Dhana 8.3 Vitarectio

Vitarectio Made by Dhana 8.3

Friday, February 24, 2012

Introduction

In drama, me and my group was assigned to make a ritual of our own without basing it upon any other rituals. My group decided to make a ritual to bring the dead to live once again and we decided to call the ritual Vitarectio from the word vita(the word life in Latin)

and ressurectio(the word ressurection in Latin). Vitarectio is the ritual where our clan members reenact the story of our old clan chief being raised from the dead after dying of dehydration. The clan believed that all lives are important and they must not be

wasted.


Team Work Reflection

During the practice, only some people in our group are actually serious in doing the ritual. The others were playing around and would only get serious for some time before playing around again. I think I had contributed to the group by being the dead guy that would be raised from the dead and I am

also one of those who took the practice and the whole performance seriously. One of the problems that we faced was some of the members played around

and didn’t took the practice seriously. The problem was solved when the teacher went to us and watch us. I think that some member of the group

haven’t practice enough but I think the whole performance went better than I have expected.


Drama Skills Used

Movement: Most of the movements that I used in the part where I am dying are slow and heavy movements. The moment the clan members started dancing and performing the ritual, the movement changed from slow to heavy movements to heavy and fast movements. Throughout the ritual, most of the movements that my group used were heavy movements that gave the ritual a sort of power to it.

Choral Speaking: The symbollic words that we used in the ritual were Vita and Ressurectio. The word Vita is the latin of the word life in english and we decided to use that word because our ritual is about raising a dead man to life so we thought that the word would match the ritual well. The word Ressurectio is the latin of the word ressurection and we decided to use the word because the word ressurection fits perfectly with what we are doing. We also used the word “With this holy water, I shall bring this man to life” and he is alive to support the feeling of the ritual.

Symbollic Objects: The most symbollic object in the whole ritual is the stick because the stick was used by the leader of the ritual to raise the dead and also given to the ressurected man to become the new clan chief. The jug is also important since it was used to hold the water and the water symbollize life. Pouring water to the dead man means giving life to a corpse.


List of Events

The ritual started with the dying man walking weakly and die because of dehydration. This is the section where the story that was being reenact started. The clan members then started approaching the dead man and called the leader of the ritual to perform the ritual with only the stick that the leader of the ritual was holding and also less people than the requirements which results in failure. The ritual failed to match the story being reenact and the first ritual was supposed to fail. Another two came bringing a block, jug filled with water, and a black sheet. The second ritual started and the dead man was put on the block covered by the black sheet. The second ritual succeded and the dead man raised from the dead and everyone around him being blown away. This gives power to the dead man’s ressurection and also showed that that is the peak of the whole ritual. The dead man was then given the stick and the people started gathering around him. This marks as the conclusion or the end of the ritual. I think that our ritual is emotionally satisfying because of the part where the dead man rose again and everyone around him was blown away. That section of the ritual was the section where most of the suspense being built up from the sections before seemed to just burst out and a sense of shock was created.


Success of the Ritual

The ritual went better than I expected and there are some parts of the rituals that made it very good. The part where the dead man rises and everyone that performed the ritual seemed to be blown away emotionally satisfy the audience and the clan members watching. The part where the clan members started chanting vita and the dead man started rising bit by bit created a feeling of suspense and the audience was made to ask “what is going to happen next?” Another section of the ritual that was good was the part where the leader of the ritual went around the clan members doing the ritual and pour the water from the jug to the dead man. This shows that the jug is sacred and also make the ritual to look more like a real ritual.


What feedback did we use to improve our performance?

We do not get that much feedback for our ritual and for me, I don’t get any feedback at all. One of the feedbacks that our group received were from Mr. Geoffrey saying that we should improve our ending by making a final pose. We make a final pose which is the ressurected man being surrounded by the clan members and our final pose was, in my opinion, not that bad. In the future, I would like to improve more if I am going to do a ritual again and also I would have changed the scene when the ressurected man rides one of the clan members to confront the leader of the ritual and getting the stick from him because I do not quite like that section. I would also wanted to make the ritual longer and have more meaning to it than before.


Difference of a Ritual and a Play

The difference between a ritual and a play is that a ritual is more symbollic than a play. A play is mostly done in cinemas while a ritual was done mostly on sacred places. The actors in the play cannot engage the audience and the audience watching does not have anything to do with the actors while the people acting in the ritual can engaged the audience and the audience could sometimes take part too. A play is just for recreational purpose only while a ritual have a deep meaning to it and so, were usually done in a religious ceremony. A ritual is a more serious type of play while a play is not serious and have no deep meaning like a ritual does.


Documents

Dhana 8.3 Vitarectio