Natassja Dodd

I began stripping my idea back to the basics as I wasn’t completely satisfied from what I was producing.

Taking inspiration from a musician I follow I decided to create a performance based on that and tweak it slightly. Brendon Urie, someone I admired was making his debut performance on Broadway and this was the first time he’d be doing anything in the acting industry rather than stage performances as a singer. I began to think how he must be feeling regarding the matter. Although the two don’t seem that different, I began to explore how concerts and theatre were different and similar because they are both styles of performance, music and dance in different ways.

Knowing that I have the dream goal to be an actor, looking back at my very first idea I combined the two and came up with the scenario of an actor who has their first big West End debut but they are stuck in a train station waiting for a delayed train. The audience would be someone for them to talk to and the performance would play out as a conversation in a railway station waiting for a delayed train.

This was the start of a performance for which I could expand on. The content I wanted to explore how this person/myself was feeling knowing the industry they were entering, particulary emphasising on how social media and technology has an affect on actors.

YouTube. (2017). Panic! At The Disco’s Brendon Urie Struts Into KINKY BOOTS. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFZh4U8ewAE [Accessed 28 May 2017].

Although often overlooked, I found this to play a huge role in my divising process. Having other people give their input and opinions on my work at that present moment was helpful for the long-term. I would be rehearsing with four or five others within my Solo Performance class and we would often give each other advice on how to improve each other’s work. I also discovered it was useful to see other student’s work as it helped inspire some of my own ideas. We would often rehearse three times a week with more dates and hours the closer we got to the performance date.

When devising my solo performance I came through a lot of ideas and to show my development I have included all the notes and trial scripts/plans/structures of possible shows that could have been developed further. With the idea of the jigsaw pieces I allowed my ideas to be influenced by how I could use them.

IDEA ONE: Solo Performance 1 

It was more of an exploration into what I could possibly to. I knew I wanted to use music so part of it was writing down nine songs (one for each piece) that had some meaning or some impact upon my life. I jotted down different notes and possible ideas that could be helpful.

IDEA TWO: Solo Performance 2

The second idea was using the theme of society and escaping from these stereotypes placed upon us. Hamlet was an immediate draw when thinking about this and I found an modern translation of the soliloquy. I thought this would leave more of an impact upon audience’s if they are able to understand what he is trying to say easier. I used this along with a ‘rant’ I created from personal experiences and how stereotypes of society have impacted my life.

IDEA THREE: Solo Performance 3

My third idea was finding a person throughout history that would be represented on one of the jigsaw pieces. This was a firm choice for my final performance but the concerns I was left with was only having a minute each to talk about these people given the time limit. I thought it would be too rushed to try and attempt however I found some points of interest within my research that I could use for influence in the future.

When thinking about set I became fascinated with the idea of jigsaw puzzles. I like the way in which all the pieces are unique and I linked this back to today’s society and how everyone is unique yet we have the stereotypes forced upon us to be the same.

I became intrigued with how to use these jigsaw pieces. One idea was each piece represented different parts of society and discussing how I don’t fit into them. Another was what happens when certain pieces don’t fit and others do. Is there a reason behind pieces not fitting?

For this reason I thought it would be interesting for both performance puposes and script purposes to have three pieces that didn’t fit and six that did. The shape I chose to make out of the pieces that would fit was a tiered system which could also incoporate progression in some form.

In order to create these wooden jigsaw pieces that were 13 x 13 inches in size. I used MDF wood and drew out the patters before they were cut. I sanded them down and then left them blank so I could play around with them before doing anything else with them.

USING THE PIECES

I spent some time laying the pieces down in my room. I began to explore different ways I could build things out of them or use them for travel. A method I found interesting was using them as stepping stones to pass from one place to another.

Another method was to only be allowed to stand on the pieces and I had to build the jigsaw without stepping off. The concept was interesting because I would never be able to complete it as there were three pieces that didn’t fit and the jigsaw was not flat sided on the edges meaning it continued. This experimentation I found to be useful during my creative process.

TECH WEEK

During tech week we were presented with many different ideas which we could consider for our own work. I found it interesting and both beneficial to see new ways in which to use the space (studio one). When thinking about my show I like the idea of using the corner and have my audience in a semi-circle around me. This can reflect the space of a street corner where a busker would stand.

We were shown some of the lighting designs we could use within our performances and I was particularly drawn to the spotlight settings and the wash over the stage. As I am still developing my performance this was both helpful but I felt at my stage in development it could have been more useful to try things out when I had content to expeirment with.