On February 15th, we discussed what we brought to the group and what we had to offer. I think that I’m good with people, therefore would make a good joker in a piece of Forum Theatre. I have also worked with a wide range of choreographers and directors at different theatres, professional, semi-professional and amateur. This means I am very flexible and have a great deal of knowledge of different drama conventions and techniques. I work well in a group as I am very open minded and can relate to different people in appropriate ways as I travel a lot and get to meet lots of people. I am skilled and experienced in drama and dance as I have been in many productions including ‘Little Britain Live Tour’, ‘DAMUUS Dance Company’, Wakefield Youth Music Theatre’ and Wakefield Professional Pantomime to name a few. I am learning to play the guitar and I sing a bit but this isn’t my strongest point. I feel I have a lot to offer as I am as everybody else is, and individual. I read a lot of books and watch a lot of films so my imagination is well nurtured and I have lots of ideas that could be made into a devised piece.
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Feb 14th: Music
On February 14th, we each got a percussion instrument like shakers and tambourines from the trolley. We then all closed our eyes and just played our instrument when we felt was best. We had to time with each other and syncopate the rhythm for it to go. The piece came to a natural end and afterwards, we all agreed that we followed the beat of the dominant sound which was Olly with his cowbell. We tried again but tried not to follow Olly this time. Afterwards, we agree that it didn’t work as well as there was no beat to follow. I then got a hand drum and I led the piece with the main beat but afterwards we all agreed that the first time was still the best. We discussed that it was because the request to just play randomly with our eyes shut was a bit abrupt and random as soon as we walked through the door and the fact that it was the best one is because it was spontaneous and none of us knew what to expect from it. Because we thought about it more the more times we did it, it lost that spontaniousness. We then thought of a 4 note tune on the xylophone or glockenspiel ad did the same again, just played whenever. We discussed what we thought afterwards, some people said because we were all using different scales, some were high, some were low that it didn’t go and sounded a mess. I disagreed; I thought that it sounded quite nice and that the fact we have a range added to the piece. We each then came up with 3 short ideas on any instruments we wanted. I did a short tune on the xylophone, a short piece on the hand drum and a short piece on the drum set. We then chose our favourite or best idea, mine was the xylophone and we had to write a graphic score for it and do the tasks set on the board. They were, make it get louder, add another sound and make it get quicker then slow it down to a stop. We then picked our favourite variation of our idea and wrote a final graphic score for it. Mr Truscott then asked a few people to perform for the class.
Feb 8th: Music
On February 8th, we discussed different chords and scales as well as terminology. We learnt what an Arpeggio is, Brata chord, Block chord and Alberti bass. The keywords were major, minor, pentatonic, discord, glissando, sequence, octaves and tremolo. We then looked at a picture or a sunrise and had to come up with a short piece of mood music to describe it using some of these techniques. We then did the same for a man in the shadow; this piece was more sinister and used lower notes at the bass. We were set the homework task to find an existing piece of music that could portray these two photos. For the sunrise, I chose the Rainman theme and for the man in the shadows, Tubular Bells.
Feb 1st: Music
On February 1st, we got up to the front of the class, one by one and improvised on the keyboard. A backing track was playing and we had to create a rhythm to go with it that only used the black notes. We all did it ad were surprised that all to notes went together. We were told afterwards that we were using a pentatonic scale and you couldn’t go wrong as all the notes go together. This is called a pentatonic improvisation and the reason why all the noted go together is because they are enharmonic. We then split off into pairs, I went with Emily, and one person did all the chords while the other did a pentatonic improvisation over the top. We had to choose a good backing track and sound for the piece and had to turn backing on. This means that when Emily played her chords down at the left hand side of the keyboard, the backing track would change to that key. We then performed our piece to the class.
Jan 18th: Music
On January 18th, we repeated the telephone number task but once we’d played it and adapted it, we played it as chords. We then went onto mood music and we each came up with a short piece portraying a mood. I used the chords C, F and G as I think they all go together well and are all major which was helpful as the mood I was portraying was happy or joyful. We each then performed our mood music to the class. My piece went ok, it could have gone better but I was playing the left hand and the right hand so it was quite difficult. Emily’s sounded tribal almost but still happy as it was uplifting, it was just very different.
Jan 11th: Music
On January 11th, we were asked to write down a mobile or telephone number of our choosing and worked out the notes for it for example, you could write down 07364596731 (which is one I’ve just made up). We drew a treble clef and out stave and plotted a note anywhere, preferably near the bottom. We then jumped up as many steps as the number dictated, in this case, seven. We continued this process (you could go dawn as well as up) until we had completed our number. We then played our short tune on the keyboard and the notes that didn’t sound right or didn’t go, we changed or adapted. It was explained that with our tunes, even if they sounded wrong and terrible, then at least we had something to work with in the first place, rather than nothing.
Feb 8th: Drama
On February 8th, we were doing about hot seating and roll on the wall. First of all, good hot seating should make the actor learn more about their characters personality and/or history. We hot seated Miss Woffinden and Tomas and they both gave feedback about what to do and how they felt when being interviewed. We also gave feedback to them about what made their ‘performance’ good. Both methods of feedback were useful because we could then apply it to our own pieces. We said that quick thinking was vital when being hot seated and a varied pace is also good. You don’t’ have to answer straight away, you can pause ans think about it as long as you do so in character. Both pieces were intense as the responses were spontaneous and we didn’t know what was coming next. We discussed the idea that this made us as the interviewers worried and a little tense, I was worried about the fact that sometimes when I asked a question, especially to Miss Woffinden and she looked away or didn’t answer before a long pause, I was worried that I’d 'crossed the line’ with the types of questions I asked. Costume helps get into character, even if it’s a simple as a pair of glasses or a scarf. It also helps if you walk out of the door and walk back in again in character as this helps the actor focus. Body language and gestures as with any other piece of drama are important aspects of the piece as are facial expressions and the language used. Good hot seating should make the ‘interviewers’ feel uncomfortable as they are probing into the life of somebody they don’t really know. We agreed that the questions should be linked to the previous questions asked unless there is no more to say on that subject then it is ok to change the subject completely. All questions should be open and should make the actor reveal more about themselves to them self and us.
Hot seating is useful during rehearsals because if there isn’t much plot or character development in the piece, then hot seating will help. It can also give ideas for the other characters development as if the hot seated actor talks about their relationship with another character, then this tells us more about them. Also, if you hot seat a character ans ask them a question they don’t know the answer to, then that points out what more needs to be researched.
This could be useful in a Theatre in Education workshop because if the topic in the drama is a bit sensitive and there are people in that might be in a similar situation, to be able to hot seat a character from the drama could be a part of their healing process and help them out with their situation.
We all discussed afterwards what we each thought about hot seating. Imogen thought it was hard to play some one of a different age to her. Olly said that he could build tension but he ran out of ideas. I found it hard convincing the interviewers that i was right because hey seemed to gang up on me almost and they disagreed with me. Frankie found it difficult when the audience started laughing as she didn’t know whether they were laughing at her or with her, she found it misleading. Emily found it difficult to be spontaneous, Tomas enjoyed improvising, Beth commented that her character didn’t have much to say in the piece so she didn’t have much to work on and Fran thought that the questions asked were very provocative therefore easy to answer.
Roll on the wall is when you draw the outline of a person and on the inside, you write what the character feels on the inside and about their personality and family but on the outside, you write what other characters think of them and how they view them. For example, in the play Cloud Busting, for the character Davy, on the outside it would say things like ‘loser’ or ‘loner’ but on he inside, it would say things like ‘best friends with Sam’.
Roll on the wall is useful during rehearsals as it stores all the information you have found out from hot seating. Is also shows us how much the audience know about the character and how much they don’t know (the stuff on the inside).
It could be useful in a Theatre in Education workshop as the participants could find out all the things on the inside of the person and this could maybe help them understand why that character acted the way they did. It could also help them to understand real people as well.
10 Questions and Answers for my character
1. What got you into football in the first place?
I’ve always done it really, it’s was part of my growing up. I remember when I was 6 years old and I asked my parents to join the football team at my primary school. I didn’t realise at the time that they weren’t really keen on the idea and wanted me to be a girly girl.
2. Do you get bullied or picked on at school?
What? Just cause I’m a ‘tomboy’? Well, to be honest with you, yeah, a little bit but it doesn’t bother me cause I’m proud of who I am. I don’t really care...well at least I don’t show that I care...
3. Do you prefer hanging out with boys or girls?
Boys, they’re less bitchy. Girls are usually the ones making fun of me...I don’t really have any friends that are girls, they’re all guys from my football team.
4. What is your home life like?
Well, my mum is really supportive of everything I do but my dad, well he’s not so supportive. He wants me to be a ‘real’ girl. I just ignore him though...I don’t want to show him how much it hurts what he says.
5. Are you into anything else other than sports?
Not really, as i said, it’s something I’ve grown up with. I do ok at school, get B’s and A’s mainly but I’m not that interested in it.
6. So you don’t want to take your education further?
Well, I want to get my A Levels because there isn’t much work for a female a football player. I at least want a back up plan and to waste all my good grades and hard work would be kinda stupid and to risk it all on a career that’ s far fetched would be even stupider.
7. Do you not think you’re going to make it as a football player then?
No! It’s not my ability as such that I’m doubting, I know I’m good, it’s just the fact that there isn’t any teams that would accept a =female player and the female teams are exactly well known or advertising sports products.
8. Would you rather play on a male team if they were to accept you then?
Yeah because, at least people actually care about them, no ones cares about the female teams and how they’re doing in their leagues. No one would accept me anyway so it doesn’t matter.
9. Do you have a boyfriend?
No. Never have really to be honest. Never really wanted one either because i don’t see my guy mates in that way, it’s weird you know, going out with your best mate.
10. What do you do in your spare time?
I don’t really have much spare time, in between school and training, i practice my footy skills, revise, and do my bits of homework. Not much else.
I can now make a role on the wall for my character.
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| This is my roll on the wall for my character |
Monday, February 7, 2011
Cloud Busting
I helped out front of house on one of the performances of Cloud Busting meeting and greeting people at the door and directing them to the drama studio. I enjoyed being there as I couldn’t be in the show myself although i wanted to be as I had a pantomime running through all of December and couldn’t miss any more days of school.
I also went to got see the play and was quite surprised. I really enjoyed it and it wasn’t at all what I expected. I enjoyed seeing my fellow diploma teammates in the production and think they all did a really good job in their roles and sustained their characters really well throughout the play.
I learnt that bullies are more complex people than they appear to be, this play really highlighted that. I think this is important as bully’s stereotype people, but people also stereotype them and that might make them feel oppressed.
It has made me think a bit more about the people around school and the people I know that are like Sam (oppressor) and Davy (oppressed), and that I should think a bit more about what they might be thinking about in that moment of time.
Jan 18th: Drama
On January 18th, we were doing about devising a piece of forum theatre as we would be in- cooperating a scene using forum theatre into out Theatre in Education pieces. First of all, we discussed whether there are some subjects not to be dramatized because of the content they may contain or personal reasons. As time goes on, we are pushing more boundaries in drama and dramatizing subjects and theme’s that wouldn’t be acceptable a few years ago. Some people think that we’ve gone too far already, others believe there are no boundary’s at all and we should be free to portray what we wish through drama, after all, it’s only acting. But we each have to think to ourselves, what is my responsibility as a deviser/play Wright/ director? My responsibility is to understand the boundaries and how far ‘too far’ is. I also have to warn and send out a message if there is a sensitive theme within the piece I am involved with. There is a debate as to whether forum theatre has the power to change people’s attitudes and opinions towards something. I personally think that if you capture and engage the audience from the very start, then if they’re open-minded enough, they will be manipulated into changing their opinion or attitude towards the subject in question. Also, the piece itself has to be powerful with a very strong message for the audience even to listen to what the spec actors have to say. Spectators is a term used to describe forum theatre performers as they act within the piece, but they can set it up so the audience can take part and them be a spectator so the word spectator is used to describe the job these people do.
Within our groups, we planned a conscience alley. Ours was about a boy who had a dilemma about whether or not he should continue to take dance lesson and whether to tell his parents about it. Here is a diagram of our planned conscience alley.
We also planned our forum theatre. We set up a small scene and most of it was improvised but we had a basic script to base it on. This would be a problem if we did it for a real audience as it has to be the same each time.
This is our basic script.
Dad bangs door open.
Dad: What is this I hear about dance? What are you? A girl or a poof?!
Son: I’m not a girl dad, and I’m not gay! I just like dance.
Dad: Well I don’t like you dancing; you’re gonna be a builder, just like your old man.
Son: It’s my life and I’ll do as I please. You don’t choose my future, I do.
When we did our pieces for each other, I was appointed the role of the joker.
I wrote up the whole lesson in full. Here is my account of it.
First of all, Miss Woffinden asked us to answer the register by telling her and the rest of the group what we had researched for homework. This was helpful because if someone has researched something you were unsure of, then you were informed on that convention as well. I researched mantle of The Expert which is a technique usually used by teachers in a class. It is a simple way of inco-operating drama into education.
I then wrote about forum theatre.
We discussed ways to use forum theatre such as asking the audience what should happen next or even asking them to take part. We discussed having a board at the front where the joker would write the possible solutions that the audience have come up with.
I then wrote about the conscience alley and our forum theatre which I have already covered.
When we were rehearsing our piece, we tried it with Frankie and me instead of Olly and Jack, me playing the mother and Frankie the daughter who wanted to be a footballer. Unfortunately, we didn’t have enough time to rehearse it properly so went with the boys’ version. I was assigned the role of the joker. The joker is out of the drama and is the one who asks the audience what they think is going on in the drama and gets people to come into the drama and contribute. The joker’s job is to engage the audience and they have to create an environment where the audience feel safe and confident. I think the joker is an important job because they break the fourth wall and aren’t ‘acting’ as such so the audience find them easier to trust as they seem more genuine. Tomas, Seb and Fran performed their piece while everybody else but I formed an audience. I then went into the centre of the space and asked them what they thought was going on in the scene and who the characters were. The group then performed the piece again and afterwards, I asked if anybody wanted to come in and offer a solution. Frankie volunteered to replace Seb, the child of the two arguing parents. Her idea was the child coming in the middle of the argument and announcing they were running away. We discussed this afterwards and questioned realistically, whether or not this would happen or not in real life. Next, Emily had a go and suggested that the parents get counselling. After this, I asked whether anybody else wanted a go at being the mum or the dad and both Frankie and Emily had another go but nobody else would. They came up with ideas such as one of the parents trying to calm the situation down and communicating with the other better. Afterwards, our group performed our piece but we didn’t have enough time to allow anyone to come up and take part in the drama. I think this lesson was very helpful as it highlighted the benefits and the problems with forum theatre. I think that for our piece, I would like to be the joker as I think I did a good job in lesson and enjoyed being part of the drama but not as an actor. I also think that we should try and do our scene in a different style because we did our very realistic and Stanislavsky but I would like to have a go at Buell or Brecht theatre.
We each received a sheet of convention noted from Miss Woffinden. This is very helpful as we don’t have to look all over in our notebooks for our notes as they are now all together.
Jan 14th: Drama
On January 14th, Splendid Productions (http://www.splendidproductions.co.uk/), a Theatre In Education company, came into our school to perform their version of Berkoff’s ‘The Trial’. Unfortunately, I couldn’t make the performance but I have researched about Splendid Productions, Berkoff, ‘The Trial’ and Brecht (they use a lot of his techniques). When SP came in for the performance, after wards, they did a Workshop. On their website, it says, “The one-hour performance is accompanied by a range of possible workshops including 'The Trial' text session, Physical Theatre or a Practitioner workshop. We offer 3hr and 5.5hr sessions, or evening performances with optional post-show discussion.” They do workshops and because they have accumulated a large amount of knowledge since they began, their aim is not only to briefly cover the subject of the play, but to do it vividly and accurately and make sure the children are engaged. They work predominantly with 14-21 year olds and the workshops can last form 3 hours to a week. The company use a variety of Brechtian techniques. Brecht created an influential theory of theatre, the epic theatre, which proposed that a play should not cause the spectator to identify emotionally with the characters or action before him or her, but should instead provoke rational self-reflection and a critical view of the action on the stage. (Source: www.wikipedia.org). I think that this means, that the audience shouldn’t just identify what the performers are feeling, but actually reflect the situation being dramatized o their own lives.
‘The Trial’, written in 1970 by Steven Berkoff, is about a man, Joseph K, who is accused of a crime and bought to trial, but he never finds out the charges. He had no idea what crime he allegedly did and the audience never get to find out either, and he will never find out why. The play conveys doom but does so with flair and humour using mime acting and making the contrasts greater. (source:http://www.iainfisher.com/berkoff/berkoff-play-adaptation-kafka.html).
Kerry Frampton of Splendid Productions is the main woman of the company and was the one that directed their version of ‘The Trial’ as well as starring in it. Kerry has been driving Splendid Productions since 2003 and on the official Splendid Productions website, it described her as ‘nurturing it like her own child’. The associate director is Mal Smith. He has played Jesus Christ in Jesus Christ Superstar, Chino in West Side Story and Robin Hood in Secrets of Sherwood as well as many more and adaptations he has starred in and co-directed.
I have researched Brecht and his techniques. Here is what I found.
Bertolt Brecht
Theory and practice of theatre
Along with his contemporary Erwin Piscator, Brecht created an influential theory of theatre—the epic theatre—that proposed that a play should not cause the spectator to identify emotionally with the characters or action before him or her, but should instead provoke rational self-reflection and a critical view of the action on the stage. Brecht thought that the experience of a climactic catharsis of emotion left an audience complacent. Instead, he wanted his audiences to adopt a critical perspective in order to recognise social injustice and exploitation and to be moved to go forth from the theatre and effect change in the world outside. For this purpose, Brecht employed the use of techniques that remind the spectator that the play is a representation of reality and not reality itself. By highlighting the constructed nature of the theatrical event, Brecht hoped to communicate that the audience's reality was equally constructed and, as such, was changeable.
One of Brecht's most important principles was what he called the Verfremdungseffekt (translated as "defamiliarization effect", "distancing effect", or "estrangement effect", and often mistranslated as "alienation effect"). This involved, Brecht wrote, "stripping the event of its self-evident, familiar, obvious quality and creating a sense of astonishment and curiosity about them". To this end, Brecht employed techniques such as the actor's direct address to the audience, harsh and bright stage lighting, the use of songs to interrupt the action, explanatory placards, and, in rehearsals, the transposition of text to the third person or past tense, and speaking the stage directions out loud.
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Jan 11th: Drama
On January 11th, we were given a sheet with lots of different drama conventions and techniques on it. We then colour coded it so that the one we definitely knew we coloured green, the ones we kind of knew were amber and the ones we’d never heard of were red.
I did know all about the basics such as keeping in roles, hot seating, slow motion, facing out of the drama and also things like house management which I have done a bit of out of school and set construction. I didn’t know the difference between a monologue and a soliloquy but now i know that a monologue is addressed to the audience whereas a soliloquy is more the person talking to themselves and reflecting their feelings such as the famous Shakespearian quote ‘to be, or not to be’. I don’t really know how I felt about this, I was pleased that I finally knew the difference between the two but a little disappointed that I hadn’t worked it out for myself as it is a term that has been mentioned in English classes before.
I researched Mantle of the Expert for my homework as this was another term I was unfamiliar with. Here is the definition I came up with after researching it...
Mantle of the Expert
This is when children are put into the role as an expert in a particular field. The teacher sets a task and if they were to do it in the style of ‘Mantle of the Expert’, they might say something like ‘right, as you know, the ‘event that’s been studied’ is coming up and I need you, my best reporters on the job’. This instantly puts the children in a role as an expert reporter and this is helpful as it can boost confidence levels and make the pupils feel good about themselves.
In the drama studio, we learnt about sound scapes. A sound scape is usually performed by a group of people as apposed to a solo and is where the performers make sounds and noises to create an atmosphere and enhance the scene. They can be used as apposed to or in conjunction with music and digital sound effects. At first, as a whole group, we made a sound scape for a jungle or a rainforest. We each came up with a sound individually. We would be using those later. Miss Woffinden started the sound scape and sent it round the circle with gentle clicking. After that slowly made its way around the circle, she started slapping her legs quite lowly. I realised we were symbolising the rain, slow at first and as it picked up we slapped our legs harder and faster. We then slowed down again and eventually went back to the clicking then silence. We repeated this procedure and as the rain picked up, Miss Woffinden pointed to random people to indicate to them to o the sound effect they prepared earlier. Afterwards, we split into two groups to do the same task. We then performed our sound scape to he other group while they sat in the middle of the circle with their eyes closed. I think pretty much everything we did worked. Miss Woffinden recorded our sound scapes on her phone and we listened back to them. We concluded that although our group had more appropriate, authentic sounds, it wasn’t as well organised and structured and a lot of our sounds got drowned out as we were all going at once.
We also did a conscience alley as Jack was unfamiliar with this. A conscience alley is a good technique to use when a character is faced with a dilemma. This provides a way to perform a decisive moment in greater detail. The class form two lines facing each other. One person takes the role of the person with the dilemma and as they walk down the ‘alley’, the members of the class speak their advice to them. It can be organised so that people on the left give apposing advice to those on the right. It can also be called a Thought Tunnel. We took the topic of anorexia and split into two groups. Beth was the person going down the alley with the dilemma of should she try to eat or carry on dieting. I was on the side telling her she should eat. As Beth came down, each person came in one by one to say the piece we had prepared ourselves then froze in a position that was relevant to what we were saying.
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| This is a diagram of our conscience alley |
The first people, at the top of the alley were quite far in and the people at the end were out so everybody could be seen.
We changed it quite a bit before we got to the final piece. We had to readjust the positioning so you could see everyone because the first time we did it, the positioning didn’t work. I think that the fact that everybody played a significant person in someone’s life worked well for example their friend, brother, doctor, mum etc. It really helped us choose what to say and gave us all a specific character rather than ‘those for’ and ‘those against’.
Jan 4th: Drama
On January 4th, we presented our work to everybody else. I thought that some people had some really good and unusual ideas such as Frankie who decided to do about gender equality. This was a different idea to everybody else’s because the majority of people decided to do about really serious and what could be viewed as upsetting subjects such as anorexia, suicide and child abuse. I thought that everybody did well with their chosen topic and had a good amount of research. I also think that their actual presentation skills were good as well as the work they did as I understood all they were saying and learnt a lot from it. Seb had a good piece of research as he was investigation children in divorced/divorcing families. He did a page with his own account on it as he has experienced this situation. This is a good primary source and it will help him even more because it happened to him and he knows how it felt.
We then got into groups. We did this by grouping together all the people with similar subjects such as anorexia and suicide and they were in a group together however, there was a bit of a muddle up when it came to grouping the rest of us as we all had contrasting research. In the end, we chose a subject someone had done and then chose among us who would o which subject. I’m in a group with Frankie, Olly and Jack and our piece is on gender equality.
I felt quite disappointed that my research wasn’t to be used at all because i put a lot of hard work into it but I’m not the only one so I don’t mind too much. I learnt a lot from other peoples presentations such as, men get paid more for playing football than women and that anorexia is most common in teenage girls.
I don’t think that you have to be passionate or interested in a theme or topic to make a successful piece of drama on it although i do think that it helps because if you are interested in your theme, you’re gonna try harder and have more research more on it. Also, you will have more ideas and contributions that make the drama impact more on the audience. If you don’t believe in what you’re doing, then the audience wont and you want to give off a good vibe because if you don’t, then the audience won’t be engaged and will loose interest ans you could come across problem with contribution when it comes to forum theatre.
Dec 14th: Drama
On December 14th, we were set the task as homework to research a social or political issue. I chose to study what political correctness was and based it upon politically incorrect children’s stories. I chose this because politics affects children as well as adults even though they may not even realise it, even if it’s in a story book. I thought that choosing this topic could maybe bring more awareness to children about politics, and also to adults about how politics affects their child/ren.
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| This is a front cover to one of the Grimm Brothers' books |
First of all, I looked for a definition of ‘political correctness’ which is, a term which denotes language, idea, policies, and behaviour seen as seeking to minimize social and institutional offense in occupational, gender, racial, cultural, sexual orientation, religious beliefs, disability and age-related contexts. Source: Wikipedia.org. So now I knew what political correctness was, i could now look at what i had decided to study within this area. I learnt that the earliest forms of fairytales were extremely gruesome and not appropriate for children though they were wrote for them. I looked at an early version of ‘Little Red Riding Hood’, a modern version and a ‘Politically Correct’ version. I then compared them with each other and there is a massive change from the early version to the modern and an even bigger one to the ‘correct’ version which I will post a link to. I also found a website called cracked.com that had a small article for each main fairytale i.e. Red Riding Hood, Cinderella, Rumpelstilskin, Snow White and Sleeping Beauty. There was a small piece about what had changed from the early version to the modern version we know now for example, in Rumpelstilskin, at the end of the story when he gets really mad he has a bit of a hissy fit so much that he stamps the floor and his foot gets stuck. He then tries to pull it out so had that he tears himself in half. There is an even earlier version of the story where he launches himself at the girl in rage and gets stuck in her ‘lady parts’ and the guards have to come and pull him out and remove him from the castle. Both these versions are oral versions which are why there is some variation in them. As you can see, there is a massive change from stories then and stories now, this version of Rumpelstilskin and the other fairytales mentioned before were actually published in Germany by Brothers Grimm. They wouldn’t even be allowed to be published nowadays and its surprising back hen that they were allowed to be available to children, even if policies have changed over time. I kept seeing the name ‘Grimm’ come up while researching the beginnings of the stories so I decided to do a little research on them. I found they were 2 of 9 children who wrote sick children’s stories together. Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm were born on 4th January 1785 and 24th February 1786 in Hanau Germany. When the eldest brother Jacob was 15, their father died and two years later, so did their grandfather. This left their mother to support them in difficult circumstances. They were often neglected and hungry due to lack of food and the fact there was 9 of them to feed so this is said to be the reason that the evil stepmother character crops up in a lot of fairytales and also the fact that the birth father is dead or unmentioned.
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| Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm |
I decided to include all the research about children’s storied and Brothers Grimm because I wanted to find out what effect children with politics and that would be their book or stories and I also wanted to know where they originated from. I didn’t think there was much point finding out the roots of where the stories came from but then ignored by whom which is why I decided to include all the Brothers Grimm research.
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Dec 7th: Drama
On December 7th, we were given the task of researching Theatre In Education companies in Leeds and to create a fact file. Unfortunately, I wasn't in school when this task was set so I don't have a fact file. I do know of a TIE company called Splendid Productions as they came into school to do a performance.
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