Alice

"It's no use going back to yesterday, because i was a different person then"- Lewis Carroll
Alicia is a ballet performance based on Lewis Carroll's famous novel Alice in Wonderland, choreographed by Humberto Canessa and directed by Pepe Corzo. Presented in El Gran Teatro Nacional, the play portrays the story of Alice, whose innocent behaviour leads her to an amazing encounter with Wonderland. Being this a ballet performance, rather than an acted play, dance takes upon the main role to portray an unspoken story. Next year's school play will be our own adaptation of Alice in Wonderland, so i believe having watch a professional performance was very useful to inspire ourselves in order to draft ideas for next year.

The play was divided into two acts, with five to six scenes per act. Although i haven't read the novel itself, i think that the way they handled the story was good enough, cutting the first act with Alice's first encounter with the Red queen, so I think that we could use a very similar structure for next year. However there are two things i would change and think are essential for our adaptation. I believe that the first act should end with a sort of cliff hanger, and a rising action that catches the audience more, something i felt that the play didn't achieve at the end of their first act. Another thing is that i believe that the Mad Hatter should make an appearance during the first act, because i think he is one of the most dynamic and interesting characters, in fact he is the most iconic of the play. So i think that unlike the ballet, should we include the Hatter in at least one scene of act one, the play would gain a very interesting character to play with. Nonetheless, i find it very useful to use their structure as a guideline for ours.
One thing I strongly believe is that we should not follow the same story as the ballet and the first novel. I think that the second novel, Through the looking glass has a lot of interesting characters and ideas presented, that i think are worth using. Besides, i find it rather odd if we follow the same old Disney sort of thing.
Something that i really like, and i think could work beautifully for next year's play, was how they begun the play. Alice was sitting alone on the stage and a clock was ticking, for which she was solely illuminated forming a sort of circle and casting a shadow on the screen opposite of her. I think that it would be interesting to start our own play in a very similar way, having Alice sitting on the stage alone playing with her doll, whilst the sound of the clock ticks loudly. However i believe that unlike the ballet, we shouldn't include an actual visual of a clock at the back because it takes away a bit of the mystery, as well as not using the screen that splits the stage into two, for obvious reasons. The use of the light in this sequence was very interesting as it drew the focus onto Alice and her movements, which i think we should do equally.
I think another very interesting scene was how they did Alice's fall through the rabbit hole, which i was already wondering how they would do it. They used several dancers dressed with patterns, who carried Alice and did a sort of dance/movement sequence that portrayed the fall. I think that we will not be able to do something similar as it seems a bit confusing and difficult (our actors are not that strong please...). So i think the most reasonable thing to do is to have Alice fall through the trapdoor (no pun intended). Yet i think we could do a very interesting sequence with the lights in a similar way they did. As well as using the real life character, just like they did, to stand around and act as memories or "ghosts".

As mentioned before, i think one of the most interesting and iconic characters of the play is the Mad Hatter, and i felt a bit disappointed on how they handled his character, because it only appeared at the very end, and had a minimum role that did not stand out as much. I think we could use in more interesting ways, and give him a rather bigger role. Something i found interesting is that there was a second level just after the main stage, and during the entire play, no character used it to dance, as there was more than sufficient space in the main stage, However, during Alice's meeting with the Hatter, both character's do cross to the extension and begin to dance, as if they entered a different dimension. I think we could do something very similar in the sense that the Hatter should be able to further connect or approach the audience, as part of his characterization. Speaking of which, i think the character lacked a lot of physicality to characterize his craziness, after all he is mad. So i believe we need to work on having a good portrayal of this character.
One of the character's that intrigued me the most was the worm guy (worm dude), because regardless of the fact that he was the best dancer (in my opinion), i think the way they portrayed him was incredibly interesting. They used various dancers that would sometimes attach to the main dancer, and make the movements like an actual worm. I think we could have the worm be a portrayed by three or even four actors, that work together to portray the movement and the body of the worm. I think his physicality full of curvy movements was very accurate to the insect, and i think we should aim to do something similar.
One character i enjoyed, yet wasn't very amused by, was the Red Queen. I think that the characterization was very interesting, portraying a failed dancer of some sort, and a burlesque character. However i think we shouldn't portray the character as skinny as she was on the ballet, because it takes away a bit of Carroll's description, and i believe it gives a further sense of ridicule. Still, i think that just as the ballet, the Red Queen should be the comic relieve, in the sense that the audience should make fun of her.
I believe that one of the best characterizations was that of the rabbit, who had very nervous and rapid body movements, as well as androgynous movements. I think that we could take inspiration on this portrayal, as it fully shows the character's intentions and ideology that Carroll explains in his book. I think we could even take inspiration on some of his dance moves, to give a further insight into the character's rabbit side. Yet i believe it is necessary for the character to have a big pocket watch, rather than a wrist one like the one they used in the ballet.

In terms of the costumes, i think they were amazing, and managed to show the impressive and crazy side of Wonderland, as well as the down to earth side of the real world. I think we could take mimic the designs of the human characters, although i think we could use dull and lifeless colors, rather than the vivid ones they used on the ballet, as it would show the dullness of reality and further contrast with Wonderland. Likewise, i think that the colors we use for Wonderland and its characters should be very vivid and lively.
The one costume i really hated was that of the Cat. I think the use of foam tubes was very interesting, but it did not reach the same standard as the other costumes. I believer we should not design something similar, and should seek to do the opposite.
I think that Alice's costumes was very dull and simple, and would have like to see something more interesting or lively. I think that we should go a different path and do something different to the ballet and the movie, yet keeping the blue color (i like blue). Still i believe we should have a costume in between the livelihood of Wonderland and the deadness of the real world. I though the contrast of the blue and the pink from the skirt did not work, and just made the character very childish.
I really liked the design of the rabbit, and i think we should keep the vest type of costume, and the white colors, as well as the ears. Yet i think that we shouldn't use the black patterns, as i thought that they made the rabbit look like a cow instead,
Although i think that the worm's costume was rather simple for the dancer to move, i think that we should do something much bigger and greater. Using make up and some patterns, like the one his costume had, we could create a very lively worm.
As i said before, i think that the slim and cartoony costume the Red Queen wore was not very amusing, and did not fully evoke the character's burlesque ideology. So i think that we could work by taking inspiration from Elizabethan and Victorian dresses, and using them with lively red patterns, making her more visually intriguing for the audience.
I think we could work with distorted versions of the old fashionable dresses, when it comes to the designs of the courtmembers and such. I think we could create a very lively and interesting image with all these distorted and visual costumes alongiside exaggerated make ups, that evoke a sense of satire to the scene.

I think that the visual effects of the ballet were incredibly interesting, specially the one with the box when Alice grew big. Still i don't think they will work for us, and we shouldn't realu any of those ideas. Also, we don't have the technology or the money to do those sort of things...

There wasn't really a lot of scenery on stage, as the characters needed enough space to dance. During the scenes in the real world, they used trees, and we shouldn't really use that, yet we could set a very mundane or common stage, with dull colors, to portray reality.
However, i found incredibly cool the use of strage shapes and patterns during the fall and other scenes of distortion, which undoubtly gave a visual performance of fantasy. I think we could inspire ourselves in using distorted scenery, where usual objects have funny shapes and such, in order to show the fantasy of Wonderland.
The same goes with the lights, they obviously have a lot more lighting equipment at their disposal, and are able to create further effects, unlike us. Yet we could use the same ideas of the combination of unusual colors to light the stage duing Wonderland.

I'm really excited for next year, and i think that watching the ballet was really worthy, as we were able to start visualizing what we want to do in the future. Brace yourself Alice.

Director's Note Origins

This past week, we began the process of the Director's Note, or well at least the demo. We read the IB's guidelines and decided how we were going to work until the end of the year. This will be a long process...

Looking back at the beginning of the year, i thought the DN project was going to be quite fun, and rather easy. However, now that i have seen the actual rubrics and guidelines, i have come to realize y was plain wrong. I think now that we are getting closer to the end of the year, and the start of next one, we are doing things closer to what the IB requires, which in this case is the External Assesment. I now realize that what i have been told about extensive works and countless hours of working during the IB are actually true, and it makes me feel both exited and nervous for what this challenge will be like, or well, would have been like.
Personally, i am feeling rather excited for the DN demo, because now i can let my imagination loose and just create whatever i want. I think it is the IB project that gives you the most freedom and felxibility to create and imagine, so im looking forward to it.
I do feel a bit nervous about how extensive this work is, and i'm not sure how well will i complete the 20 page project. Plus, the fact that we have to do it during the hardest weeks of school, which are the final trimester dates and end of year exam weeks, makes things a ton more difficult. I really do not know how i will manage.
I think that i have to keep on working hard, and organizing myself, because this is IB.

The closer i got to being a director was the school play. I never truly got to fully direct a scene, but acting as producer and creator gave me the necessary skills i need to complete this project demo.
One of the main aspects is the research skills, which will serve for the first part. For the school play we had to research about Kathakali and the Ramayan itself, learning about the context and traditions in order to understand and have further insight into what we were going to do. Now, the work goes a little further, as we need to research every detail that seems relevant of the context of the play, whereas is the author himself or the historical and geographical context. We have already a lot of research of Streetcar named Desire (the play we chose to work with), because of the English lessons. However, i think we need to combine both the skills we learned by doing the Ramayan and what we already know from Enlgish, to go one step further. I think that this is very important for a director to do because he needs to be aware of all apects of the play before he begins working on it, which also applies to any type of creative work that starts upon an existing work, such as adapting a play.
Another aspect is the creation of a concept and a vision for the adaptation. If we hadn't done the play at the beginning of the year, i think i would die doing the DN. This is because it took us about 2 weeks to define a concept, and we didn't have much experience to do it. But now, i can work with my previous learning and skill to shape both the concept and the vision. I even think that i can use my experience in all the plays to imagine and create upon that. Plus, i think it is important to combine, as a director or theatre maker, both the research and the creative exploration to produce a powerful and workable vision for the play.
We still haven't gotten that much into detail of the process, because we just started and have only read the guidelines and rubrics, barely begining the research work. So i think there is still a lot to learn and to explore in the near future. Still, i think this is great practice for next year at the play and at the real IB product. I think it is nice to sit on the director's chair, and let ourself be the creator's of what we want to see.