performance review

The performance I will be reviewing is from the company DV8, and their performance of ‘to be straight with you’. When watching this performance as an audience member I was drawn in to what the performers were saying and doing on stage. The stage was quite dark with writing on a blackboard at the back as an audience member it felt like we were going to be in a lecture which is why the name was fitting to the piece. The piece has many physical techniques used throughout the performance. For instance, there used of text and movement was interesting normally when text and movement are in a piece together, they are linked however in Dv8’s piece the movement had nothing to do articulating the narrative. As an audience member I was intrigued, and I couldn’t stop watching as I was waiting for them to link. Throughout the performance they used the movement and physicality of their bodies in order to manipulate the space. It starts with one person moving and speaking on stage then more people join in, making the space feel much larger and open. To further this they also used mirroring but instead of mirroring the audience they were mirroring each other when doing the movement, it was completely in sink I think the way the were positioned on stage helped this factor because they were sat in staggered rows so they could follow the person in front.

There use of repetition was also fascinating because every time the movement progressed someone else joined in on stage and it kept laying, every time someone joined in the movement stage it felt like a different meaning. When watching this scene in particular I wanted to use these the text and movement technique in my final performance. I liked the idea of having spoken texts and the movement having no link to what is being said. In our situation it worked out great as we had a divided set in the mirror and out the mirror.  When speaking in full length you were out the mirror and the other people would do physical movement that had nothing to do with the narrator at the front. Watching this performance helped me develop new ideas of using the space with movement and text, which was something that as a group we were finding challenging.