Diaries, Complicite and Bouffon design

What an extraordinarily busy session we had tonight.  If I stopped and thought about it I may be feeling a bit daunted by what we have taken on, but I've decided not to think about it, so it's fine.  


We have lots of workshops to book - the workshops that we will be doing with the grant money we have recieved are:
mask making, backdrop making, voice development and expression, yoga, electronic music and sound production and developmental transformations.

Anna Atkins, Woodhorsetail Cyanotype, this is
 an example of the style of the backdrops
that  will be made in the set making workshops

The start of the session was a mammoth task of confirming/cancelling/postponing workshops sessions, as everyone wrestled with diaries and dates.  I had hoped this might take about 15 minutes - it was closer to half an hour.

That's just workshops and rehearsals for the Japanese Fairy Tale performance at the Gatehouse.  


At the same time we have started designing our bouffons.  We are using themes such as size - adding bulk or length to particular body parts, making them overlarge or misshapen, restriction - using tape to fix limbs into one position or by taping on cushions/padding, to restrict movement and make it unnatural, Asymmetry - making the different sides of the body different from each other, looking distorted and generally unattractive.

The session started with a physical warm up that also doubled as a mime exercise - passing round the circle an invisible 'naughty ball', that had a mind of it's own.  This became quite lively as I added more 


naughty balls into the game and eventually everyone was busy either trying to pass one, or get one from someone else The movements became faster, bigger and more exaggerated, with people falling over, rolling on the floor, being pulled around the room in all directions as they struggled to control their invisible ball.


I ended this with a small focussing exercise, everyone ended up with their own ball, which transformed into an energy ball that was calm and friendly, and spoke wise words to them.  Eventually the group absorbed their energy ball, some quite reluctantly as they wanted to keep it!


We did lots more work on complicite - stop start games were the order of the day.  the group quickly got the hang of these and when they work they look really effective, and they will add to the way that the group work together once they don their bouffon body masks.


It was great to see how different all of the designs were, and I love these pictures, that we all drew at the end of todays session, as we begin to work on how we want our bouffon to look, and also the very practical consideration of how we are going to construct the costumes/masks.


The stop start games gave an opportunity for a bit of silliness as people added funny walks and postures.  This is great as it adds to the enjoyment of the session and shows how people have got really comfortable with each other, being bold enough to experiment and let themselves be really creative.


We did a little creative work on the Japanese Fairy Tales.  I am very aware that with three stories being told on one night, we need to ensure that each one has a very different dynamic, otherwise the audience may get bored.  
We went through each Fairy tale in turn, each coming up spontaneously with 3 movements and positions to 10 beats, and a group bow at the end.  As with the complicite games, the starting and stopping of the movements and positions was down to the group collectively.  I instructed the group to really think about the dynamic of each piece and how it will contrast with the other pieces.


So, I look back on the session and it's a blurr of different activities. I think the group are very patient with me sometimes as they indulge my schemes and ideas.  I am very grateful to them for this.  It is a great benefit to my own development as I experiment with different ways of doing things, sometimes making things up as I go along, sometimes doing something broadly based on something someone else has done, and just occasionally, doing a straight copy of something I did in my training or have read in a book - but it all has a purpose, and even though occasionally the methods need refining, the group do come up with some great drama.

Funding, Plans and Bouffons...

News:
Gatehouse Performance of Japanese Fairy Tales
We have had 2 lots of good news this week - in the form of accepted funding bids.  This is great because we can do the workshops, build the backdrops and masks, get some extra training in voice and body work.  I have lots of co-ordination to do organising dates and group facilitators.  It will be great being facilitated occasionally!  The date for the Gatehouse performance of Japanese Fairy Tales, culminating and celebrating 15 months of work and dedication by the Konnektiv posse, is 30th June.


Bouffons
Tonight, we started work on Bouffons.  Merv and me have been looking up the theory behind these and the possibilites for these unruly grotesque slightly dangerous clowns seem endless.  We've looked at Lecoq, who first used Bouffons in the way that we are doing, as a group of entertaining but a bit scary characters, who work as one, improvising, playing to the stimuli that come from the spectator, teasing, taunting, always humble, just getting away with it.  We've also looked at Phillipe Gaulier, who has the darkest view of Bouffons of all.  However we are focussing on the work of John Wright, because he has a very down to earth, practical way of describing bouffons (or buffoons as he calls them) and gives lots of good advice about how to get into the characters.


Role and Archetype - and a bit of armchair psychology
Konnektiv are going to look at Bouffons slightly differently to the way that the authors mentioned did.  Mainly in the way that we take ownership of the character.  The Bouffon is an archetype, and as such, probably resides in all of us.  When we take on the ill-fitting ridiculously shaped body of the Bouffon, we do not take on the Bouffon, we allow our inner Bouffon a voice.  The outcast, the unlucky, the misshapen, the resentful and angry, the jealous, bitter, malevolent, we all recognise these qualities only because they reside in ourselves.  We laugh at them nervously because we see a mirror image of something we scarcely dare glimpse, in a hidden recess of our consciousness.


What happens if we give voice to our Bouffon?  If we give our inner Buffoon permission to exist as a sentient character - if we listen to him or her?  Well, we will find out.  


Maybe, by using the protection and safety offered by the ridiculous costumes, the humour, the gross exaggeration, we might find that part of ourselves, and accept it a bit more, even find some way to like it...   maybe not.  Time will tell.

Complicite

Just a note before you start reading this bit - there is no connecting meaning between the words I have written and the individual pictures, the matching up of words and pictures is purely co-incidental.  They tell something of the flow of the entire session, rather than illustrating specific points that I have made.
Our journey started today with some games taken from John Wrights book that help the group develop complicite - that almost magical experience when the group becomes so tuned in to itself, that it is no longer a set of individuals, but it is almost one animal, feeling it's way through themes, shapes, levels, stories. 
It responds to itself and 'gropes', finding meaning almost by accident, through giving and accepting offers, through mutual awareness of group members, and through trust and openness.


The games were 'grouping' and 'revealing'.  In one the group walk around, together, and suddenly, almost as one, form a picture, which is directed towards the audience.  In the other, the group wordlessly choose a singer, all walk as one, then find ways to 'reveal' the singer (who doesn't actually sing). 

  We repeated each game many times, and over time.  At first the group floundered, hardly knowing the meaning of the word.  Then it's meaning became apparent, it transpired from the mutual fumblings around the space.  The feeling of complicite became more apparent, occasionally wonderful moments happened, that looked like they had been rehearsed. 

 When these moments happened it felt really special.  Often one person would end up outside the group.  A leader, a lone rebel - this can be part of the game but needs to happen in moderation, the group is the thing.

 Sometimes a person lost concentration, found themselves alone in the scene, off guard, this occasionally resulted in a feeling of insecurity.  People needed to learn to accept offers, to play, to observe and 'feel' the group, become an organic part of it.

Ideally, individuals only existed when the group chose them, and the group would just as quickly swallow them back up.  Self appointed leaders occasionally emerged, sometimes too strongly, as if they didn't trust the group to follow. 




 Rebel behaviour occurred - where one person refused to 'go along' with the group.  


This could make good drama - or kill the drama, but this isn't complicite.  

Clear roles started to emerge - some characters a bit lost, some cheeky, some more malevolent than others, people were occasionally drawn to each other in ways that they wouldn't necessarily be in 'real life'.


After these complicite games, we chatted about how people felt - they had been quite taken with the process, and had all experienced moments of 'magic' when something seemed to just happen, that felt exactly right, something unplanned yet perfect in execution.  

The whole group felt when this happened.

 We talked about the dark side of the bouffons after the games, along with a story of Punchinello, an archetypal bouffon from the Commedia tradition, who's history of tragedy and nasty character give him license to hate without prejudice, and yet on some level he is always forgiven, even for murder, of children, of women, of priests.  


So, with the idea of the bouffon firmly planted in the group, along with a growing understanding of complicite, we are now going to spend the next couple of months juggling - new projects and old, celebrations and innovations.  It is going to be very busy!!

Another new venue and another performance

It has been such a long time since I last blogged, and loads of things have happened.  As I have just at last replaced my rubbish old no good computer with a nice new one I will be back blogging regularly, so will gradually get back up to date with everything, including some pics, and if I can work out how to load it, a video.

Here is the news:
We got another new venue!  Now we are at Staffordshire Performing Arts, thanks to a lovely lady called Amanda who saw our article in the Newsletter saying we are homeless.  SPA is I think the best workshop space we have had so far, and we can also do performances there.
We finally got to perform Urashima - after the London Expo thing was cancelled by its so-called organisers very rudely at the last minute, we were allowed to do a candlelit performance of this tragic tale at St Chad's Church, which is small, lovely and gothic.
I haven't got pics vids to hand, but here is Chris's writeup from his blog... (thanks Chris!)...

http://www.d-list.co.uk/2012/04/urashima-at-earth-hour-you-had-to-be.html?spref=fb

We also nearly have a performance date for the Gatehouse - end of June - where we will perform all three fairy tales.
And the final bit of news - we are starting a new project - after 15 months of working on the Japanese Fairy Tales, we are now doing bouffons.  More on these funny monster type things as soon as I've read up on them, but in the meantime, here is what I wrote on the Facebook group...

"This week we are meeting on Wednesday as usual, but we are starting a brand new project ... bouffons "the art of mockery".  This clowning technique is very physical and as crazy as we like...

Also, because of my own interest in the health and wellbeing side of all this, I'd like to use the project to look at some deeper and more meaningful stuff like "why do we laugh?", "who are we laughing at?", "can laughter be used as part of a therapeutic process?"  (Maybe by enablingus to think the unthinkable, or taste the unpalatable).  What can we do with this ghastly material once we have made it visible and diminished it by ridiculing it?  Is laughter enough?  Are there other therapeutic processes that can carry themes forward to enable, for instance, empathy? understanding? acceptance?  Also, what happens when we realise that however we distance ourselves from a role by giving it more and more unreal, unhuman characteristics, we always play elements of ourselves..."

Urashima

We have a new home, at least for 3 months, (thanks to the committee of Thirlmere Road Centre who have kindly agreed to reduce the fees for the room for a three month trial period), a performance coming up at the Expo in London, (http://www.amateurstageexpo.co.uk/) and a full cast for Urashima!


And to think earlier today I thought we were doomed!  Some members of the group haven't got back to me at all about London, and some have said they can't come.   Luckily, with two new members recently having joined, and one member agreeing to act for the first time, We have managed to get enough people for parts, with some left over to do make up costume etc.


Because we have so many new faces, I am taking us back to square one in terms of developing people's awareness of the style we are using for the Japanese Fairy Tales.  Cast members take up sculpts of their character, and think about who they are, one characteristic and something they want.  They work on focus, concentration and body awareness.  Positions must be interesting, but easy to hold for long periods of time.  Movements must be as slow as can be, mesmerising the audience and casting a spell through which the narrator weaves the story. 


We have divided the story into three parts, the seduction, the search and the death scene.  This story is full of symbolism of loss, pain and death.  Several members of the cast have spoken about being excited about the prospect of bringing these themes to life in the performance.  I think that this is importance.  This isn't a story for the faint hearted.

Costume and Makeup:
We need to start thinking about these straight away, and cast should be looking out for interesting cloths and items of clothing that they can make their costumes out of.  We will have at least one session devoted to designing and practicing the makeup.

Extra Rehearsals
I will try to book the community fire station for extra rehearsals on Thursdays.

Warm up: physical jumps and stretches to music.
Improvisation: the group became a machine that made very fabulous magnificent pancakes for a very important queen. Each part of the machine had an individual characteristic, and each movement was done to the 10 drum beats, which was quite ridiculous and made people laugh in places.  At the end I was reminded of a scene in Alice in Wonderland.

Homeless again.

Actually, we aren't homeless at all.  Thanks to the nice people at the signpost centre, we have a very nice room, that's just a little too small, so we can't stay there indefinately - we need to find a bigger place.  Also we have had to change our normal workshop to a Tuesday.


It turns out that the Universal Social Club in Doxey was having trouble heating our room, and it has been very cold over the winter, so a bit of a relief to get out of there really.

So the last session we did something a bit different.  I got everyone to walk around the room, and in their heads become travellers, each on their own journey.  Each group member started to create their own traveller character and story.  During the  next few minutes, I talked them through a sequence where it started to get cold, dark and started to rain.  One by one, they entered a scene, adding to the detail as they did, and took their places in a sheltered spot, out of the rain.  They built an imaginary fire and as each traveller came and joined the group, they began to share tea.  Once everyone had sat down, the group took it in turns to narrate their story - describing thier character and the nature of their search.  As the session began to draw to an end, each person drew their character, and then used their character as a puppet, through which they said goodbye to the group.


The idea of this was to facilitate a feeling of group ownership of the room.  By creating the shared shelter, the group made use of the intimacy afforded by the small size of the room. This will add a challenging dimension to the sessions, and will affect the nature of the workshops.  For instance there won't be too much running and jumping around.


The moon costume is coming somewhere near completion.  I have found someone who can sew the costume far better than me, in exchange for me painting their bathroom ceiling. 


We didn't do any of Urashima this week in the workshop.  I wanted us to settle into the room before getting any more into the story.  Also I need to learn the lines!  Terrible memory.


Next week we will get back to Urashima.  In the meantime, here's a pic of the moon costume in progress...

Life happens to you like randomly selected music from Nicky's cd collection.

Life happens to us. It does. We think we can control it, and to some degree, we occasionally can. At best we can control our responses to the things that happen to us, that is our outer responses.

I remember when I used to try to control my inner responses (e.g., emotional) as an aid to controlling my outer responses (e.g., behavioural). First lesson, it doesn't work, the behaviour comes out some how, normally in ways that are percieved as even more antisocial than if you just had the honest responses in the first place. Second lesson, if you try hard enough, you go into denial and become seriously mentally ill. Viscious cycle comes about and eventually, in my case, I completely lost touch with anything that might be called a genuine emotional response, stopped recognising my own emotions, and came out with some (on reflection) pretty damaging cognitive and behavioural responses to this confused and malfuctional inner experience. To the cognitive behavioural therapists, don't even bother trying to cure this person. They have already self trained themself beyond the point that you could ever intervene with any further training. They need to reacquaint themselves with their honest inner expeirence, which can be pretty deep stuff, but very rewarding if they manage it. My own recommendation for this, not surprisingly, is arts therapies. Especially my favourite, dramatherapy.

Back to the original point. Life happens to you.

I may go to the shop, quite happy, trundling along minding my own business. Suddenly there is a screech of brakes and a scream. I turn just in time to see a car spinning off the road with the remains of a mangled up animal in the wheel. Even though it is happening in slow motion, I can't quite see what the animal is, it may be a fox, it reminds me of when my pet dog got run over. I stand, numb. watching. Gradually I feel warm, emotions come in, slowly at first, then flooding me. I am confused. I feel rage at the car driver for killing the fox, but I want to go and see if I can help, and let the car driver know it wasn't their fault. I feel sick at the sight of the blood and frightened at having wittnessed an unexpected and untimely death, or any kind of death for that matter. I worry that the fox had babies, and the babies are crying in their den, hungry, waiting for a mother that will never return. I notice through my foggy consciousness that other cars have stopped. People have got out of their cars and are going to help the driver. someone is on a mobile phone, no doubt calling an ambulance. Screwing my eyes up, I remember that I have to buy coffee. I walk into the shop. I stand for a while wondering which brand of coffee I want. Then I sit on the floor, in the middle of the aisle, and sob, rocking myself in slow jerking motions, aware that I look like a mad person. Caring and not caring, wanting the world to end.

Life happens to you.

Can joy burst into your life like tragedy?

I am walking to the shop. I am quite happy, trundling along minding my own business. Suddenly I hear someone shout my name. I turn. It is a very dear friend that I knew about 20 years ago, who left town and I didn't see or hear from since. (this was before the days of facebook and mobile phones) This was a friend who shared a few early months of my formative adult years. Who forgave me for being crazy, who hugged me when I was hung over. A gentle natured person who saw the goodness in people, and saw the sadness, not the madness, in me. We looked at each other, unmasked delight and love fill our eyes. After a few words we ascertain that neither of us has much to do this afternoon, so we decide to go on a coffee shop crawl in town, and fill the next few hours with questions, answers, stories, memories, and mainly, each other.

Life happens to you.
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In konnektiv, the group relax, I talk them through a series of actions designed to facilitate a neutral self, centred, aware, without tension, mindful. The group walks around the room, all the while being reminded to be aware of their centre of balance, to move in a co-ordinated and even way, to be in control, poised. This goes on for some time.

After some moments of silence, I play a piece of music. I don't tell the group in advance what I am going to play. I never play the same piece of music twice. The music may evoke many different kinds of emotion or cognitive expeirence. I have instructed the group not to change the level, mood, style of their walk, but rather to be very aware of any changes their body wants to make in response to the music. This awareness may be heightened by the fact that they are preventing their body from going throught the automatic changes it wants to go through. The may become aware of sensations in their stomach, their muscles, their neck and shoulders. The muscles of their face may want to pull into particular expressions.

After some time I ask the group members to think of a word, and keep walking.

the group make a circle around the drama space. One by one the group members say their word, and take a position in what eventually becomes the group sculpt. Starting with me, we each take anothers place in the sculpt, enabling each member to walk around the shape, silently viewing what we have created.

following this, in another circle, a smaller one, ever group member says their word in turn, starting of quietly, and getting a little louder each time.

The music - in far less dramatic ways than stories I told previously, happened to the walkers. It interfered with thier mood, their breathing, physiological response, though patterns, visualisation, in ways that they could not predict, because they did not know what I was going to put on.

The group are invited to give feedback on their experience.

The mood was relaxed throughout, yet there was an appreciation of quite strong emotional responses (words like 'fire', 'tower' and 'flower' were chosen).

The plan is that each week, for the next few weeks, we will repeat this ritual, each time with a different piece of music. Each time the group members will be invited to experience a different set of responses, and create a different set of associated words, a different group sculpt. My conjecture is that they will possibly, over the next few weeks, expand their self knowledge and thier awareness of their physiological repsonses to the things that life does to them.

Through a gentle and relaxing dramatic sequence, the group may become more able to respond to the things that life does to them, in a consious way, fully appreciating their inner response to these things.

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Improvisation

Another thing that we will repeat over the next few weeks is improvisation. In 'Cauldron', two people take characters and move in the dramatic space, interacting to form some sort of plot. This goes on without words, although non-verbal sounds can be made. At some point, one of the wittnesses shouts 'freeze'. They remove one of the characters from the action, and take over their role, using their own ideas and interpretation of what is going on, or even changing the plot if they like.

Many of the group hadn't improvised in this way before. This is very useful for forcing people to think through thier body, as they cannot resort to words, that make us dramatically lazy. The action must be dynamic, it must describe. The actor must be involved, and animated.

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There's no business like snow business

It is snowing. Yay!!


That is completely irrelevant, but it's true. And the title of this post reminds me of how much I hate "show business". And that reminds me that I hope that this Expo thing that some of us Konnektiv gang are going to in London isn't full of middle class hollywood wannabes, because that isn't what we are about. We are against that. Well, I am.

How can we all seek to be our full true and wonderful emotional, expressive and experiential beings, when we are holding others up as god figures, and trying to mould ourselves into thier shape? We can only make for a grotesque copy of something that becomes more unlike either ourselves or those we seek to emulate.

I am very excited about us going to London in March, stopping in a hostel, exploring the city, finding out more about amateur groups in the UK, or maybe even from abroad, who knows? If we get to perform ( I have applied, we wait to see if we are chosen, not sure when they will let us know) we will be very proud. If not, we'll have a good time anyway. The only liiiiiiiiiitle bit of a problem is that the only pics on the website are people singing songs in Victorian getup. I hope this isn't going to be a celebration of the amateur production of musicals. I'm not against musicals, but it might be a bit like X factor, with thousands of wannabe's in the 21st century equivalent of legwarmers and bodysuits (that'll be legwarmers and bodysuits then) trying to get spotted.

Anyway, I'm sure there will be lots of experimental groups there that we can mingle and be truly cool with, rather than dodge the over enthusiastic mum's steering their hot housed protegee around wide eyed and blind with ambition by proxy.

No, it won't be like that.

We have three other projects on the go at the moment (2 actual, 1 potential) which you shall hear more of. First some presumed evil planners are coming to build another retail development in Stafford, and we may be coming up with some kind of creative campaigning, probably against it, depending upon how we feel after we've had the full story. This would be good, and will enable us to look at how the arts can be used for political purpose (hope that doesn't get us struck off the list of any potential funders) Meeting about that on Tuesday. That is the potential project.

The first actuall project is the completion and performance of Urashima, the tragedy about the fisherman who gets seduced by the daughter of the sea. We now have two of our younger members directing this, as I am the narrator. This works really well. The girls are getting experience and developing confidence, facilitation skills and so on, I get to perform for a change. The group are also as a whole contributing more to the development of the piece, without detracting from the position held by the directors.

I love working intergenerationally.

Our second actual project is the funding application, which is finally done, and will hopefully enable me to be paid as a part time project manager, and therefore I will be able to carry on the work I am doing without having to move into a cardboard box. (especially in these snowy conditions) These arts projects don't really make money, but they are so wonderful for communities, bringing people together, bringing colour, vibrancy, culture. Also it is good practice for me to eventually becoming a professional person actually earning money. Fingers crossers.