In Class we had workshops based on three different practitioners; Mike Leigh, Frantic Assembly and Knee High, in order to gain a firm understanding of their process and decide which one we would like to be involved in or would like to study further. After the workshops, I decided that I had not spent enough time working on Knee High and was really interested in their process and the work they produced, So decided that for my group devising Drama piece, I would like to create a piece influenced by Knee High.

I was assigned to a group with Molly, Sarah, Ashley, Lizzie and Frankie, who had also chosen 'Knee High', and from there, the creation of our Drama piece began.

We first had to select a theme or topic, almost straight away and unanimously, we all decided that we were interested in choosing Witchcraft and were excited to see what we could come up with. We brainstormed some ideas, and ahead of time came up with a plot that we were really enthusiastic about, even though we had done that way too early in the process. Because of this, and trying to stay loyal to our practitioner, we tried not to steer so close to our first ideas, however this was harder than we imagined as we were all so excited and enthused about it.

Unit 3 Milestone Evaluation

A2 Drama & Theatre Studies

Charlotte - I am really happy with your role in the structure of your group and pro active approach to the work, but feel concerned that you are not always evidencing your process effectively. This needs to be adressed immediately. Please ensure that you have checked your Markbook to monitor ongoing progress.

Your focus should be....

•         to bring your blog up to date by expanding on the detailed examples from the more recent lessons, to ensure that your input into the performance is recognised and the influence of decisions made along the way tracked clearly, enabling you to better reflect in your Performance Evaluation.

•         To ensure the group are ready to show scenes in our first show back to the group on Wednesday 27th November.

Research & Exploration (SWED Work in Blog) working grade - D

Development & Structure (Practical Contribution)working grade - B

*If you continue working at the current level you will maintain your grade. If you follow your targets and develop both your written and practical work you will reach the next grade by the conclusion of the project.

Green - Working Grade

  Red - Specific focus needed to gain higher grade

AO1 Research & Exploration     Blog/SWED	Students demonstrate outstanding depth of research that is far-reaching and comprehensive. It is clear how the research has directly influenced performance outcomes and practice for both self and others.	13- 15
	Students demonstrate an excellent depth of research that has produced a significant range of influence on performance outcomes and practice for self and others.	10 – 12
	Students demonstrate a good depth of research that has produced a small range of influence on performance outcomes and practice for self and others.	7 - 9
	Students demonstrate an adequate depth of research that has had some impact on performance outcomes and practice for self.	4 - 6
	Students demonstrate a limited range of research that shows superficial understanding of the material and purpose of their enquiry. Research activity has had no impact on performance outcomes or practice.	0 - 3

AO1 Development & Structure Practical/ Rehearsal	Students demonstrate an outstanding involvement in the developmental process with a creative and imaginative input that has a far reaching benefit to both their own work and the work of others.	13 - 15
	Students demonstrate an excellent involvement in the developmental process with a creative and imaginative input that fully benefits both their own work and the work of others.	10 -12
	Students demonstrate a good involvement in the developmental process with a creative and imaginative input that benefits their own work and some of the work of others.	7-9
	Students demonstrate an adequate involvement in the developmental process with a creative and imaginative input that impacts on their own work but has little impact on the work of others.	4-6
	Students demonstrate a limited involvement in the developmental process. They incline towards accepting creative ideas made by others with little understanding or appreciation of its relevance to the intended performance	0-3

Questions for blog

You might want to use these bullet points to help you structure your blog posts and answers to essay Q’s:

·      What were we working on?

·      What did I contribute? Give e.g.

·      How well did this move the piece forward? Why?

·      How did this make the meaning/context/setting/characters clearer?

·      How well did research/Social, Cultural, Historical aspects contribute to the success of this part of the process/rehearsal etc?

·      What worked well/could be improved about the piece/process/your contribution?

Frantic Assembly - Physical Theatre

What is Frantic Assembly?:

Frantic Assembly creates thrilling, energetic and unforgettable theatre. The company attracts new and young audiences with work that reflects contemporary culture. Vivid and dynamic, Frantic Assembly's unique physical style combines movement, design, music and text.
 
Frantic Assembly is led by Artistic Director Scott Graham. Scott formed the company with Steven Hoggett and Vicki Middleton in 1994 and continues to collaborate with many of today's most inspiring artists. Having toured extensively throughout the UK, Frantic Assembly has built an enviable reputation as one of the most exciting companies in the country. The company has also performed, created and collaborated in 30 different countries across the world.
 
In addition to its productions Frantic Assembly operates an extensive Learn & Train programme introducing 6,000 participants a year to the company's process of creating theatre, in a wide variety of settings. Frantic Assembly also delivers Ignition, an innovative vocational training project for young men, particularly targeting those with little previous experience of the arts.

Kneehigh - Fairytale

About The Company

Kneehigh are a UK based theatre company with a local, national and international profile. For over 30 years Kneehigh have created vigorous, popular and challenging theatre and perform with the joyful anarchy that audiences have come to expect from this ground-breaking company.
Kneehigh tell stories. Based in Cornwall in breath-taking barns on the south coast the company create theatre of humanity on an epic and tiny scale. They work with an ever-changing ensemble of performers, artists, technicians, administrators, makers and musicians and are passionate about their multi-disciplined creative process.
In 2010 Kneehigh launched The Asylum, a beautiful and flexible nomadic structure, which means the company now has a venue to call home as well as being one of the leading touring theatre companies in the UK. The company have now presented three seasons in The Asylum in Cornwall, and will continue to reinvent the space and explore new locations in future years
Alongside their national and international touring and Asylum seasons, Kneehigh run their Connections programme aiming to engage creatively with communities in Cornwall and beyond through event and adventure.

http://www.kneehigh.co.uk/page/about_kneehigh.php 


How we make theatre
by Founder and Joint Artistic Director, Mike Shepherd

"I returned home to Cornwall 30 years ago to make theatre. It was a place where you could make things happen. Kneehigh started as a company making work for children and their families, but we soon found ourselves creating challenging, accessible and anarchic theatre for a diverse local and national audience.

Kneehigh builds a team for each project. The isolation of the barns, and the need to cook and keep warm provides a real and natural focus for our flights of imagination. This is not a conceit; it is a radical choice that informs all aspects of our work. Although much of our work is now co-produced with larger theatres, we always try to start the creative process at these barns, to be inspired by our environment and where we work. Both Tristan & Yseult and Cymbeline started life as outdoor shows, playing in epic but intimate spaces: Restormel Castle, The Minack, The Eden Project and Rufford Abbey. These elemental and charged spaces add a physical and vocal robustness to our performance style, which becomes further distilled when we work ‘indoors'.

Kneehigh are an ever-changing ensemble, a kind of strange family, many of whom come from, or have chosen to live in, Cornwall: the extreme South West tip of the British Isles - outsiders, left-handers - engaging with the world with a sense of community and identity. As King Mark says in Tristan & Yseult, "We don't look inland there's not much point. No, outward, outward lies the way! Inland there's little to write home about and much less to say!".

The company changes for each project, there are those who have worked together for a long time and those who have just arrived. We look to surprise each other, to take leaps in the dark but there is no given formula for making the work. If we were to have a manifesto it might include words like generosity, passion, bravery, humility, ambition, instinct and irreverence. These words have become the secret principles that guide our work.

Kneehigh is 30 years old this year. Although I could never have planned this; there has been no great plan, just dreams and aspirations - some of which I never thought would take this long to achieve! Kneehigh has survived because it has actively evolved. We have committed to our home, our craft, to each other and to change. It's a privilege to still be part of that journey."

Mike Shepherd , 2010

Mike Leigh - Naturalism

Leigh uses lengthy improvisations developed over a period of weeks to build characters and storylines for his films. He starts with some sketch ideas of how he thinks things might develop, but does not reveal all his intentions with the cast who discover their fate and act out their responses as their destinies are gradually revealed. Initial preparation is in private with the director and then the actors are introduced to each other in the order that their characters would have met in their lives. Intimate moments are explored that will not even be referred to in the final film to build insight and understanding of history, character and inner motivation. When an improvisation needs to be stopped, he says to the actors: 'Come out of character,' before they discuss what's happened or what might have happened in a situation.

The critical scenes in the eventual story are performed and recorded in full-costumed, real-time improvisations where the actors encounter for the first time new characters, events or information which may dramatically affect their characters' lives. Final filming is more traditional as definite sense of story, action and dialogue is then in place. The director reminds the cast of material from the improvisations that he hopes to capture on film.

In an interview with Laura Miller, "Listening to the World: An Interview With Mike Leigh", published on salon.com, Leigh states, "I make very stylistic films indeed, but style doesn't become a substitute for truth and reality. It's an integral, organic part of the whole thing." Leigh's vision is to depict ordinary life, "real life", unfolding under extenuating circumstances. Speaking of his films, he says, "No, I’m not an intellectual filmmaker. These are emotional, subjective, intuitive, instinctive, vulnerable films. And there’s a feeling of despair...I think there’s a feeling of chaos and disorder."He makes courageous decisions to document reality. He speaks about the criticism Naked received: "The criticism comes from the kind of quarters where "political correctness" in its worst manifestation is rife. It's this kind of naive notion of how we should be in an unrealistic and altogether unhealthily over-wholesome way."

Leigh's characters often struggle, "to express inexpressible feelings.Words are important, but rarely enough. The art of evasion and failure in communication certainly comes from Pinter, whom Leigh acknowledges as an important influence. He especially admires Pinter's earliest work, and directed The Caretaker while still at RADA." 

Leigh has cited Jean Renoir and Satyajit Ray among his favourite film makers. The critic David Thomson has written that, with the camera work in his films characterised by 'a detached, medical watchfulness', Leigh's aesthetic may justly be compared to the sensibility of the Japanese director Yasujiro Ozu. Michael Coveney: " The cramped domestic interiors of Ozu find many echoes in Leigh's scenes on stairways and in corridors, and on landings, especially in Grown-Ups, Meantime, and Naked. And two wonderful little episodes in Ozu's Tokyo Story, in a hairdressing salon and a bar, must have been in Leigh's subconscious memory when he made The Short and Curlies (1987), one of his most devastatingly funny pieces of work, and the pub scene in Life is Sweet..." 

Leigh's style has been influential over a number of film companies. The youth film company ACT 2 CAM uses his improvisation techniques to build characters and context for films with young people in the UK. His character work, improvisations and unplanned scenes are a technique followed by East 15 School of Acting, where these methods continue to be taught and used at the forefront of the acting and directing training industry.

 

Mike Leigh's Process:

Step One: Leigh meets each actor individually and he or she talks about dozens of people he has known, either intimitely or fleetingly.

Step Two: Eventually, one is selected as the starting point for the character: It could just be a bloke glimpsed in the pub one night.

Step Three: The actor, builds up an elaborate alter ego, mapping out his life in enormous detail, down to how his parents met, and exploring every cranny of his psyche.

Step Four: Once the individual characters are formed, gradually the actors are gathered together for a series of loose improvisation to build up their collective world - none of them know anything about the narrative they will participate in other than their own place in it.

Step Five: After a while, the actors go out the streets to interact with other characters and the unsupecting public, while they are observes from a distance.

Step Six: An outline of scenes for the final piece is given to the actors. The actors improvise specifically around these, while an assistant takes notes.

Step Seven: The best lines and moments are distilled and scripted and shooting can at last begin.

This entire process usually takes about six months.

 

The Concept of Witchcraft

The Concept of Witchcraft

Malleus Maleficarum (The Witches Hammer)- Link to the original book that gave the guidelines for the treatment of witches, utilised to justify the deaths of many 

women.

Contents

The Malleus Maleficarum asserts that three elements are necessary for witchcraft: the evil-intentioned witch, the help of the Devil, and the Permission of God.The treatise is divided up into three sections. The first section tries to refute critics who deny the reality of witchcraft, thereby hindering its prosecution. The second section describes the actual forms of witchcraft and its remedies. The third section is to assist judges confronting and combating witchcraft. However, each of these three sections has the prevailing themes of what is witchcraft and who is a witch. The Malleus Maleficarum relies heavily upon earlier works such as Visconti and, most famously, Johannes Nider's Formicarius (1435).

Section I

Section I argues that because the Devil exists and has the power to do astounding things, witches exist to help, if done through the aid of the Devil and with the permission of God.The Devil’s power is greatest where human sexuality is concerned, for it was believed that women were more sexual than men. Libidinous women had sex with the Devil, thus paving their way to become witches. According to the Malleus “all witchcraft comes from carnal lust, which is in women insatiable.” The first section mentions using a cruentation to find a witch or sorcerer.

Section II

Matters of practice and actual cases are discussed, and the powers of witches and their recruitment strategies. It states that it is mostly witches, as opposed to the Devil, who do the recruiting, by making something go wrong in the life of a respectable matron that makes her consult the knowledge of a witch, or by introducing young maidens to tempting young devils.It details how witches cast spells, and remedies that can be taken to prevent witchcraft, or help those that have been affected by it.

Section III

Section III is the legal part of the Malleus that describes how to prosecute a witch. The arguments are clearly laid for the lay magistrates prosecuting witches. Institoris and Sprenger offer a step-by-step guide to the conduct of a witch trial, from the method of initiating the process and assembling accusations, to the interrogation (including torture) of witnesses, and the formal charging of the accused.Women who did not cry during their trial were automatically believed to be witches.

Sourced from Wikipedia

Themes within the Book:

The treatise describes how women and men become inclined for witchcraft. The authors argue that women were more susceptible to demonic temptations through the manifold weaknesses of their gender. It was believed that they were weaker in faith and more carnal than men.Michael Bailey claims that most of the women accused as witches had strong personalities and were known to defy convention by overstepping the lines of proper female decorum.After the publication of the Malleus, it seems as though about three quarters of those individuals prosecuted as witches were women. (Though in some countries, including Iceland, the majority were men.) Indeed, the very title of the Malleus Maleficarum is feminine, alluding to the idea that it was women who were the villains. Otherwise, it would be the Malleus Maleficorum (the masculine form of the Latin noun maleficus or malefica, 'witch'). In Latin, the feminine "Maleficarum" would only be used for women while the masculine "Maleficorum" could be used for men alone or for both sexes if together.

The Malleus Maleficarum accuses male and female witches of infanticide, cannibalism and casting evil spells to harm their enemies as well as having the power to steal penises. It goes on to give accounts of witches committing these crimes.

The ancient subjects of astronomy, philosophy, and medicine were being reintroduced to the West at this time, as well as a plethora of ancient texts being rediscovered and studied. The Malleus often makes reference to the Bible and Aristotelian thought, and it is also heavily influenced by the philosophical tenets of Neo-Platonism.It also mentions astrology and astronomy, which had recently been reintroduced to the West by the ancient works of Pythagoras.

Sourced from Wikipedia



(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malleus_Maleficarum)