Hello everyone! Welcome to my blog! I'm not going to lie, I am a little computer illiterate so this may take me a few attempts to sound like myself! I would like to use this space to create a diary of my personal journey and the journey of the group. I will also apologise in advance for chatting on and on and on and on... as I tend to do!
In our first lecture at the beginning of the module I was relieved to learn that our writing doesn't have to be totally formal, which is great as I will begin by saying that I had a wicked time on our first visit to Ham House, the whole thing seems really exciting! We all, as you already know (you watched it) got totally inspired by the gardens. Jenny, Sharmilla, Hannah, Zoe and myself got a bit excited, and possibly carried away whilst devising a small peice of theatre in the gardens. We all devised something fictional or factual about something that had happened in the gardens, and as we are not so hot on the history of natioinal trust properties (yet!) we went straight for the fiction. Everyone else went down the fictional route too, which did actually have some hillarious consequences- ie Chantelles group, of course I am referring to 'the affair with the languages teacher' scenario!
Anyway, the girls and I found a little spot with boxes and four grand looking seats consuming the edge of the space, kind of in a circle. As we know Jennie is a budding little writer so she started a poem about four fairies that live in the Ham House gardens. These faireis are the creators of the seasons. I think we had the seasons idea as, I know for me anyway, Autumnal weather is the most obvious of all four seasons in many ways. I was winter, Sharmilla- Autumn, Hannah- Spring and Zoe - Summer. As Jennie told the group the poem, we emerged from the boxes we were hiding in, to eventually come together as one.
Obviously and as usual, I was thinkling about this small performance on a ridiculously grand scale, make-up to represent each season, costume to match and a silly amount of fairy lights! I imagined this as did the other girls performed in the cold winter at night, or at least when a little dark... we want to make it part of the Christmas Fun Festival. I think it will make the performance a bit more magical, with the Christmas spirit and all that.
I have to admit that we did all get really carried away and assumed that the rest of the group would love the idea of doing it at the festival, so I was a little gutted to learn that everyone wanted to save it for the summer's 400th Birthday celebrations. I just feel that the atmosphere wont be the same in the warmth of the summer.
I am also thinking about how exciting it is to have total creative control as a group and the house and gardens are amazing! I mean even if we never peform the fairy thing, I think it's really important that we were so inspired on our first visit to the gardens. It just goes to show for me how influencial a space can be. Also I am planning on getting my hands on 'Community Performance: An Introduction.' Will let you all know how I get on!
Promise my next entry wont be this long! Have fun!
