Frankie Meredith-final assessment

1.The week building up to the performance was one of extreme physical and emotional exhaustion. Starting off from the working weekend on the Saturday it felt like we did not stop until our bow on Friday night. For me this final journey was one of the toughest parts of the whole process. I still could not grasp the emotional connection to the other characters that was an essential part of my journey through Fractal, up until the second performance I was still questioning myself as a performer and whether or not my character had any true emotional depth or connection to the piece. As a company we encountered many set backs during the week, such as the first run through on the Saturday morning. This initial full company run through lacked any real emotion and pace, two essential components for a physical theatre piece. It felt as if Fractal had lost its originality and the movements whether pedestrian or technical were not organic anymore and were being done for the sake of it as opposed to still having that element of being moved for a reason. Luckily this was overcome and I think it is down to people re-establishing their emotional connections with their own characters, where they fit in within the community and the ones closest to them. 'There is something alive in every individual which makes him capable of giving outward manifestation, to his feelings, or rather, to that which inwardly stirs him’ (Wigman, 1996 p.364) In parts of the final week I felt extremely distant from any part of Fractal. There was a session in which we were told to write a letter to a person we feel closest to in Fractal. During this exercise I felt the same as I did at the beginning of the process, lost, alone and wondering why everybody else seemed to grasp the concept and emotion of the piece except for me. I did not write a letter to anybody. Although reflecting on this I have come to the conclusion that we all would have had obstacles to overcome during the process and this was one of mine on the journey through Fractal, without these set backs my character would not have been the same and my Fractal experience completely different. 2. ‘A word does not begin as a word, … it begins as an impulse’ (Brook,1968 p.72) The impulses used in physical theatre are what start off the process ‘in physical theatre, whether the performers are dancers or actors, the process is still the same: ideas are scored in rehearsal through the body. Everybody starts by searching for the somatic impulse.’ (Callery, 2001 p.8) this impulse is carried on up until the end of the final performance. It is what physical theatre is built upon, impulses and feelings. I had to put a strong emphasis on my own natural instincts during the performances in the final pond scene. Earlier on in the day I had rehearsed for the first time my submersion into the tank and explored the most effective ways of conveying my characters last movements and moments. By playing around and trying out different ways of conveying these final moments I tipped the water out into the pond from my glass. Paul and Royona seemed to think that this was an interesting and meaningful gesture that should be used, and against my own impulse to not do this during the performance, I did. For me it shattered the illusion and broke the near silence that was essential part of the final scene. Although I trust Paul and Royona one hundred percent and have done throughout the entire process, this one time I was glad to go back to my own initial instincts of how to enter the pond and convey my characters and the final moments of Fractal. There was an exercise which Royona led after the warm up that really helped me get into the mind and body of my character. It started with the use of a gesture that was prominent in our characters journey through Fractal ‘Actors who try to play the feeling first will be invariably less successful than those who try to find the physical configuration of the face and body’ (Callery, 2001 p.151) it showed how through starting the process of getting into character could be achieved by a small gesture was much more effective than just sitting in the wings ‘thinking’ about how our character would be feeling, this would not only defy the whole purpose of physical theatre but also I do not feel is an effective way of getting in to your character. During the first performance I was constantly worrying about if I would remember the duet or get any of the techniques correct, this affected my performance but also reinforced to me that the body does memorise just as well, if not more than the mind, ‘It is clear that muscles remember. Actors and dancers remember the physical sore of the action just as pianist fingers remember the notes’ (Callery, 2001, P. 149) by the second performance I was not worrying about the moves or techniques but fully concentrating on my characters emotional state, and this led to a much more effective and emotional-driven performance. I found the audience on the second performance gave a lot more back to me, as opposed to the afternoon. This gave me the confidence to realise that I was a part of Fractal (if not the community) and I had a responsibility to let the audience members into the world of Fractal and take them on the journey with us. ‘If I want someone to be touched I have to find out how I find movement that will truly touch someone, as opposed to just doing pretty movement.’ www.dv8.co.uk 3.I have never taken part in a module where a blog has been such an important means of communication and development. It allows us to leave the workshop for practical sessions and the theory and discussions to take place in an environment made for just that. The Fractal blog has aided me immensely and was a very important part of establishing my character. It was on the blog that I initially felt like I was not grasping the genre of dance-theatre, while it seemed as if everybody else was thriving and becoming deeply connected to the work and process I felt secluded and isolated. It was not obvious at first but Royona and Paul really did use the blog as a means of bringing in scenarios and helping us become connected to our characters as they read and acted upon what was written by us on the blog. And one final thing, thank you Royona for persuading me not to become a sceneographer.