Final Fantasy

     For our final fantasy project, I had chosen to create an abstract gathering bird/hag costume. I wanted the costume to not only be visually appealing, but to be some what of a fantasy of my own. While they might have been to small to be noticed by the audience, necklace, bottles, and trinkets were strung into my clothes to not only enhance the sound, but to emphasize my adventurous or "treasure hunting" spirit. I feel like this could be seen as both a symbol for my desire to collect memories and experiences, but also my tendencies towards dwelling over negative memories. I feel like this costume is successful, because while the bird represents something more adventurous, the hag is something more shy and illusive; some of my class mates had guessed both while looking at my costume.                                           While the meaning was some what of an after thought, I enjoyed making and performing in this costume. Having a little acting experience from several classes in high school gave me the power to turn my uneasiness into pure bold energy. I think these classes, which also features extensive units on improvisation, gave me the creativity to make a small story out of my randomized group; A baby, a woman in a painting, and me. In which story the bird finds a baby, attempts to pacify it and leave, but ends up feeling too much guilt to leave it in the woods and returns to it. The picture frame-costume acted primarily as a space-making piece and a "story teller" character, leaving the baby and I to create the story. I really enjoyed the way it came together. I thought it was very artful.

Reflection
     I enjoyed this project the most so far, and I was pleased with the way a lot of the costumes came out. I was unfortunately disappointed with a lot of the gestures people made. I think a lot of people were nervous about performing, and subconsciously chose to do expected gestures to avoid attention.
     While I understand the "magic" that could happen upon spontaneous interaction, most of the class did not have the audacity or improvisational creativity to create a balanced scene. While there were some moments; like the large, stiff moving robot, and the small, fluid crow-ballerina dancing together, most of the skits were just mosh pits. I also noticed, out of nerves perhaps, many people lost their character entirely when around other characters; in other words, there was usually the strongest character per skit, and many of the other characters around that character would pick up the strongest characters gestures.
     To resolve this, I feel this project would be better in groups, or maybe make picking a group optional. This would not only help a lot of students handle their nerves, but it also lends to more dynamic costumes, since you know who you are going to be performing with. The costumes would also probably be more visually appealing, since they would most likely be made in uniform, or as a matching "collection".
     For example, group costumes could include duets like Love and Hate, or Big and Little. Groups can create abstract North, South, East, and West costumes. Age group costumes, like baby, infant, teen, adult, and elderly. Elemental costumes like land, air, sea, and fire. There are an infinite possibilities with planned groups, and I feel for the classroom environment, these would be more artfully executed.