Target Audience for second TIE PIECE on Domestic Violence

TARGET AUDIENCE

The needs of teenagers age 14-15

TIE also known as theatre in education is the unit we are currently doing. We performed a piece about decision making but this time it was not to primary school kids it was to, secondary school kids in year 10 aged roughly 14,15. year olds

THE TRUTH

At the age of fourteen and fifteen teenagers begin to think for themselves. At this point they are slowly developing the skills that they have at a more advance level than primary school. Some may start to take courses that they have a genuine interest in. For example, creative fourteen and fifteen year olds may consider going into the performing arts industry(MUSIC, DANCE, DRAMA) other creative individuals would do (ART, MEDIA,PHOTOGRAPHY) logic thinkers may go into career courses such as (Business and finance). From my point of view I thought that year 10s'(14, 15 year olds) deserved to have more knowledge of the world to broaden their way of thinking. But, instead children of this particular age group do not always know about certain topics that really affect them until the people that they are taught or raised by feel that they are mature to know. However, sometimes that may not be the case. I picture things like this, there is a desire for knowledge that is useful in real life situations that even teenagers (14, 15) want to know about despite their age. There is no one I can single out to say that they are immature. Yes some may act immature action wise but they all are much more intelligent than people think; they are react differently when it comes to sensitive matters and take other matters as a joke.

FOCUS

I feel that the other main aspect that teenagers (14, 15 year olds) need to do is to listen in general. Then they would be more focused if they were listening. The idea of a semi-circle came in mind and that is how we set our piece. The dramatic style we used was mostly still images which are also a Brecht technique style. We all wanted it to be simple because simplicity is an art forum in itself. When we(one youth company)leaned forward or let's say in during our performance when there was a character or characters acting in the center of the semi-circle it made it more effective because we were focused if we weren't we would have not portrayed the need of focus or listening properly. During Rehearsals, what I got from the Lean Back and Lean forward; gesture, movement was to symbolise the importance of listening and focusing. In contrast to this, I also thought; if some of them switch off and sort of think about themselves if they are being hurt in any way; how'd they'd feel and react to the message that we were trying to send. They meet the target audiences’ needs because the target audience do not really think about or have knowledge on what goes on. They're just made into sort of like robots they think, speak and act in a certain way.

My personal comment is that teenagers of that age group deserve to know much more about the world at that age, so, they can have independent mindsets and know how to go about things. Also, I feel they should know because if they are stuck in any abusive situation they would not know who to turn to for advice or help or what to do; if they have no knowledge on how to go about it. The structure of our play starts off with us all in a semi-circle telling individual characters stories one by one. Firstly we done a voiceover but that were just an introduction to help start the play. The characters' stories started off with Mauricia Lewis & Ahmed playing Sarah& Daz (Sex- Ting, sex-ting was mainly about meeting strangers on the internet or Blackberry messenger and going to see them without knowing who they truly are), Family abuse; Imogen (female cousin) played by Esther and the male character that abuses Imogen is played by Charles Addae (Male cousin); she convinced herself she likes the abuse and if she likes it she does not need to tell anyone. Bicton & Sean playing Troy& Dan (Sibling rivalry abuse). Tracy and Prince playing (Charlene and James). Michelle played by Sintesha and the character that Darren played is called Paul (Michelle is getting sexual abused by Paul her older brother and in the story, her older brother also sexual abused Michelle's older sister Naomi when she was Michelle’s age fifteen. All these topics were hardcore sensitive; if I was to be put in their shoes watching the work that we done to give them the message that Domestic Violence actually kills 11,000 people more than Afghanistan kills troops and that alone is scary. Even researching about the topic gave me shivers and it made me realize that I owe the people that watch me a truthful performance.

There is still some awkwardness physically and there can be a lot of emotional pain, loneliness and a sense of isolation. A best friend can connect at the level this age needs. Rite of passage experiences evidenced in issues like drinking, drugs, being sexually active and learning to drive become primary areas of intense preoccupation.

                                    
Peer groups own their loyalty

 Socially, 14 to 15 year olds feel they need to move away from parents emotionally. You will notice this by behaviour characterised as acting or feeling angry. In fact, they may try to find parental substitutes.

They now prefer peers as their source for values and standards. They are loyal to peer groups and preoccupied with peer group conflicts. There can be both aggressive and argumentative episodes of acting out. They tend to test limits, challenge authority and struggle to trust adults.


Morally and ethically, they ask the large questions about the meaning of life and want sincere answers. They are more reflective and introspective. Unfortunately, they also are at risk for poor choices and decisions concerning values that could be life-defining. This is a time of moral and ethical exploration to them…in their daily interactions, their media and their world.


With all these changes going on it is easy to understand why parents and caregivers have many struggles understanding this stage of adolescence. However, normalising these changes allows us to understand and react with intention to behaviors and attitudes that are often misunderstood.

This information is taken from the research of Bettie H. Young’s, as published in her book safeguarding your teenager from the Dragons of Life.

Gerry Vassar, President and CEO, Lakeside Educational Network

DEVELOPING IDEAS

We were combined into one big group from four different small grous.
 The theme our group piece had was mainly to do with decision making revolving around domestic violence. The ideas that worked for me was actually deciding on the set. The set was done like forum theatre but in a way it wasn't and what worked about the set which was the semi- circle was the fact that we the people in sitting around the actors in chairs gave it like a theatre/cinema vibe and I liked it because I thought of it like that. The way we used the Brecht technique that was really good because after the mini scenes the still images were so powerfully strong and clear. At the beginning, of the whole group devising piece on Domestic Violence, we were not as was not focused or committed to the work at all so we sort of fell behind a bit. This is was like a week after our separate group’s scenes that we finished devising. We used those separate groups’ devised pieces to make one big group piece and it actually worked really well. For me, the piece that stood out was the group I was in's scene about the male sibling abuse. That made me scared and I reacted to it. I was once told that acting was reacting and when I was around the characters that were acting I had that mentality in my head and that made me look at the mini performances from different characters in a different way. It made me more engaged and interested; I was intrigued by what I saw, I actually thought wait, hold on, we are sixteen and seventeen year olds putting on a performance about Domestic Violence like this. I was shocked-yes there may be flaws in the performances people may have missed their cues by just a split second but then quickly tried to fill in the silent moments.
 

Troy- Where is it?


Dan- where is what ... I don't know what you're talking about


Troy- Come here...


Dan moves closer to Troy then Troy repeats his question


Troy- I'm gonna ask you for the last time where is it?


Dan repeats himself and goes I don't know.

Troy shouts at Dan then Dan runs towards his bag in fear to try and grab something to help him attack back but then that's where Brecht’s still image technique comes in. Then it goes back to the dialogue between the people telling the story. The story tellers told the story of the still image in much more depth than the actors did in all the mini stories of the different characters. The things that didn't work is the focus during rehearsals that absolutely appalling because we wanted it to look improvised on the day we tried to make people say their lines or interject at random times but then we had people Like Edward saying other peoples lines and it was just like why you have a lot of lines already. I thought he was really being greedy and selfish, inconsiderate. That's just my opinion although there were others he stood out because of the response he got when he said the lines that were not for him.

The alternative idea that my group came up with was sister abuse instead of male abuse; the initial idea (sister abuse) are not going to be used in this piece. As a result of there a number of girls getting abused so we decided to make it equal; so we scrapped the female abuse and used the male abuse one. The dramatic style we used as mentioned before was the Brecht still image technique because it was simple, clear and powerful. We thought about how we were going to fuse every single individual story together and came up the idea of the semi-circle because it was like forum theatre and it will get the message across much more than performing individual stories separately. The structure changed as we went along because some of the stories didn't quite fit in. The feedback I had during the rehearsal session was too much more clearly and to articulate, yes this did influence how I performed at the secondary school (Fredrich Bremer)

REFINING PERFORMANCE IN REHEARSAL

During rehearsals, I started to develop my performance by actually focusing on my cues and everyone else’s so in-case something went wrong on the performance day; I would just say someone’s lines for them if they forgot. I mostly thought of when and where to speak because if this was meant to look improvised on the day then I would have to get the cue right, right? This is once I got past the initial ideas stage and had done a lot of discussing with my group and the people I had to do my interjections with. This is when we (the group) started to get the piece on its feet. In rehearsals I tried to say my lines truthfully and not make it seem like I just read a paragraph off a script; book or the internet and I’m reciting it like some poem. I started to be selfish and think about me and what I could do to improve my own performance; so during rehearsals I would block people out and try focus my performance skills, when I’m speaking and how I’d say my lines not only truthfully but make it interesting because I know some year ten’s get bored easily because I know how it feels because I’ve been in their shoes before. One thing I noticed when I was in year ten is when someone is performing and they’re always teary or angry I lose interest because I always see Domestic Violence being performed in an upsetting way. So I’m glad my acting company One changed the style in which we done to appeal to our audience. so when the year 10’s(14,15 year olds) watch me they would think that what I’m saying is not only real but not someone trying to force emotions that are not there, If you get what I mean. What I do in the piece is I’m like one of the people that sit around the characters going through the abuse and tell their stories. I’m like a story-teller. Some of the people in my group like; Tracy who plays Charlene, Prince who plays James, Esther O who plays Imogen, Charles Addae who plays the cousin abuser, Sean Lennon who plays Dan, Bicton who plays Troy, Mauricia who plays Sarah, Ahmed who plays Daz, Sintesha who plays Michelle, Darren who plays the sexually abusive brother, Penny Dobson who plays the older sister of Michelle but the younger sister of Darren’s character. Derese’s character plays the victim of physical abuse. The people I just mentioned are the characters that act out what happened before or after the abuse or the lead up to the abuse scene. The rest of us tell their individual stories and interject with other scenes so it does not seem rehearsed and it was supposed to look a bit improvised and it’s fresh. I think the things that got replaced in the piece like the sister abuse should have not been in the piece at all, despite the fact that, that’s how some abuse start I don’t think it fit into the piece and plus there were too many girls getting abused so it seemed a bit stereotypical especially because we rarely had any boys playing the role of victims that get abuse. So, I’m secretly glad it did not end up in the piece. Well, in rehearsals I am using a couple storytelling techniques like action wise. I also thought a lot about my vocal control (I didn’t want to come across like I was shouting or angry but I did decided to have a bit of an attitude because some people use that as some sort of defence mechanism because they are scared about how others will re act towards how they are like deep inside and they are worried about how their opinions come across to others; facial expression- I tried to look as engaged and focus as I possibly could, acting is reacting. The only gesture that I used was the Lean In and out that everyone done to symbolise the importance of listening. I tried to use that little performance space I had when I was saying the part of the story I was meant to say. I did not concentrate on my costume because there was none. We hardly used any costumes but we did use a few props such as Michelle and her book and Imogen and her bag.

 
MY POSITIVE CONTRIBUTION

To be honest I did not have much of a contribution; it is partly my fault for not writing any scripts that were related to the topic but I did say a lot of the story-telling lines. Simone and I wrote the story for the male abuse scene. In contrast to this, I also wrote a script for the introduction Charlene’s character. I also interjected into other scenes because some people forgot their lines at times. As mentioned before, to be quite frank, my high cooperation with other members of the company in all aspects of the process was decent most of the time I focused on myself when people to lose focus in class and I was going to follow them and lose my concentration so I gradually kept my distance away from them in order for me to stay committed to; focused on the work. Reviewing my own positive contribution and drawing conclusions as to what I think is a really positive team member, I now know in order for me to be a positive team member. Firstly, I need to check my image  and how other individuals perceive me because I need to know how I come across to others especially because I don’t want to be known as a stereotypical black girl. Secondly, I need to start to understand; respect people’s decisions; ideas, thirdly, to give everyone a chance to have a say in decisions that are made. What I am doing to become a positive team member is what I’ve mentioned a positive team member to be. During this project I hardly had meetings with my group unless there was a change in the group but we mostly corrected them or re-wrote them during the whole group devising rehearsal. My facial expression reactions towards the acting in the centre of the semi-circle; the lines i said during the story telling performance I think is also one of my positive contributions