Alice Poon Y10T

End of Unit Commentary

Throughout this unit, I was exposed to a wide range of new theatre skills and techniques. In
this unit about Our Lives Are Expressed Through Stories, we explored the ways our identities are
expressed with the use of Physical Theatre techniques. Some of the new techniques I learned include
Round-By-Through, Hymn Hands, Push Hands and so on, and other techniques that had higher
complexity like carrying and lifting people and Mirroring. I was also able to enhance my skills in
areas like framing and blocking a scene, as well as the use of levels and space. From my collaborative
research project, I was also able to understand more about Frantic Assembly and how they specialise
in Physical Theatre techniques. The skills of Time Management, Self-Management, Communicating
and Collaborative skills were also areas that I was able to improve on, and to be further improved.
From here, I was able to transfer my knowledge into my performance piece with my fellow group
mates.

In our performance, I was able to develop new skills as well. I practiced developing
collaboration and cooperation skills with people that I wasnt familiar with, or shared a different
performing style with. I also had to practice stepping out of my comfort zone with Physical Theatre
and becoming more confident with what I was doing. Our group utilised numerous physical theatre
techniques that we learned from practical workshops and research into our performance, which
created a wide variety of techniques and was able to display a range of skills. I took some inspiration
from watching YouTube videos of physical theatre, for example Frantic Assemblys workshops as
well as their plays to see what they techniques they work with. The practical workshops were also
extremely beneficial because we were able to practice prior and see which techniques best fits our
performance. To elaborate, in Frantic Assemblys Building Blocks for Devising video, I was taught
a lot of key points from the instructor. For example, he noted that each movement should be referred
to as an event, so that there would be a change in before doing a movement and after doing a
movement. The story and the relationship of the characters should also be taken into consideration so
that the way they move can differ. The tension, pace, body language, eye contact, facial expression
and roughness of a movement can also reflect more about each characters emotions, and can also
illustrate a story or context from each movement. I applied this knowledge to a lot of the Physical
techniques I did, such as Hymn Hands and Round-By-Through.

Concerning my final performance work, I was fairly satisfied with it. Firstly, like mentioned
above, we incorporated a lot of the physical theatre techniques into our performance, for example
Round-By-Through, Hymn hands, and Push Hands. This was able to reflect our knowledge on the
topic and how we were able to represent certain ideas and concepts using theatre techniques.
Secondly, we were able to use a lot of multimedia to make the performance more interesting and
engaging. Our performance included a video, a background music, text and pictures as well as
physical techniques, and the wide range of multimedia were able to enhance the theme of our
performance. In terms of our team work, I do think that our collaboration and communication skills
were good and we worked well as a team. Even though the three of us had quite different performing
styles and completely different ideas of how we wanted the performance to be like, we were able to
share our ideas and make decisions on what would work best. In the end, our performance was a mix
of everyones opinions and ideas and I think we generally worked quite well together.

However, there are some weaknesses in our performance which I think we couldve worked
to improve on. Firstly, we lacked the use of space that we had. I think our performance was focused in
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the middle of the stage majority of the time, and there werent much variety of levels, blocking,
structure and use of space involved. We could improve by using the space we were provided more
efficiently, as well as creating more levels. Secondly, our movements lacked tension and character.
This was also a main point that Ms. Barclay had pointed out, that our movements were mostly too
relaxed. Adding more tension to our movements can make us seem more confident in our
performance, as well as showing that we are familiar with our routine. I was aware that I was holding
my fists together and was fiddling with my feet and weight a little during the performance because
that was what I usually did when I was nervous. Little actions like this made me seem too anxious.
We also didnt imply much character or emotions into our movements which caused us to look quite
bland at times. I think this was caused by us focusing deeply into our routine and memorising the
movements that we had, so we didnt pay much attention to the details of the physical movements.
Therefore, to improve, we should make our movements tenser and enhance our facial expressions,
body language, and eye contact to show more about our characters. Thirdly, I personally think that our
performance did not have a climax scene, which can make the performance more interesting and
intense. Although in our performance plan, we noted that the three of us falling would be the climax
of the play, I think the action wasnt well performed or well perceived by the audience to make it an
intense point of the performance. This could be improved by performing with more exaggeration or
using dramatic effects, such as synchronizing the background music to become more intense as we
reach the climax scene, or changing the lighting to a more intense colour or brightness. Furthermore,
there were a lot of times during the performance in which we wouldnt be doing much. For example,
during a scene of Hymn Hands, two people would be working together while the third person has
nothing to do and just stands in the background. Another example is when we played the video at the
end of the performance and we just sat there, which Ms. Barclay noted that it seems like we broke
character. I think this can be greatly improved by assigning more movements, or to add dialogue for
the third person when there is partner work involved. This can increase the efficiency and purpose of
each movement as well as stage presence.

In terms of my personal artistic intention, I feel that our performance was able to stick to it
fairly well. Even though between our group, we all had quite different ideas on the performance and
how we wanted it to be like, we were able to communicate well with each other so that everyone was
able to incorporate their own input and ideas into the performance. Therefore, parts of the
performance was able to reflect my artistic intention and my main goal of the performance. For
example, it was my idea to add the part where we performed hymn hands, because it displayed the
obstacles that one might encounter during the pursuit of their dreams. It seemed like one person was
trying to achieve something while the other person was pushing them away or simply blocking them
away from their path. This was quite clear and similar to my artistic intention, where I said I wanted
to explore the obstacles and limitations of our dreams. The video, which I suggested, was also able to
reflect this. However, I do wish that we were able to show more aspects about the correlation between
our identity and our dream, for example the social and cultural impact, as well as making the
performance seemingly more inspirational and motivational for the audience.

I think that through my performance, I was able to express myself creatively since I suggested
and utilised multiple formats and multimedia to express my opinions and ideas on the theme. As
mentioned in my personal contributions video (from Vlog 3 in the portfolio), I suggested many
aspects of the performance such as techniques like Hymn hands, Round-By-Through, using videos
and music and so on. Therefore, I do believe that I contributed many creative ideas to our
performance which was also the given element of our performance; multimedia. Although the vast
majority of the performance was planned out thoroughly, some parts like the Hymn Hands and Push
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Hands was slightly improvised during the performance so that we could try out how the same
techniques would work out in different ways. I decided that my role during the Hymn Hands would be
trying to reach out towards my partner, perhaps to persuade her to let me follow my dream, and my
partner would be doing a lot of pushing away and rejecting my movements. Through this, I was able
to express myself creatively because I created my character has its own emotions and feelings in my
opinion, and therefore I was able to further explore the facial expression and the roughness of my
movements while I was performing Hymn Hands.

Lastly, I would like to discuss the statement of inquiry and the inquiry questions of this unit:
Our lives are expressed through stories. I personally believe with this statement; our lives are
basically a story that comes in piece by piece. We have the power to create our own storylines, make
our different stages of lives into chapters and decide on how our story goes. Although there are some
decisions that we are uncertain of, or things that are inevitable, or cannot be determined, we are the
ones who gets to decide what happens to our lives. We create our own stories by making our own
choices, but sometimes other peoples choice can also affect our story. We are also able to express
and reflect our own identity through our stories, and to explore who are truly are throughout the story.

All performances are a story; the main goal of performances are storytelling, to illustrate or
narrate a specific story that is engaging and interesting. Stories can be fictional or nonfictional, stories
can be realistic, comedic, sad or scary, the best part of storytelling is how diverse it can be. There are
many different ways to tell stories through performances; films, short videos, photographs, but most
commonly through theatre. Theatre has a wide range of storytelling methods, such as verbal,
nonverbal, physical, puppetry, dancing, masks and so on. People tell stories for many different
reasons; some may want to inspire and motivate others, some may want to share ideas or experiences,
some may want to represent an idea or symbolism, and some may want to create a fictional world
where all dreams come true. Our identity vastly determines our own stories because everyones
identity is unique and different, which creates completely different stories. Certain aspects of our
identities may be influenced by our family, genetics, our culture, our environment and the people
around us, however most of our identities originates from ourselves and we are able to develop into a
unique persona.