The Dog!

Fantastic Staging

Although it take us hours and hours to travel from cheshire to Broadway, I think the play totally worth it. It is my first time watching a play in Broadway, and my eyes are attracted by the tecnologic stage instantly. Inside the building the decoration are ancient and gorgeous which form a contrast with the stage which is plain and empty. However, as the play the start it suddenly transform a modern sense to the audiences with the dazzling light effects. Although there are not many props and settings on the stages beside the little cubes on the side, quick and glaring background changes formed by only moving these little cubes. The things that interests me most is the trap in the play. The stage is formed by hundreds of cubes and most of them can be moved and opened. Actors can go off stages and get the props they want by simply moving the cubes. And the cubes can be formed into different shape to fit the requirements for the scenes. For example, for the scene in the train station the cube open up and form a pathway for the train. These daring stage design open up a new door for me. That is what kind of play I want to create the combination of technology and acting. By using the projector and moving the cubes to form different scenes and giving audiences an intense impact by the help of sound effects which result in some pain to my ears. My favorite part of the play is when the boy lay on the ground and the train put on the ground start to move around him and massive numbers appearing and disappearing on the background showing audience how the boy is feeling right now which is a visual feast to me. To sum up, I got a lot of inspirations from the play and I hope I can create my own play with that kind of techniques. Another goal is added to my list and I LOVE THIS PLAY!

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1）There is a nostalgic feeling in the poem. We can see that from how the poet's father always talk about the fig tree and how fig tree remind him about his hometown. For example, from the quote:"At age six I ate a dried fig and shrugged. 
"That's not what I'm talking about! he said,
"I'm talking about a fig straight from the earth – 
gift of Allah! -- on a branch so heavy 
it touches the ground. 

2) culture pride, there is also always a proud of their Arabic culture. In the poem poet heritage this proud from his father from the stories he told her. Quote:"It was never too strong for us:

make it blacker, Papa,

3). Missing grandma. The poems also shows how the poet miss her grandmother, she think that she can connect with her from the stars in the sky and they can share memories together. Quote:

Where we live in the world

is never one place. Our hearts,

those dogged mirrors, keep flashing us

moons before we are ready for them.

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staging

Staging Proposal for Whale Hunter

In my opinion, one of main point in the book the whale rider is the unequal rights that women have which is a conflict between the modern world with the old tradition. In order to highlight these two points, I want to show the story from two different perspective. First perspective is from Kahu, she will act out her story about how she develop such a deep love to her grandpa Koro, and she wishes she can help him with his goal of leading the Maori people. Second perspective is from Koro, He will act his transformation from how disappointed feel about the birth of Kahu because she is a girl to he accept her and choose her as the new leader of the tribe after he saw her riding the whale. In that case, audience can experience the conflict between the modern thoughts with the old tradition.

In my play, Kahu represent the modern thoughts. She learn them from her grandma Nanny flower that women can do what men can do. She also influenced by her uncle Rawiri who has known a lot about the world outside the tribe. Koro represent the old tradition parts in my play. He believe that only man can be the leader, so he ignored her grandchild Kahu who love him and trying her best to help him. The play will focus on mainly how the relationship change between Kahu and Koro, and other characters are less important, because they are only used to explain or carry forward the story.  The whale in my play share the same role as the butterfly in the story of My love My Love which is only a guidance for Kahu. It will teach Kahu the tradition and the culture and help her to prove to Koro that she is the leader he’s waiting for.

The sound effects and the lightings should be the most important part for staging my play. In order to differ the two perspectives I have, There should be different music playing when Kahu or Koro is acting. For Kahu, the music should be modern and active which shows her personalities that she is a girl with modern thoughts and firm spirit. For Koro, the music should be constrain and solemn which shows how strictly he follows the tradition and the limits it brings to him. In the end, when Koro finally accept Kahu the music will be a combination of both become peaceful and joyful showing that the tradition adapt the modern ideas. For the lightings Kahu’s also should differ with Koro’s. Koro’s background light should be darker than Kahu’s showing that how depressed the old tradition is. And when the whale appear to guide Kahu the light should be smooth and has a light blue color like the shallow water under the sunshine. I can use the digital camera to project the image of the whale on the background to give audience a magical feelings. Lastly, for the costume all the characters except Kahu should wear traditional Maori clothes to perform the differ between tradition and modern. That is how I am going to stage the play and I think it is going to entertaining and fun! I hope I have the chance to turn it from an idea to practice in the future. : )

Review of Once on the Island

Review of Once on the Island

Looking at my phone, it is about 6: 30. I put on my coat and rush to the Gym. The sky is gloomy and wind blow through my neck roughly. I take a deep breath and trembled, not because of the biting gale or the starless night. My heart is bumping out of my chest looking forward to something it desires. This fierce appetency drives me to walk even faster than normal.  Trotting near the Gym, I see people gathering. They are coming out from their cars and walking into the Gym in a frigid Friday night when people usually stays in their house in front of their fireplace and drinking hot chocolate with their family. Ha, are they having some mental problems? No, that can not be true. Cheshire academy is not famous enough to attract hundreds of lunatics. So why are they walking towards the gym with such agog expressions on their face. Vigilance appears in my mind. Right! They are coming with the same reason that I have. “Ta.Ta.Ta.Ta” It is not the time to be gentle; I used the body movement(Chinese Kung Fu) I learned from my experience at dining hall in order to twisting through the crowd.

“My last name is Chen, first name is Yilun. Thank you!” After taking a deep breath, I look back to the people who is still in the line with a contemptuous smile and step into THE BLACK BOX THEATER with pride. “I have waiting for you for too long my man.” I murmured to myself.  Under my impassive face is a restless heart wanting for the play called “Once On The Island”.

The play is mostly singing which is my favorite form of play. Also, the staging of the play

really interests me; the gods stand on the stairs in the corner of the stage which shows that the god are above human, and different pattern on the stairs and different costumes gods wear distinguish each other. I can easily tell the god with blue dress on a water like stairs is Agwe the God of the sea. Besides that, each gods have their unique voice which show their personalities.  For example, Papa Ge’s laugh is creepy and spooky which I should learned

from, because I also act as Papa Ge in my play. Therefore, I pay my most of my attentions on Papa Ge’s performance. I love Papa Ge’s performance at the end of the scene which she dance and sing around Ti Moune and talking to her about death and love. It inspires me of how I should move in my play when I am talking to Ti Moune. I should add some body movement such as twisting, crane my neck and look around, swaying… instead of standing still like a timber pile.

The part I like most about is when Ti Moune and mama both singing about the same line:”What should I do? He is in great dangers.” but talking about different people. Also, I like how James’ acting of Tonton which is exactly an old man to me. He sings well, too.

To sum up, I think the play once on the island really deserve my time and I am 100 percent focus during the play. Thank for all the actors, stage crews, and teachers who put together this show. It is the best play I have ever seen in cheshire academy!(Besides spelling bee, because I am a part of it haha.)

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Oral Presentation

Our group combined the story of Little Red Riding Hood and My love My love because I think two stories share lots of similarities. For example, Ti Moune travel through the forest to see Daniel, little red riding hood travel through forest to see her grandmother. Also both stories have a bad guy behind and making conspiracy trying to stop them from seeing people who they loved which is Papa Ge and Big bad wolf. However, those two stories have different endings. That is because the story of little red riding hood is a fairy tale and My love My love is a story for adult which reflects the reality. Therefore, I want to combine those two stories to show how cruel reality is compared to fairy tale.  
The characters we pick are Papa Ge which is the Big bad wolf, Ti Moune which is little red riding hood, Daniel which is the grandma, and Ezurille which is the wood chopper. We also add Andrea in order to show the classes difference that exist in the reality compare to the fairy tale, which present the gaps between rich and poor by letting Daniel choose from Ti Moune and Andrea.

In the play, my role is to act as all of the evil characters such as Papa Ge, and the Guardian. The significant of my role is to show the cruel site of the reality, which create tons of difficulties to Ti Moune. For example, I control Daniel and wake him up from his impulsive decision which is to married Ti Moune by leading Daniel to find Andrea who is a white girl who is also in the same class as Daniel. In that way, I form a contrast with Ezurille who represent the fairy tale part of the play.  I distinguish my two unique characters by using different voice, body languages, and costumes. When I act as Papa Ge, my voice is really sharp, and usually end my lines with a creepy laugh; I wear a wolf mask on my face to show the connection with the story little red ridding hood, and I always make sneaky actions and creepy sound to show that I am an evil character who is always trying to stop Ti Moune from achieving her dreams. When I act as the guardian, I always shout out my lines and speak with no manners; I also take off my mask and black coat to differ from Papa Ge.

We stage our play mostly in the center stage, and adding black out and soundings to separate the play to different scenes. By adding costumes, popes, and different settings the play become more realism.

To sum up, though play I connect a fairy tale and a story based on reality to extrude how cruel reality is. By acting my characters such as Papa Ge, I learned how to be sneaky and evil and this is the first time I act as a bad guy in the play which is a very different feeling. However, try out different characters is always an interesting thing to me!

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I Am A Big Bad Wolf Called Papa Ge

In my opinion, The story My Love My Love share a lot of similarities with the story My Little Red Riding Hood. Therefore, I want to combine two stories to show that how cruel the reality is compared to the fairy tale. In that case, the story Little Red Riding Hood represent the fairytale part of our play; according to the plot of fairytale Ti Moune will meet some difficulties on her way to achieve her dream, but by the help from other people she will get through all of the troublesome problems and reach her dream. However, that not how reality works. Nobody can help you forever in the reality. You need to rely on yourself, because nobody is the “main character” in a play called world. In order to embody this idea into our play,  although Ti Moune get help from her loa God Erzulie, but because of the chains of identity, wealth, race she failed her dream at that period of the time. Finally, Daniel fall in love with another woman who is white and wealthy and sees Ti Moune as a lovely peasant girl or even a servant. Therefore, audience can understand the play and the differences between fairytale and reality better; the play will be very similar to Little Red Riding Hood on costumes, settings, and dialogue, but the plot and the ending is according to the story My Love My Love.

In the play, I think I seize the characteristic of Papa Ge. By practicing the evil laugh and creepy facial expression. Through exaggerated performance such as laughing after almost every lines I speak and the emotion I carry, I create an unique character. While I am acting, I am really into the character, I feel that I was Papa Ge who’s trying to  stop Ti Moune from achieving her dreams. In the play, my character serve as the evil part of the story which form difficulties for Ti Moune and help to lead the story to going forward. The more I act well as Papa Ge the more influence I will give to my teammates which will them to substitute them into their character. In that case, the play will be more authentic to the audiences. However, acting is not always an easy job for me. Memorizing and pronouncing the lines are challenging to me, because as the play goes on I need to act and speak with emotion in the same time which make the progress become harder. Nonetheless, the most challenging and frustrated part for me is to coordinate with my groupmates. We act in different position, having different emotions, and having different lines, but we need to match up with each other on body language, eye contact, location and costumes. Also, we need to help each other and make sure the play is keep going, when one of us forget the lines.

In my opinion, we still need lots of practice, in order to present the play. We still need to work on our staging, conversations, and emotions. However, I believe our group have the potential to create an epic play! Cheer up mates!