Personal statement: 2nd draft

Personal statement 2^nd draft

Sophia Hinchliff

Drama is part of who I am. From a very young age, I have always expressed and applied a strong interest for the arts, acting in particular. Acting allows me to express myself and has given me aspirations and goals for my life. Acting has been a constant journey for me throughout my life and I want to continue this journey by studying Drama as a degree. I am currently in my Second year of Acting, studying for a UAL Extended Diploma in Performing and Production Arts at Level 3.

Since beginning my course I have taken part in 5 live productions, all inspired by practitioners ranging from Stanislavski and Mike Leigh to Artaud. I have also been involved in Brighton Live Productions, an internal company within my college which produces all our shows. Through this I worked as Stage Manager for a recent show, which has allowed me to extend my Communication and Organisational skills to a more advanced level. I was elected by my class to be Course Representative for Acting, which is a massive achievement for me as it allows me to be the voice of our acting class at regular student council meetings.

From 2005-2008 I attended Stage coach Theatre Arts Drama school of dance, drama and singing, this developed my skills in acting techniques, all areas of dance and singing. I performed in an annual musical performance.

I later on attended Adele academy of dance and drama in 2008 for over a year and studied GCSE Dance there, and took part in an annual performance which was held at Roedean School in Brighton. Whilst taking my GCSE's I was awarded an NVQ in Dance teaching for junior school children, which involved me teaching dance routines in lessons I planned for them.

More recently in 2013, I took part in a short scene for the BBC3 programme Boomtown, which was filmed in a diner in Leicester Square in London. 
I have also attended castings for various films and TV shows, including Les Miserable, I enjoy attending castings even if I do not get the part as the experience is always worth it and motivates me to be better for the next audition.

I was cast as an extra for a low budget gangster film in 2013 called " It is what it is" which was filmed in Portsmouth harbour.

Since 2011 I have worked as a commercial and promotional model , this includes being involved in Fashion shows, photo shoots, websites and attending promotional events. I created my own website and gained excellent production, communication and business skills from this.

In 2012, I was hired by an independent travel company to inspect their luxury hotels, I travelled to Italy, Paris, Dubai, Asia and Capri Island independently.This was such a fantastic opportunity and gave me the chance to explore different countries independently, learn about new cultures, meet new people and develop an advanced independence and determination. 
In 2013, I was employed by a Cabaret club based in Brighton in which I worked as front of house, and worked closely with the performers and made sure all the acts were organised. This work helped me to understand how it all works behind the curtains of a performance and the amount of hard work and organisation is involved in performing. I feel all my work experience has pushed me to become more confident within myself and to see the world and know what I want for myself.

Since studying acting , I have developed a wide range of knowledge and skills from different methods of acting and practitioners. I have developed a flair for Stanislavsky's Naturalism acting and feel I succeeded very well in a play called " Playhouse creatures" By April De Angelis, which I performed in February 2014. Naturalism is an area of acting I am strong  in, but controversially I enjoyed learning and applying Antonin Artaud's "Theatre of cruelty" in my final 2014 show “ Dracula”By Liz Lochead. Theatre of Cruelty has bought me out of my comfort zone and has helped me develop as a versatile actor.

I know I am a very focused and determined person and I have a goal I want to achieve, and studying Acting as a degree will allow me to become one step closer to achieving my goal. Over the past few years I have gained a vast amount of experience, inside and out of education, which has boosted my confidence and has allowed me to envision a clear path in my mind of where I want to go in my life

I strongly believe I would be a valuable asset as a University student as I can bring unique and creative ideas with me to University and I have a constant desire and drive to become a better actor and to widen my knowledge within Theatre and studying at University would allow me to achieve my aspiration of becoming an actor.  

Writing Frame Questions

On friday we were given our stimulus for our upcoming devised performance which was an APPLE. We were given a blog writing frame by our teacher and were asked to fill this in, about the 3 exercises we learned on friday all involving the APPLE;

1. Describe an exercise: Individual chair improvisation in front of everybody- using apple as stimulus
2. What did I learn from it?: I learned how to portray my emotions to the audience to a more advanced level without speech and to radiate my feelings. We had to use the apple as a symbol of a gift we were going to give to somebody we love. I felt my emotions were shown in this improvisation, there was a beginning, a middle and an end. The middle was the climax, the realisation of the apple and what it meant. The ending showed the decision I made to give the apple to someone I love. I also learned how to become more comfortable and confident with improvisation, and portraying emotions in front of the class.
3. How can you use this skill in devising? : This can be used in devising by creating a deeper connection with the audience and will allow the audience and actors to feel more involved and show emotion WITHOUT speaking. 
4. Describe an exercise: Giving and recieving of the apple in pairs. I was with Jenny and we were both focused on the apple at all times and used the apple in turns to lead one another.
5. What did I learn from it? I learned how to extend my team work skills andf focus all my energy on the object (apple) and not the other person. And how this different focus creates a completely different feel for the audience and also myself. It involved deeper levels of concentration.
6. How can you use this skill in devising? I can use this skill in my devising piece as it has enabled me not to think too much about what I am doing and to just go with the flow and keep ,my concentration levels very disiplined at all times.
7. Describe an exercise: Apple leading other person, in Pairs.
8. What did I learn from it?: To focus more on the object rather than the other person and to recognise the power of an object and the importancy of staying focused at all times.
9. How can I use this devising? This exercise involved a lot of trust, and I can use this in my devising as I have learned to trust everyone in the class to a deeper level and this will allow me to feel more comfortable with another person and to know that we can trust each other.

 WHAT IS THE MOST IMPORTANT THING I HAVE TAKEN AWAY FROM THIS LESSON?: 
Being able to portray my raw emotions more freely in front of an audience and feeling cionfident with my ability to radiate and express feelings.

26/09/14

APPLE STIMULUS 

In today's class, we found out that our stimulus for our first show in our second year is an Apple. 

At first I found this quite basic, as you see apples all the time and I eat one everyday so I was not too struck on this idea as I take basic things like this for granted, as do most people I would think. But as we started to visualise what an apple means to us personally and what it means and represents, I realised that an apple is much more than just a fruit you eat everyday. It has a lot of symbolic meaning and it has opened up a lot of ideas in my mind and we all wrote down on a piece of paper individually what we felt an apple symbolises, or what our apple looked like as we all bought in our own apples. We began to free write and I was not really thinking in depth about what I was writing I was just writing  down anything that came into my head. Here is what I wrote in today's lesson: 

Adam and Eve- Biblical meaning 

Tree of life- family free

Purity, health, cleansing, natural, nature, free, positive, life, innocence 

Gravity- Isaac Newton- science 

New York- the big apple, why is it called this? I believe New York is seen as the big apple as it is full of life and opportunities and is there for people to take for beneficial reasons 

Life- love- poison- hate- evil 

Ying and Yang- red and green apples symbolise different meanings 

Red- poison, temptation, desire, evil, manipulation, witches, Snow White, taking

Green- healthy, good, pure, giving, happy, positive, wholesome, sweet and sour 

Sphere- mars, earth, planets, the moon

Herbalism- cleanser, a symbol of good health, given to people out of kindness 

"An apple a day keeps the doctor away" - detoxing, vitamin C 

Night and day- again referring to ying and yang 

Sunshine, grass, gardens, nature, rain, refreshing 

Bruises- an apple bruises just as humans do and apples have imperfections on their skin just as humans do. They rot from the inside out as humans do when they die- this is kind of dark but it was mentioned in class and I agree with this comparison. But mainly I view the apple to be a positive symbolism for life and rebirth. 

Exercises we learned today in class were very influenced by YOSHI OIDA- "The invisible actor" he believes that theatre is rhythm, and has a beginning, a middle and an ending which in his words is called "JO HA KYU" 

He believes that your energy comes from your CHI. And that actors need a rhythm in order to help show emotions to the audience. We did a warm up which he believes in, which involved moving from side to side breathing and making the infinite 8 sign. It was very relaxing and as we did this we repeated the word "Shay" it was calm and allowed your mind to be focused on what you were doing and not what anyone else was doing. 

24/09/2014

Stagecraft 

In today's lesson we continued with our exercise using chairs, based on Frantic Assembly. 

We were put into pairs, I was with Chloe and were asked to compose 16 movements to create a tableaux, purely based on physical theatre and not involving any narrative or any hint of a story within the movements. 

We were using naturalistic gestures and not involving any emotion. We did not just stay sitting on the chairs we mixed it up by changing seats within one movement phrase and towards the end of our tableaux I stood up from the chair in one phrase and took Chloe by the hand and moved her up and sat her down and Then I sat one phrase after her and we ended our piece by turning her heads towards each other, almost to acknowledge each other and then crossed our legs, both using the left leg. Our tableaux was very naturalistic an flowed very well. We tried out a lot of different ideas but as we began to improvise more with each other we found the movement phrases which worked for us. The movements were very light and were not bound to the space we were performing in. 

We also learned about Stage Craft in today's lesson. Stage craft is the craft of an actor and the skills an actor learns to perform and work well on a stage. The craft of being able to wrk well on a stage is to constantly be aware of others around you, to maintain complicity with other performers on the stage and to Always have self awareness. Balancing the stage is very important as well as from an audiences point of view if the stage is not balanced it does not feel complete, and it looks unprofessional and crowded, space is important on the stage and an un balanced stage can cause upstaging, masking or accidents! 

We did an exercise about balance on the stage where we all stood in a circle and two people stood in the middle and would use different areas of the space within the circle and the other person would have to balance out the circle, we described it as "The Axis" of planet earth, it has to be balanced otherwise it will not work. 

23/09/2014

In today's lesson we tried out new exercises, mostly which included the use of CHAIRS...

The first exercise we did in pairs, we were using canon, unison, the space and mirroring. I was with Jade, and we both had to spell our names out using movements, and referring to LABAN techniques we learned last year. Jade and myself chose to use very light, in direct and flowing movements. Especially for my name I feel this worked as the letter S.O.P.H.I.A are mostly all free flowing, except the H maybe. The movements we chose were performed very slowly, and we used our whole bodies, and not just our hands or legs. We tried this in canon, unison and mirroring. 
We then joined another pair which was Liam and Harry. They taught us their movements for their names, and visa versa. We performed these movements in canon, Harry and Liam would do the first movement and begin, then me and Jade would follow. We were all in complicity of each other and I concentrated very hard on the movements we were learning and the way my body moved with the letters.

The next exercise, was personally my favourite exercise I have learned since coming back for the second year! It was based on Improvisation, and using CHAIRS. We all had a chair each and created 4 different still images. My 4 images were; lying across the chair with my hands behind me on the floor, lying with my legs over the back of the chair with my head tilted back, crouching forward with the chair balancing on my back and lastly standing with the chair balancing on my head. After practicing our movements a few times, we were told to walk around the room using the space, with music playing and when the music stopped we would all get into a chair and our teacher would say a number 1-4 and we would get into one of our four still images we created. Our teacher Siou, took away 1 chair and when the music stopped we would all get onto a chair and into an image, apart from one person in our class. This person would then chose someone in a still image and approach them and create an improvised scene, based on what the person in the still image was doing and the aim was to try to get them out of the movement and free the chair. I loved this exercise as it allowed us to start improvising freely with movement and speech, it allowed us to act freely and build a narrative and a relationship with the other actor.
I really enjoy improvising, much more than I did last year. We as a class feel much more comfortable with each other, and we have almost grown up together as actors. This improvisation is called ACTIVE RECEPTIVE.
The actor who was beginning the scene would offer, accept and develop the scene.

 

Research for Presentation

http://www.kabosh.net/aboutkabosh.php

We have all been put into pairs or threes and have been asked to create a presentation about Site specific, site responsive and 3 different companies who use this.
I am in a group with Max and Jade. We all decided that we would each research 1 company each, and come together on Monday to discuss what we have found out.
I have found a company called " KABOSH" who use site specific and responsive theatre.
They create exciting theatre in different locations, environmental theatre and like to be different.
Here are some bulletpoints I have read from the website;

• Kabosh creates the best environment for performance as well as cultivating original work in radical partnerships with other arts practitioners.
• Kabosh creates engaging narrative using local stories and histories to create plays that chart the way Northern Ireland is evolving
• Kabosh is committed to providing quality stimulating, entertainment for everybody living in and visiting Northern Ireland
• Kabosh believes in the politics of theatre to transform lives
• Kabosh animates public spaces
• Kabosh initiates projects using artists from a wide range of genres
• Kabosh is committed to the development of arts & culture within Northern Ireland and promoting its worth both nationally and internationally
• Kabosh is committed to producing cultural tourism product

19/09/2014

In today's lesson we were focusing on Michael Chekhov and learning about the exercises he used. 
"Moulding, floating, radiating, flying"
These different movements explore different methods actors can use. Radiating is to express your inner self to an audience, it looks very simple but requires confidence, inner strength and self determination. Moulding is the idea of pushing something away from you, for example we all moved around the drama studio today using these 4 exercises, when moulding we were to imagine we were trying to push something away from us using all parts of our body, it felt very heavy and took a lot of strength to do, it was quite mentally tiring. Floating was the complete opposite, and it felt very light and airy, I was imagining seeds being blown into the air, and we were all the seeds, floating off into different directions and everyone was very calm and relaxed when doing this. And lastly, flying, was not how it sounds. We were to imagine a buzzing fly around the room and almost trying to catch it by followings its choppy movements, we would fly into one direction, then suddenly change pathways and fly into another space. It was very upbeat and fast and was physically tiring. I enjoyed this exercise, as it allowed me to play around with the different types of movements my body can make, and I became very absorbed into the exercise and was very focused on my movements at all times.
GROUP WORK; Myself, Jenny and Chloe.
We were put into groups of 3 or 4 and were given wooden sticks(Peter Brooks Using Canes) and shirts and blazer jackets and were told to use the 4 movements, moulding, floating, radiating and flying, and to create a tableaux using these together. We tried out various movements and interpreted the shirt we had, and used this as a stimulus almost, and began by radiating in a circle, holding the canes up to the air, and using complicity we began to float around the space we had together, and then picked the shirt up from the floor and all held it into the air using our canes and were almost skipping around in a circle together, it was like a ritual with the shirt, and it was very calm and relaxed. We then tried out a lot of different movements for flying and moulding, and began to throw the shirt in the air and using the canes to move the shirt in the air, this was like Flying as the shirt kept changing direction and represented Moulding as well as we were all trying to keep the shirt off the ground and keeping it away from us, it was almost like playing hot potato! It looked very effective, and once rehearsed slightly more it would look like a ritual and very spiritual. I enjoyed this group work as we all gave our ideas and just improvised together and noticed what worked and what did not. We all had complicity with each other and just went with the flow, interpreting the 4 Chekhov movements.
Frantic assesmbly, duets of chair: Myself and Harry
This exercise involved a pair, Harry and myself, sitting side by side on two chairs, and creating a sequence of 16 movements, it was not to show a story, but as we are all actors, we all did create a story without meaning to! It was focusing on movements and team work. Harry and myself, somehow created our piece to show two young men watching the football together! I do not know how this story came about, it just did. Our movements were simple and masculine. They involved crossing our legs, putting our arms behind our heads, leaning forward, heads in hands etc. We practiced this tableaux a few times and then performed it to the class. We were filmed on one of the college tablets and I will include this in my blog as soon as it has been uploaded. Our director asked us to perform our sequence a few times more using different types of movements, including flowing movements, sharp movements and movements which do not include any emotion or story. I liked this exercise, as I love team work and working with other people, and I have never worked with Harry before, so it was interesting to see his ideas and create something together.  

Site Responsive and Site Specific

We have been learning about site specific and site responsive theatre in our classes. These types of performances are performed in

all sorts of different areas, and allow the audience to become more involved in a piece of drama, which includes the audience walking around with the actors, standing within close contact of an actor, almost being involved in the acting itself, seeing a piece of drama from all different angles, being able to walk into one scene and then walking to a different location and seeing a completely different scene. This can be seen as much more interesting than just sitting in a theatre and watching drama on a stage, it is very versatile and has become very popular over the years.

SITE SPECIFIC- This type of theatre is when a piece of drama is created to specifically focus on the site where the drama is taking place. For example, Environmental theatre is site responsive as the actors are adapting to their surroundings, and the drama will respond to the surroundings. For example, performing Midsummer nights dream in a forest, would be site responsive.

SITE RESPONSIVE- This type of theatre is when a piece of drama  For example, in the past companies and actors have used an old house as a location for a piece of drama, and then based the drama on the people who had lived in the house previously, so it is specific to the location.

Environmental Theatre- A production which takes place within nature. Using what we have which is free, and the drama would match the location. For example a lot of productions have taken place in forests, beaches, caves, woods, fields, moors etc.

Promenade Theatre- This is when the audience members walk around and do not sit, they will be following the actors and be taken into different areas which will include different scenes and surroundings.

Michael Chekhov

In our lesson we learned an exercise which was based on " Radiating" to the audience. This is an exercise Chekov believed in and used with his actors...

Michael Chekhov( 1891-1955) was a Russian American Actor and Director. He was the nephew of Anton Chekhov and was one of Stanislavski's BEST pupils.
Chekhovs acting techniques have been used by Clint Eastwood, Marilyn Monroe and Yul Brynner.
Chekhov was inspired by Yoga, Buddhism and Spiritualism. He belived an actor had the ability to wilfully send out their thoughts, feelings and qualities to an audience by RADIATING.
Chekhov believed actors should become attuned to their natural energies, by using breathing. There is no real definition on how to radiate or how to learn how to do it, but Chekhov had techniques as to help actors be able to radiate from within themselves. He believed in using your CHI. 
Radiating from what I have learned through research and through my own personal understanding is the presence of a person from within and radiating is used to benefit actors and helps make actors feel more comfortable when performing. 

Bertolt Brecht

BRECHT & EPIC THEATRE.
Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956) was a famous German playwright and poet. He began his career writing political poetry and plays about social issues, he was seen as a troublemaker and was expelled from school for writing anti war poems at a very young age. 
He was influenced by Karl Marx'theories of socialism. His theories were about social justice and based on topics such as money and power, and status within society. He explored Industrialization and how this affected workers and the power and status of society, 
EPIC THEATRE came about when MELO DRAMA, REALISM AND NATURALISM were very popular art forms. Epic was created to make the audience question and think about what they were watching, this came around in the 1920s.
Brecht achieved epic theatre by keeping the audiences attention by using lighting effects, known as Alienation effects, which would direct the audiences attention to something new. This would constantly disrupt scenes to ensure the audience would not get lost in the emotions of the characters and story line. Brecht described this method as " being slapped in the face with a wet fish" It would wake the audience up and constantly remind them that they were watching a piece of theatre, and that the characters and story were not real life. He did not want the audience being absorbed into the characters, Brecht felt that an actors job was to merely show what happened. His theory is the complete opposite of STANISLAVSKI'S theory. Brecht rejected naturalism, and felt actors should not be seen as real people.
He felt there should be NO fourth wall, and always make sure the audience do not feel it is real. 
Brecht died at the age of 54, he suffered a heart attack. In the 1940's he left Nazi Germany and fled to Hollywood where he resided writing scripts. When he died he requested to be buried with a stiletto heel through his heart!