Monday
After exploring the basics of Antigone last week, we were given 25 minutes to create a piece of movement that showed the whole story and also include some of the main events.
To start, our group decided to figure out which events we wanted to shown in the movement. We picked events that we thought changed the atmosphere of the play and also changed the way that we looked at certain characters because of their actions at that time.
We decided to include:
- The actors preparing for the play
- Antigone being introduced
- The war/fight that was going on between Eteocles and Polyneices (Antigone's brothers)
- Their death
- The introduction of Creon
- The contrast of Creon's response to the two brother's death
- Antigone's actions towards Polyneices (who's body is left unburied)
- Antigone's death
Video of our outcome
We wanted to show the difference between the actors preparing and them in character so we decided that when the brothers were introduced Caitlin would "these are her....my brothers" to symbolize that she is still getting into character and hasn't fully immersed herself into becoming Antigone. This reflects the elements of Metatheatre which is where the actors address the audience either directly or through monologues or soliloquies.
We tried to use to as many different levels as possible and also the transitions between the levels, helped juxtapose the status of certain characters. For example; Holly, who was playing Creon, raised her status when she got into character to show that she had a completely different status to when she was an actor preparing.
The use of the sticks, also symbolized that most of the characters in the play used each other to raise their own status whereas Antigone was the one being used which made her status downgrade even more.
Wednesday
Googles definition of tragedy
"tragedy
ˈtradʒɪdi/
noun
- 1.an event causing great suffering, destruction, and distress, such as a serious accident, crime, or natural catastrophe.
- 2.a play dealing with tragic events and having an unhappy ending, especially one concerning the downfall of the main character."
My definition of tragedy
Normally involving a tragic hero, an event that causes them to drastically change their perspective, feelings or approach to a place, view or person that has an event on those around them and changes their lives forever. In most tragedies, there is death involved, either to the tragic hero or some close to them.
Antigone is a tragic play because it has a main event that affects the tragic hero, which is Antigone, and has serious consequences for her and the society that she leaves behind.
To begin the lesson we were asked to think about what a Machine of Tragedy might be and how it would link with Antigone. We discussed that it would be triggered by the death of Eteocles and Polyneices because that is the event that causes Antigone to ignore the expectations that are set for her. It would involve everyone that surrounded Antigone and wouldn't be able to stop on its warpath once it had begun and everyone would be engulfed by it.
The first exercise that we did was to think of a profession and an action that would go with it. I chose to do a teacher and so I imitated marking someone's work and then turning the page and looping it. This began quite small but then we made it bigger, so big that it just became a movement that couldn't be linked back to the profession. The actions became bigger and more fluid to express the size and also i started involving more of my body. For example, when I was turning the page it became my arm sweeping for right to left in an arc over my head.
We were then asked to stand in a circle and watch multiple people's movement at separate time and with each one learn it and then make it our own by making the movement bigger and unrecognizable.
Next we got into partners and had to do our separate movements but moving closer and closer to one another and carry on moving close to each other so that we were as close as possible whilst still being able to do our movements. We weren't allowed to talk about what we were going before hand or during the movement we just had to read each other and fit our movements around each other. I think me and my partner were quite comfortable with what we were doing and the fact that both of our movement's had things to the side meant that we could both lean the same way or different ways which began to create a story without us having to discuss it. Adding eye contact to the movement added to the story that was beginning to form because at some points we looked at each other at the same time and reacted but at other times we looked at each other without meeting eyes which created an atmosphere around us.
We were put into groups of four to add all of our movements together. We first looked at the position of everybody's movement to see what staging we could use and how we could integrate levels into the piece. Kieran's movement was quite forceful so we decided that it should be seen by the audience so he laid down and did his axe movement towards the front to emphasis it. We were asked to make the movement like a series that this characters had to participate in and they were obliged to carry on. We had to make one of the characters want to leave this system and one character want them to stay because if they left their greatest fear would be inflicted upon them.
We were given a knife to involve into the movement and were asked that if we were to get cut by the knife we should react to it. We thought that because I was the character that wanted to leave, everybody was going to cut me so that it would symbolize their reaction to me leaving.
End Product
I think that our movement linked with Antigone because Antigone's life was like a looping system that she couldn't get out of but then she was the one that wanted to break that and escape from it. Creon was the one that wanted her to remain in the system because when he found her trying to bury her brother he gave her a chance to explain herself whereas he said that he would kill anyone on site if he found them.
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