Category: Trial By Ordeal : The story behind the title

After some thinking I decided that It would be much be beneficial in my rehearsal process to have an outside opinion of what certain things looked like from the poolside, which I sometimes had no idea about as I was underwater 50% of the time. It also meant that I could save precious pool time by not needing to keep getting out the water to change the music. This worked well as I was also able to get photos and video of my rehearsal too so I could see what I thought worked well. After only having two days to recover from my previous rehearsal, my muscles were feeling it today, so I firstly did a quick warm-up and stretch before starting any rehearsals to try and loosen myself up a bit.

During this session I began shaping work together and working out the timings for the different music I wanted to use. This would mean that I would only have to edit the tracks ready for the final rehearsal on the 20^th of May. My main challenge for the performance was to be able to know when the music would change as I had no underwater speakers. This meant that extra practice with timings would be required. In order to make this easier for myself I decided that I would need dramatic , loud sound queues that I would be able to hear, even under the water.

The main challenge of the day was deciding where I would start my performance as I wanted to enter poolside and walk with the first music already playing. After being sentenced, I would then step into the water. I originally wanted to step off the smaller diving board so as to be already standing over the water however, through discussing with my observer over what would create the best image, I decided; much to my own horror;  I would step off the highest diving board which not only would have a better impact; create more splash and be central but gave me opportunity to react to the fall with the audience. After only taking seconds to convince myself that this was the best options, it then took at least 10minutes to convince myself to actually step off the board. Absolutely terrified and severely out of breath I took the plunge, convincing myself that if I can do it once and survive I can do it again. It also meant that zero percent acting would be required during the walk and trial during by performance as I was, 100 percent, terrified.

For this session I also had a new idea for what material I could use for my final part of the performance. I bought a yoga band to the pool with me as a prop to see what moves and shapes I could create with it. I thought that the band worked well in the water and therefore decided that, if I could get long enough pieces of it, I could also use it for the final piece of the performance. It did not absorb water or sink, it stayed it’s original colour and stretched in the water so would be very durable. Result!