Sophie's IB Theatre Blog

I hate school. I have so much stress on my shoulders. I come home and just want to disappear. Ive been so out of sync with everything. Im sick of everyone at school. Everyone is so rude to me all of the time that I can’t be anywhere with out feeling self conscious.

This is where drama class comes in. It’s the only place i feel happy to be. Everyone in this class is nice and doesnt judge constantly. So IB has been going well most definitely. OCG is still in process. We are rehearsing and writing ideas we can contribute.

I think I want to start looking for a monologue for future auditions… so I will be getting in touch about that…

Sorry for the depressing update. This year has not been good at all. I just needed to vent a little.

I’ve decided that since I’ve been completely busy with dance, homework and family that I would do a weekly update ever week or so to save me time.

So this week, we have been working on OCG rehearsals.

Haley and I have been working on the Aboriginal scenes. We decided it would be a cool idea to have one person do movements and hand signs while the other said the lines. Its just an idea, we might do it differently. We also found a book with some hand signs, I should look up some more that we can use….

As for warm ups, we’ve checked in a few times and played some chain tag. What I really like about this class is that since it’[s so small, everyone can bond easily. If only they were actually motivated to actually play fun games haha....

But this weekend has been sad, agrivating, stressful, tearful and today was happy. I can only hope tomorrow is just as good :]

We have started working on rehursing for OCG.

It’s not as bad as what I was expecting. It’s nice watching how the scene is being portrayed other than what I have always pictured it.

We played a quick game of lovers leap, and had a quick discussion about rehearsals for them rest of the week.

Not too much has been going on. Just trying to get back in the school mode.

Today in IB drama, we had a mini work shop lead by Lucille’s dad about the history of Aboriginals of Australia and didgeridoos.

Did you know that didgeridoos were used to play ritualistic music which were used to calm and/or kind of place a person in a trance of tranquility? They would help the person visualize a place of happiness or calmness, or the vibes would help relax them. Another fact about didgeridoos is that they are made out of tree branches. A person who intended to build a didgeridoo would use a stick to tap branches on trees to see if they were hallow. They would be hallow because there is a type of termite that lives in Australia that eats the insides of trees. Once they found a branch, they would cut it off the tree, sometimes having to use fire to burn its way off if it was tightly connected. Next, they would finish out hallowing the branch using fire. Not by lighting the whole branch on fire, but by kind of smoking it away. They would carve symbols and designs onto the hollowed out branch to make it theirs. Finally, they would dip the ends in beeswax….well I’m assuming the used a material like beeswax considering thats what we did so it would be easier to use our didgeridoos.

We didn’t go out searching for hallow tree branches. Instead, we used long white pipes that we then dipped the end we were going to blow in three times so it would one, make it more comfortable to use and two, so it was easier to blow through.

Finally, how do you use a didgeridoo? Well, it’s pretty much like blowing into a trumpet. You blow out you mouth so your lips are loosly together and vibrate together. The harder part about blowing into a didgeridoo is the circular breathing. Circular breathing is when you blow out your mouth while breath through your nose. It takes A LOT of practice.

Tomorrow, we are going to be painting our new homemade didgeridoos!

We watched Rabbit Proof Fence today in theater class.

Rabbit Proof Fence is about three Aborigine children that get taken away and sent to an Aborigine camp by the Government. They are sent there so that they can basically be separated from the rest of society so half breeds can stop breeding.

It was horrible. These kids were taken away by force from their families. They had never done anything wrong. It was heartbreaking.

While watching the film, these were the notes i jotted down.

Notes

- 1931, Western Australia

-Landscape: dry, hot, dirty, sunny

Key Terms -

- Half Caste (Aborigine), Clothing – tattered cloth dresses, bare feet. They were very family orientated.

- Half Castes were to be sent to a camp so the future would not have mixed races. Black-White race would be extinct.

- Rabbit Proof Fence- goes from the top of Australia all the way to the bottom to the sea. 1,500 miles long

- It was thought that if mixed people kept breeding with whites, the black would essentially be “washed” out

And Last but not least, I have the main requirement of today’s post.

What are some parrallels between Rabbit-Proof Fence and Our Country’s Good?

I put this in a graph format to keep it organized.

This is all I have so far. More will be added as we finish the film.

For my literary interviewing exercise, I will be interviewing the Governor, Ralph, and the other Aborigine.

So today we went over what our research questions are and what our topic is.

I am researching Italian theatre. My questions is, but can change if a better one evolves, “What, from Italian culture, made an influence in Italian play practice?”

By influence, I am referring to religion or the Renaissance (duh) and maybe government and history.

We also got yelled at by Jane for talking.

Sorry Jane!!

Today was pretty chill. We attempted to play a game, but that didn’t work out so well. We also talked about OCG. It was basically classifying our characters and getting into character. Just getting a feeling of being our person. It was a good day. I love late start. It makes my modd for the day a lot more…peaceful I guess you could say.