1. Describe the exercise; Just Be

The exercise "Just Be" sounds like a really simple and easy exercise.
All you need to do is stand in front of a group of people-(preferably in neutral) and just make eye contact with people, and just be there.
However, even though it sounds like an easy exercise to do, it isn't. For me, I found it particularly hard because I felt awkward not doing anything and people just staring at me doing nothing. I felt like I should have been performing something, or doing something for people to watch, but I had to just be. So for me, I found it hard.

2. How can you apply any of today's exercises to your scene?

  I think you could actually use the game "Just Be" in a performance, because I think it's such a powerful thing to do, as you're standing there, just being there. And when you catch eye contact with the audience it will make it even more powerful as you aren't afraid to just be.

As my group and I were not rehearsing on Friday because we were still thinking of idea, we didn't take any pictures. But then we came up with a few ideas for our performance.

-One of the ideas being that Izzy was walking up and down beside The Berlin Wall. Then Georgina and myself ask her what she is doing, before long somehow Izzy manages to talk Georgina and me into giving her a boost so she can get over the wall, to be with her family. However, when she gets to the top of the wall, someone shoots her-(Harry, who plays Izzy's brother), as he pulls the trigger, he then recognises Izzy and has a flash back, before the wall was built- before they got split apart.

1) How did you come up that idea?

We came up with this idea by using some of our research we looked up. We thought of setting it all about The Berlin Wall, as the song we were given ("Heroes" by David Bowie) was written in Berlin in 1977. Overall, the song is about love, about two lovers, but instead of having two intimate lovers in our piece, my group and I decided to change the lovers into a brother and sister. We did this because then they have a longer history with each other, and they share the same DNA, so therefore when Harry shoots Izzy it will have more of a harder impact on the audience. Because it would be hard enough for any sane man to shoot someone, then for that someone to be a relative... It should be impossible to shoot them.

2) How does it link back to your song?

Our performance isn't completely based on our song. What we've done is find out some background information about the song (aka, where it was set, when it was set, who was it about, where was it written etc).
Anyway, our performance links back to the song with where the song was written-(Berlin) and when it was written-(1977).
With the information we thought would come in handy, we managed to come up with a very stable plot for our performance.

3) What is the next thing you want to work on next?

The next thing I would like to work next is choreograph each of the scenes and sort out who's going where at what exact time. Also, I would like to work on the group's dialogue because none of us know what to say ever.

1) What are the main feeling you tried to express?

I am expressing; violence, love and hope.
Because they are the main feelings that shone out in the song.
"And we kissed", "'Cause we're lovers"- this showed the love in the song.
"We can beat them"- this shows the violent edge to the song as it is saying nothing can get in their way.
"I will be king"- this shows that he is hopeful/determined to become king, even though we know he can't be king.

2) 1 idea for what you would like to do in the scene.

One of the things I would like to do in a scene would to have a killing-(violence) and have the person struggling for survival, and the person's loved ones to be hoping for them to stay alive.

1) How can we improve what we did in class?

One of the main things we need to improve on in class is the involvement of other, as a few people in our group aren't doing very much.
We can improve this by giving them more dialogue and more places to be on stage, so they're constantly doing something.

Another thing we need to do to improve our piece that we did in class is by our facts right. Because at the moment our facts were not entirely accurate, so to improve on that we're all going to be doing a lot of research on the Berlin Wall in 1977.

2) What more research do we need?

As I said in the in the answer above, my group and I all need to research The Berlin Wall in 1977.

But we also need to research why people wanted to escape to East Berlin.
Also, of course, why the Berlin Wall was built.
We also need to find out more about how it was so hard-(near on impossible) to get over the wall. What was stopping civilians getting over the wall?
We also need to know what the wall did to people's lives, and how it affected the soldiers/guards mentally.

3) How can we use what we learned from today's lesson exercises?