3rd November - blog catch up 22nd October writeup

This is a mad catch up blog, and will briefly show details of four (yes four) rehearsals, and let you know what is going on in Konnektiv world.

First though, some very sad news - we didnt' get the Awards for All funding we had put in for.  I'm kicking myself now, because it does clearly state on the form that they won't fund arts projects.  Duh.  Anyway, hopefully we can just jig the application about a bit and send off to somewhere more appropriate - Arts Council maybe.

In the meantime, we have a performance in 3 weeks, and no money whatsoever, so it's off to the market for big sheets and dressing gowns again.  Lol.

About this performance.  How different from the last one.  We are still using the narrator-drum/sculpt pattern, but this one incorporates a lot of comedy - slapstick style of the old English clowns such as the Marx Brothers, and Laurel and Hardy.  This is turn originates in the Italian style of Commedia dell Arte, the attention seeking madcap clown routines that were performed for pennies (or the equivalent) in crowded16th Century Italian markets.  So you may get the idea of just how crazy and fast these productions were.  So, we have mixed the ancient ritualistic, slow, meditative Japanese style, with the fast and funny Italian Commedia and brought it nearly into the  modern age with a silent movie English twist.  Anyway, "It's all an experiment!", as we often say in rehearsals and workshops.

 Monday 24th October

The pictures are of the last big drama game before the performance.  It was one of those that puzzles the group members, as I have a tendency to make glib throwaway comments that have no true meaning, but get people wondering what the heck we are doing.  We had some new members, and so I thought we'd do a quick "getting to know each other" game.  People often think we "get to know each other" in a very literal, verbal and material way.  I'm not sure.  I think we get to know each other in a way that consists of an exchange of verbal, but importantly, non-verbal, cues and energies, and in which we find balances and patterns to interact with the other person.  Too much physical and verbal "knowing", and not enough of the other ("interpersonal"?) may make for very boring, predictable relationships in which there is no room for change or adaptation.

So, when I said that we would make up a picture of each others lives, out of sculpts that began with the same letter as the persons name, then I meant, and possibly should have spelled out more clearly, that it was the dramatic and interpersonal interactive lives that we are getting to know, not the literal, autobiographical, physical and verbal.  Anyway, they group found some laughs, some enlightenments, and the occasional bit of disturbance, in the game.  Maybe they would have not got all of this if I had been very literal.

Each person began their own group sculpt, which gave them the opportunity to lead, by the dramatic power of physical suggestion, how the sculpt would be completed.

 

As each sculpt was completed, I took someones position, and this was passed around, so everyone got a chance to look at the final sculpt

We didn't deliberately discuss the sculpts, though comments we made throughout the game.  Each person engaged in their own way with it, thus enabling them to make their own interpretations, and find their own meaning

 Getting to know people involved familiarising ourselves to the way people responded to particular elements of what was presented.  Where they flattered?  insulted?  did they agree with the groups interpretation?  if not, how did they voice this?

At some point I asked the group members to make contact with each other, when creating the sculpt.  Looking back, I wish I had done that more, because physical contact, in a safe and consenting environment, is a good way to become more intimately acquainted with each other. Drama necessitates physical contact. In our society, we don't make a lot of everyday physical contact.  This may be one way that we tend to block our dramatic selves from our social interactions.

I got a lot of food for thought from this game, which went on for far too long, as there was a big group on this occasion, and we were supposed to be rehearsing.  From now on, and until after the performance, there will be no more games.

And here's some pics from the Custard Factory on the 8th ...

We performed the Good Thunder at the Custard Factory as part of the Arts all over the Place - Arts and Mental Health festival.  Everyone really enjoyed the performance and the audience said it was very good!

The links to the video are here:

part 1:    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EF1tzNOvcmA&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL

part 2:   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZdkVGHQ4jlU&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL

And here are some pics!
  Hope you enjoy them ...

New venue, new story, new time signature!

The second week at The Universal Social club (didn't post last week, still in recovery, and trying to get photo's of the performance.  Will put these up next post).

In brief, the two sessions have mainly been getting to know the new space, and paying renewed attention to the second story in our trio of Japanese Fairy Tales, the Kettle Badger.


Yesterdays session was interesting, as some of the questions raised by group members to other group members were quite personal, for instance, "which screw do you have loose?"  Responses to this question varied, and whilst I did say to group members that they did not have to answer or could answer in any way they please, most people chose to come up with something that was actually quite personal and meaningful.  I hope that this is a sign of the trust and intimacy that has built up within the group, and that was consolidated during the performance last week.  


By facilitating the making of personal connections with the room, and with each other, I aim to continue to build on the sense of comeraderie and togetherness in the group.

I am aware that my own style of facilitation is changing, and have reflected on this, trying to work out what is changing and why.  


Mainly I am taking much more of a leader role.  I think there are three factors at play here.  First of all, I am becoming more confident in my own style and what I am imparting to the group. Second, we have another performance in a relatively short period of time, and I am ensuring that the progress of rehearsals is in the direction of development of the performance.  Third, the group as a whole seem more confident.  This means that group members are keen to offer and develop ideas.  This is fantastic, as the more people offering ideas the better - and it gives me the opportunity to respond in kind, being stronger and more positive in my own approach.  We are all familiar with the themes and style of our performance, and so can now play with these much more freely than we did before.

We have changed the time signature for this story.  Whereas for the Good Thunder the time was a slow 10 regular single beats, in the Kettle Badger, there are 10 slow triplets, with the bodran being struck on the first note, and the tambourine on the third, of each triplet.  This gives a skip to the beat, which goes with the lively, lighthearted style of the story.

We are beginning to see the more subtle meanings and suggestions of duplicity in the story.  For instance the priest and the market seller, both have their own materialistic, self serving agendas.  the Badger kettle secretly knows much more than it lets on, and is able to cause much mayhem.  There is a great moral in this story, as the one person who is able to benefit from ownership of the Tea Kettle is the Tinker, who has no particular agenda and comes across as genuine and open.

We have decided that we will not construct a tea kettle, at least for the show on the 24th November.  This is because it will be time consuming, possibly expensive and probably difficult to work with dramatically.  Instead, we are going to call upon the magic of physical theatre.  The actress playing the tea kettle, will 'become' the tea kettle, and then the badger, at different times in the story.  Her physicality, and that of the people in the creative space, responding to her and each other, will describe and define the kettle, which the audience can then percieve using their imagination. 






Interpersonal relationships in the group
In terms of interpersonal relationships, and this is important for all groups, including drama groups, as well as for therapy groups, it is important to me that bullying and exclusion are avoided.  Working with therapy groups this can be extremely challenging, as the therapist aims to facilitate fullness of expression of each group member, however, one persons creative expression, could involve making jibes, criticising or in other ways putting down or excluding another member.  The other member will then find any sort of expression much more difficult.  


In a fully functional group, presumably, there would be no reason for jibes or criticisms or what we might call 'scapegoating'.  The job of the facilitator, or therapist, if it is a therapy group, is to decide how much of this they will tolerate in order to allow group dynamics to take a natural course, and hope that the scapegoater and the scapegoated develop some awareness of the patterns of their relationships.





 

Extra Rehearsals, body paint, nerves?

No Pics again.  Wish I didn't keep losing my camera.  Still, I'm sure it will turn up.

So I can't show you all how good the costumes are getting, and how 'in character' everyone is, and how big are the bags under our eyes...

It is of course one of lifes many many ironies, that the more you are doing, the less time you have to talk about it, so I'm not going to write much at this point, because I'm doing so much and don't have time!

Basically, we've got another extra rehearsal at the Community Fire Station, Hopefully everyone is going through the music over and over, especially the dancers, who need to be really familiar with all the cues (the development of perfect timing is crucial at this point, as there is music, dance, movement and narrative all going on at the same time, and that has to be perfectly co-ordinated.  The music is our timing structure, and we will need help from the composer to bring us in in the right places, as the rythm of the music is quite fluid  Our ears will hopefully become very attuned, as we search for audio cues in the subtle soundscapes pieced together and interwoven with the Japanese original.

Costumes are looking great, and now we are just adding extra detail.  We are looking forward to getting together with the face painters on about 2 hours before the performance.  This isn't ideal, as the actors won't have had a chance to get familiar with themselves in their full garb.  In addition to this, it will be our first time in the space provided at the Custard Factory, and in front of an audience.  So, all in all, it will be an adventure for everyone.  There will be a bit of improvisation as we fit ourselves physically into the space, and a bit of last minute cognitive adjustments as we see ourselves and each other in full paint and costume for the first time.

All in all it's going to be an excellent experience, and a fitting start to our performing adventures.

I may not blog now until after the performance, but hopefully will have some good pictures for the next entry!

Bye for now.

Penultimate Rehearsal - Storm Dancers and Peasants

We got the first draft of the music of Chris our fab musician (http://gurusoul.net/).

This meant that we could finally really get to grips with the dance.

The group Split into two - with the peasants and the narrator in one room with Rai Taro and helped by Sam who turned up to say hi and ended up playing the drum for us, and the Storm Demons and Thunder God (Rai Den) rehearsed the dance in the second room.

It was nearly 9pm before we were ready to show each other what we had ended up with, making this a late finish, but lots of really positive stuff got done.

 One more rehearsal for the whole group, one meeting between the Storm Dancers and a pre-performance visit to the famous Custard Factory in Birmingham,

a bit of running round getting costumes together and a chat with Merv's daughter who is going to come on the day of the performance to do the makeup.  

We won't actually see the whole characters in mask/costume until the performance, so it will be interesting for us to see what it is like on the day. 

 Some of the group will also not see the venue until the day of the performance, so we have no way of being able to predict what the performance will be like at all.  

For many of the group, this will be the first time they have ever taken part in a public performance of this nature.

Bringing all the separate parts together will be one of the many focusses of the next two weeks.

Next monday's rehearsal will probably be very long!

Congratulations to the narrator who remembered most of her many lines!

In the sculpts we try to use many different physical levels, as well as levels of tension, in order to add interest visually.

Mirroring and echoing are strategies commonly used to add emphasis to an expression, and conect different parts of the performance

21st Sept - Storm Dance, Rai Den, Long Black Robes

It seems a long time since we were in the Fire Station for a rehearsal.  It was good to have a room with a bit more space in it.  We have another Storm Demon, and spent half the session working on perfecting the 3 basic dance positions - with more instructions to practice several times a day.

The first position is high - with legs and arms held at an angular stance, hips tucked in and shoulders straight across.  To help with balance and centering, and to practice returning to this stance, we practiced gently pushing each other, in position, and the person in position becomes like rubber, firm yet pliable, and returning to the original stance once the pressure of the push is removed.  This involved also a pressing gently against the pressure of the push, so that the body is trying to return to it's original position, without actually straining.

The push came from each side, and front and back.  After a few tries, the person being pushed closed their eyes so that they could focus more on the feeling of the position, the pressure, and the movement.

After some time practicing and perfecting the positions, and moving between them, we practiced in a group, each taking a different position at one time, which is how it will be in the actual dance.

Following this, we robed up Ray Den, and worked on his part of the storm dance.

The robe is made from layers of black cloth.  We cut a strip off the end to make a belt.

This was starting to look a bit Japanese, but the actor could not raise his arms!

So we untied the tie, and he raised his arms first, thus ensuring full range of movement when the garb was again belted up.

Now Ray Taro can move his arms as much as he likes, tho we may get a wider kimono style belt.  We also had some discussions about hair, and so far the favourite plan seems to be to shave his head and paint the whole head with the face paints that will be used to mask up each character.

Ray Taro's robe from the rear.

We spent some time working with the movements for the bringing of the storm.  First the actor spoke through the moves, and showed the group, the group reflecting them, and having much discussion about how each move would be made.  We also spent some time setting the scene, as the visualisation that each character goes through in developing their sculpt adds to the intensity conveyed in the sculpt.

The energy is captured and held, ready for the bringing of the storm.

Beating the Great Drum of the Thunder

Preparing to give the gift to the peasant.

After we had worked on the physical movement sequence as a group, the rest of us all got onto a chair and watched as the actor finally got the opportunity to take centre stage and show us the complete sequence.  And we finally got the chance to see the Thunder God in action.