Opening scene

Throughout our first lesson, we decided to create a powerful opening scene. 
Primarily, we decided to use theatre of the round, as we felt that we could make effective use of the extra space that this stage type gives us. We have loads of ideas about how we can use this space in a unique, interesting ways. For example, we could drape a 'square' of white sheets around the stage, so the audience begins facing the sheet. Then, we will turn on four bright lights, that face each side of the square. We will then perform an 'evolution of man' scene, facing the audience. This will only be visible through shadows, and will create a visually stunning physical interpretation of the evolution of man. 

However, this idea has its problems, and would be rather hard to pull off. These problems include- it would be practically difficult, as we would struggle to hang up such a large sheet. Also, it would be hard to create an interesting interpretation with only four of us, as this restricts us to one person at each sheet (as we need to ensure that each 'section' of audience can see the performance). 


Because of this, we are still undecided whether we will be able to use this technique, so instead, we have thought of an intriguing opening. We decided that we want to open with a portrayal of the upper classed humans, and we decided to show four deep 'human' emotions (fear, lust, anger, sadness). We thought this will be effective, as it immediately portrays the issues of human emotions, and shows the deep set emotions that the humans feel. In order to do this, we decided to create a dance-like opening that physically portrayed such emotion. 

In order to do this, we decided to use a tribal scene, and we decided to do some research on tribal dances and Hakka routines (as we felt theses effectively shows anger, and deep-set human emotion).We did some research, and looked at these videos: 

We looked at this tribal dance, and similar dances. Overall, we liked the effect that this dance had. It was very powerful, as there were many people doing similar movements on stage. However, we felt that it was a little chaotic, as the movements were not 'choreographed' as such. We liked the chaotic feel in this instance, however, this is not really how we want our opening to look like, as we want there to be a rhythm, and repeated moves in chorus, that everyone does. Because of this, we took some inspiration from this video, but we decided against using it to create out dance.

Next, we decided to do some research on the Hakka. This is because this traditional dance style focuses directly on the 'main human emotion'- anger. It is used at the start of football games, to intimidate and scare the opposing team. It is normal for each team to go 'full-out', and each team will add sound effects, and facial expressions that will incredibly intimidate their opponents. After watching several videos of this dance, we decided that we would take inspiration for our opening. In the beginning, we wish to portray four human emotions, and we felt that the Hakka could be used to show anger, and predatory rage. We took many elements of the Hakka videos we watched, and used them to develop our opening scene. 

Finally, we decided that we were going to use this piece of music during our opening. This is because, it has many changes in mood throughout the piece, so we can use it to portray the different emotions of the richer society. Moreover, it has almost exactly the same beat as we imagined, and is a very beautiful piece, that can represent anger, fear, lust and sadness.