political performance reflection

The performance went well and I think we conveyed our message of child soldiers well. We used placards and hung them around our chest, on them we wrote our age and that we were child soldiers. We misspelt it to simultaneously show that we were child soldiers and also that child soldiers aren't educated, that their ability to shoot a gun is prioritised over learning to read or write. We also wrote this as a slogan, saying "taught how to use guns before they can write." Our costume was very good and immersed not only the audience but also myself playing the character of the child soldier.

We also decorated our stage with picture of child soldiers and left placards with slogans and facts written on them so that even when we weren't there the audience could learn something, and perhaps realise that its a stage for something and wait until we eventually come back and see our performance.

Our routine was effective as we could rely on it to drive our message home with our audience once we had lured them to our stage. One of the main challenges we had was to get our audience to follow us to our stage, so we thought we would catch their attention and hope they became curious enough to follow us. Luckily this seemed to work and every time we came back to our stage after going round the school there was an audience to perform to. It wasn't ever a massive audience but I believe that the amount of people was much more manageable than say the canteen. Also in the canteen it felt like, because the audience was so massive, it was almost overwhelming for the performers and it seemed like their message was getting lost in the bustle of the audience. Where as with our audience it felt more intimate and that our performance was having a larger impact on the audience. Making it more likely for them to keep thinking about child soldiers long after the performance.

To improve on our performance when going round the school we shouldn't have been so 'in your face' with people as it seemed to have prompted them to not take our protest seriously. To make this better we should try to win over the audience with an isolated event that they could witness. This is why I think our routine was more effective than when we walked around the school. Because it invited the audience in to watch, where as being 'in your face' distanced them from our message and perhaps even alienated them.

In conclusion we had an effective and informative performance. That hopefully impacted the audience enough for them to do something about child soldiers.

political protest research

https://www.hrw.org/topic/childrens-rights/child-soldiers
this article has helped me understand how disposable child soldiers are seen and that they are treated inhumanly, this will be shown through Tom , who is playing the general, and his ruthlessness.

https://www.dosomething.org/facts/11-facts-about-child-soldiers 
facts about child soldiers to put on placards

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/lost-boys-what-became-of-liberias-child-soldiers-7637101.html
this article talks about what happens to the child soldiers after the militia and really illustrates how traumatising and damaging the experience is

political theatre idea

we are going to explore the ideas of child soldiers. we have decided to use the stage behind the canteen. Our biggest challenge will to lure the audience from the canteen and other areas and get them to follow us to the stage. We are planning on having a routine displaying the horrors for child soldiers. On our placards I wrote "childe solgers, age 8" this brehctian technique was used to get the audience interested. The misspelling is used to try and communicate to the audience that the children are not very well educated and are having their childhood robbed from them.

To get the attention of the audience we will maybe walk around the school and try to attract audience members through curiosity. The placards might evoke emotion in the audience as they may communicate that children have their childhood robbed from them.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/uganda/10621792/Konys-child-soldiers-When-you-kill-for-the-first-time-you-change.html

This article is an interview of a childsoldier and is very interesting and has helped me understand how traumatising the experience is  for children.

political theatre equipment

I need to bring in:
bandana,
toy guns,
sheets,
red dye,
army uniform,
placards,
markers,
picture of child soldiers,

What Is Political Theatre

Political theatre challenges societies traditions. It should provoke the audience to think about the message the performance presents long after the play is over.  Political Theatre is most effective when it convinces the audience members to go out and do something. 

Berthold Brecht

Brecht was interested in Karl Marx’s theories on socialism, this would be interoperated into some of his work. Brecht and “epic theatre” came about when melodrama, realism and naturalism were popular theatre forms. Naturalistic play aimed to reflect life and allow the audience to immerse themselves within the story, believing it was real. The audience could escape life and stop thinking about current affairs. 

Brecht hated this and wanted people to think, challenge and change not just accept and enjoy. He created his new form of Theatre in 1920s designed to make the audience question what their watching, he called it epic theatre.

He used these techniques…

V effect: This was used to direct the audiences attention to something new, he would interrupt the scene and throw in something unexpected. This would stop the audience getting lost in the emotion and story of the play making them able to think and question. The idea was to consistently remind the audience they were in a theatre, watching a play. He did this by, keeping the house lights on so the audience members were aware of each other. Music and dance broke up scenes, placards were used to give the audience info. All characters might be dressed in black rather than  individually costumed.

Brecht believed that the actors job was merely to show what happened, that the actor doesnt need to identify with the character and play it realistically, the opposite to Stan. 

Brecht believed actors should: 

-Make sure voice and movement do not match. 

-Speak as if quoting someone else and not dialogue.

-speak the stage directions aloud

-perform directly to the audience