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Ideas & Influences


This lesson we decided to come up with a new idea. We are becoming stripped for time and we need to make sure we have a piece for each of us, so making progress is our objective. So far we have one for Chloe (Experimenting with Mirrors) and our group torch-ology. We thought it'd be efficient if we move onto Alice's idea. We have each created a representation of body dysmorphia that we are each going to represent. They are:




Alice- Representing the idea that girls HAVE to be beautiful and conform to societies version of 'beautiful' and what defines it.




Will- Is taking on the same idea as Alice, however focusing on the expectations from the male gender's perspective i.e. what it takes to be a real man in society e.g. masculinity, being muscly.




Chloe- is exploring the idea how social media sometime forces us to become self-obsessed and how we value our appearance the most over other qualities like personality etc.




Cameron- is going to convey the idea that when people are offered support, they close themselves off to it and they end up with a snowball effect of negativity. We was inspired by the play ' The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time', where Christopher arrives in London and sections himself off the environment around him. Here:



Owen- I will be representing a transgender character who does not feel they are in the right body. Originally we was going to use the idea that Alice wipes make-up off of her face for her 'Beauty Standards', however we thought it would be even more effective if Alice takes her make-up off whilst at the same time I put the make up on. Obviously not a full face of make-up but lipstick or foundation which is considered 'Feminine and beautiful' intertwining mine and Alice's idea. Me and  Alice previously worked on a mirroring piece which we would like to use. Alice being the reflection that I see and my 'reflection' is what I am pre-transition, a female in a male's body. This idea was influenced by a mirroring dance. Here:










Alice really wanted to highlight how girls are forced to conform the 'Moulds of Beauty' society enforces on girls on a daily basis and sometimes girls can never win, they are still judged either way. She was inspired by a video a girl posted on YouTube. In the video

We decided we wanted to use the song 'We Don't Have To Take Our Clothes Off' performed by Ella Eyre  (Originally sung by Jermaine Stewart). Her raspy tones correlate to the rawness of this piece which we thought worked well. Alice will be striping down to just a sports bra and dancing shorts so we are able to write on her skin, almost creating some sort of controversy as the audience, we are hoping, will be shocked by this. Alice will abruptly remove her clothes on the line "We don't have to take our clothes off". The lyrics of the song translate the idea that girls do not have to take their clothes off in order to have an enjoyable time which in contrast is something society promotes. We did not get far with the movement as we only had a short period of time to begin. However, we have foregrounded this idea which we will develop next lesson.


As for clothing, we have decided that we will be wearing all black throughout the performance, conveying the idea that each of us have no identity. There is no definitive ideology for 'beauty' however media portrays one. We did not want to convey this in our piece so we decided a more simplistic look would be more suitable attire.  


Alice and Cameron are also considering recording their own acoustic version of this song, with Alice on vocals and Cameron accompanying her on guitar. It was suggested to do this in performance however this would take away the unvarnished atmosphere of the performance. So a pre-recording was suggested instead.


Next lesson we will move to the development stage of this idea, incorporating our progression thus far.




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