My goal is to speak English more accurately while I'm acting. In these two days, I think I talked a lot during the sessions. However, my English is still broken. I would like to brush up it, and make it so clear that the audience could understand.
And I'm writing down my journal here :) Monday; My group tried to create the new scene and we made a portrait of a family. I like this work, but I'm still afraid if it is too stale or stereotyped...I tend to make everything passable, acceptable and plain. Hmm. This is my problem. I hope I can add some unique expressions. Anyway, I enjoyed acting.
Tuesday; We tried to create the song. Writing lyric was very difficult. I felt impatience because my image could not come out as a word. Since I love to read poems, I strongly irritated to myself. The songs were great. I like all of them. I'm seeking the suitable lyric. I just couldn't follow the melody... Anyway, I enjoyed singing.
Wednesday; I like the game "Machine"! I want to play it again. Our group created other scene. It's so strange, but funny. I hope audience can enjoy that. Personally I hate my role as it reminds me my past horrible experience. Anyway, I enjoyed acting.
Other group also did a great job. I miss them a little bit. I hope we could create a new scene in new group.
I like this whole work. I can be someone else, I can create a new thing, and I can mistake without depression. I'm looking forward tomorrow.
Yes, I'd like to communicate with people in other group too! But I understand we don't have much time. So I think we should keep it going through.
My journal today: I spoke some English clearly in the scene today. Good. Our scene gets tightened. I feel I'm alive during the session. I laugh more, I express myself more, and listen to others more than the ordinary life. I love this project and members. However, I'm still afraid of the schedule. I think we'd better to integrate all pieces and run through the whole performance rather than develop each scene... Am I too worrywart?
Thank you, Chiyo, for sharing your honest thoughts and feelings. And, for keeping up the great work. Since the beginning of this week, we have all been working very hard and thus it is very important for me to know that you are enjoying yourself. I hope the other do enjoy themselves as well. I myself am having a great time during this process as well. I am also very aware of the increased laughter in the room. Looking forward to see what will come out of this amazing creativity.
I started this week off by setting a clear goal: Find the right question to ask, to lead us to the best solution and allow us to participate more in a productive way.
3/30(Tues)
As a human barometer of how much fun we had in today's session, I positioned myself as having had "the least" fun. It did not mean that I did not enjoy it. It was just that my struggle with the process became bigger than ever. I had been making effort to give this whole new way of creating a play a sincere try. I strongly wanted to develop our story first. A few days ago, I overcame my objections against us deciding on the title before any scenarios were created. Now we have to create a song without having any attachment to the (still to be created) roles that we are going to play. I wondered how I could put myself in such a challenging place. I did not know that this was going to be this hard. (Maybe nobody imagined this?) I basically disagree with the process of creating a play without having a common idea of where it should go exactly. I cannot wait to be proven wrong...
I wish I could be good at 3 in a gang. I realized that I am slow to understand the scene that other people start to act out. If I could catch it right away, I would enjoy it more. I enjoyed playing many different roles today including that of a nasty man. I had fun with it even though I knew it is not the most beautiful thing for an audience to look at.
One thing that I realized about myself is that I am not always doing things in the way that I am expected to. I like to ad-lib so that I can fit in whatever the vibe is. The slightest change that the other cast members do (ie; longer pause, different line, different vibe) affects my next move. To be honest, maybe I am just doing whatever I am feeling in the moment. I am sure that it would affect others as well. I think I have to be consistent so that the other cast members can also solidify their part even if we have to change it later. My homework is to memorize the moves, vibe and of course the lines of the "script".
enjoyed the activity to describe "24 hours in NYC". I'd like to see what other people doing! And I like the frock game also. To be honest, I didn't like the lyric which we created before because it sounds no sense for me. But today there's some revision and it was OK.
I understand that not the all people cannot be happy in the creative work because everyone has different favor. But I always try to tell my opinion honestly, and also I always try to listen to other opinion. Even if I don't like any idea, I try to like it if somebody really like that idea. As for the song, I am in that kind of position.
I realized that Fumi has a similar concern about the quality of our show. I don't know anything about Applied Theater, but I'm worrying about it from my experience that had some stage performances in my life. Needless to say, I'm not expecting our show to be fabulous or perfect. But I think we need to put scenes in order and make it clear so that the audience can understand. Though I like improvisation activity and devising, I feel anxiety about the show during the session. I believe when we grasp the whole image of the show, we can find our improvement more.
I might be too serious, I think. But I just don't want to be halfhearted. I'm sure that this project is a good experience for me to interact with people, so I don't want to miss this opportunity.
On Monday we should have a clearer idea of the order of the scenes and any suggestions for a particular order, with accompanying reasons, would be great.
Some of us like more structure, some of us less and it is in the balancing of this structure that sometimes I get it wrong on occasions. Hopefully, I get it right more often than not but we all make mistakes. 'Shoulda, woulda, coulda. Didn't.' As I like to say.
I do have to assure you all that we are taking this process very seriously and the show that we are going to perform will also be treated as such.
And as regards to the quality of the show, there is a lot of theatre that has high production costs that I don't think has as strong theatrical and content values as ours.
Part of the reason why the devising process is so difficult (and so much fun) is that we all have to take the initiative as part of the working ensemble. The creation of an atmosphere where participants feel freer to take risks takes time and it is noticeable how this has developed during the creative process this week.
We also are all taking a step into the unknown and that is scary (and fun - in a roller-coaster kind of way) for the directors too.
What I have tried to do is embrace this exploratory experience and by being sometimes brought into unchartered ground we can be led to discover new views about territory about which we had already made decisive judgments. Thank you for giving me these challenges.
As Confucius said, "And remember, no matter where you go, there you are."
Today's journal. Through the conversation and planning about the transition of each scene which John led, I could understand the outline of the show and now I am relieved. Garret, I understand the "balancing" which you are dealing with. I love the way you work and I totally respect it. I think my confusion and struggle for the process also might be a cultural gap... (Because of my cultural background, I feel uncomfortable if everything is not completely prepared and organized.) So I believe I can enjoy this conflict.
I really enjoyed the new scene of the NYC street. We can be a part of "Crossroad"... I like that image. It will make sense! And I just couldn't stop laughing as everyone was so funny. I like that moment which we can share the idea and enjoy it. And I was very much impressed to see Pavla's group's work. I'm sure that our show will be great.
My personal goal is to improve my articulation, pronunciation, intonation and volume of my speech. I feel that so many times, people don’t understand me, no because of what I say, but because of how I say it.
Monday: I really like this session, I felt like all the pressure and seriousness related to the container problem was gone. I had fun again (I didn’t for the last 4 sessions). I felt freer to create. I’m comfortable with the magic flower scene. I like that this scene is a little bite crazy and has no connection with the realistic world. It was interesting to work with exaggerated body language. I appreciated to write the dialogue done, it help me to concentre and to structure my vision of the scene. I didn’t work on the voice…
Tuesday: We worked on the Frog scene, it’s improving but I feel that it’s still no enough neat and clean. To know what I have to say (writing dialogue) permitted me to try to think about my articulation and my pronunciation…I didn’t really succeed thought. The group feedback was interesting, honest, and constructive. I also like a lot the concept of the human barometer. For me, it is a good way to position myself, to do the point about a question. I’m also very curious about what the other participant are thinking. I really impress how everyone gave honest and deep answers. Thank you.
Monday: ‘Making plan for this week’ Onomatopoeias, Interjection, and exclamation I’m curious about the words like ‘Oh’, ‘Ah’, and ‘Ouch’ to express our emotion effectively. I made my goal to learn and use the exclamation words for our dialogue. An exclamation is a sound, word, or sentence that is spoken suddenly, loudly, or emphatically and that expresses excitement, admiration, shock, or anger. Superiority game for situation ‘family' It was funny. Another works for our group’s scene are making more clear and brief dialogue and exaggerating action. -exaggerate -improvisation -superiority -stereotype
Tuesday: During chatting with classmates,word ‘Onomatopoeia’ was came out. I web surfed about it yesterday to find the words for the scene. I just used one word ‘Tada’. I should look at more words for that. New works for our projects (It’ll be continuous) ‘How can show our characters are getting old?’ Using numbers or pictures? If our expression skill is enough, we can show it with our actions. Making song was funny and exciting but I cannot imagine the total outline of our performance yet. Um…. -Stillness -parable
Wendsday: ‘Restaurant scene’ Korean chef ‘Kim’ Japanese waitress ‘Machiko’ Taiwanese tourist ‘Beibei’ How can we talk with each other? Using body language and onomatopoeia is probably helpful. ‘Bang’, ‘eek’, ‘eh’, ’pop’, ‘screech’, tic-tac’, ‘swish’
I am captivated by your blog writings and humbled by your honesty and forthcoming. It is great to read your accounts of your goals in the context of the sessions and vise versa, the sessions in the context of your learning goals. I appreciate very much that you are trusting the process, which for most of us is new and might feel scary at times. However, the amount of fun we are having by creating scenes is enchanting.
In our work, there has been an ongoing debate about process versus product. Some people value the process more than the product and do not need to see a show at the end of a project. Some say the product (=the show) is necessary for a project to be successful. I would use the same word as Garret - balance. I think that we have had so far a creative, meaningful and fruitful process and thus, to create a balance, we will have a great and meaningful show.
Each day even though I am tired after a day of rehearsing, I am energized by the creativity of the group. Thank you.
This morning, I immensely enjoyed listening to your stories. I am looking forward to seeing them brought up to the stage.
(RE: Pavla's post) Wow! Please don't tell me that the debate is still ongoing! I am afraid if I misunderstood what the exact point at issue is for balancing "process" and "product". In my opinion, once we decided to schedule a show, there is no other choice than putting all our energies into making the "product" as great as possible. I believe that effort in the "process" is the least thing that we can show to an audience. If the "process" is equally important to the "product", we should not book any show until the "product" reaches a satisfactory level, because play building with a dead line could lead to a compromised product. I thought we were on the same page about this from the onset. I also believe that the "process" reflects the "product" as Pavla says. I think our problem is lack of communication as Chiyo mentioned. We have created many scenes before and most of them were rejected or deleted without any explanation. I am sure that the directors discussed it but it was not delivered to the participants. I do not want to ignore that point. And that is one of the biggest reasons why some of us started to feel very concerned about the show. Even now the questions still remains. However unclear, we accepted the reality and moved on to the next step. I know that we just recently started to collect the scenes for the play. Although I am glad for this progress, I could not help but express myself here because it almost affected my enthusiasm to make it through.
Today I was directed by John for my monologue. And I learned a lot from him. I basically trying to speak clearly so that other people understand what I'm saying. I like this practice. Even with a short line, repeating the sentence gives me confident of my pronunciation. Garret and Pavla also inspired me and gave me a lot of ideas. I wish I had more time...
(Multicultural Union of Language, Theatre, and Identity) is an applied theatre project which explores cultural identity, language, and cross-cultural communication.
My goal is to speak English more accurately while I'm acting.
ReplyDeleteIn these two days, I think I talked a lot during the sessions.
However, my English is still broken. I would like to brush up it, and make it so clear that the audience could understand.
And I'm writing down my journal here :)
Monday;
My group tried to create the new scene and we made a portrait of a family. I like this work, but I'm still afraid if it is too stale or stereotyped...I tend to make everything passable, acceptable and plain. Hmm. This is my problem. I hope I can add some unique expressions.
Anyway, I enjoyed acting.
Tuesday;
We tried to create the song. Writing lyric was very difficult. I felt impatience because my image could not come out as a word. Since I love to read poems, I strongly irritated to myself.
The songs were great. I like all of them. I'm seeking the suitable lyric. I just couldn't follow the melody...
Anyway, I enjoyed singing.
Wednesday;
I like the game "Machine"! I want to play it again.
Our group created other scene. It's so strange, but funny.
I hope audience can enjoy that.
Personally I hate my role as it reminds me my past horrible experience.
Anyway, I enjoyed acting.
Other group also did a great job. I miss them a little bit. I hope we could create a new scene in new group.
I like this whole work. I can be someone else, I can create a new thing, and I can mistake without depression. I'm looking forward tomorrow.
I hear you Chiyo on trying to create something with different people from the group. Maybe we can work together in a larger group?
ReplyDeleteYes, I'd like to communicate with people in other group too! But I understand we don't have much time. So I think we should keep it going through.
ReplyDeleteMy journal today:
I spoke some English clearly in the scene today. Good. Our scene gets tightened.
I feel I'm alive during the session. I laugh more, I express myself more, and listen to others more than the ordinary life. I love this project and members.
However, I'm still afraid of the schedule. I think we'd better to integrate all pieces and run through the whole performance rather than develop each scene... Am I too worrywart?
Anyway, I enjoyed creating the con"fusion".
Great title for your scene.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Chiyo, for sharing your honest thoughts and feelings. And, for keeping up the great work. Since the beginning of this week, we have all been working very hard and thus it is very important for me to know that you are enjoying yourself. I hope the other do enjoy themselves as well. I myself am having a great time during this process as well. I am also very aware of the increased laughter in the room.
Looking forward to see what will come out of this amazing creativity.
3/29(Mon)
ReplyDeleteI started this week off by setting a clear goal: Find the right question to ask, to lead us to the best solution and allow us to participate more in a productive way.
3/30(Tues)
As a human barometer of how much fun we had in today's session, I positioned myself as having had "the least" fun. It did not mean that I did not enjoy it. It was just that my struggle with the process became bigger than ever. I had been making effort to give this whole new way of creating a play a sincere try. I strongly wanted to develop our story first. A few days ago, I overcame my objections against us deciding on the title before any scenarios were created. Now we have to create a song without having any attachment to the (still to be created) roles that we are going to play. I wondered how I could put myself in such a challenging place. I did not know that this was going to be this hard. (Maybe nobody imagined this?) I basically disagree with the process of creating a play without having a common idea of where it should go exactly. I cannot wait to be proven wrong...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDelete3/31(Wed)
ReplyDeleteI wish I could be good at 3 in a gang. I realized that I am slow to understand the scene that other people start to act out. If I could catch it right away, I would enjoy it more. I enjoyed playing many different roles today including that of a nasty man. I had fun with it even though I knew it is not the most beautiful thing for an audience to look at.
4/1(Thurs)
ReplyDeleteOne thing that I realized about myself is that I am not always doing things in the way that I am expected to. I like to ad-lib so that I can fit in whatever the vibe is. The slightest change that the other cast members do (ie; longer pause, different line, different vibe) affects my next move. To be honest, maybe I am just doing whatever I am feeling in the moment. I am sure that it would affect others as well. I think I have to be consistent so that the other cast members can also solidify their part even if we have to change it later.
My homework is to memorize the moves, vibe and of course the lines of the "script".
enjoyed the activity to describe "24 hours in NYC". I'd like to see what other people doing! And I like the frock game also.
ReplyDeleteTo be honest, I didn't like the lyric which we created before because it sounds no sense for me. But today there's some revision and it was OK.
I understand that not the all people cannot be happy in the creative work because everyone has different favor. But I always try to tell my opinion honestly, and also I always try to listen to other opinion.
Even if I don't like any idea, I try to like it if somebody really like that idea. As for the song, I am in that kind of position.
I realized that Fumi has a similar concern about the quality of our show. I don't know anything about Applied Theater, but I'm worrying about it from my experience that had some stage performances in my life.
Needless to say, I'm not expecting our show to be fabulous or perfect. But I think we need to put scenes in order and make it clear so that the audience can understand. Though I like improvisation activity and devising, I feel anxiety about the show during the session.
I believe when we grasp the whole image of the show, we can find our improvement more.
I might be too serious, I think. But I just don't want to be halfhearted.
I'm sure that this project is a good experience for me to interact with people, so I don't want to miss this opportunity.
On Monday we should have a clearer idea of the order of the scenes and any suggestions for a particular order, with accompanying reasons, would be great.
ReplyDeleteSome of us like more structure, some of us less and it is in the balancing of this structure that sometimes I get it wrong on occasions. Hopefully, I get it right more often than not but we all make mistakes. 'Shoulda, woulda, coulda. Didn't.' As I like to say.
I do have to assure you all that we are taking this process very seriously and the show that we are going to perform will also be treated as such.
And as regards to the quality of the show, there is a lot of theatre that has high production costs that I don't think has as strong theatrical and content values as ours.
Part of the reason why the devising process is so difficult (and so much fun) is that we all have to take the initiative as part of the working ensemble. The creation of an atmosphere where participants feel freer to take risks takes time and it is noticeable how this has developed during the creative process this week.
We also are all taking a step into the unknown and that is scary (and fun - in a roller-coaster kind of way) for the directors too.
What I have tried to do is embrace this exploratory experience and by being sometimes brought into unchartered ground we can be led to discover new views about territory about which we had already made decisive judgments. Thank you for giving me these challenges.
As Confucius said, "And remember, no matter where you go, there you are."
Looking forward to go where we go next...
Today's journal.
ReplyDeleteThrough the conversation and planning about the transition of each scene which John led, I could understand the outline of the show and now I am relieved.
Garret, I understand the "balancing" which you are dealing with. I love the way you work and I totally respect it. I think my confusion and struggle for the process also might be a cultural gap... (Because of my cultural background, I feel uncomfortable if everything is not completely prepared and organized.) So I believe I can enjoy this conflict.
I really enjoyed the new scene of the NYC street. We can be a part of "Crossroad"... I like that image. It will make sense! And I just couldn't stop laughing as everyone was so funny.
I like that moment which we can share the idea and enjoy it.
And I was very much impressed to see Pavla's group's work. I'm sure that our show will be great.
My personal goal is to improve my articulation, pronunciation, intonation and volume of my speech. I feel that so many times, people don’t understand me, no because of what I say, but because of how I say it.
ReplyDeleteMonday:
I really like this session, I felt like all the pressure and seriousness related to the container problem was gone. I had fun again (I didn’t for the last 4 sessions). I felt freer to create. I’m comfortable with the magic flower scene. I like that this scene is a little bite crazy and has no connection with the realistic world.
It was interesting to work with exaggerated body language. I appreciated to write the dialogue done, it help me to concentre and to structure my vision of the scene. I didn’t work on the voice…
Tuesday:
We worked on the Frog scene, it’s improving but I feel that it’s still no enough neat and clean. To know what I have to say (writing dialogue) permitted me to try to think about my articulation and my pronunciation…I didn’t really succeed thought.
The group feedback was interesting, honest, and constructive. I also like a lot the concept of the human barometer. For me, it is a good way to position myself, to do the point about a question. I’m also very curious about what the other participant are thinking. I really impress how everyone gave honest and deep answers. Thank you.
Yoon’s Journal
ReplyDeleteMonday:
‘Making plan for this week’
Onomatopoeias, Interjection, and exclamation
I’m curious about the words like ‘Oh’, ‘Ah’, and ‘Ouch’ to express our emotion effectively.
I made my goal to learn and use the exclamation words for our dialogue.
An exclamation is a sound, word, or sentence that is spoken suddenly, loudly, or emphatically and that expresses excitement, admiration, shock, or anger.
Superiority game for situation ‘family' It was funny.
Another works for our group’s scene are making more clear and brief dialogue and exaggerating action.
-exaggerate
-improvisation
-superiority
-stereotype
Tuesday:
During chatting with classmates,word ‘Onomatopoeia’ was came out.
I web surfed about it yesterday to find the words for the scene.
I just used one word ‘Tada’. I should look at more words for that.
New works for our projects (It’ll be continuous)
‘How can show our characters are getting old?’
Using numbers or pictures? If our expression skill is enough, we can show it with our actions.
Making song was funny and exciting but I cannot imagine the total outline of our performance yet.
Um….
-Stillness
-parable
Wendsday:
‘Restaurant scene’
Korean chef ‘Kim’
Japanese waitress ‘Machiko’
Taiwanese tourist ‘Beibei’
How can we talk with each other?
Using body language and onomatopoeia is probably helpful.
‘Bang’, ‘eek’, ‘eh’, ’pop’, ‘screech’, tic-tac’, ‘swish’
I am captivated by your blog writings and humbled by your honesty and forthcoming. It is great to read your accounts of your goals in the context of the sessions and vise versa, the sessions in the context of your learning goals. I appreciate very much that you are trusting the process, which for most of us is new and might feel scary at times. However, the amount of fun we are having by creating scenes is enchanting.
ReplyDeleteIn our work, there has been an ongoing debate about process versus product. Some people value the process more than the product and do not need to see a show at the end of a project. Some say the product (=the show) is necessary for a project to be successful. I would use the same word as Garret - balance. I think that we have had so far a creative, meaningful and fruitful process and thus, to create a balance, we will have a great and meaningful show.
Each day even though I am tired after a day of rehearsing, I am energized by the creativity of the group. Thank you.
This morning, I immensely enjoyed listening to your stories. I am looking forward to seeing them brought up to the stage.
We have a show! It's rough and ready right now but we'll be able to polish it up in the upcoming week.
ReplyDeleteEnjoy the day off.
(RE: Pavla's post)
ReplyDeleteWow! Please don't tell me that the debate is still ongoing! I am afraid if I misunderstood what the exact point at issue is for balancing "process" and "product". In my opinion, once we decided to schedule a show, there is no other choice than putting all our energies into making the "product" as great as possible. I believe that effort in the "process" is the least thing that we can show to an audience. If the "process" is equally important to the "product", we should not book any show until the "product" reaches a satisfactory level, because play building with a dead line could lead to a compromised product.
I thought we were on the same page about this from the onset. I also believe that the "process" reflects the "product" as Pavla says. I think our problem is lack of communication as Chiyo mentioned. We have created many scenes before and most of them were rejected or deleted without any explanation. I am sure that the directors discussed it but it was not delivered to the participants. I do not want to ignore that point. And that is one of the biggest reasons why some of us started to feel very concerned about the show. Even now the questions still remains. However unclear, we accepted the reality and moved on to the next step. I know that we just recently started to collect the scenes for the play. Although I am glad for this progress, I could not help but express myself here because it almost affected my enthusiasm to make it through.
Today I was directed by John for my monologue. And I learned a lot from him. I basically trying to speak clearly so that other people understand what I'm saying. I like this practice. Even with a short line, repeating the sentence gives me confident of my pronunciation.
ReplyDeleteGarret and Pavla also inspired me and gave me a lot of ideas. I wish I had more time...