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.