is a worker, a migrant from the south coming up for money. I found the history of Commedia very interesting, but I just couldn't lose myself in it like I did with Frantic. Our Commedia teacher was very funny and really nice, i really wish i could have just let myself go crazy! He was very talented and really funny! My team mates really lifted me up through this, as they could see i was struggling which i am very grateful for.      

Shows:
During our trip we saw 3 very different shows:


  • Charlie and the Chocolate Factory- Visually amazing. This performance absolutely blew my mind. There was so much technical stuff that really interested me such as the glass elevator and a lot of bright lights and the set was fabulous- the TV idea was really clever and very unexpected! Everything felt right, it felt like you were in the chocolate factory and you felt apart of it. The over all atmosphere was magical- the part at the end when Willy Wonka disappears had me questioning if magic was possible! I thought the children in the performance were incredibly talented and it really opened my eyes to a career path I would like to pursuit. The puppetry for the Umpalumpas was a really clever idea, in other versions i've seen children play Umpalumpas but this really fitted. The star of the show was Willy Wonka, he was perfect. Willy Wonka in the movie is far too much for me but he was exactly what I pictures he'd be like when i read the book as a child. He was witty and sarcastic but without being obnoxious. I would strongly recommend this performance for teens because you will understand the jokes only meant for adults but at the same time get lost in the magic and be taken back to when we were younger. 
  • Electra on the other hand was really not for me. It was exhausting to watch! I found, again, the set really fitting for the play, it was theatre in the round, all one set and only 8 actors no costume changes or interval. The colours, in contrast to Charlie were bleak, dusty and browny colours. The acting was really impressive, the story was just dull... im not really a tragedy person so I was a bit biased walking in but I just do not enjoy an hour of whining and crying and I was slightly confused, the mother had killed the father, but the father had killed the sister? If i were Electra, I would be pretty annoyed if my father sacrificed my sister? But maybe I just didn't understand the plot. Then the step father arrives at the end, ( someone had to explain this to me after) The actor was not good, unfortunately all the tension that had been build leading up to this moment dropped. He had no emotion in his body language or in his voice, when the brother (?) told him he was going to get killed, he simply walked in without a struggle or a word! I just really didn't like it and thought it was so boring but Im glad we saw it because the set and screaming and whining will help for Artaud. 
  • Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime was my favourite. It was the best show I have ever seen. Frantic Assembly helped choreograph the movements in this show so I was already interested ( I think I see a career for me here!) I'd read the book before and I just couldn't understand how they would make it into a play but, wow, they pulled it off. The movements were so smooth and it looked so effortless, which i know from doing a master class on it takes a lot of effort to carry someone like them! I also really enjoyed the music, it just fitted really well with Christopher's character, very robotic and very outer space. The actor who played Christopher was incredibly talented and you could see he had spent months working with autistic people to get all the ticks and movements correct. It was really impressive and I would defiantly recommended everyone to go see it. 


All in all, I loved every minute of this trip. I really hope we get to go back next year! I would recommend going to everyone! I would like to thank ISTA for the best experience of my life, Mr Fearnehough and Ms Alonso for being such fun and giving up their time to take us to London ( im sure they didnt mind!) and a big thanks to Double Bubble Duchess, Meera-Shakira and Red Tube Harry for the memories we have created on this trip. THANK YOU ALL!!
Oh.My.God. ISTA TAPS was literally the best 4 days of my life, and I'm not just saying that to over-exaggerate or keep the teachers happy, I'm being genuine. I loved every minute of it! I met soooo many amazing friends from all over the world who I'm definitely going to keep in contact with and the best thing that amazed me was working with professionals such as frantic assembly in professional spaces such as RADA and Pineapple dance studios (which has been my dream to visit since I was around 10)!! Also the food there was amazing;-) If I could go back and do it all again I really would. It was such an indescribable experience!! 

 But it wasn't all about meeting new people and the food...the main reason for going on the trip was to develop my knowledge and understanding of the IB drama course, and I definitely did!

I worked with James (picture above); such an amazing teacher that pushed us to the limit to make us learn and participate with 100%. (Quick fact James taught the old drama teacher in IST who is now off in America working on films, so basically that could be me, just saying). If James ever reads this I just want to say thankyou so so much for putting your time into this TAPS weekend & making it both enjoyable and educational because I learnt so much that will help me through this course when I go back to France and I also have an idea of a career path I want to follow in the future (which the idea was created through TAPS). Thankyouuuuuuuu!

 After getting to know everyone, the first exercise we did was walking around the space in different tempos/speeds with three instructions;

  1. clear the space (in which you had to run to the side and touch the wall)
  2. drop (in which you had to drop to the floor and curl up in a ball)
  3. middle (in which you had to go to the middle of the room and put your head on someone else's shoulder)
The point of this exercise was to show how when you're performing on stage things can be very hectic so you need to be aware of the people around you to make it safe while travelling from one location to another.

Before creating any piece of drama you need to know the 7 tension states and how they feel as if you create a performance with just one or two tension states throughout it will become very boring. The 7 tension states are;
  1. Exhausted- no energy to move/jellyfish
  2. Laid back- Californian style/just got out of bed
  3. Neutral
  4. Alert- curious
  5. Suspense- melodrama/there may be a bomb in the room
  6. Passionate- there is definitely a bomb in the room/opera
  7. Tragic- petrified/frozen with fear/the bomb has just gone off
We discussed as a group the differences between the two theatre productions we saw; Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Electra. Nearly everyone agreed that Electra lost the audiences attention (literally I spotted two people in the audience who had fallen asleep, and one was in the front row!!) and this was due to it being at the same tension state throughout the whole play and when there was a climatic part, they created light-hearted humour which in my opinion detracted the catharsis. 

Another activity we did with James which I found very different yet fun and interesting was responding to impulses. We had to respond to our impulses in three stages;
  1. with music
  2. with a partner 
  3. to the room
The first one we did was with music. What we had to do was listen to a piece of music that James put on and do whatever our body wanted to do no matter how "stupid" you might think it was. At first everyone was really shy to do this and we all weren't getting into it. However, by the end of the class we were all dripping in sweat (i'm not joking, we really were). We all really got into the activity and just did what our body wanted to which felt great! 
The second one we did was with a partner. James played music again and we had to make eye contact with anyone in the room and respond to their impulses. We found after a while that our sequence of impulses were beginning to create a story and if we recorded the activity we would be able to review it and pick out aspects we loved and develop it into a piece (a bit like what we did with Frantic Assembly which I will get onto later in the blog). This activity working with a partner really helped develop friendships in the group with people I may not have spoken much to in the first day as we all just looked stupid together while creating something beautiful. 
The third one we did was responding to the room. I found that this one was the hardest out of them all as you had no music, no speech, nothing. You just had to do what your body wanted to do in silence while you responded to the room around you. This is a very helpful technique when you first get into an unfamiliar space which you are about to create a performance in as you get to explore the room and "test its limits" in a sense. 

After we got the idea of responding to our impulses we got into partners and were given a short poem. One person would play the ghost and one person would play the impulse. The ghost would whisper part of the poem into the impulses ear and the person playing the impulse would have to respond to their impulse immediately. 
Me and my partner Hyoha had to perform ours to the rest of the ensemble at the same time as another pair; Martin and Eva. Both me and Martin played the impulse and the amazing thing which happened was that some of mine and Martins impulses were exactly the same! This showed that when really focusing you can feel a connection between fellow actors. I found this amazing yet creepy at the same time!
Another thing I noticed which really freaked me out was that when I was watching a performance of Curious Incident of The Dog in the Night-time at one point I felt myself wanting to react to an impulse that I could feel in my arms and fighting the impulse felt really strange. This freaked me out quite alot because something I had learnt from James was physically affecting me. 

We also developed fighting our impulses with James too. What we had to do was face a wall while James said an emotion. We all instantly could feel an impulse but we had to resist the impulse and not move. When James said "go" we had to go and do an action we would do in our daily lives (for me it was putting on a ring and then taking it off). For each different emotion James said we all carried out the actions differently due to us fighting the impulse and then finally being able to carry out the impulse. I never knew impulses were such strong things that affected us until this activity.

FRANTIC ASSEMBLY
Frantic Assembly really allowed me to explore different aspects of physical theatre which I absolutely loved! After this intensive workshop I learnt to do things in drama that I wouldn't have thought about doing if I was creating a piece of drama in school such as lifts and rolls. 
We did two warmups in the session;
  1. jumping
  2. moving
The jumping warmup was where we had to stand in 4 rows of 4 people and each row had to jump continuously after one another however changing the amount of jumps each time by 8,6,4,2,1. This exercise really made you think about your next move as while jumping sometimes we would add actions such as a punch or a flick of the hands. Sometimes I found it very hard to do all the actions at once while jumping because you had to be very in time with the music and also in time with other people in your row. However, as we practised this warmup for quite some time I found that by the end I got to grips with what to do. Below is a video I found on YouTube of the exercise, however this one is done with just 4 people.



The second warmup we did was the movement warm up in which we had 5 instructions;
  1. normal jumps (just jumping on the spot)
  2. scoops (in which you would stand shoulder width apart bending at the knees to go and touch the floor then reach out in front of you, reach behind you through your legs and then reach up as far as you could) (this one was my favourite)
  3. spotty dogs (in which you had to put your left leg and right arm out in front of you and then alternate by a jump)
  4. fists (in which you would clench your fists and "body pump" them as high as you could reach and then down by your hips)
  5. left and right (in which you would move left to right in a ski motion)
This warmup was very intense as we did it for 3 minutes non stop. However, when the leader from Frantic Assembly told us they did this warmup for an hour straight I started to feel a little better. 

After getting all warmed up we got into partners to do the squeeze activity.
In this activity you had to squeeze 3 parts of your partners body wherever you wanted and they would do the same to you. You then had to link these squeezes by movements. 
When we finished we presented them all the rest of the ensemble and we quickly learnt that each performance told a story- even though we didn't intend to! We then went on to play around with this story aspect by adding other people walking around the performance, adding in strong eye contact and changing the background music and we found that it changed the story completely. The Frantic Assembly leader told us that this is what they sometimes did when they work on creating performances from scratch and they go on to take the storyline which they find in the activity and develop it.
Here is a video from Frantic Assembly themselves showing you this activity but sitting down;
I find this activity amazing as it's a new form of improvisation and each time you get a storyline out of it.

The final thing we did with Frantic Assembly which I found very challenging were the lifts. We were taught two different lifts which we had to perform both stationary and moving.We were taught that the lifts weren't anything to do with the weight of the people you were working with; you could have the fattest person in the world and the skinniest working together and they could still perform a solid lift as its all about finding the equal balance point between two people (it is mainly just below the hips or back to back). You will be able to see a demonstration of the lifts that we learnt in the end video of this blog.
I found the lifts quite challenging due to trust issues as I was working with someone I'd only just met and I was trying to put all my trust in them to lift me off the ground and move with me. If I was to do this lift with someone I'd known for a while and I was close with however, I would have foudnt eh exercise much more easier. But one thing I've also leant is that if you were a west end performer and you were told to do a lift in a performance you wouldn't have known the people you are working with for very long, you just need to learn to trust. 

With James we learnt how to perform rolls which was part of Frantic Assembly. We were taught that when performing a roll with a partner, wherever they're supposedly rolling you over from (the head, the feet, the stomach), that body part is the first thing to move over and then the rest of your body follows.

Helen Leblique Royal Shakespeare Company
The second intensive workshop we did was with Helen Leblique from the Royal Shakespeare Company (impressive or what?!). 
The first activity we did was a similar one to which we did with James on the first day. We had to move around the space on our own however when we made eye contact with another person we had to try and jump and land at the same time.
We then developed the activity and tried to trick the person we made eye contact with by making them think we are going to jump and then not jumping. The point of this was to get across the point of Shakespeares slapstick humour which he used in several performances. 

We then did an activity where we all took one card from a pile which represented our class (1-low to Jack-highest). We then had to pretend that we were entering a university common room for the first time and we had to bare in mind our class. So someone that had a card with a 1 on it would be very shy compared to someone who had a Jack who would be very up themselves and think they're very important. After this exercise Helen asked us to keep that idea of class into out heads while we progressed through the session. 

We then got given an extract from the play Much Ado About Nothing where Dogberry and Verges are trying to tell Leonato about Heros deceit. We had to work in pairs of 4 and pick out the key words from the extract. We picked out "Neighbour" and "Sir". For these words we had to pick an action and perform the extract adding in the actions. We chose to slap eachother on the back for the work neighbour and bow when saying the word sir. We watched everyone perform theirs and found that exaggerated actions created humour. 
We then went on to perform the extract again, however this time changing the classes of the characters. For example in our Dogberry was the most important and Leonato was the least important. This showed how by changing peoples powers in the scene can create a different story.  
This linked to Frantic Assembly when we added eye contact, different music and other people into the performance to change a story. 

So over the three days we learnt all of the above so in the fourth day we had to use it all to create our own performance with no help. We got into groups of five and were given a stimulus of three poems. Each group produced amazing results which looked nothing like they started with. 
In our group we chose two out of the three poems we liked the most and split into two groups of 3 and 2 (each with different poems) to carry out the ghost and impulse activity we learnt with James. After this we did the squeeze activity we learnt in Frantic Assembly. We then developed this with rolls, eye contact, lifts and repetition to create our final result;
In order from left to right in the line at the end; Ali, Chloe (me), Martin, Cap, Eva.

 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory- When watching this performance I couldn't believe my eyes! The set design, transitions of scene changes, the projections, music, sound, lighting, wow! I just couldn't believe it! It broke the 4th wall which really allowed the audience to feel like they were in the chocolate factory with the actors which was an amazing feeling. The use of puppetry with the umpa lumpas was amazing and very well thought out. This perfomance was definitely total theatre. 

 Electra- This perfomance was...well...different, very different to Charlie! I loved the set in theatre of the round however I found some of the set quite unnecessary (like the big tree which was infront of me blocking my view to the rest of the stage). I found that it needed an interval as it was all quite "samey" with no scene changes or costume changes. The thing that made the perfomance tiring and boring to watch was how it stayed at a constant tension level throughout the whole perfomance and when there was such an intense moment, they would add in a joke which really detracted from the catharsis. I understand that it was a tragedy, however it was bleak. From start to finish it was full of screaming, and the same tension. 

 Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time- This performance contained so many aspects of theatre that I didn't know were possible. WOW. Frantic Assembly was really brought out in this performance which was amazing because a day before I was working with them!! Every single movement was done to perfection with no mistakes, even the complex movements. The use of sound and projections were amazing in this performance and physically building set while performing (the train set) was a very good idea. The actor who played Christopher was incredibly talented as when playing the role of a person with learning difficulties you have to be very sensitive and be sure to get it right & he really did! It was unbelievable. It was really convincing.


So thats it, 4 full days of work condensed into a blog post. I would do this whole experience again if I could and if you get the chance to go DO IT! I can't stress that enough! Don't be shy about not knowing anyone because everyone's in the same boat and you make amazing friends by the end of it. I want to say a massive thankyou to Mr Fearnehough and Miss Alonso for organizing the trip and a huge thankyou to James and Ian for looking after us and allowing us to work with the Royal Shakespeare Company and Frantic Assembly! 
TAPS FAM 4 LIFE.












Another interesting week of drama has rolled by. This week has caused a lot of laughter and a lot of hard thinking. The exercises we did this week were:

  • The Paper Game
  • Mimicking the other 
  • Blind Walking
 In the paper game,we had to drag a piece of paper from head to toe only using body parts, playing this game we had to use a lot of concentration, cooperation and team work to get the task done properly. Of course, we took around 4-6 tries to get this done. But once we realised where we were having difficulties we managed to over come them, for example, we noticed that towards the end, the paper was being dropped so we switched people round and completed the task. We also had to imitate each others techniques. This game did have so excellent quotes!
(after 4th attempt) "Well, that seems to be working, we'll go with that"
"Don't get your foundation on me!"
"We work like a machine! I just cannot work with her" 
(rolls down trousers) Friction, right?"

 We also had to play a game where there was Person A and Person B. Person A had to act out something simple such as getting up and ready in the morning and B had to follow their exact moves. Being the person IMITATING, I found this a lot easier than (I think) my classmates. The only thing i found difficult was trying to guess their next move to make it more fluid and easier. I found following and using left when they used right easy because I am a dancer and have been having to follow and teachers every move for years. Being Person A was much more difficult as you had to make sure you were going slow enough to follow and were making your movements clear enough.
We then had to walk around the room with our eyes closed and be able to concentrate hard enough to sense things and people around the room. This was hard because naturally, you want to open your eyes and i was taking very hesitant steps. We then had to sync ourself to be able to start and stop at the exact same time, we managed to accomplish this around 5 times.


On Friday we wrote on big sheets some ideas about our devised pieces, ideas that jumped out at me and i would love to work with are:

  • Block coloured costumes
  • Ripped and stained costumes
  • Veils
  • Masked audience 
  • Flickering lights



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