BTEC Performing Arts - Lesson One

To begin this lesson, Kate led us in a warm up to develop our characters. She decided to create a warm up wherein we all formed two lines, facing each other, and each person would have to walk down the center as their character would walk. They would then receive advice on how to walk more like their characters and then work on that. I walked as my character would. As my character was The Cheshire Cat, i thought about the possibility of walking on all fours, however, doing this is only good for walking short distances, as the human body isn't designed to walk in that way, so it is only good for going a short distance, so when it comes to walking  upright, i decided to walk slightly on my tiptoes, with a bounce in my step, to mimic the way a cat's paw would look.

This is how a cat's paw looks midway through it's walk cycle. This is how a persons foot would look whilst trying to mimic a cat's paw.

I had to walk like this to make my character very light on his feet, he has to be light because he is, after all, a cat, and he has to be slender, and sleek, however, he is also very slumped over, as felines have very prominent shoulders and spines, though it is more prominent in wild cats, such as lions and tigers. However, you only see these shoulders, or 'scapula' when the animal is prowling, stalking prey, but i would play this character as if he were permanently stalking something, as the character is evil, and i would like him to appear long, slender, boney and constantly up to something. I pay such close attention to the physicality of the character because i believe that without physical characteristics, the character is not a character, in any aspect of performance, but especially in Pantomime, as every character has to be larger than life and over the top. 

You can clearly see the bones of this cat here, humans have the same bones, but due to our upright walking stance, ours have evolved to be smaller and not as noticeable, so to compensate, i have instead, decided to arch or hunch my back.

As The Cheshire Cat is well spoken and elegant, i wanted that to come across in his mannerisms also, as well as being catlike, he has to be rather regal, after all, he is constantly at the side of The Red Queen, he also views himself as being highly intelligent, more so than anyone else in the entire show, so his air of arrogance has to be clear, as well as all of the other things.

I decided that the character walks on the tips of his feet, with his back varying between arched and hunched, depending on what he is doing, and who is interacting with, but he will also be very light on his feet, very quick, swift and slender. 

I was not given anything to improve on, so i have no notes on this, but i think this is just down to the amount of time i spent creating a character for myself outside of class, so that by the time it came to coming back to school and rehearsing, i would not have to waste time developing it, because i would already have it created. 

The warm up was good because we had the chance to work on, and assess our characters, and each other characters, so we could improve on them.

After we did this, we then rehearsed up to scene three of act one.

On thursday evening, we did an after school session, in which we rehearsed scenes one to four.

I think my strengths in these lessons was my physicality as my character, but my weaknesses were my vocal projection and my stage presence. I think my stage presence will improve once i get better at projecting my voice, but i think the lack of presence is to do with the fact that the scenes are freshly blocked and so i haven't yet had time to fully plan every movement that i do onstage, so there are moments when i stand, feeling unsure about what i should be doing when i am not speaking.