Perfomance - evaluation

We performed it to Learning skills students. 
After we performed it we got feed back such as:

• the scenes were clear about each type of bullying
• could take some off the scenes a little further and develop such as cyber abuse, verbal abuse and physical abuse
• it was clear who was who (difference between bullies and victims)
• the physical abuse scene gave the audience 'the chills' meaning that it really effected them
• the ending was really effective

Things that I thought went well were:

• the pace wasn't too slow or too fast
• transitions were clear it was happening around school
• 100% focus from the group

Overall I think we worked well as a full group as we only had a short amount off time to do this. 

23/11/10 - After school

We decided to work on adding a way we can go from one scene to another without it just looking like a boring 'scene change'. As a group we decided to do it as a school corridor and once the bell rings everyone walks around as if they are going to their next lesson. We chose to have the bullies walking into the victims to show the audience that it was clear who the bullies are. And that it happens anywhere. We also ran each scene to see what everyone had come up with for there own individual scene. We gave them feedback in which they can improve on each scene. 

Bulllying - 16/11/10

Scene two : Cyber abuse.

Me, Grace and Lauren decided together to make a conversation that we can use to show up in the background so the audience can see it is a 'over the internet' conversation.
We made the chat as group, and in our own time at home we will actually do the conversation over facebook so that it can be projected on the screen behind the scene in action.


Chat:
Bully one: I saw you at school today... haha!
Victim: Really?When? :)
Bully two: wouldn't you like to know...
Bully one: You should watch out more in future!
Victim: What are you talking about?
Bully two: I like your top.... hahaha!
Victim: Thanks :)
Bully one: Where'd you get it? I want one just like it.
Bully two: hahahahahahahah!
Victim: What is so funny? And it's from New Look.
Bully one: Oh.
Bully two: Just a private joke. You wouldn't get it! Dumbass.
Victim: Oh right. Well er..  I need to go.
Bully one: Why? Bed time?
Victim: No. I just have to go.
Bully two: HA! Your gonna be in trouble with mummy if you don't go to bed soon? Mummy's girl.....
Victim: Shut up. I have to go!
Bully one: Well i'd watch out tonight...
Bully two: Might get a surprise at your front door.
Bully one: Be afraid.
Bully two: Be very afraid.

We have decided to stage this in a line, to show that we are all at home, sitting at the computer.
Me and Grace stand up as we speak and start to get closer and closer to Lauren as this would show that we are getting to her more and more. As we say the last line we stand behind her and almost shout it in her ear to show that we are 'threatening' her.

End of lesson

Starting the project 09/11/10

We started off discussing as a group ideas that we could do, we came up with:

• Begining - Victim scene, using the diary entrys from the other lesson
                - Vitcim paranoia - use of vocal collage.
• Massive varriation of bullying
• Side effects off bullying:
  - Self harming - someone seeing it on the victim. Abstract/physical theatre.
  - Depression
  - Suicide
  - Singling out from friends
• Audience imagination
• Dates and names of victims
• Tension
• Lifts - symbolise death?
• Diary entry for each scene?

Scene by scene:

1.  Verbal abuse & looks
2. Cyberabuse - formspring, facebook, msn
3. Paranioa
4. Physical abuse
5. Lack of confidence. -exclusion from friends and depression.

We decided to do each scene a different type of bullying.
For each scene we have decided to do it with a diary entry to start the scene off.

In each scene we have a different person playing the victim, we thought this would be good to use people who don't have a distinction already so it's fair on them and they have a good part.  Each groups has 3-5 people in it so that everyone can work on one scene instead of the whole class doing scene by scene together, this way it wont take as long to do.

We split of into groups and talked about ideas on how we would like to do the scene.

Scene two: Cyberbullying - Leanne, Lauren & Grace

Three characters in a  row all on computers.

Victim in the middle and bullys on either side.

Reading a converstation out load so that audience can hear.  Victims saying her thoughts out to the audience, but saying something different to bully's to make her look like she isn't scared. - gives the effect of her putting on a face when deep down she is getting weaker.

 End of lesson

Narration - 2/11/10

We looked at the poem 'I am' that is in the booklet we was given.  We then thought of ideas that we could narrate it.
Ways of narration we came up were:

• Poem
• Thoughts said out loud
• Vocal collage
• Music
• Characters coming out and saying it.
• Diary entries
• News reports
• Letters

We then split into two groups. Group one focused on the story from the bully and group two focused on the story from the victims point.

I was in group two, we decided to do it as a diary entry. We worked out each section we could do

- Date it started

- Random day along the year - getting worse

- Worst part of it

- Cracking, writing the letter - bulling getting to her

- Final day - final entry

Abbi and I worked together on the 'cracking' diary entry.

23rd November 2008

Dear diary.

I just wanted one person, one person to talk to me. It's horrible school. I'm just so lonely. They don't want to be around me. I can't handle this I just don't get it. Why? People aren't talking to me,they're talking at me. I just don't get it.What have I done? Why are they being like this?  I just feel so lonely! The words they call me, the things they say. It's just so wrong. I can't do this anymore. I've tried.



The writing in bold is what I said out loud as Abbi said the rest.
We set the staging out with us all in a line and each partner stood on each side of the room in the line so that when we walked to do out diary entry it was a triangular shape, this gives the effect off that the people at the ends going into the middle are getting weaker and weaker


End of lesson

Bullied to death: They committed suicide because of bullying

Bullying Assembly - Sarah. 26/10/10

Sarah took the lesson and introduced us to the topic we are going to work on which is 'Bullying'. We need to present an assembly for High School students that can understand the moral of the story. It needs to be about twenty minutes long so it will fit into their time.

Sarah gave us three pieces of evidence to look at / read. 

The first off the three was a video

The video made me feel sympathetic for the families as some of the people were only our age being 16. The video was a short and simple product, but gets to the point. The only information given was the dates of birth-death and their names.  This is effective as it makes you think about them as the pictures are running of there childhood when they looked happy, it makes you think off what happened to lead them to death. The background song of the video was a happy song, but the video its self has a sharp meaning making it a contrast, this shows the contrast between there lives.

The second of the three was a poem.
The poem is made up of strong words, such as, 'alienated' 'destroyed' 'hadn't been born'.

The repetition of 'I am' shows that the bullying was an on going thing. It gives an image of that it happened every day and it was the same thing over and over.   Through out the poem the victim gets stronger and stronger so gives an image off the bully becoming smaller as the victim is becoming bigger - swapping levels. Shows that the victim has courage to stand up for their self.

The last of the three was a newspaper article.

The article makes me feel angry  as they are pushing the blame on the victim saying she is doing it for attention and it was a cry for help. Even after she has died they are still trying to find a way to get at her.  The victim may have had a possible disability so therefore is could have been partly her fault that she didn't interact with people but then mostly the schools fault as they didn't do anything to support her.  Friends of the victim have said that it was a "cry for attention" which makes me feel angry as her friends should have been there to help her not watch her suffer in silence to lead her to suicide.

Once we looked/read these we came up with possible ideas for our performance -

Possible characters -

• Best friend
• Boyfriend
• Friends
• Parents

Possible Ideas -

• Not to have the obvious situation - bullying in school
• Lots of victims stories joint together
• News reports
• Small comments or gestures that can hurt 
• 'Every action has a reaction'
• Bully not realising what they are doing. 
• Stimuli from a book.
• Victim having to confidence to stand up for themselves.
  

Reason -

• Jealousy
• Something in the bully's life making them lash out on others

Possible outcomes -

• Self harming
• Suicide
• Depression

After we discussed that, Sarah gave us an activity to do,  she told us to do three still images

1. Happy group 
2. Bullying
3. Consequences

For our first image we did a group image of us all smile and being laughing together as if it was the last day of school a picture.
Our second image was us all laughing at Rachel walking away

Then our third image was us with our right hand out at Rachel as if it was us stabbing her as she is sitting in the middle as if she was cutting herself.

Sarah then made us bring the three scenes to life, so the first one started of with Rachel telling us a joke, which we all laughed out and then faded out as she was laughing at her own jokes and we didn't find it funny anymore. This then led into James telling the group a joke about Rachel "Hey guys! I have a joke!" "What?" "Rachel" as he said this is looks right at her and laughs and turns his back on her, she walks around the circle as everyone says a single word. This then leads into the third image, as we all turn back round and say our words walking to towards her and say our words together and freeze to close the image.

End of lesson