It Takes Two: Week beginning: Monday 28th April 2014

Week beginning: Monday 28th April 2014

This session was allocated to the blocking and staging of the performance to ensure that our interpretation was strong and we had a clear idea overall.

Perry and I felt this sort of song needed simplistic blocking but the personal interpretation be emphasised by gestures and facial expression. By having more simplistic blocking our vocal performance wouldn't be hindered and we could keep a standard throughout the performance. We felt it would be easiest to go through the song in different parts and express and discuss our ideas.

We began with the first part of the song: 

"All along it was a fever, 

A cold sweat hot-headed believer, 

I threw my hands in the air, said, "Show me something." 

He said, "If you dare, come a little closer.""

We decided the main blocking of this would be two chairs facing each other with Perry writing down notes and me singing to him about my feelings. For this part, I had to try and make eye contact with Perry to show the desperate need of my character and him fighting his desire by keeping professional.

For the next part: 

"Round and around and around and around we go, 

Oh now tell me now, tell me now, tell me now you know" 

We decided that Perry should stand up and leave me as if he's denying and distancing himself from my character. This gave me the space to be isolated when singing the next part.

The next part: 

"Not really sure how to feel about it, 

Something in the way you move, 

Makes me feel like I can't live without you, 

It takes me all the way. 

I want you to stay."

I was left sitting on my own in the chair defeated and alone, this allowed me to really add emotion into the way I was singing the words and with Perry's character's back in front of my created a sense of lose and confusion in the feelings. By singing the on my own also established a segregation between the characters as their feelings for each other are forbidden. 

For Perry's part:

"It's not much of a life you're living, 

It's not just something you take - it's given. 

Round and around and around and around we go, 

Oh now, tell me now, tell me now, tell me now you know. 

Not really sure how to feel about it,

Something in the way you move, 

Makes me feel like I can't live without you. 

It takes me all the way.

I want you to stay."

Perry remained sat at his desk and animated the singing with various gestures showing frustration and confusion over his feelings for my character. He has a sense of anger in his presence as he knows that having a relationship with my character could potentially destroy his career so by keeping still and using soft facial expression and eye contact allowed for that interpretation to be conveyed. 

The final part of the song: 

"Ooh, ooh, ooh, the reason I hold on, 

Ooh, ooh, ooh, 'cause I need this hole gone. 

Funny you're the broken one but I'm the only one who needed saving, 

'Cause when you never see the light it's hard to know which one of us is caving. 

Not really sure how to feel about it, 

Something in the way you move, 

Makes me feel like I can't live without you, 

It takes me all the way, 

I want you to stay, stay. 

I want you to stay, oh."

Perry and I felt this was the perfect moment for the characters to start slowly showing their expressions for each other. We began by standing in opposite sides of the stage and then start singing to each other from "Funny you're the broken one" as if we were finally discussing our feelings for each other. As we start walking together, this is where the connection and love for each other is established and we embrace. At the end of the song we then go back to our positions, separate showing that our love didn't conquer over all and the professional relationship had to be maintained. 

I feel that in this session we have successfully established the blocking with reason and thought into the detail of the movements and how they relate to our interpretation of the song. The blocking allows the audience to establish a relationship between the characters and the simple blocking also allows us to maintain the emotions behind the words. 

I feel like once we've combined this blocking to our vocals, our performance will have a strong and unique interpretation and remains emotional. 

Last week it was evident that the blocking and characterisation of our duet had to be established and this session was used productively to perform this. Now I think to move one and develop the piece for assessment we have to pair the characterisation and vocal performances together. 

I feel like we completed a thorough and detailed exploration of the song and used staging to benefit and aid our performance. 

To complete the rehearsal process we need to pair the vocal work and staging work together to reach our potential in regards to the performance. 

Run through the performance and work on any last minute small details in preparation for the assessment!

It Takes Two: Week beginning: Monday 21st April 2014

Week beginning: Monday 21st April 2014

Unfortunately due to the Easter Break, Perry and I had missed a fair few rehearsals slots so this week we knew we had to nail down on ensuring that we were comfortable with the song and start working on our interpretation and staging of our duet.

We decided to use various week days, this week to ensure that we had learnt the song accurately and in detail. Perry and I felt it was appropriate to ask one of our friends and someone who has already done this project from last year, James D. Fawcett, to sit in and give us some feedback so we know what to develop and improve for the assessment.

I felt that asking James was a useful tool to improve and to gain someone else's opinion, I was also comfortable with James giving feedback which was useful and thoughtful. 

When we performed the song I felt that I was far more confident and was able to remember the words, now that I didn't have to rely on the lyric sheet I could focus more on my singing rather than what word came next. Whilst performing I felt that Perry was also far more confident and this allowed the song to sound far more stronger than it has done before. 

There were various parts of the song that Perry and I would need to work on to ensure it was up to a performance standard, but, overall, I felt that we had performed a good job and we had accomplished the best we could for the rehearsals we've had.

James suggested that we added harmonies to our song to get a more textured feel. He also wanted us to perform it with the full characterisation but unfortunately, Perry and I hadn't gone through the staging of the song just yet.

Perry and I weren't initially sure on what harmonies to add so we asked a fellow classmate to assist us.

Susie offered to add a harmony in the part: 

"Round and around and around and around we go

Oh now, tell me now, tell me now, tell me now you know."

And: 

"the reason I hold on...

...'cause I need this hole gone"

In these parts, I would sing an octave higher to Perry, it was extremely hard for me to get the tune right but once I had accomplished this the song was much more textured and added a nice effect to the song. 

So that I could practise the harmony, I recorded it on my phone so that in the next few weeks I can familiarise myself with it as much as possible.

I felt that the Easter holidays has meant that we started off struggling to get back into the flow of the song but once we had it was much easier to perform. Having James help us was great because it gave us an idea of what to develop in the song. 

James did want to see us perform it using the characteristics but unfortunately we haven't got that far yet, I feel like now we are confident with the song it's time to finalise the characteristic and blocking of the song so we have an overall rounded performance. 

This week there wasn't much emotion added to the song but I feel this will occur when we're adding the staging and characteristics to the song. So far I've really enjoyed working with Perry as we're both artistically and creatively in-sync and share the same passion for producing an interesting performance.

We asked for the opinion of someone else to gain a wider knowledge of how we could develop on the song and made progress.

Characterisation and staging needs to be completed so the performance is at the standard we want it to be. 

Focus on the overall performance of the piece and polish it for the assessment.