Behind the Lines

Friday we had our first performance of the term.

Behind the Lines. Rememberance day, 11/11/11. Our performance was devised around the words of soldiers. Throughout the previous weeks we had all brought in material we had found. Speeches, letters, poems and songs, all by soldiers and others who had been affected by war. We had pieces spanning several different wars, different countries and different languages. Everyone brought something different to the table.

The process was quite interesting. I really loved the range of material everyone found. In the end though, I think the focus ended up being to much on collecting material. We didnt start putting the piece together as a whole until the last week or so. Everyone had done individual work on their pieces, and we had all learned several choral numbers, but we didnt really touch on the structure of the piece until quite late in the process. Everything did pull together. I think in the end we did have quite an interesting production, and a lot of the audience found it quite moving. I think though had we focused more on the overall picture we could have gone even further with it. There were moments where interest flagged, where pauses felt arbitrary and things got a little too meaningful. On the whole though I think we were 'absolutely not bad'.

We were reminded several times throughout the process that it was highly unusual for us to have a performance this early into the course. For that I think we should be proud of ourselves that we stepped up to that challenge. However I think we can do so even more. I am eager to move on to the next project, to push ourselves further.