What is Frantic assembly?

Frantic Assembly has grown to be one of the most successful and well-liked theatre companies in the
United Kingdom. Our goal is to keep learning and to stay committed to creating adventurous and strong
theatre. It can be physically demanding and brutal at times. It's unabashedly sensitive and frail at times.
But there has always been more to Frantic Assembly than just the work on stage. It's about a culture of
collaboration, empowerment, and a never-ending ambition to develop. It's about telling tales in a way
we don't normally hear and discovering talent in unexpected places.

What is the Frantic assembly method?

The Frantic Method approaches devising as a sequence of activities, each of which is split down into
individual building blocks. This is intended to establish progress, starting with the basic discoveries.
Performers are advised to start with a simple truth and then work their way up from there.

Chair duet reflection

When learning about chair duets we investigated Love songs, quickly realizing that the piece is about the
music and the rhythm and how they interact with one another. I wanted to incorporate that into Freya
and I's performance.

When practicing the steps we found that it was difficult to get a grasp of the timing and rhythm of the
movements. We started of doing 3 movements at a time and slowly building up to 15 all together, we
kept repeating the first 3 steps until we were comfortable and confident with them and them moved on
to creating the next 3 steps. Once finishing figuring out the steps we worked on the flow of them and
keeping in time with the music, I found this difficult as I rushed the steps due to being nervous and
partially unconfident with them.

When we showing the class what we had done so far Freya was absent and I had to perform by myself.
This made me feel uneasy and nervous but after remembering the steps I became confident and it ‘told
a different story’. I felt uncomfortable and unsure of where to look as you’re supposed to look straight
ahead or focus on a point together, I continued to look around and not focus one area making it look
‘strange’.

During the final performance I felt more focused and less nervous. I felt confident in my steps, still
having problems with staying in time with the music and keeping the rhythm.

If I could do the chair duets again I'd try to have more practice outside of classes and discuss more
intercut movements.