14/09/2023
To begin the commencing week, Jess had presented us with a lesson on the concepts of pedestrian and minimalist movement in dance, the difference between the two being that pedestrian movement is based in the reality of everyday movements, such as simply walking, standing or sitting, whereas minimalist movement is based in using minute, basic movements. This then lead to looking into the work of a man by the name of Jonathan Burrows, a choreographer who uses a combination of pedestrian and minimalist movements in his pieces. We focused specifically on his piece titled “Both Sitting Duet”, which entails two men seated by one another, indirectly communicating entirely by movement alone. This piece is heavy on pedestrian movements, specifically highlighting , giving the entire thing a casual look. We were then put into groups, assigned the task of creating our own piece based heavily on the styling of Jonathan Burrows’ “Both Sitting Duet”.
15/09/2023
On this day we discussed the making of a monologue; we asked ourselves questions such as “what is a monologue?”, “what makes a monologue a monologue?” and “how do you write a monologue?”. After asking this amongst myself and my peers, I have concurred that a typical monologue can usually be defined as a speech of varying length, however usually lasting somewhere around a minute or so, that is directed toward another character or perhaps even the audience. In contrast, however, a soliloquy is a subtype of monologue that is usually directed toward no one in particular, but a speech intended only for the character speaking to hear. This is similar to an internal monologue, which is a monologue heard from within the character’s own mind instead of spoken aloud, however the key difference is that an internal monologue is still usually directed toward another person; typically the audience or perhaps spoken with another character in mind. After learning the different types of monologues and their differing factors, we began researching toward creating monologues of our own. One of these forms of research was watching examples of powerful, effective monologues via a compiled list on a YouTube video. As we watched, our tutor Steph pointed out key parts of each given example, highlighting the strengths of these monologues and what made them so effective. After we had a rough idea painted of how to make different kinds of monologues achieve their own unique, desired effects, we headed down to the library to find books on monologues. I chose a book that spoke about the process of writing monologues for the 1996 movie “Trainspotting”. It spoke about the usage of period-relevant pop-culture in the movie and the suffering endured by the British working class, which often lead many to turn to drugs to cope, yet ironically kept them poor as their addictions became increasingly expensive. After this, we went back to our classroom and were instructed to do some more research on examples of monologues. I chose some famous monologues from a few of my favorite tv shows: 2 from Orange Is The New Black, 1 from Bojack Horseman and 1 from Breaking Bad. These helped me develop a greater understanding of monologues and what made them unique.