Single - Site Specific - Blog 4 - 21/04/17

Today we got into two groups (Ollie K, Rob, James, Ollie M/Kat, Hope, Lorna, me) and created either an idea for a scene/production or an entire movement piece based on the stimulus of The Crucible. We did this based on our preferred venue of choice.

In my group, we wanted to further explore the opening scene in the movie (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dUGvUhlj-cc) but to show it in a more orderly ritualistic fashion. We wanted to almost trick the audience into believing that this myth of witchcraft was the truth as the girls in the play do so to the villagers. This would then make the realisation even more ridiculous for the audience when it comes to the later scenes.

We originally were thinking of doing this indoors as we wanted to be independent from the film and not go with the classic "cauldron in the woods" scenario, however we felt that it would be better to make better use of the rooms for more crucial indoor scenes rather than doing the ritual indoors just for the sake of it. Also, we were unsure of the height of the ceilings so we weren't able to plan lifts if we wanted.

Based on the following photo, we would perform the movement on the patch of grass to the left near the balcony and stairs. We previously thought to have our ritual take place with everyone on the grass and have one person walk to the grass from atop the balcony but this would mean that there would be 7 people on the grass with the whole class which isn't a good number to work with so we decided to keep everyone on the grass to have a solid number of 8.

Below is the movement we devised (we did this to a beat of four from "Satanic Matra" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsEw9lBiDBg):

• To start, we're in a square formation with each of us facing outwards at each corner (pictured below)
  

1. We reach out for four beats desperately, then pull back in for another four.
2. During the next 4 beats, the pairs opposite swap positions - starting with Lorna and Kat. When there was only four of us, Kat and Lorna swapped places taking up two beats, then followed by Hope and I who took up two beats.
3. We repeat step 1.
4. For four beats, we meet in the middle, staring blankly at the person in front of them, then for four beats, we swap with the person at the corner to our right. For example, I would've swapped with Kat, Kat with Hope, Hope with Lorna and Lorna with me.
5. We repeat step 1.
6. We repeat step 2.
7. We repeat step 1.
8. We walk to the centre taking up four beats. Then Hope performs a chant in Yoruba, a native language of Africa which she is fluent in which sounds fitting to the chants you'd expect from witchcraft rituals.
9. One by one, Kat, Lorna and I fall to our knees.

We presented our idea to the other group and they felt like it was brilliant idea which would work well in the planned space. Also, it's an easily adaptable idea where we can add the extra four people from the other group. This is what we will work towards next lesson!