Key Influences In Physical Theatre And Devised Performance

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I have devised and created a short piece of Physical Theatre based on Cancer. In order to do this I applied different strategies and exercises throughout the process, some of these came from two key influences in Physical Theatre and Devised Performance. I have researched both Frantic Assembly and DV8’s approaches to performance and what it is they deem necessary for the performer during the creative process. I particularly took interest in DV8’s use of Verbatim Theatre. I chose to highlight Verbatim Theatre and apply this as part of my practice and research for the creation of the text I would use in my piece. I took an interest in Verbatim Theatre because it emphasised the approach I wanted to take. I wanted to create something that was genuine …show more content…

Throughout this process I was constantly challenged by the realism of the technique because I could not adapt it to suit physical movement, which immediately challenged my question which is “Do actions speak louder than words in the context of an issue based peace of physical theatre”. I could not change the context of the words because Verbatim Theatre uses the exact text that is spoken by the individual(s) and you as the performer then imitate it. You take into account any pauses, stutters or accents. [Online] available from: https://civicmediatacticaldesign.wordpress.com/2012/02/07/political-theatre-verbatim-theatre- and-dario-fo/ [Accessed on February 2nd 2015]. It is all about true stories and this is presented through the untouched nature of the dialogue. There are perhaps many ways in which to maintain this authenticity within Verbatim Theatre, arguably the most important being the notion of “true vernacular”.
The other side to this process was the Physical I started the process with three exercises that I had extracted from the book Creating Solo Performance (2015) which I will speak about in more detail when it comes to presentations. Firstly I wanted the words to read through my movement as appose to saying them aloud. However this way of doing it is directly going against the idea of Verbatim Theatre, as I am physically telling the story and not considering any actions of the