Commedia dell'Arte Unit: Task #6

Why did you choose the character you did?

• I chose "The Hot-Shot" because I thought that it was a very interesting character and quite unique than the other characters we saw, like the The Hot-Shot isn't exactly the school jock, but more like the player and the braggart that has expensive cars and has this manly superiority.

How is that character described (personality, physicality, etc.)?

• "The Hot-Shot" is a superior stock character, he expresses power because he has all the money and riches and he gets all the girls, he's knows he's good-looking and he's confident in school and out of school. The character leads with his shoulder and chest, mainly the torso area and his gestures and facial expressions also make up who he is.

What body part is his stereotypical feature? How did you attempt to center their energy there?

• The Hot-Shot's stereotypical body part is his torso area, including his shoulders and neck sometimes. I basically had to walk a lot like Magnifico, but be more chill and cool because I have to also show the laid-back confident braggart that the character is. I had to walk with slow steps, jut out my chest a little bit and push back my shoulders, and slouch and stand tall at the same time to give the impression of looking confident.

How did you did choose to interact with the environment/prop? What specific interaction choices did you make?

• I chose to create imaginary characters to interact with and I also chose to wink and point at the audience as some additional interaction so I look confident. I also chose to utilize the space  by making it my personal runway and walk into the act with laid-back shoulders, smolder stare and say hi and sleek/flip my hair to imaginary people.

What feedback did you get from your performance?

• My group members told me that it was good so far but I needed to improve and add more to my audience interaction, like flirt or bring someone up and show them my expensive watch. I was also told to improve my facial expressions by incorporating a side smirk or something like that to make me look confident and "hot" or something.

How did you choose to "take out" to the audience in order to "invite them in" to your performance?

• Like I said before, I want to wink, smirk and improvise with them to invite them in to the performance.

What will you change for the next performance?

• I need to add some improvisation and some audience interaction on stage . I think I also need to improve on my general facial expression throughout the whole performance. 

2. Choose another character from your group (Classic or Contemps) and evaluate their performance using the same prompts above.

• I chose to evaluate my friend, Nawar's contemporary draft performance. She performed "the lover/s". Her character's personality and physicality was basically being committed to relationship so a first she was all lovey-dovey and skipping across the room, thinking about her special someone. Then she transitioned into moving away and ignoring other people who try to talk to her because she was so invested in her relationship. I think that her character's main physical point was in the movements, like how she was skipping around and moving around the space. Her stereotypical feature might've been her and because she kept them close to her self and she shooed people away like that and also skipped around like that. She pantomimed and used her gestures to create imaginary characters that she used to shoo away to show her commitment. For next time, I think she needs to take out to the audience and she needs to make some interaction with the audience, like incorporate a gesture of expression directed to the audience to improve her initial performance.

Commedia dell'Arte Task 5 - Personal Evaluation of Performance Task 1 (Final)

Part 1: Performance Task 1 Self-Assessment

What choices did you make for your rough draft performance?

• I interacted with the audience more in my rough draft performance. I chose to go sneaking around the room, suspiciously look at the audience, act as if I was listening into some juicy gossip and at the end I chose to turn to the audience, look at them and use gestures with my finger against my lips to tell them to quite while I stole a "water bottle" and ended my performance that way. I used mischievous and suspicious expressions on my face. I didn't really use many levels but I did use a lot of pace because I basically kind of tip-toed across one side of the room to another. I used my walking to guide Brighella, my character.

How much time did you spend practicing fro your performance?

• I spent 3-5 minutes every 4 days to practice my character t school with some of my friends. I also stood in front of the mirror once or twice to look at the expressions and facial traits.

What specific feedback did you get  from your rough draft performance?

• I was told to interact more with the audience and I was told to show more mischief in my expressions. My tip-toe-esque, closed hips walk was really good according to the audience. I was also told to switch something instead of stealing the water bottle because my personality is more selfish than greedy. And I also some comedic facial expressions like acting appalled and I was told to show more facial expressions that would be visible the audience. 

How did you feel your final performance went?

• I think my final performance was honestly worse than my rough draft performance because I think that I lost the essence and gist of Brighella because my rough draft performance was so long ago. I think that my final performance needed a lot of the good elements from the rough draft performance and maybe could've used more improvisation.

What did you choose to change for your final performance?

• I chose add the squinting of my eyes and hide behind he trees because I thought it would look good. I also chose to out in the reading of papers so it looks "mischievous". But I think that didn't work.

What specific feedback did you get?

• I was told to add more mischief to my facial expressions and add more interactions. I was also old to incorporate different levels and show some different expressions of mischief on my face instead of one facial expression. I was told that my "squinty eyes" were good and so was looking through the paper and incorporating a imaginary character to make it more entertaining.

What would you score your performance out of 10 using the Criteria B descriptors? Explain Why.

• I would grade my performance a 5 out of 10 because I thought that I had all he concepts of the classical commedia character down, but the problem was that I couldn't incorporate all the traits of Brighella into the performance, so I understood the whole concept and was able to carry out a satisfactory performance judging from my feedback.

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Part 2: Performance Task 1 Peer Assessment 

Pick someone who's character is completely opposite than the one you chose. 

• I chose to evaluate Minnie's performance of the Doctor.

Evaluate their character based on what you know about the character. 

• Minnie's character focuses all the energy on the stomach/belly making that the distinguishable feature for the doctor and expression wise he has to be quite oblivious and clueless, basically the thing about the doctor is that he doesn't understand anything yet he has a lot of knowledge and he's basically funny. So I think that Minnie was able to show that in her performance and her facial expressions and use of space and audience interaction was very good.

How close did they come? What did you like about their performance? 

• I think Minnie was able to pull off the performance of the doctor almost perfectly because her interaction with the audience was great it was really funny and cute. I really liked the performance when she used the mumbling/gibberish aspect from commedia and was able to incorporate it into the performance, I think it was my favorite performance!

What do you think they could have improved from their performance?

•  She could've added a part to the performance where the doctor's clueless and more tragic side came out because he couldn't understand while Minnie's whole performance was more comedic and cute I think she should've added a part where the tragic and clueless side of the doctor came out. 

What score out of 10 would you give them using the Criteria B descriptors? Explain why.

• I think Minnie scored a 8 out 10 because she was consistent and interactive with her peformance, She also used gibberish/and or muttering which is a aspect of Commedia, that I no one expect for one more persohose to incorporate into their performances so I thought that was something good she took into account. Her interaction with the audience was very good because looked at us and rubbed her bell and gave some humor to it. She only missed the tragic side of the doctor, but other than that it was a very good performance.