There are 2 frames of mind. I am the thinking mind and I solve problems. Or I am the embodied mind, that reacts. I wear 2 hats. But it is hard to change between the two. The Gargenisa (Spelling) exercises ask me to not think and to ask questions, to be curious. Are the two not connected? Or is it, infact ,curiosity a very human instinct. A base.
A child acts to find its boundaries, the child is curious, cheeky and tries to push those boundaries. It is impulse that drives this child. The child does not think how might I break the rules, instead, the child asks, if I do this how do the rules apply. They have a goal, an objective.
Objectives on stage are a known event. The super objective the main goal, what I want to achieve, and the many mini objectives, the small games that entertain us, that keep us alive. Perhaps the garginisa (Spelling) approach is not abstracted from this. Perhaps they speak of the same thing only from different angles. The garginisa ‘sequences’ designed to make us curios with bodily reactions, and makes us ask questions of the space and each other. Where as ‘Objectives’ (Is this Stan?) ask us to construct action.
Thursday, 29 January 2009
Finding Form
What is it to look for form. Is this a mental process, a system to complete, or is this a bodily impulse, a need to control. I have spoken before about my body in chaos. It is pushed and pulled in many directions and I am unsure of where to go. By controlling, do I have to be limiting?
Working with the bones I see structure. The bodies structure. My bones are joined by muscles. These two structures limit movement. I cannot extend out five metres. Yet within the physical limitations of my bodies, it offers an endless combination of movements, from a micro, to a macrobody level. Furthermore my desire to expand five metres can be accomplished by expanding my kinesphere, by adopting a different attitude to the space. My control stimulates rather than hinders.
I am searching for a structure, for control. I never set out to find a ‘form,’ to find a limit, but by declaring myself as clown, I declared a form, a structure, a control. But I chose said form because for me, it is formless. It is content, it is naivety. It finds innocence and originality and therefore continually moulds its form. I contradict myself. To continually mould form then it cannot be formless. You have top have form to mould. It starts with the body. The form of the body. I am here.
I allow my body to lead. And my mind to extend. I allow my mind to lead and my body contracts. I listen, and my body moves. I speak, and my body shivers. How to find the speaking open body? Perhaps a god space to start, is my body…
Working with the bones I see structure. The bodies structure. My bones are joined by muscles. These two structures limit movement. I cannot extend out five metres. Yet within the physical limitations of my bodies, it offers an endless combination of movements, from a micro, to a macrobody level. Furthermore my desire to expand five metres can be accomplished by expanding my kinesphere, by adopting a different attitude to the space. My control stimulates rather than hinders.
I am searching for a structure, for control. I never set out to find a ‘form,’ to find a limit, but by declaring myself as clown, I declared a form, a structure, a control. But I chose said form because for me, it is formless. It is content, it is naivety. It finds innocence and originality and therefore continually moulds its form. I contradict myself. To continually mould form then it cannot be formless. You have top have form to mould. It starts with the body. The form of the body. I am here.
I allow my body to lead. And my mind to extend. I allow my mind to lead and my body contracts. I listen, and my body moves. I speak, and my body shivers. How to find the speaking open body? Perhaps a god space to start, is my body…
Monday, 26 January 2009
On and off stage
On stage I do not deny the knowledge that I am Dave, a human being with my own habits, having what Bordieu would call my habitus, a system of learnt ways of being. I have my own performative, an outcome of my habitus, and I live in the world of the Gestus (Brecht). In essence, I am a construct of my past. I have a choice on stage to recognise this. I have a choice not to.
I am a multifaceted individual, and I can choose which facet I apply to each moment on stage. Some facets I cannot escape from. I have a body, this cannot be denied. It can be manipulated, dressed, make upped, but this is my body, this is its shape now in this moment. In essence, if I am nothing else, I am a body, and I am everything that comes with that. I am that social and political construct, I am what I have eaten, I am my memories and my past, all engraved in me. Yet all these parts create noise, each have their own stories, their own vriti (yoga), each can be read by an audience in many different and uncontrollable ways. If a performance requires you to get information across to the audience, then these additional stories can interrupt, or disrupt this dialogue between audience and performer. Or they can heighten this dialogue, enabling a new frame in which to view the performance.
As audience you too are ‘body’. You have disrupted your everyday life to sit and ‘engage’ in a performance. You come with your own stories, your own noise. As audience you do not lose your habitus, your construct of self, as this enables a frame to look at the performance with. Instead, you shift aside your stories and thoughts and become absorbed in the action of performance (when the action is engaging and enjoyable). Like the actor you use the facets of your own body to engage with the performance, you do not forget them, instead, move them to one side. You create space. But where is this space?
The theatre is a transformative physical space. With it comes its own histories, its own inhabited memory, yet unlike the actor and audience it cannot move this aside, it is not a sentient body. It is the actor-audience dialogue that is sentient, and this dialectic communicates across the space that moves its historical stories, that allows it to transform. Bth actor and audience have created space to allow this transformation to occur. This space is not just physical, instead, liminal?
I am a multifaceted individual, and I can choose which facet I apply to each moment on stage. Some facets I cannot escape from. I have a body, this cannot be denied. It can be manipulated, dressed, make upped, but this is my body, this is its shape now in this moment. In essence, if I am nothing else, I am a body, and I am everything that comes with that. I am that social and political construct, I am what I have eaten, I am my memories and my past, all engraved in me. Yet all these parts create noise, each have their own stories, their own vriti (yoga), each can be read by an audience in many different and uncontrollable ways. If a performance requires you to get information across to the audience, then these additional stories can interrupt, or disrupt this dialogue between audience and performer. Or they can heighten this dialogue, enabling a new frame in which to view the performance.
As audience you too are ‘body’. You have disrupted your everyday life to sit and ‘engage’ in a performance. You come with your own stories, your own noise. As audience you do not lose your habitus, your construct of self, as this enables a frame to look at the performance with. Instead, you shift aside your stories and thoughts and become absorbed in the action of performance (when the action is engaging and enjoyable). Like the actor you use the facets of your own body to engage with the performance, you do not forget them, instead, move them to one side. You create space. But where is this space?
The theatre is a transformative physical space. With it comes its own histories, its own inhabited memory, yet unlike the actor and audience it cannot move this aside, it is not a sentient body. It is the actor-audience dialogue that is sentient, and this dialectic communicates across the space that moves its historical stories, that allows it to transform. Bth actor and audience have created space to allow this transformation to occur. This space is not just physical, instead, liminal?
Saturday, 24 January 2009
And we found a room and played
My degree centred around the physical body. The body as a tool, taking excruciatingly long hours to work with the spine, the muscles, the nerves And somehow I found something new when Nikkie told me to lay down and breathe. I have always had a problem of finding the spine in a straight line. I naturally (or habitually) lay so that my shoulders are not even, and by head leans to the side. Friday night was no different, yet because I know I have this problem I have fought to try and become straight, however, last night I did not fight when directed. And found straight. And was somehow peaceful in this resolution.
The sprinter who tries to hard will not win, the sprinter who does not think of winning becomes the victor. (Analogy is found in John Wrights Why is that so Funny)
The sprinter who tries to hard will not win, the sprinter who does not think of winning becomes the victor. (Analogy is found in John Wrights Why is that so Funny)
A direct response after the Gabriel Roth 5 rhythms workshop
There is a place that cries and screams
That crumples and darkens my soul.
How to find a place that exists
How to find me as a child.
Where do I exist, where do I find me
Where does my body find a line?
My perceptions of me in my mind?
I have a jumbled mess that
I would like to iron, to straighten, enlarge, play
A way to live to be with me
All day
I am me, but in me, it is through my shadow that I find me.
Thoughts
Idea of exhaustion, after exhaustion, I can only be what I am, as I cannot functionally do anything else. Connections with Baush, Grotowski? I need to read more on Grotowski need to find a book!
In a performance am I subject or object? Is form an object? Is play a form? If play is subject then it is an ideal, an idea of play, it is not play. Play then is object, but you cannot touch it? If it is neither subject or object then what is it?
Lyrical as a mean to find lightness and play. Lyrical as a mean to find naivety?
That crumples and darkens my soul.
How to find a place that exists
How to find me as a child.
Where do I exist, where do I find me
Where does my body find a line?
My perceptions of me in my mind?
I have a jumbled mess that
I would like to iron, to straighten, enlarge, play
A way to live to be with me
All day
I am me, but in me, it is through my shadow that I find me.
Thoughts
Idea of exhaustion, after exhaustion, I can only be what I am, as I cannot functionally do anything else. Connections with Baush, Grotowski? I need to read more on Grotowski need to find a book!
In a performance am I subject or object? Is form an object? Is play a form? If play is subject then it is an ideal, an idea of play, it is not play. Play then is object, but you cannot touch it? If it is neither subject or object then what is it?
Lyrical as a mean to find lightness and play. Lyrical as a mean to find naivety?
Wednesday, 21 January 2009
Interplay, Interaction and the space that they create. A battlefield for war?
Interplay? What do I mean by this term. ‘Inter’ the space connecting, and ‘play’ a mode of action. Thus Interplay could be described as a space connecting a mode of action?
Interaction could then be defined as the space connecting action.
If performance is a space that connects both performer and audience, because they exist within a shared space within an act, then interplay suggests a malleable connection between action and performance, as play is a dynamic action that relies on both parties to be active or engaged.
Engagement suggests that both parties have an ability to inform an event or shared experience; if I am engaging in the act of war, I have the ability to affect the others in my troupe who are also engaging in the act of war. The army advances over the threshold onto the battlefield and meets the other army on the other side, and the act of war is carried out with a quantifiable outcome, a death toll.
Both audience and performers are engaging in the act of a theatrical event, both are on opposite sides of the battlefield, the theatrical space, and when they meet the act of performance happens, yet is there a quantifiable outcome? Perhaps this is in a sense of a review, but this heavily relies on opinion. In the case of The Dreamers of Inishdara at the Jermyn Street Theatre (2007), three reviews credited the play with two, three and four stars. Who was correct? If performative engagement is not quantifiable, then we cannot be purely talking about the physical presence of the actor and performance, a physical being. Instead a connection that is not physical; a metaphysical connection? A force or an energy?
A war cannot exist without at least two sides, me and my enemy, as theatre can not exist without two sides, the audience and performer. Yet clearly the sides can be blurred, terrorist groups and guerrilla warfare changes the dynamics of the encroaching army, as performance art, ideas of performativity and any other mode of theatre that displaces the ideas of proscenium arch (end on theatre) changes the dynamics of the actor performer relationship.
Does interplay have any musical connotations? Luckily I have walked home to a house of musicians. One suggested that an interplay is to have two melodies play over each other, they could be said to interplay, another then said that is called a harmony. Which is could propose an interesting definition for the actor audience relationship?
Interaction could then be defined as the space connecting action.
If performance is a space that connects both performer and audience, because they exist within a shared space within an act, then interplay suggests a malleable connection between action and performance, as play is a dynamic action that relies on both parties to be active or engaged.
Engagement suggests that both parties have an ability to inform an event or shared experience; if I am engaging in the act of war, I have the ability to affect the others in my troupe who are also engaging in the act of war. The army advances over the threshold onto the battlefield and meets the other army on the other side, and the act of war is carried out with a quantifiable outcome, a death toll.
Both audience and performers are engaging in the act of a theatrical event, both are on opposite sides of the battlefield, the theatrical space, and when they meet the act of performance happens, yet is there a quantifiable outcome? Perhaps this is in a sense of a review, but this heavily relies on opinion. In the case of The Dreamers of Inishdara at the Jermyn Street Theatre (2007), three reviews credited the play with two, three and four stars. Who was correct? If performative engagement is not quantifiable, then we cannot be purely talking about the physical presence of the actor and performance, a physical being. Instead a connection that is not physical; a metaphysical connection? A force or an energy?
A war cannot exist without at least two sides, me and my enemy, as theatre can not exist without two sides, the audience and performer. Yet clearly the sides can be blurred, terrorist groups and guerrilla warfare changes the dynamics of the encroaching army, as performance art, ideas of performativity and any other mode of theatre that displaces the ideas of proscenium arch (end on theatre) changes the dynamics of the actor performer relationship.
Does interplay have any musical connotations? Luckily I have walked home to a house of musicians. One suggested that an interplay is to have two melodies play over each other, they could be said to interplay, another then said that is called a harmony. Which is could propose an interesting definition for the actor audience relationship?
Tuesday, 20 January 2009
Yoga allowing you to see the big and the small in one moment?
I often feel like I go around with my head in a bubble. Its great in that bubble don’t get me wrong, I can look up at a tree and see how the sun dances with the dust that shines through a dense canopy, or admire the sheds of light that pours out of an overhead window, exposing the chewing gummed pavement that lies beneath my feet. It all sounds rather poeticised and romantic. But what is void, is people, other people. My head in the clouds? I perhaps focus on detail to ignore the bigger picture, a way of escaping the moment, only so that I do not have to be afraid of the hustle and bustle that is London, the city. Experience asks do we ever just do 1 thing at a time, to just be?
Recently my head has not been in a bubble that looks up, but a bubble that looks in straight lines. In the still points that are few and far between I update my ical and set a reminder to do something, to meet someone. I have to see people about work or an idea. I forget the detail and attach an agenda, a prioritised list. A Daves guide to getting through a day. But this is as little help as looking to the clouds. Where one is chaotic the other is dizzy. I have no time to be still and breathe.
Today during yoga I noticed two things, which were probably little stories or the other word…. (Not sure). One of which I had forgotten, and the other a nag.
I had forgotten how the light gets brighter after you breathe deeply. A heightened sense, I had forgotten the still excitement that it provokes. Almost as if my buddy surges with vitality, that comes from my feet through my spine and out from my eyes, or from my eyes down to my feet. A sense of alertness.
The second thing I noticed was a pain coming from my eyes when they were shut, and just as I was about to breathe to that pain I noticed that my eyes were moving back and forth in REM. A condition, for what I’m told is often induced whilst asleep and dreaming. It’s a condition that I have started clocking more frequently as I close my eyes for a moment to rest, or to think. I wonder why that is? I don’t have an answer.
In the cold outside, Nikkie was talking of her experience as a dancer, how when she dances she does not notice the audience a individuals, the space becomes infinite. She compares this to a child being watched and a child not being watched, and made connection with Satre. It goes back to the ideas of the actors paradox and bad faith. Yet for Nikkie, instead of describing the audience as a forth wall, she describes them as energy. If I understand correctly, she dances in black, a void and when in contact with that void, her energy makes a light, calving a pattern within that space. The audience too appear to give off a light, and as a performer you need to be sensitive to this, because you cannot see a torch light in the day. Perhaps I’m getting to arty farty?
For a performer that knows they are both actor and character being watched, the dynamic of this situation changes. The PhD student that asks the question about the magician on Mondays Seminar tried to approach this very topic using the idea for the magician, but with a magician, the audience chooses to buy into the fantasy. With a clown, by choosing to clock an audience, you break the fantasy of the action and make the situation real. In this moment the clown reveals what he or she is truly feeling, adding to the humour. In this moment does the clown witnesses being witnessed and is he aware of his awareness?
...Thoughts to be completed on Grotowski and presence and links to puppet and objects.....
Recently my head has not been in a bubble that looks up, but a bubble that looks in straight lines. In the still points that are few and far between I update my ical and set a reminder to do something, to meet someone. I have to see people about work or an idea. I forget the detail and attach an agenda, a prioritised list. A Daves guide to getting through a day. But this is as little help as looking to the clouds. Where one is chaotic the other is dizzy. I have no time to be still and breathe.
Today during yoga I noticed two things, which were probably little stories or the other word…. (Not sure). One of which I had forgotten, and the other a nag.
I had forgotten how the light gets brighter after you breathe deeply. A heightened sense, I had forgotten the still excitement that it provokes. Almost as if my buddy surges with vitality, that comes from my feet through my spine and out from my eyes, or from my eyes down to my feet. A sense of alertness.
The second thing I noticed was a pain coming from my eyes when they were shut, and just as I was about to breathe to that pain I noticed that my eyes were moving back and forth in REM. A condition, for what I’m told is often induced whilst asleep and dreaming. It’s a condition that I have started clocking more frequently as I close my eyes for a moment to rest, or to think. I wonder why that is? I don’t have an answer.
In the cold outside, Nikkie was talking of her experience as a dancer, how when she dances she does not notice the audience a individuals, the space becomes infinite. She compares this to a child being watched and a child not being watched, and made connection with Satre. It goes back to the ideas of the actors paradox and bad faith. Yet for Nikkie, instead of describing the audience as a forth wall, she describes them as energy. If I understand correctly, she dances in black, a void and when in contact with that void, her energy makes a light, calving a pattern within that space. The audience too appear to give off a light, and as a performer you need to be sensitive to this, because you cannot see a torch light in the day. Perhaps I’m getting to arty farty?
For a performer that knows they are both actor and character being watched, the dynamic of this situation changes. The PhD student that asks the question about the magician on Mondays Seminar tried to approach this very topic using the idea for the magician, but with a magician, the audience chooses to buy into the fantasy. With a clown, by choosing to clock an audience, you break the fantasy of the action and make the situation real. In this moment the clown reveals what he or she is truly feeling, adding to the humour. In this moment does the clown witnesses being witnessed and is he aware of his awareness?
...Thoughts to be completed on Grotowski and presence and links to puppet and objects.....
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