PATAGONIAN FISH RITUAL

8/13 - 8/18

We worked on this piece for about a week in class. I think it was a great opportunity to experience the roles of a creator, director, designer, and performer all in one exercise. The first thing that happened was our teacher gave us all the same text, “Kayup fish ritual from Patagonia: We Can Hear the Ocean”, then each group got a different set of research. Me and my partner had the 2nd research sheet, it was about a page length of information and a picture of dancing women on the back. The first thing we did was read the texts and then we immediately started brainstorming. I thought of each character as a symbol for something with distinct character traits. The sea women were to represent water and the ocean, their movements were to be fluid and water like, and their costumes were to represent waves. We wanted their voices to start soft like the ocean on a calm day and slowly gain momentum and fall back to soft at the end, like a wave soft at first, then strong, then fading back into the ocean. The elders I wanted to represent wisdom and they were to be apart of the sea women but separate at the same time, their costumes would be in the same color scheme but slightly more modest. Lastly the man we imagined as a boastful, arrogant boy who was just happy that he was the center of attention in this ritual. We made sure his movements were cocky and bold and his voice loud and strong.

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THEATER IN CONTEXT/PROCESS

Context: The context of our research played a big role in how we saw the young man’s character. In our research the young man was the center of attention, he was known as the “beautiful boy”, and this whole ritual was centered around him. So that context is why we decided to create this type of character for him.

Process: The process of directing was very different as I have never directed before. It was frightening at first to have everyone listening to me and hearing my ideas about this text. I think overall my partner and I were able to direct our peers well and were able to effectively convey our ideas about what we wanted. I learned a lot from this short directing process, I learned that there is a fine balance between directing and just bossing people around. Throughout the process I found a way to have the actors do what I wanted without micromanaging them. I thought this was an interesting perspective to theater that I have not experienced before. It taught me that directing takes a lot of work and careful planning and thought. Another part of the process I found interesting was acting out the other groups’ directions. I loved seeing how different context impacted how we directed the same piece. This taught me that research is super important when it comes to directing because you want to make sure you have an accurate representation of what you are trying to present.

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DESIGN IDEAS This was how I envisioned the women would be dressed. They would be in flowing dresses with a light fabric. The dresses would go from blue to white ombre like a wave. An idea for the hair would be a braid like this one that is very loose with maybe a white or blue flower in the center.