Train Surfing Unit Reflection

For our last performance assessment piece we choose 4-5 people for each group, in order to construct a drama piece related to the story we have looked at so far. The main aim for our performance project was to create a story revolving around the past few lessons that we have looked at on train surfing - and different performances we have done. We had to think critically and creatively to come to a unique idea to show case our peers on this unit - Train surfing. It was important for each group to show case their drama skills through different mediums such as: facial expressions, volume of voice, space, levels. Also, in order to create a more realistic performance piece we all were encouraged to bring in props and costumes to suit our performance, to create a more engaging act for the audience. Each group was asked to create a performance piece which included at least one drama medium such as: Marking the moment, thought tracking, cross cutting, freeze frame and hot seating.

On the first lesson my group (Aizah, Ghassan, Jash) worked on the story of our performance piece, we made sure we planned out our performance before starting to act, so that we could brainstorm and evaluate each other's ideas. Our main aim was to create an interesting story that would involve the audience and will also use the drama mediums required to use. Through some discussing we all came to a conclusion that we all would like to use few different types of mediums appropriately to achieve a higher level. We started to brainstorm ideas for our plot, we came across a few ideas and we narrowed it down to the best ones.

We finally decided to combine all the scenes we did during this unit of drama. We combined the scenes where the uncle and the teenager have an argument, when the teenager saves the train surfer, the train surfer who jumps of the train and gets hurt, and when the teenager runs away. We all organized these scenes in chronological order (First to last), in order for the performance to make sense. It was easier for all of us in the group to project this plot, as we all of have done these acts in different groups, therefore we have more practice. Everyone in my group was assigned roles/multiple roles depending on their drama skills, also making sure that we were fair enough to give a similar amount to each person in the group.

The aim or the objective of this task was to improve each individual's acting skills in drama, so that everyone can become more confident in their act. Throughout the term we did many short pieces of performances practicing our drama skills, improving each time. We all started to learn the different mediums used in drama and how to use each of them appropriately for each performance. We used different types of drama mediums that would greatly improve our drama skills and drama performance piece. Some of these skills are:

• Facial Expressions: It is important while acting to portray the exact facial expressions the character you are playing, feels. You also need to be able to convey proper emotions and feelings to support the character you are playing in the performance.
• Body language: To truly act like the character through simple body gestures, or habits which will help make the character more realistic. Example: when a character is nervous they might fidget with their hand, the might clear their throat, etc.
• Space: In drama it is very important how you use the space given to you. So, it is important to use as much space as required, to make the performance more engaging for the audience, as it would be very boring to watch an act on the corner of the stage.
• Levels: To make your performance more detail and to have better stage presence, it would be a good idea to have different levels, to make a more interesting act.
• Freeze frame: The action is frozen in time
• Intonation: Rising and falling of speech
• Thought tracking: An aid to characterization: the character speaks their thoughts out loud.
• Flash back: Acting out an event which took place in the past.
• Marking the moment: Emphasizing a particular scene because of it's importance. 
• Hot-seating: Questioning a character in role.
• Cross-cutting: Two or more scenes which are performed on stage at the same time.

Our initial vision was to create a piece of drama act which combined all the scenes we have done in drama lesson about Rio, Brazil, so far. Although, after we successfully did so we felt that our performance still needed work to create a more interesting back story for the audience to enjoy. We rehearsed our performance several times after we were done, to be able to perform with confidence in front of an audience (i.e. our class). We thought of several various ideas to support our back story for the train surfer although, we were unable to come to a conclusion. Some ideas we came across for our performance was:

• A lifestyle is the favelas of Rio, Brazil
• How Carlos (the train surfer), decided to train surf in the first place.
• Why Carlos lives with his Uncle (What happened to his parents)
• Why Carlos’s Uncle not give importance to Carlos
• Why Carlos is living in favelas.

Out of all the ideas above we tried to match our story with the abilities of each person in our group, so that we could obtain a higher grade/level for our drama performance piece. We ultimately decided to do something more creative, using a style not everyone in our group was aware or comfortable with (risk taking – taking upon new challenges). We decided to use cross-cutting, and to show this we decided on a scene where the uncle has a flash back about themselves train surfing at a younger age, which is why the uncle is very strict to Carlos – to protect him, from what the uncle himself had gone through in the past.

I feel that the initial vision of my group was very basic – to combine all the scenes that we all had already performed during this unit (train surfing). My group made quite a few variations in our drama piece in order to create a higher level of drama performance, which was the flash back scene we added.

Yes, I think theatre can be a catalyst for positive social change, because a way to connect everyone around the world together is through influence of culture or entertainment. Theatre plays a big role in everyone's daily lives and throughout the world their are many people who feel immense joy when watching shows. Different cultures and countries around the world are linked together because of their love for theatre and drama. In our society today we all enjoy watching movies together, an activity which brings everyone closer. Theatre has brought in such a huge positive impact amongst people around the world.Through generations and different eras drama has been passed down, and has evolved as time changed. Since, the idea of performance was suggested, we have been creating it till this day, and throughout we have created changes to keep our tradition alive. Today, there are many shows and theatre acts played in metropolis cities such as New York (Broadway). 

Although, there are many more types of drama that can be found across different cities, countries. We all enjoy creating and more importantly watching movies. They not only bring people together, but also help everyone understand new creative ideas of other people somewhere in the world. Because of theatre and acting cultures, people have been able to communicate more freely with others, and many people have been able to merge themselves into a creative society. I feel that theatre has brought many educational aspects for everyone, because by watching acts and or movies we come across cultures and traditions new to us, allowing us to gain more knowledge and understanding about that city or country or religion, helping everyone to be sensitive to one another's ideas. Through creative acts like theatre or movies people become more involved in the environment around them. Also theatre helps make people more creative.

I found that theatre helps everyone become more open minded towards opinions given by other people working with them. Through our performance my group developed skills not only related to drama, but also to daily life (Communication, thoughts). Acting helps build our skills for listening to different sides of a conversation or an argument.  

The skills that I have developed through this process that I can apply to other areas of learning is critical thinking and creative ideas. This is because drama helps each individual come across new creative ideas to use in their piece of act, to create a better improved performance. This creativity can be used in other subjects such as Art, Music, English and ICT, because in many subjects we are required to come up with new innovative and interesting ideas to complete our work with more desire. Critical thinking would be used in every subject (As it is an IB school, and encourages each individual to critically think ideas and opinions), also as well as real life situations, because many situations require us to analyze the situation and critically think to come to a logical conclusion. 

Overall, I feel that my group put in a good amount of effort to produce good results for the performance, because each member of my group portrayed a high level of understanding towards the drama skills and were able to realistically display a good performance piece. Everyone in my group evaluated each other's acting in each lesson to help each other improve our skills each time, and in each rehearsal we all came closer to creating a great drama piece. Each lesson we focused on the small habits that made our piece more realistic - since, our theme for this topic is realism. For example, since Aizah and I were the only girls in our group (The piece we had created only had boys for each character), we had to make sure that our habits and body language matched a boy's body language. I feel in the first lesson of trying to act out a good body language as well as facial expressions, Aizah and I struggled to get the right habits, to make our emotions and habits more realistic we observed the boys in our class to get a better understanding of how we can portray a boy's body language, style, emotion and feelings. I feel that although each member of my group including me did very well in voice of character (We had good intonation), we all did not change our accents as we changed our role, this would have gotten us a higher mark, as we are using a medium to support our story to make it further interesting and realistic.