Notes on Thursday 23^rd August 2012 and more

Today we continued experimenting with the theatre form of “Theatre of cruelty” in class. As a starter for an exercise, we were asked to share with the group the story of a specific moment in our lives in which we realized something about ourselves/ made us think about our actions. After this, we got in groups and worked to perform one of the stories following the principles of Antonin Artaud.

Lloyd’s story

My group chose Lloyd’s story, which was about stealing. He described to us the moment in which he first decided to steel from an convenience store, and how when getting the chocolate bar and hiding in in his pocket, he felt like everyone was looking at him and that everyone knew. After he left the shop without getting caught, he explained how this feeling triggered by breaking a social and moral rule was a positive one, and that for some reason, it made him want to steal more, and several times.


Our group chose to act out this scene using 2 “Real characters”1  being Lloyd and the other one being the candy man at the counter. The rest of the characters were syblolic and objects, such as the chocolate bar( who represented temptation), the camaras( who represented the conscience, the weighing machine( that represented the balance of good and bad, right and wrong). We decided to create a piece of drama using traverse theatre; having our audience scattered around us, to integrate them in the story!

Feedback: We were told, that it would have been better if we made more eye contact with the audience at the end, when having our hands on our heads and looking at Tony with a facial expression of shock. That way, we would have made them seen as part of the people who “judge” on the morals and conscience of our protagonist.

Mrs Hilman talking about realism! (Video got stolen in my phone)

I learned that Realism and theatre of cruelty were very different concepts. Mrs explained a concept, (which I agree with) that Atraud himself believed in : “Why should theatre just be about realism, the simply everyday lives of people? Theatre should be something more interesting, something that will make you feel more?
I understood then that Theatre of cruelty was all about talking the audience to feel the extreme.

Exercise 3! Made up rituals! (All videos were stolen as my phone got stolen)

For this exercise, as shown in the videos, we were asked to get in groups and come up with our own rituals. As inspiration, we were reminded on the African aboriginal dances in call for the rain. Our ritual was not allowed to have any words and talking, just sound and movement, as practice for being able to communicate to the audience with our raw emotions, yet no words.

I really enjoyed Tony’s groups beginning. It was very strong, as although it started quietly, the buildup was very quick and intense, and the energetic movement added created the impression of people being very focused and dedicated. Turning around the audience made us part of the ritual, wich was also a good inea and kept us engaged. At this point, I thought they achieved what mrs Hilman was talking about; being able to draw the audience in into a real ritual, and not just our classmates jumping around and making noises, which would make us laugh.

In Mikes group, again the movements were very familiar, as they used very upright postures and strong body movements (legs and arms),which made the dance strong. However, as you can see in the video, Katy started laughing while dancing. This I thought was very anticlimatinc, as although they were trying to achieve the highest point of intensity in the ritual, seeing her laugh made me as a member of the audience not take her seriously. On the other hand, Mike was really trying. He adopted a very harsh, ugly looking face, to  symbolize concentration and intensity, and when looking at him, I felt much more drawn in, and therefore transposted somewhere else! He also achieved this by the heavy and low tone of his noises!

Wednesday 29^th August, 2012

Double gangers!

Today we explored the idea of Double gangers! At first, it straight away made me think of the IASAS 2012 Dance last year, where the dancers explored the idea of a persons soul being split into 2, and having two opposing sides of you working along each other to find an absolute ruler of the whole of you.

This time, we were put in pairs, and asked to explore the situation in which you find your double ganger, following the principles of theatre of cruelty. Me and Mike decided on our firt reactios in the case of us finding our double ganger after a bit of meditation, and decided that we would probably feel excited,  however scared of what this person was, where it came from, and what were his/her intentions. We also had to go further than that, and try and imagine what our first contact would be. I thought that the first thing I would do was touch. Using the sense of touch was the way for me to feel that this person is real. Then Mike and me explored playing around with similarities, comparing our hair color, skin tone, to make the audience realize that we were one person. Sound and minimal words could be incorporated, but we had to think of the essential use of language as a means of communication, and rely more on our bodies and gestures as a form of non -verbal communication.
we decided that the words we would use would  saying;
Paula : You?
Mike: Me?
Ensemble: Us?
( all in an amazed, suspicious tone of voice)

To take it a step further, we were asked to think of what could have happened for our conscience to split like that suddenly. Mike and me then thought that the accident might have been that we killed someone. However, the two identities were created by making me kill someone in SELF DEFENCE, while Mike killed the same person driven by the angry, bloodthirsty side of us. Mike acted more crazy when meeting me, and I realized that he was the part of me I was scared of, and ashamed. We decided to re-act this story in our skits, to show the audience this double personality instead of relying merely on the cliché of someone acting nice and the other one acting bad. I ran around the room from mike, while he followed me looking like a maniac with his eyes wide open, and his hands in a clutch and laughing uncontrollably. When I hin under the chair, Mike reinacted the accident by kicking an imaginary copse in the floor brutally, while I looked in panic showing that this was a mirror of my actions, and shouting “stop, stop!”I jumped on mike and inbetween tears I begged my other half to stop, while he just kept laughing at me and shacking me. That was the end of our scene, and we decided to end in a climatic moment to power the encounter of the opposing identities!!

EXAMPLE OF FLASHMOB VIDEO!!!! (Video got stolen as phone got stolen)

After school on Thursday 12^th, I went to help out the dancers of a flashmob at Rockwell. This again, is a perfect example of environmental theatre, as well as, if you think about it, a form of traverse theatre!
The moments before the flashmob began were very exciting, as anticipation was building up. However, the actors managed to really act as if they were friends just hanging out in the mall, which really created a more effective contrast and surprise when they started dancing. The building up of the body of the dance was gradual, as 4 girls started dancing, and were then followed by the rest. The coordination was superb, and they acquired a “diamond shape”, showing a strong ensemble performance. I really enjoyed it, and it reminded me to some flashmobs I did in Dubai. However, a recommendation I would give, is not to end the flashmob on the last step and then just stay there to receive the congratulations. I personally believe that what is interesting about flashmobs is that they are very unexpected, and therefore I believe that they should finish the same way they start, with the dancers being anonymous. I believe a flashmob represents the unity of people that share the same passion, and therefore it is a moment f liberation, however I think it is very effective when at the end, the dancers integrate back with the rest of the public. For m, this gives the impression that it never happen, and that the dance happened in the dancers head and imagination!

Connection? Dance has always been a very strong form of expression. Through dance, the body can transmit emotions changes as well as physical ones. For this, forms of dance are used in Theatre of cruelty to help the audience visualize a characters inner share as well as physical state through the contractions and movements of their body. Therefore, i believe that there is a connection between both, as theatre of cruelty normally uses a lot of non verbal means of communication to convey their desired messages in a performance, dance being an important one!!!!