Berkoff - Greek - Sphinx Part 2

We only had a small amount of the Sphinx scene left to choreograph following on from the last blog. Straight from "Men need killing off before they kill off the world" which is said simultaneously, we go into the following video:

This video is not of all of us doing the movements, but should give a fairly accurate representation of what we did. Again we came to the front of the stage, partially in a line - I'm still getting slightly frustrated that most of our moves are done in a line as I feel there should be more elements of variation. These initial four movements are done at the same time - the challenge here was making sure that we were doing exactly the same movement as I especially wanted the Sphinx to have accurate movement as we're meant to all be one character.

At "You are so alone and pathetic" we tapped Kathryn once with one finger which made her drop to the floor showing the power of the Sphinx. We then walked far away from Kathryn, making use of the entire stage showing Total Theatre. This was also done for a pragmatic purpose as it allowed more room to stalk towards Kathryn in a later section.

We then included a fight sequence. In the original myth, Oedipus answers the Sphinx's riddle and the Sphinx then throws herself off a cliff. However, as we didn't have all the scripted parts for the Sphinx we had to improvise a fight sequence so that it was definite that Eddy himself has killed the Sphinx. This certainly makes Eddy more of a hero than before, perhaps even the tragic hero - a great or virtuous character in a dramatic tragedy who is destined for downfall, suffering, or defeat - as he end up winning his biological mother's hand in marriage due to defeating the Sphinx which is why he is a tragedy.

Kathryn hits us all in succession and we maintain our position and sound effect for definition purposes. We then, at the last moment, included the line "To love is to enslave a woman" which suggests a personal vendetta against men from the Sphinx. We then returned the violence to Kathryn via the audience, again breaking the fourth wall. After this we stalk towards Kathryn hissing who then strikes us at the throat meaning that we all squeal and die. We have a final staccato section where we freeze in the Sphinx with our arms extended as though we are the bird part of the Sphinx again. The fighting sequence was especially hard to choreograph in order to get it much more defined and staccato.