Journal Entry #6

This week, we took a deeper look into Balinese Theatre. We took a look at examples of real balinese puppets.
Below are pictures of a few examples:

the prince. and the green king.

a dragon.

balinese shadow puppets.

princess puppet.

Using the story of the Mahabharata, our group devised a short play describing the main plot points in the story.

Our short skit had all the important elements in the story as well as different styles of theatre.

We had drumming noises to represent time, slow motion or tableau images to increase the overall effect of emotion in the characters, and we used as much of the stage as possible.

BRECHT:

We also studied Brechtian theatre forms.

We began by researching basic elements of Brechtian theatre and similar characteristics involved.

In one lesson, we learned the difference between normal vocabulary and advertisement vocabulary.

Normal Vocab= cheap, small

Advertisement vocab= inexpensive, compact.

Informercial (extended commercial)

-appeals to needs/desires.

-can be used as:

~flattery

~offer/discount

~urgency

~empathy/sympathy

~patriotism

-threaten

~physically

~verbally

-demeaning?

We then devised a short skit of advertisement vocabulary where we tried to sell a completely useless object to the audience. Our object was a broken television that had a blank screen the entire time, yet you can hear what the particular TV show is saying.

We used persuasive strategies. For example, we had "experts" tell the audience that this would make them smarter (which is what the audience want), and we used prominent figures such as celebrities to show the audience that if you were as "cool as a celebrity, you would buy one too".

We also offered discounts when we said "--and if you order within 30 minutes you can get this amazing TV for only 99.99 dollars! " Which also gives a sense of urgency because if they don't purchase our product fast enough, they won't get the amazing discount.

ROLES:
Host=Sofia

Inventor=Sachi

Celebrity=Mei

Doctor= Annie

Journal Entry #5

I was recently involved in a Drama Festival at St.Maur International School where various schools from Japan, including my school, Yokohama International School, participated in. The event lasted the whole day and we began the festival by watching each school perform a short approx.3 minute skit. Our skit was based on a song by Toni Childs entitled "Dreamer". Below is the link to the song on you-tube:
http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=ItboLOq0zII

What our director, Mr.Tim Evans was essentially trying to potray was how each individual's soul lies in a journal and without the journal, you become zombie like. We tried to potray as many things as possible using only one prop:our journals.
The images or story we tried to potray was meant to be dream-like.
Additional props were taken out from inside our journals.
For example, towards the end, we threw flowers on the stage which were taken from an envelope contained inside the journal.
Below is a link to view our live performance:
http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=LRZ_wkN9eKU
(credits for the editing and filming go to Mr.Evans)

The experience of being involved in this years Drama Festival was very rewarding. I got the chance to interact with other students with interests in drama as well as students taking the IB Drama Course like myself.
We were also assigned into small groups where we spent the entire day devising a play to perform infront of everyone at the end of the day.
This gave us the chance to interact even more, as well as receive tips from our assigned instructors.


Currently, our aim is to look at Balinese theatre therefore, we began our studies by researching a bit about the Balinese culture to gain an understanding of their lifestyles. Each student was given a topic to research. My topic was Religion.

I researched a general understanding about Balinese Religion and summed it up to write a short description to present to my class mates.

Balinese ReligionBalinese Religion has aspects of both Hinduism and Buddhism. However, it is mostly centered around Hinduism.TEMPLES:Each Balinese village has temples. They have temples to worship their ancient ancestors and the spirits of the land as well as temples for the dead.The Balinese believe that during the ceremonies, spirits pay visits to each temple. A family can belong to 6 temples or more in their banjar(village)

CEREMONIES:The word Bali comes from the sanscript word, to offer. The Balinese people make daily offerings of flowers, sweets, and fruits to their Gods which are placed in temples. However, the three main components of the offerings are fire, water, and flowers. Additional offerings can be given depending on your social status. Before anything is placed before the Gods, the item must be ritually cleansed. Presenting offerings to the Gods is a very important aspect of Balinese Religion. For the Balinese people, everything they do is based around their Gods. That is why it is essential for them to please their Gods so that they can grow prosperous and happy.

It is somewhat ironic that the very spirits that protect them, if angered, can destroy them. Spirits are not only pleased with offerings of material goods, but they are also please by being entertained through music and dance. Children are taught to dance at an early age so that they can please the Gods through their performances.

CONSEQUENCES:The Balinese believe that if the spirits are not satisfied with their offerings, they return to earth in forms of ghosts, goblins, and worst of all, witches.These angered spirits can run around the village spreading famine and epidemics and are believed to suck the blood out of unborn babies.The Balinese claim that they can tell when an animal is possessed when it begins to act in a peculiar manner.In order to satisfy a spirit once it has been angered, only a complex and extravagant ceremony, usually involving blood-sacrifices, can satisfy them.The Balinese will also pay a visit to "Pura Dalem Penatarn Ped" which is a temple that honors Ratu Gede Mecaling, the patron of the "leyek" or witches.

DIVISIONS:

For the Balinese people, everything is divided into 3 groups:

1. The Upper world which is inhabited by the Gods

2. The middle world which is inhabited by humans

3. The world below the earth which is inhabited by demons.

The Balinese believe that the higher something is, the more important it is. Therefore, your head is more important than your feet and the mountains are more sacred than the sea which they believe is inhabited by demons. As you can see, everything the Balinese do is revolved around their religion. An example would be the fact that when someone is sleeping, they cannot be waken by surprise because the Balinese believe that their soul wanders in their sleep and if they are woken up sharply, it may not return back to the body. Also, when they sleep, their head must be faced towards the mountains and their feet towards the sea.

This photo shows the ritual that the Balinese do in which they perform a tooth-filing which they believe will control our human characteristics of evil such as envy, lust, greed, stupidity, anger, and ill-will. This ceremony is performed once a girl or boy hits puberty if not, it must be performed before marriage.

Lighting!!

This week, we also learned about lighting and how different colors can express different moods as well as the use of different angles.We tried experimenting colors such as red, blue, green, orange, etc. We came to the conclusion that green reminded us of peaceful nature, where are orange reminded us of happy times, and red of anger and evil.When the light was angled behind a person, it gave the person a god-like appearance however, when it was placed on one of their sides, it gave us a mysterious effect since we could only see half of their face and body.

Here is the lamp that we used. As you can see, it is very old and in order to place it where we wanted to, to experiment, our drama instructor had to lift if up using his hands.We then applied the basics we learned from lighting into shadow-puppets. We used a white frame and placed the lamp with different colored light behind the plain screen. Below are a few colors we tried out:

The yellow color gave us a warm feeling, similar to the color of the sun.

The green color gave us the sense of natures presence however, at the same time, it gave a science-fiction, alien approach.

Next, we also tried to make shadow faces using our hands.