Performance of Katie Jones’s Thesis
Assessment Questionnaire
Katie Jones

Please answer frankly and honestly, giving specific examples whenever possible. 
 
1.     Discuss any instances of Naropa MFACP training visibly integrated by Kate in the creation of your piece. In the performance of your piece.
 
Moment work – One of the primary methods for creating my piece was moment work, and Kate created several moments that helped to develop it. She dedicated time outside of rehearsals to create her own moments and was also very adept at editing or enhancing other people’s moments. Specifically, Kate created a moment in which I put on clothing in silhouette and danced, as a man gave an interview about a beautiful overweight woman he once saw perform. This piece was cut after the WIP, but it gave me a sense of the sensuality and sexuality that I wanted to portray, and some elements of this will most definitely return, as I continue to develop this piece.
 
Roy Hart – Kate also created an amazing puppet character, with a very specific voice, that was one of the highlights of my piece. And – even though she was manipulating a puppet body – it was very connected to what she was doing vocally, which gave her puppet so much life. Kate also incorporated a lot of vocal variety while telling Yo Mamma’s So Fat jokes, and her jokes landed best with the audience, partly because of this skill (and also because she just has great comic timing).
 
2.     How did Kate work within your aesthetic as a creator and performer?
 
Kate was able to offer ideas and to work very well as a collaborator, while also being able to take direction. She was also an excellent sounding board and many ideas in my piece became more solidified because of post-rehearsal conversations with Kate. Kate was also a calming, mature presence in the room, which I was grateful for on too many occasions to count. J I also knew that I could rely on her, as a performer because she was willing to give her energy to fully perform at every rehearsal, and because she consistently has her act together. Since I was both directing and performing in my piece, it was a relief to work with another actor whom I felt I could just perform with (and didn’t feel the need to babysit). Kate is also an excellent improviser, and if something comes up, she can very easily roll with the punches and stay performatively engaged. 

3.     As the director/creator of your piece, please speak about Kate as a performer and her strengths and weaknesses in this area.
 
Kate’s performing strengths – stage presence, comic timing, ability to work with a scene partner, good ensemble participant (she can set up/take care of tasks backstage and not get distracted from her onstage work), improvisation (much of Kate’s work in my piece was at least partially improvised – the Mario scene, the watermelon picnic and the break-up all contained improvised moments, to which Kate was central and held the scenes)
 
Kate’s performing weaknesses – Diction. (I struggle with this too, and these were the most consistent notes I received about Kate when professors came to give feedback). I can’t think of anything else. Kate rocks.
 
4.     Please discuss any other assessments in regards to Kate’s work as a co-creator and performer in your thesis performance.
 
Kate was a joy to work with. She was both supportive and honest, which can be a difficult combination to find in a collaborator. I was grateful for her presence in my piece and for the ways in which she helped it along its journey.

Performance of Katie Jones’s Thesis

Personal Performance Assessment

1.  Discuss any instances of Naropa MFACP training integrated in the creation of Katie Jones’s piece. In the performance of Katie Jones’s piece.

Devising:  I integrated the devising skills learned during training with Greg Pierotti in the style of the Moment Work technique.  This included bringing in moments of stage material based upon the content in which we were exploring. Two such moments were personally devised based upon the social issues surrounding weight and body image which we began integrating during preparation for the work in progress (WIP) performances in December 2014.  The first moment was sparked by our discussions of body image and how it is distorted by media.  In my efforts to create a moment based upon the desire for this ‘media perfect’ body and the increased numbers of plastic surgeries in the United States each year, I devised a moment where a woman, a fit and fairly attractive woman, is having plastic surgery markings drawn on her by a doctor while the song “I Want Some Plastic Surgery for Christmas” (to the tune of “I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas”) plays in the background.  Another moment, which was kept as part of the WIP performance but was later discarded for the final February 2015 performance was entitled, “Hechinger’s Hardware Store,” drawing its name from the text used in the moment.  When discussing body acceptance in an early rehearsal, I recalled a story a former professor, Dr. Michael O’Hara, had told me about one of the sexiest women he had ever seen.  The woman was an obese performer he had seen in a performance during his undergraduate years.  He was so taken by her abilities, her confidence and the total control she had over her body that he realized for the first time that being sexy was not defined solely by physical beauty.  I contacted Dr. O’Hara and was able to get him to record his telling of this story.  I then used that recording as underscore for a moment where a very large woman is in her boudoir, slowly and seductively dressing herself while the audience watches, almost as voyeurs to this sensual and somewhat private moment. I felt this moment was extremely successful because of its use of story as well as for the message it delivered in the context of the material we were creating.  The moment was also rhythmically different from a lot of the direct address and quick moments we had already created for the WIP performance. I was a bit sad to see this moment go, but in the end it was clear that it did not fit with the overarching principal of Ms. Jones’s piece. 

Performance: In the performance of Katie Jones’s piece I believe I was able to integrate training such as psychophysical acting, Roy Hart and implement a somatic lens upon movement and choreography.  I will give examples of each:

Psychophysical Acting:  Throughout the rehearsal and performance process I was able to use the physical and vocal river warm up as a way to prepare for performing.  This warm up allowed me to tap into various energies and emotions such as hatred, disgust, joy, grief, which were incorporated into performance.  Hatred and disgust are emotions that do not come easy to me, especially considering I was performing with close friends.  But moments such as “Skinny Puppets”, and other more serious moments which did not end up in the final performance, involved attacking and humiliating Katie both verbally and physically, tearing her down about her weight and her life choices.  The integration of psychophysical acting allowed me to fully invest in these moments and trust that I and Katie knew that we were both acting.  The use of psychophysical acting was also a vehicle for ‘performing myself.’ Half of the performance I am performing as myself and dropping in to the energy and presence that psychophysical acting affords me, allowed me to access performer Kate onstage versus everyday life Kate.  This connection to performance energy and presence also made it easier for me to transition from when I was playing myself to when I was playing a character, such as Laurie, Katie’s younger sister.

Roy Hart/extended voice:  The most notable integration of this training was during the “Yo Mamma Chorus” and the “Skinny Puppet” scenes.  With the “Yo Mamma Chorus” I used vocal variation training to help embody the emphatic energy and the absurdity of ‘yo mamma so fat joke battles.’  Vocal variations, specifically pitch and tone, also became a tool for me in fulfilling my action of beating the other performers by having the best landing fat joke. I also used the text of the jokes to influence my use of extended voice.  For example with the joke, “your mamma is so fat, she went out of the house in high heels and came home in flip flops,” has descriptive words which keyed me in to vocal variations such as a raised pitch on “high heels” and an undercut of pitch on “flip flops.”  Research into ‘yo mamma so fat joke battles,’ also enlightened me to speech patterns and word pronunciations that were specific to those scenarios and the cultural and social arenas in which such battles were performed.  As an example, the word “damn” was pronounced in various forms including, “da-yum,” emphasis on two syllables, “daaaaaamn,” with an elongation of the ‘a’ sound, and finally a short, punctuated “damn,” spoken with a hard hit on the ‘d’ with the ‘mn’ sound almost absent or trailed off at the end.  I explored all these variations in rehearsal and then decided on one based on feedback from Ms. Jones and my fellow performers.

The development of the voice and style of speech for “Skinny Puppets” came out of an improvisation of the text which Kate Holden and I had gathered for those particular scenes.  In my mind, the character was absurd, over-the-top and superficial, but at the same time had to remain truthful enough that the audience could still connect and possibly relate and not immediately dismiss.  It was a challenge to take on a character that was “Proana,” a real life pro-anorexia internet organization, and make her likeable.  But through the voice I was able to make this successful. I landed on a nasal, face resonating sound, which to my ear was very flat but suiting to the surface level nature of the character.  The tone, pitch and rate of speech resulted in an amalgamation of a valley girl, Fran Drescher and Cher, from the movie “Clueless.”  Based upon feedback from audience members, such as “I love that voice” (Erika Berland) and “Do the puppet scene for me again” (Lorenzo Gonzalez), the character landed as I had intended, absurd, funny and simultaneously cutting.

Somatics:  As this work is not literally a ‘technique’ as we have discussed in pedagogy, I will discuss instances in which I used the lens of the somatic work to inform and influence my performance.  The most prominent example of this integration would be in the “Directed Breakup” scene and in the “Yo Mamma Chorus” scenes.  During “Directed Breakup” I held a mask of Katie Jones’s face over my face, so I only had my body to communicate the action and emotion of the scene.  Therefore, I used my knowledge of body systems to inform moments of action.  During the scene I dance with partner, Kris Baker who as the scene progresses, becomes less and less involved while my character becomes more emphatic.  I accessed the endocrine system and the glands to find the excitement and the urgency of the dance.  Simultaneously I went into the mind of the bones for moments when I would need to collapse because Kris’s character did not catch me or let me fall. These systems allowed me to embody the energy of the action while concurrently protecting myself as the performer during moments of falling and dropping.  Additionally, I accessed the organ system when Kris’s character tells my character, “I don’t love you.”  The organs, specifically the heart and the pancreas, allowed for me to take in his words, letting them hit and affect me, and then to react corporeally, which resulted in a score of movement in which the heart was hit first, and then the feeling and energy travelled down to the pancreas where the rest of the body began to collapse in at the navel and ultimately ended up with the weight of the organs pulling the body fully to the floor.

Another notable instance of the somatic lens at work was during the “Yo Mamma Chorus.”  Along with the vocal research of this ‘cultural phenomenon’ I also investigated the body of the performers of this style of storytelling.  There was a deep connection to the ground through the lower body and I used this as the basis for my body movements during this scene.  When confronting the audience with a joke, I would dig down into my legs and pelvic, bringing energy up from the ground and using it to fuel the voice.  This moment was also a fun challenge because in one moment we were telling jokes and in the next we were holding a position resembling that of a formal choir.  That body stance was the antithesis of the deeply rooted joke position.  Instead the energy was gathered in the chest and held in the upper body while the lower body was stationary.  In order to find and maintain this position I reminded myself of the feeling of air under my armpits and the sensation of the singing voice protruding from my thymus and upper ribs. This corporeal distinction created a subversion of expectation for the audience which in turn added to the humor of the scene.

2.  How did I work within Katie Jones’s aesthetic as a creator and performer?

I was fortunate to work with a creator/director/performer who had a clear vision of her piece both aesthetically and performatively.  From the beginning of the devising and rehearsal process, it was clear that Ms. Jones’s was interested in telling an honest story including humorous and sometimes absurd or nonrealistic elements to highlight the absurdity within the honesty of the content of her piece.  Given this fact, I felt free to bring in any and all content and moments which I felt might be relevant to the piece.  I never felt restricted in that way.  And I believe as a result, I was able to successfully work within Ms. Jones’s aesthetic while continuing my personal investigations of my own process as a creator and performer.  Katie Jones also created an atmosphere which supported ensemble so I was really able to work with the other members of the cast which informed my process within this piece but also as an artist in general.  I never felt dismissed and this just added to the environment of ripe ensemble creation.  And even though Ms. Jones was the ultimate decider, I knew she valued my feedback and ideas and I therefore felt comfortable being forthright.  I believe the moments that I detailed in the previous answer support my feelings of success as a creator and performer within this piece.

3.  What are your strengths and weaknesses as a performer and as a creator?  Please use examples from this piece to support your assessment.

Strengths: I believe my strengths as a performer are my energy and presence and my ability to work as a member of an ensemble.  My passion for performance shows in my readiness with each performance opportunity, including being present during rehearsal and devising processes.  An example of my energy and performance presence can be seen in my work on the “Skinny Puppet” scenes.  Even though only my face and hands were seen, I was able to radiate active energy into my puppet and out to the audience. 

Another area of strength is my ability to problem solve and translate ideas and images into performative moments.  For example, when Katie was struggling with the emotional content of the “Directed Breakup” scene, I suggested that she deliver the “I don’t love you” lines to the bag of Doritos, adding another element to the scene that was both humorous and solved the problem of the overwhelming emotion of the scene without having to cut the scene altogether.

Weaknesses: I think my weaknesses as a performer and as a creator fall into the same category, which is rhythmic variation.  I have noticed throughout the process of my own work as well as in my process of work with others that I tend toward a specific, patterned rhythm, both in performance and in the creation of performative moments.  I think perhaps this wasn’t wholly apparent in the performance of this piece because the script was structured by another artist, not by myself.  But I still believe I struggle with rhythm of speech and this also attributes to my articulation weakness. 

4.  Please discuss any other assessments in regards to your work as a co-creator and performer in your thesis performance.

I believe that I work well in an ensemble setting and I found working on Katie Jones’s piece, both in the development process and in the performance process, to be informative and enlightening for my own artistic process.  I learned much from Ms. Jones’s in her ability to balance being creator/director and performer and her ability to manage an ensemble of varying personalities.  I also admired her commitment to her vision and how she supported that vision, despite differing thoughts and opinions.  I will take away these lessons for use in my future artistic endeavors.