The Devising Process

We found out that we shall be doing our community and outreach project on the elderly generation and as a result have been working with Age UK at one of their day centres in East Grinstead. We travelled down to speak and accompany them in their routines for two days consisting of bingo sessions, Zomba and some very interesting discoveries.
 The first person I spoke to was Connie, Aged 84 and semi paralysed down one arm due to an illness which accompanied her Breast cancer. We asked her why she mainly came to the Age UK day centre and she replied that is was due to the company she got and the Hot meal she received so she did not have to worry about catering for herself. She stated that she lived in a shared flat space but that she didn't feel confident in her own home - primarily because of her door bell being rung often by someone and that she had her suspicions of who it might be. Connie brings her own water to the day centre as she dose not like the taste or how cold the water that's provided is. She tole us about how she has discovered a new and better way of twisting her water bottle lid on (using the flat of your palm instead of a fiddly grip) and that the best way to have your water was if you boiled it first, let it cool and then drink it. We asked Connie whether she liked to listen to Music and she said she used to love playing the piano and that when she was younger she would tap on her wall to her neighbour and ask her to play "big bad woof" because she couldn't pronounce wolf. She said she used to play the piano for those down in the Anderson shelters during the air-raids to keep everyones spirits up. Whilst talking about the Anderson shelters she told use of how the whole street had their shelters flooded by rain and how the whole community began to help them. After talking to Connie i realised a big issue we could raise in our piece was Loneliness, most of the people there had already lost someone dear to them, were now living in shared accommodation and came to the day centre to be amongst friends.

During the two day visits i took two recordings, one with Henry and Melvin, the other with Ron which i shall try to type up the transcript of at a later date.  

 Here is an amalgamation of our classes thoughts on what we thought our piece should include:

  

We took part in an activity in order to show different devising ways. We started in pairs labelled A and B and took it in turns to place and take away hands from one another forming a series of gestures. We Then added a narrative to the gestures with sad and happy moods giving the movement a different dynamic- showing us that the same movement can have completely different meanings depending on the context that is given to it. We then tried the same movement with music to see if adding more layers to it changed it. Another way to vary this activity is to try it out in different positions Eg. away from your partner, on the floor or whilst walking around the room. You can also give this activity different circumstances which you and your partner have to work around. This activity shows that something simple can become layered and intricate, a very useful tool to devising.