Duets

For our duet we talked through some of the Tate Pieces we saw. We had both seen and liked Henry Wessel's piece called 'Incidents' with various pictures of members of the public. We both liked how intrusive it felt, like you we're spying on them or seeing something you maybe shouldn't. An exploration of human behaviour without them being aware they are being observed. It's in it's most organic form, untouched. And this is what we decided we wanted to achieve in our piece. 

Through movement improvisations we came across the exploration of the human body. It's probably the most organic, natural process but also the most private process. If others were watching it would contradict the entire process and give our desired effect. 

We have the idea of performing our piece behind a backlit sheet. This way it keeps some of the privacy of the moment, whist still being aloud an insight. We tried it out and it worked extremely well. The sheet looked like a sheet on a bed and worked well with the actions that happen under the sheets. The audience was able to see the outlines and shapes of our bodies and watch them come together and apart. As we moved around each other the shapes in the shadows changed as we went from being two separate shadows into one being. We also backlit the sheet with two separate light sources, which created two separate shadows which had different placement and different intensities. 
Over the top of our piece we used a song called 'All We Grow' by S.Carey to add to the overall feeling of the piece.

Some experimental techniques we used were: 

• Visual poetry - We've used movement instead of words to communicate to create an emotional impact.
• Creating a dream world - By using the sheet we've transported the audience to a bedroom, the place where dreams happen. The sheet and slow dreamy movement has stimulated their emotion and subconscious taking them to a dream state.
• Assaulting the audience - By the very nature of what the audience are seeing, it should shock the audience in some way. It's a very intimate moment.
• Skills of the actor - By using our bodies with complete commitment we became emotionally involved in the piece and played out the truth to the audience creating emotional impact.