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David Porter » Entries tagged with "performing"

Violence Makes Interesting Drama, But Is It Harmful Influence?

Many people find violent theatre, games & films entertaining, but they are also social reflections and present potential danger to the susceptible. The notion that stage, TV, film or game violence desensitizes, is hardly new, but is given a fresh airing when shocking pictures of war, disaster and accident are streamed straight to screens. Sometimes people walk by; some help. Rubberneckers slowing to look at carnage on motorway/freeway pile-ups, are a danger to others. Bloodbaths and Atrocities on Stage Violence and theatre have always been partners. Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus is described by Sparknotes as “nonstop bloodbath of abomination with 14 killings, 9 on stage, 6 severed members, 1 rape (or possibly 3), 1 live burial, 1 case of insanity and 1 of cannibalism. That’s 5.2 atrocities per act, one every 97 lines”. Sarah Kane’s … Read entire article »

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Bringing Comedy to Audiences Is No Laughing Matter

One person’s comedy may be another’s tragedy. People don’t always laugh at the same things, but no serious performance student can ignore comedy these days. Some performers claim they don’t do comedy, or are not funny on stage, and some training establishments frown on comedy. However, if one can be funny with friends, then a true performer can get a laugh out of an audience. It is hard work, unless a person is naturally gifted in the art of self-mocking willingness to endure the prat fall, of being the butt of the gag, of publicly suffering error, failure and defeat and of enjoying the tears of the clown. Peter Ustinov, the late Russian raconteur who made a career on stage and screen … Read entire article »

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Performance Arts Can Be Either High Art or Just Having a Laugh

This art-form is an event by an individual or group, who create something approximating to art, but as a living performance, as pure fun or with a message. Not sculpture, painting, nor pure theatre performance, it’s a mixture, of no fixed time, in an unusual or unexpected place. It might play to a random audience, like shoppers, or people in a park, and the relationship between performers and audience is crucial to make the event. Mime artists on little boxes in summer resorts or festival fringes heavily made-up like robots or characters from movies or sci-fi fantasies, constitute performance art. Falk Richwien from Germany beheaded two rabbits at a gallery in 2006, claiming he wanted people to break from a supermarket culture … Read entire article »

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Unusual Performance Spaces

Site-Specific Events Turn Up in the Most Unlikely Places English theatre director Peter Brook said in 1968 he could take any empty space and call it a bare stage. Nowadays, many performances turn any old spaces into stages. Whether seeing a play in a traditional theatre, a band in a huge auditorium or a sporting event in a magnificent arena, the setting is a major part of the total experience in terms of ambience and atmosphere. Increasingly in the arts, smaller, more intimate, non-specialist designed venues are the settings for performances of all sorts. Using a proscenium-arched stage, a thrust stage, a circus arena or, like at the Globe Theatre in London, a replica of Shakespearean style thrust-almost circular staging, makes a huge difference to the perception of the plays by the audiences. … Read entire article »

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The Box

You can communicate effectively…! David Porter Communications with the Human Touch The Box where experience counts Human Communication is the Name of my Game A service to business and individuals in need of confidence building, trouble shooting, problem solving, public speaking, report/letter writing, quality written web content, editing, event enabling, voice-overs, third way and lateral thinking. I work with others rich in life’s experiences: We think outside the box. But we don’t neglect what’s already inside the box, too Whatever your problem, we can help We can do it for you, or work with you We can talk to people for or with you We facilitate We teach you or your staff the know-how from writing English to speaking it We organise, arrange, plan, question We come up with blue sky thinking We brain storm for or with you. What’s in the Box? I lead a team of older, … Read entire article »

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