Feedback from the Dress Rehearsal

During the dress rehearsal, we recorded ourself and then we watched it. Here’s my evaluation from watching it. 

Scene One: Gluttony:

We need to enter faster, the stage is empty for too long which bores the audience.

We need to work more as an ensemble to make sure that everyone has the right timing for each step.

Most steps will look great once we are synced. 

I need to think about to keep my face throughout the whole scene. I noticed that I sometimes dropped my Butoh face and went to neutral. 

Scene Two Sloth:

Once again, I need to keep my Butoh face and make sure that I face the audience.

We need to work on how we use the prop to make the movements look more real and believable. 

Scene Three Envy:

Me and Ruby works as a part and uses the technique of tracing in order to show envy. This worked very well in this scene. 

Scene Four Pride: 

The diva walk entrance was intimidating and a bit scary-which was the affect I wanted to achieve. 

The shiny cloth worked very well as a prop, and it looked aesthetically pleasing along with the projection on stage.

It was interesting to see how the projection worked with the movement on stage, and I’m pleased with how the projection I designed looked on stage. I won’t change anything about the multi media.

We need to work on the timing and make sure we are synced when we step over our hands to sit down. This is the only movement which we all do exactly the same, and therefore it’s important that we do it at the same time. 

Scene Five Lust: 

The movements looked very nice, but we really need to work on the timing.

The multimedia looked great on stage

Scene Six Wrath: 

Once again, I need to practice keeping the butoh faces throughout the whole scene. 

Make it more EXTREME! 

Scene Seven Greed: 

The props worked very well.

We need to slow down. We were moving much to fast for butoh dancers.

To conclude, the major aspects I need to work on are the faces and timing. I need to make sure I practice so that we all have the same faces and it looks unified. And we all need to practice so that we do the synced steps at the same time, to do this we need to listen to the music closely and count. E.g, look up and show the face of fear after six steps etc. 

Costumes

Costumes:

For our performance, the girls will be wearing a light beige colored tube top and brown Thailand fishermen pants. We want to be as natural as possible, and wearing a tube top will enable us to show as much skin without the costumes becoming too sexual. All colours used with the costumes are earth and natural colors- no bright or strong colours. This is to help to emphasize the theme of nature and wilderness in Butoh. It’s important for the costumes to look natural in o

The boys will be shirtless and wear the same Thailand fisherman pants as the girl. The same type of pants provides a sense of unity, and will hopefully help to clarify and improve ensemble work. It will also make the stage look natural and balanced instead of intense and/or flashy. 

Multi Media Explanation

An important aspect of this production is multimedia. Each director is in charge of designing and creating a multimedia aspect such as a video, projection, sound etc. to complement his/her sin. For Pride, I did a projection including still images and moving animation. 

My overall aim for the projection was to clarify and emphasize important points regarding the meaning behind each movement the actors make as well as to broaden the audience’s perception about pride. I also hope the projection will add a sense of excitement and help to provoke emotions within the audience. To put together a powerful projection I used Keynote, particle illusion and Quartz composer. Particle illusion and Quartz composer helped me to create certain animations that I wished to have, on Keynote I added still images and put together the final product.

Below is a breakdown of all the images and animation I’m showing along with the meaning and aim behind them. 

The projection starts with a few simple words "I CAN. I WILL. IT IS ALL ABOUT. ME." These will be projected onto the back while the actors are entering in a movement called the “Diva walk”. The words projected shows what the actors are thinking and what they most likely would say. They are there to help clarify the feelings they actors are trying to show to the audience. 

The next two images both help to show the self-obsessed part of pride. They will also be shown during the entrance, “Diva walk”.

 I especially favor this picture on the right side, as it portrays several parts of pride. Firstly, it obviously shows the self loving and self-obsessed part of pride as she is touching he

rself. Furthermore, a peacock feather, which is the symbol for pride, is painted onto her chest. I believe this really makes the picture, as without it, the picture looks almost only sexual, with no deeper meaning behind it. The symbolism with the peacock feather adds a deeper layer of meaning to the picture. Furthermore, the woman is posing for the camera with very limited clothing, which shows that she is most likely proud of her body.

This picture shows what the words looks like. They are written in a simple, clear and bold way to make it easier for the audience. I want to keep the words simple in order to not draw too much attention from the movements, costumes and make up. Once again, these words’ -WATCH ME GO- function is the same as the previous ones- to help clarify what the feelings of the characters on stage. 

In order for the audience to hopefully further understand what the peacock has to do with pride, I choose to repeat the symbol. This image shows a woman’s face that’s half covered behind a peacock. I believe it shows how when you sin, the sin takes over and labels your body and soul as sinful according to christianity. In other words, if one commits a sin, and doesn’t repent it, God looks upon him/her as a sinner. 

The next images are to compensate for the bowl of water that I planned to use as a prop but couldn’t (see “Pride- changes along the way” for further explanation of this). Instead, I used a shiny cloth. The water is there to help convey that the cloth is acting as water, and what the characters are seeing and falling in love with is indeed their own reflection. 

This moving animation has the same message as the water pictures. I really like the colours of it, and I think it casts a nice almost mesmerizing light on the stage. Furthermore, the water droplets and rings helps to create the feeling of mesmerization, as it is a very repetitive, symmetrical and almost hallucinative. 

Finally, I choose to finish my scene with this picture. It clearly shows narcism as it is a picture of a person kissing her own reflection, with the word narcissistic below her face. I believe it’s a appropriate conclusion to the scene as it shows one of the key message I am trying to convey- narcism, in a clear and effective way.