Anyway, enough of me, car crashes, and general self indulgence

Legs are very heavy.  Well mine are.  They are like these great big solid lumps of wood.  They don't want to move half the time.  This won't do.  Physical performers don't have great big solid lumps of wood for legs, they have keen, alert coiled springs that leap, dance, skip, role and flip like fireworks.  I'm trying Kettlebells and skipping to try to wake my sleeping monsters and see if there exists a spring within.  Of course 45 is probably a bit late in life to waken coiled springs, I'll probably pull a ligament or something.  Still, we are anti-ageist and pro people working to their best potential.  Potential.. I always hated that word.

Anyway, enough of me.  Here is the tale of what we did tonight at the wonderful Konnektiv workshop.  I was quite unprepared due to the fact that my day was somewhat disorientated by a breakdown on the motorway (the car broke down not me incase you are wondering).  It was a particularly dangerous location - the meeting point of the M54 and the M6.  It involved a big band and cloud of smoke and me veering across the sliproad to the only bit of hard shoulder I could see before the car grumbled to it's final resting place.  The engine, the AA man told me, is dead.  Luckily I am still alive.  

Anyway, enough of me.  There seems to be a theme in todays blog.

Those konnektiv people are so fab, I do love them.  I wasn't that prepared for the session, and had to kind of make it up as I went along.  
More than usual that is.  We started with a game.  Because I have become aware of how insentient and log-like my legs are recently, I am getting the group to do activities that involve energetically moving their legs around.  "Doctor, Heal thyself!"  I hear in my minds ear.  (Shut up, I reply, No, you shut up etc etc).  Then finally I get round to describing the session.

Girls against boys.  We had 3 of each, so it was a convenient way to divide the group into two for what turned out to be a very fun game.  The boys had a blue bean bag (very small, the type you use for juggling, not sitting on)  and the girls had a red one.  The stood strategically positioned, feet rooted to the floor, but minds alert and ready.  Each team had one beanbag, held by a player in the centre of the room.  I was the ref.  "One, Two, Three... Beanbag!"  I called.  The word beanbag released the feet and the legs became like coiled springs.  They each had to throw their own beanbag to each other, and capture the beanbag of the other team.  Capturing the opponents beanbag gained a point.  First to 5 won.  On this occasion the girls won.  

We had a chat about the importance of doing excersise that speeds up your cardiovascular system.  I'm feeling a bit out of shape at the moment and very conscious of this.  This desire to cure ones own ills by applying the remediation to others is quite interesting.  

The game was great fun.  Then we had to do some work on complicite.  I hadn't swotted up on Diedre so had to come up with something quick.  I decided to try a different angle to the usual one.  In twos, everyone found out something that they didn't previously know about each other.  Then we all sat in the audience chairs and I instructed the group what to do next.  Each person had to introduce their partner to the audience, in a magnificent way, telling a story from the information they had found out, this was done in a grandiose melodromatic style.  

The job of the audience was to hang on to every word, fully engaged, fully responsive.  Crying at the sad bits, laughing at the funny bits, gasping with incredulousness and the incredible bits etc.  Now, as you might imagine, most of the stories were about such things as packed lunches, or pet dogs.  The point of this was that the group is learning to be emotionally responsive together, and dramatically tuned in to each other.  It is all very well to experience group complicite in that serene almost spiritual way that occurs when we do the slow, focussed stuff, but we want to be able to entertain people, which means racking up the emotive volume a bit, and still keeping the sense of togetherness.  
The result was a lively, loud yet focussed whole.  Our youngest member got quite self conscious and couldn't do this, so we negotiated and agreed that she could do her introduction sitting on the floor with a hoody on back to front, covering her face.  She introduced her partner by pointing at the curtain that he stood behind.  This brought riotous applause, following which was followed by our member shuffling off on her bottom, very slowly, her face still covered by the hood.  A classic example of the extroverted introvert.  Or the introverted extrovert.

Finally, and here the pics and video's come in, the group revisited their devised machines from last week.  First they reminded themselves of what their individual group creations, and then bringing them together into one machine.  I am amazed by how something very uncomplicated can be really effective and entertaining.  

Each person had a simple sequence of movements.  When combined into a group of people making similar and interconnected movements, this became seemingly quite complex.  Then, when the two groups, who had very different kinds of movements, each joined up, the final effect was very interesting.  Have a look at the vids and see what you think.  please feel free to comment.

Energy Ball, Complicite, the Human Machine

Energy Ball

To start the session we used a simple warm up – the energy ball.   The energy ball movement sequence has changed somewhat.  I have been modifying it over time and now think it is smoother and simpler.  The breathing is an important component.  As the body opens, the breath is inward, swelling the lungs and pushing out the chest.  

As we close the body, the breath is outward, and the movement helps to empty the body of air.  A problem is that currently the energy ball movement sequence  only uses the upper body and arms, not the legs, so I am currently working on moves that will include the legs.  During the slow, flowing sequence of movements, a ball of energy is visualised (hence the name), and the energy ball is given a colour, any colour that individual wants to use on that particular occasion.

We don’t name the colour, and I’m not sure what is the purpose of giving it a colour.  I think maybe it just makes it easier to visualise, and also the colour gives the energy a particular quality.   For instance, blue may be a calming colour for some, or yellow may be cheerful , red may be warm and vibrant.

Complicite

Image 1: Exercises in complicite, the group selects a new object

We are still experiencing weekly group changes, and I have come to think that this is just something that we must cope with .  It would be great to think that exactly the same people would come for several consecutive weeks, but this isn’t the way things go.  Two of our new members from the auditions haven’t come for the last two weeks; sadly we are to lose Billie for a few weeks whilst she focusses on her A level exams.  We survive these almost weekly changes of personel, and despite these,  the complicite work that we are doing does serve to bring this new group together, building group cohesion, raising levels of intimacy and awareness of the group ‘whole’.  

These are aspects of drama that can be quite challenging.  In performance, the ability of a group to develop intimacy and cohesion is very important.  Also it is necessary for members to lose self awareness, and to become part of a whole unit, rather than being a set of individuals.  I hope that there develops a sense of joy and safety in being part of the group, and that this sense enables a full and open exploration of the drama that we produce.  This in turn represents the life that we experience, that we bring with us to each session, and so we are able to engage in a full and open exploration of our lives and experience.

Image 2, Ebbs and Flows

I’ve been inspired by reading 'Through the Body' by Dymphna Callery.  She has a great way of writing, touching on the theorists such as Brook and Lecoq, and explaining why certain things are important, but keeping this brief and to the point, focussing on a lot of practical application.  This makes her a very good first point of call for a drama group facilitator. 

Speaking about the importance of complicite, and talking about improvisation, and the importance of ‘joy’, the improviser needs to feel joy in what they are doing, for the sake of both their own performance, and that of the whole group.  Whilst we are doing these excersises, and in my discussion, I bring in the relationship with these and the ‘darker’ side of life, and of theatre, the joy not just provides energy, but a feeling of safety, comeradery, for the journey that we take, that at times, may take us to unchartered lands, or fields of experience. 

Image 3, the deliciously nervewracking moment of having been 'selected'

I roughly translated Callery’s exercises and this is what followed: First the group stood in a circle, they were told to, as one, pick up an (imaginary) pane of glass.  I added the detail that the glass had on it a very precious rare marble, that mustn’t role off.  The group were told to move the glass to the other side of the room.  

They had to, as one, bend, slide their hands under the glass, lift it until they were all standing, and then in unified speed, to move to the second location.  After one or two false starts, the group managed it, (although we did notice that the pane of glass had seemed to shrink during the journey, as the group members had huddled closer to each other in their aim to move in a perfectly uniform manner).

Then we played the ‘stop-start’ game.  The group walked around the room, in any direction, and as one, stopped, then sometime later, started.   Here we started to really get the feeling that the group was gaining complicite.  At times, it really was impossible for me to know who had led the stopping and starting.  The game slowly evolved.  This is where it starts to get really interesting.  Occasionally I would say ‘freeze!’, everyone had to stop and close their eyes.  Then I would say ‘Everybody point at (name of group member)’, most of the time the group got this quite well.  This meant that they had to be aware of everyone all the Time.

Image 4 - cats and mouse

In this next section, I was reminded of the notion of person being ‘object’.  When I instructed the group to ‘discover’ (create) a ‘frightening object’, I had intended it to be an imaginary object, as we often create in improvisations.  I instructed the group to discover and slowly approach this frightening object, that was somewhere in the room.  They walked around for a while, searching for the thing that the group would find, quite an interesting process to watch, a bit animalistic, with an awareness that felt like swirling currently of water, moving this was and that around the room.  

Image 6 - who will it be?  Standoff...

To my gradual surprise, and then amusement, blending gradually with spectator-fear (this isn’t real fear, it is the fear that a spectator feels, though they know they are not really in danger), I realised that the group had chosen me as the feared object.  This was quite amusing, and I laughed, but it was a slightly nervous laugh, as they very  slowly approached me, very slowly, methodically, reminding me somewhat of a group of zombies in a horror film.  I felt not like a feared object, but a hunted victim.  

Image 7 - the tide on the turn

The ticklish fear reminded me of the experience of an audience member who had been singled out by the bouffon, and that confusion of role between feared and fearful object, that the bouffon tease with their parody, cruelty and humility.

This was so interesting, and such fun, that we gave each group member a turn at being the audience member.  Before approaching them, the group would get together an plan what their mode of approach would be – ‘dead pan’, ‘bared teeth’, ‘lascivious’, ‘inquisitive’, and the effect each time, was the same, laughter, mixed with and due to, a really unexpected feeling of fear. 

Image 8

In role both as actor and spectator, this was very enjoyable.  As spectator it felt very special, being singled out and treated to a one off performance, and somehow being given a starring role, even though as victim in this case.  As actor it felt empowering to be able to bring about such emotion in an audience member.  We started to realise the potential of this method.  Wistful conversations about the bouffons ensued, and renewed promises that we will do a bouffon production one day.

Image 9

But for now, the machine.  And first we have more complicite exercises to do.  Being taken by the idea of singling out one person, and the power of this, which is magnified of course, when one isn’t actually expecting to be singled out, I instructed the group to single out and approach one of their own number, and to decide as a group, when to approach, and when to back off away from the selected person-object.  The first video shows a small amount of this part of the improvisation.  The group reminded me once again of swirling currents of water, moving first one way, then the other, each member looking around, wondering if it would be them, tacitly suggesting that it could be someone else, then, sometimes suddenly, sometimes in a slower more fragmented process, the group, would select someone and approach them. 

Equally fascinating was the way that people reacted once selected, sometimes they would play, sometimes try to fight off the predators, sometimes try to disappear – by moving under a table or by lying face down on the floor.  Later the group talked about the feeling of this being a good natured, humane and co-operative game, with very strict rules (eg not carrying on approaching someone if they seemed to be getting genuinely distressed), though there was also the dangerous element, the feelings of paranoia, not being able to trust anyone, the cruelty of the hunt.  This was an excersise not just in complicite, but in power dynamics, politics, and communication at a very subtle level (just about everything we do is non-verbal).  

Image 11

On another level, It was also an exploration in cruelty, scapegoating, and persecution.  At times, for me as spectator, it felt what I can only describe as primal, or tribal.  The humour and the group cohesion made for a feeling of safety throughout the excersise, but I did think about how it could become something along the lines of an Artonian ‘Theatre of Cruelty’ exercise. 

Artaud strove to recreate these elements of pre-civilization archetypal experience through theatre, looking for the basic primal human instinctual experiences that we have lost through the ages.   Times have changed since the days of Artaud, we may be less repressed, the themes may be less shocking to us.  In addition to this, there may be an assumption in Artaudian terms, that the primitive experience will be unsettling, cruel, shocking, disturbing.  

More recent theorists, such as the anarcho-primitives, look upon the primitive experience as being one of co-operation, humanity, equality, pleasure and play.  Through the drama we experienced both of these element, the dichotomous, illogical cradling of dangerous experience in a safe, agreeable environment.

The human-machine

The second and third video on the blog show what we did in the final part of the session.  In two sub-groups, two machines were created, one of the bottom half of the body moving, and one with the top half of the body moving.  I instructed members to ensure that only one part of the body moved at a time, to give the impression of each part of the body being an individual moving part – thus emphasising the mechanical nature of the movement.  Of course in fact every time we move one part of our body, other parts move, and this is much more evident when we move our legs, as we need to shift our whole weight from one side to another to transfer from one leg to another.  No matter how hard we try, our top bodies will move visibly, all we can do is to try to reduce this effect.

As you will see from the videos, each group member co-ordinated their moves with each other group member, so that one movement stemmed from, and led to, a movement by one of their partners.  They also incorporated vocal sounds, which added to the physical sound in the case of the leg machine.  

The sounds gave imagery of steam, pressure, smoothly moving parts, whistles.  They added a more powerful dynamic to the move.  The plan next week is to bring all of the elements of the two machines together, to create one larger and more complex one.  The way that they do this will be decided on the day, in the meantime, I hope that they are practicing.

Embodiment; isolating body parts; impro in varying group sizes.

Physicality:
We are a physical theatre group.  This suggests a level of physical awareness, prowess and dexterity that I'm not sure we all have.  We have creativity, imagination and playfulness in abundance, however I think, and I have shared with the group, that we could really do with brushing up on our physicality.  That involves:

Being fit and healthy - we engage in some pretty energetic stuff, and whilst in impro workshops it's ok for us to be huffing and puffing a bit, stopping to rest occasionally, in performance, it rather detracts from the enjoyment of watching.  So, we need to ensure that our cardiovascular systems are in tip top condition, eating well and regular vigorous excersise (e.g., brisk walking, swimming, cycling, skipping) should be essential parts of our honing ourselves as performers.

Being strong - ok, some of the positions the creatures and objects that we create aren't very naturalistic in terms of humanness.  
We contort ourselves and hold weird and wonderful positions.  Part of the issue here is bodiy awareness - ie don't hold a position that is going to hurt or even injure us, and don't hold a position that is going to result in a wobbling shaking object rather than a sturdy one.  The other part of the issue here is being strong enough to stretch our physical boundaries without doing self harm.  It's a balance.  Regular weight bearing excersise (Merv does kettle bells, other forms of weight training could also be used).

Another element of physicality is dynamic expression.  I am thinking here gymnastic ability, being, swift, flexible and responsive.  In order to maximise our dynamic expressivity, we could take up regular practice at gymnastics, acrobatics, circus skills, along with, or alternatively, martial arts or wrestling.

I'm being realistic here.  We are not a young group (with the exception of one or two members), but we all enjoy being physical and have a moderate amount of physical ability.  Putting on entertaining and impressive performances of physical theatre is our aim.  The fitter we are, the better will be our performances.  We don't need to be acrobats, but we do need a certain amount of acrobatic skill, physical awareness and control.

Last nights session started very much with this message.  We revisited an excersise that I created last year, called 'energy ball', this is a bit like a yoga or meditation.  It is a single movement that goes through a sequence of positions, and involving a visualised ball of energy, which is given a particular colour.  It is good for focussing and calming energy, in preparation for an activity or just the day ahead.

Isolating body Parts  The machine is planned to be an extravagent, unexpected, smooth, interactive, activity.  In order to look mechanical, we are beginning once again to examine the notion of isolating body parts.  A simple movement, e.g., standing on your toes, involves the whole body.  When we do this, and really think about it, we realise just how much of our body is moving.  The toe and ankle joints, the whole shift of weight, our shoulders and hips, the angle of our arms to our body.  The angle of our head and shoulders.  To appear mechanical, each of these movements need to be either 1) miminised so that it is almost indiscernable, or 2) emphasised, so that it appears deliberate and mechanical.  No simple task, and requiring of much practice. Connected to this is the notion of 'Otkas, Posyl and Stoika', the 'statement of intent to move', the 'movement' and the 'statement of completion of move'.  

When applied to the machine, this can be done in different ways, the ways that we looked at was a slight movement in the opposite direction of the movement to mark the otkas and the stoika, or another way, which is to hold the body quite tense, then slightly relax the part that is to be moved (the otkas), and during the movement retain this tension (posyl), and making a sudden return to the original tension right at the end of the movement (stoika).  This looked quite effective, and again, requires practice.


 Impro by numbers; a variation on the cauldron.
The pics this week are all from the improvisation phase of the workshop.  After physicality, we are working on the group cohesion and the essence of 'complicite' that will give a feeling of real magic to the performance.  Every performer is so sensitive to the actions of the group, and so responsive, that the group ceases to become a set of individuals, and becomes an entitiy in it's own right.


Usually, in the cauldron, two people are in the performance space, free improvising.  When another member of the group wants to join in, they come and tap someone on the shoulder, the tapped person leaves the impro and the new entrant takes over.

In our version, (and thanks to Billie for suggesting this), we use the group complicite for this process.  Rather than the new comer making the decision, the group decide.  This is done in various ways, quite often, one of the improvisers is running out of ideas, and will take the opportunity to run off stage.  Sometimes the newcomer and one of the existing spaceholders will form a dynamic, leaving one out, who will then leave the stage, sometimes there will be something of a standoff, as improvisers each make offerings, to see whose will be taken up.  Occasionally the newcomer will hesitate, part way through making an offering, suddenly feeling that what they are doing is out of place, and run off stage. 
Occasionally, I will tell them to stand their ground, and to carry on negotiating for space in the performance area.  Through simply taking away the element of one person choosing who stays in the impro space and who leaves, and letting the group come to a decision through more subtle means, we managed to get a much more sensitive group, who communicated with each other more subtly and creatively. 
After a while I tell the group to increase their number by 1.  So over the course of 50 minutes, the number of improvisers in the space grew from 2 to 5.  This brings in many different dynamics of performance.  The areas of improvisation centre around things such as conflict, conspiracy, exploration, discovery, danger, sabotage, defence, exhibition.  Improvisers may take the part of characters or objects (with character); objects may become imbued with characteristics (see pics of the incorporation of the table into the improvisation).  Whether character or object, each element of the improvisation adds it's own dynamic, and an infinite variety of possibilities for story development.

Who is the spy?
During the last 10 minutes, I gave the group another task in complicite.  I told them that one of their number is a spy, and the group had to find out who the spy was and arrest them.  I forgot to tell them that they had to produce an ending also, and added this later.  My phone camera stopped half way through this and I have lost some of the improvisation, but the videos shown here demonstrate some of the techniques used by people in coming to group decisions.  It became very much more democratic when I actually named a specific group task.  The processes of negotiation are quite clearly seen here.  
This process will be much less obvious as the group becomes more highly tuned in terms of sensitivity and responsiveness, however it is an education, as well as being very entertaining, to be able to observe these processes occuring. 
 Can you spot the rebel?  The collaborators?  The onlooker?  Which offers are taken up and which go unnoticed?  In a brief moment of disengagement an actor 'loses the plot' and has to reintegrate themself, or be reintegrated, into the action.