Class workshop 13/12/12

Today we did an exercise where we walked around the room as our character and spoke to the other roles in the play.
I learned that my character is homely woman and is friendly and kind, also that Kojo comes up alot in her conversations and plays on her mind. As my character i spoke to Kojo, Mother 2 and Father, speaking to these characters helped me understand my role more and get more into the mindset of my character. When speaking to Kojo i asked him how he was and how he was feeling showing motherly concern and a gentle side.

Character building counselling session

We walked around the classroom as our character, then when we were fully in role got asked to go outside to prepare ourselves for a workshop in which we would say our thoughts and feelings at a particular part in the script, it was a character building session for our characters.

Diary entry of the mother
I have just gone to my session where I met many people with problems, I heard some troubling and disturbing things that people are going through, also I heard things that I could relate to and made me feel reassured and more comfortable to share my problems. When it was my turn to speak I stated my name and said that I was worried about Kojo and that there was something troubling him, he was scared and would be home rarely, I said that his brother was a normal football loving boy and that Kojo would play with his brother, but sometimes be occupied by something else. I said that I had spoken to Kojo's dad about my concern with Kojo but he said that boys will be boys and that he was young and would grow out of it, but mothers are different as they worry, I worry.

Later on when we had a discussion about the workshop I discovered that Kojo was not angry and scared, but it was seeing his parents and brother slaughtered, and becoming a child soldier that made him become violent and disturbed and as a result killing someone.

Mother

What does my character say about themselves?
My character says nothing about themselves

What does my character say about other people?
My character doesn't really say anything about other people

What do other people say about my character?
Ara says 'She's pretty' when Kojo shows her the photograph of his family. Kojo describes his mother to be taller and fatter than the actor playing her.

Ara

My first choice of character was Ara because i find her character really interesting. In a previous workshop we had to do a day in the life of and i discovered how Ara has a hard exterior but a soft interior i found this really endearing. The character also develops feelings for Kojo and I found this to be an interesting part of the character to work on as you see she takes an immediate liking to her and always seems warm and friendly around him, Kojo brings out the soft interior she has.

Character given circumstance

In the lesson we got into groups of 3 and discussed the circumstances of characters given in the script we discovered these points:

• Kojo is from Cote d'voire
• The stabbing is set in an east london market
• Refugees
• Kojo stabs someone
• Kojo (all main teenage characters) are younger than 16
• Aea is from Kabul
• Cheung from China
• Cheungs an acrobat
• Cheungs small
• Ara's a girl that Kojo later develops feelings for
• Kojo's a boy
• Kojo only speaks french
• Kojo's parents died
• Kojo was taken as a child soldier
• At the refuge no one speaks the same language
• To stay at the Refuge you have to be under 16
• Cheung is from Zhongshan

Kojo Character Study

In the Character Study lesson, my group studied Kojo. We explored the thoughts and feelings of him we came up with outer appearance ideas, the words that we came up with were skinny, tall, dark skinned, developed etc. We then came up with words that described his inner feelings and thoughts these were; scared, lost, emotional, scarred, homesick we also thought of questions such as who?, why? and where?

 

We found quotes that showed given circumstances, some of the quotes where; 'Where are you from?Home?...Africa' , 'You last saw your family on-.....My eleventh', 'How old are you? Fourteen?..Me too.'

 

At the end we gathered that Kojo was a concealed scared boy who was unaware of his surrounding and had lost his childhood and family. we established that he had strong feelings towards Ara and was the only person he was emotionally linked (with other than his family) towards.

 

 

My idea of Kojo's appearance

 

 



Republique de Côte d'Ivoire

The population of the ivory coast is 17.6 million averaging the life expectancy at around 49years old, the official language is French although over 60 native dialects are also spoken. The religious views are 30-40% Muslim, 25-40% Indigenous, 20-30% Christian. An armed rebellion in 2002 split the nation in two. Since then, peace deals have alternated with renewed violence as the country has slowly edged its way towards a political resolution of the conflict.

Character studies

We were put into different groups Ara, Kojo and Cheung we were then given a large piece of paper that we had to pic a person from our group to draw around. We then used there template as the character of our group. Each group then came up with different words they would associate with that character and had group discussions about those words. The groups then rotated to the different character sketches and wrote their ideas, by the end we had everyone's ideas about the three different characters on the sketches. This was a useful exercise as we go to explore the different characters and really get into the characters head, feelings and emotions. I found this a really fun exercise as I got to interact with lots of people and discuss their views as well as mine. I think that the most interesting thing that I learnt was people's perceptions of the characters appearances I had never had a clear picture in my head of their exact appearance but after doing the exercise I had a much better idea.

" I can taste..... Metal... It's blood."

First lesson

Thursday 8th November 2012

Fugue

Our first lesson back!!!!! Was so happy to be back in the 'space' doing what I love the most! We first started with a group exercise with the two classes just getting back into 'the zone' and then where told that this term we would be working on a play ( each class having a different play). We were then split up again and given our scripts.

This term we are doing a play called Fugee, which we read through in class talking about all aspects as we went along. I found out that Fugee is a modern play about a 'Fugee' (fugitive) and  a chain of events. The thing i found most interesting about the play was that it starts of with the ending and goes back to the start giving it an exciting and captivating storyline to the reader/audience. During the play the characters step out of character and say lines such as 'The person playing me is an actor' and 'I've got 18 lines...So far' this (we figured out in class) is to un attach the audience from the play and to give them a reminder that it isn't real.

I found this play completely original and exciting and cannot wait to start work on it, it's completely different to anything I've ever worked on before so should be a new and enlightening experience.