Workshop 22|01|13

Two days ago we explored two different approaches to experimental theatre.

Trestle Masks

The first activity that we explored was one called Trestle Masks. This activity consisted of people wearing masks and having this fixed face with an emotion on and would therefore have to physically show what their emotion was matching the mask they had.
The main rules of wearing a mask and performing to an audience was to keep your face shown at all times. If this wasn't the case the audience would be looking at the back of your head and this would drop focus on you as a character and the energy of the movement as a whole. Another rule would be to always keep your body active, in terms of physical presence. This is to show what your character is feeling at a particular moment in time and not to over do the movement but to give the audience a vivid picture of this character's story/life.

The performances that worked really well and that were effective were the ones that had a matching physical body movement with the set facial expression. For example, a student in my class had a shocked ':O' face and starting with their backs turned away, she flipped around and slammed her back against the wall as if to imply she was shocked/shy/surprised by the audiences presence. Personally I believed that that drew my attention the most and the fact that she was always engaging with the audience in  terms of looking at them and really breaking the fourth wall really brought energy around the others and the focus mainly on her.

Previously said, you can build and create a story from a mask by doing physical movements that match your characters emotion/facial expression.
This mask activity can really tie in with our performance piece mainly because this view of this nightclub and everyone inside having different feelings and separate problems really can show the differences in characterisation and also bring something new to the table to show the audience this experimental piece with all of our thoughts put together. This piece of work links with Artaud in a way in which he wants people to have different views on each character. He wanted the audience to have a friend in the show and also an enemy and with this performance we will sure deliver this to the audience.










Forced Entertainment show Quizoola

As a class I believe we all did really well in this task which consisted of a number of questions being asked and a honest response was needed. Many were funny, some where initense, others in my opinion were just blunt and had no humour at all. There were questions being asked and throughout the activity you would have to be as honest as possible and this would eventually draw the audiences attention on you and also the person asking the questions.

Personally I really enjoyed it, being asked all these questions and me and my partner (Moyo) being the centre of attention. I felt that being asked all the questions you are fed off the energy from your partner as well as the audience. When I made them laugh with my honest responses I felt that I could be even more vulnerable to the audience and that was this almost called 'trap'. When you're performing you automatically break the fourth wall and you reel the audience in so effectively and this not only helps you perform but also allows your emotions to be seen if they're truly shown.In my opinion I believed that the 'Why' and 'How' questions proved the best mainly because this opened up the performer as the person they are especially if they were being fully honest. The other questions that began with 'What' and 'When' really were basic questions and could've proved easily to respond to with a lie.

As an audience member I realised that if the two performing lack energy it pushes the audiences attention away. A couple of them lacked energy and therefore I was disinterested from what they were saying. By this, I'm saying if the questions aren't being asked in the right context and the answers are blunt it's almost like the whole thing has lost its meaning. And without meaning there's no purpose. However there were some interesting questions and as an audience member I started to get emotionally engaged with what was going around me and the audiences reactions to these questions and answers. And that's what Forced Entertainment is all about. This activity was originally used by them and they used it in this site specific manner, producing 12-24 hour shows for audiences to come in and watch and they would be able to come in and out at any time to see these questions being answered.







We could use many factors from this to help structure our piece in terms of people being vulnerable and also brave and ready to let the audience in on many things they wouldn't want them to know. For example we could have people walking around asking themselves these questions, only to themselves though, something that we would believe Artaud would do as he was consindered as a crazy individual and we could have others being submissive in the bar due to the fact that they've had too much drinks and whatever comes out of their mouth they mean it because they're drunk to the max!

Reflection on lesson 15|01|13

Two days ago the rotational workshop we had learning about each other's practitioners and directors was really useful in terms of one day using techniques from each individual to induct into our main end of term performance.
In other posts I'll explain the work of Growtowski and Brook and how they tie into the meaning and view of experimental theatre.

The second activity we done was honestly my top 5 favourite activities since joining The BRIT School. The Body Over Mind Dance exercise consisted of a piece of music being repeated and the people listening to it to close their eyes and it may seem hard reading it, but let their body take over their mind. This meant that any movement we had done it wasnt intentional, it was just something our body felt it needed to do to be comfortable.
Personally I responded quite well to task in terms of understanding what we had to do and I believe what went really well was how I took it. This belief that we had to let our body take control of our mind was really hard to understand at first but once the music started playing and you almost went into your own zone it really worked.
At first I felt really awkward, just standing in a space, listening to repetitive music and just letting my body take control of life basically. After 5 minutes it really came to me what my body wanted to do and as a factor of that I started to slouch next to the radiator and a few minutes after I was on the floor.
Looking at the videos I'll be posting up shortly it shows how other people in the group reacted the music being played repetitively and also what kind of movements they did when they let their body take control of their mind.

I believe the purpose of this task was to really get us into an emotional state in which we would be in a position of closure, especially while the music was played repeatedly. Many people said they felt they were trapped inside a box, alienated from the rest of us while a couple said they believed they could be much more free mainly because everyone's eyes were closed and you could basically do whatever you wanted as long as it was body over mind. Another purpose of this exercise was to have us focus on many things. Almost bringing us to the mind of Artaud, how is brain and thoughts were all over the place and he thought of many weird things. So wherever our body was our mind would want to follow but would be too weak to overpower the function of the human body.

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From all these videos you can see different responses from different individuals body's. One that stood out to me was Sophie's body movement in time to the music. I felt that was really effective and showed a huge contrast to many of the others and that shows that your gestures can play a huge part when you're on stage.

The Spurt of Blood TRANSLATED BY RUBY COHN

CHARACTERS
A YOUNG MAN.
A WET-NURSE
A YOUNG GIRL
A PRIEST
A KNIGHT
A COBBLER
A BEADLE
A PEDDLER
A BAWD
A HUGE VOICE
A JUDGE


YOUNG MAN: I love you and everything is beautiful.
YOUNG GIRL: [With quavering voice] You love me and everything is beautiful.
YOUNG MAN: [In a lower tone] I love you and everything is beautiful.
YOUNG GIRL: [In an even lower tone] You love me and everything is beautiful.
YOUNG MAN: [Leaving her abruptly] I love you. [Silence] Face me.
YOUNG GIRL: [As before standing opposite him] There.
YOUNG MAN: [In an exalted high-pitched voicej I love you. I am great, I am lucid, I am full, I am dense.
YOUNG GIRL: [In the same high-pitched voice] We love each other.
YOUNG MAN: We are intense. Ah, how beautifully the world is built.
[Silence. There is a noise as if an immense wheel were turning and moving the air. A hurricane separates them. At the same time, two Stars are seen colliding and from them fall a series of legs of living flesh with feet, hands, scalps, masks, colonnades, porticos, temples, alembics, falling more and more slowly, as if falling in a vacuum: then three scorpions one after another and finally a frog and a beetle which come to rest with desperate slowness, nauseating slowness]
YOUNG MAN: [Crying with all his strength] The sky has gone mad.
[He looks at the sky] Let's hurry away from here. 
[He pushes the Young Girl before him]

[Enter a medieval Knight in gigantic armor, followed by a Wet-Nurse holding her breasts in her hands and puffing because her breasts are swollen]
KNIGHT: Let go of your tits. Give me my papers.
WET-NURSE: [Screaming in high-pitch] Ah! Ah! Ah!
KNIGHT: Damn, what's the matter with you?
WET-NURSE: Our daughter, there, with him.
KNIGHT: Quiet, there's no girl there.
WET-NURSE: I'm telling you that they're screwing.
KNIGHT: What the Hell do I care if they're screwing?
WET-NURSE: Incest.
KNIGHT: Midwife.
WET-NURSE: [Plunging her hands deep into her pockers which are as big as her breasts] Pimp. 
[She throws his papers at him]
KNIGHT: Let me eat.

[The Wet-Nurse rushes out] [He gets up and from each paper he takes a huge hunk of Swiss cheese. Suddenly he coughs and chokes]
KNIGHT: [With full mouth] Ehp. Ehp. Show me your breasts. Show me your breasts. Where did she go?
[He runs out] [The Young Man comes back]
YOUNG MAN: I saw, I knew, I understood. Here on a public street, the priest, the cobbler, the peddler the entrance to the church, the red light of the brothel, the scales of justice. I can't stand it any longer!

[Like shadows, a Priest, a Cobbler, a Beadle, a Bawd, a Judge, a Peddler, arrive on stage]
YOUNG MAN: I've lost her: give her back to me.
ALL: [In different tones] Who, who, who, who.
YOUNG MAN: My wife.
BEADLE: [Very fat] Your wife, you're kidding!
YOUNG MAN: Kidding! Maybe she's yours! 
BEADLE: [Tapping his forehead] Maybe she is.

[He runs out] [The Priest Ieaves the group and puts his arm around the neck of the Young Man]
PRIEST: [As if confessing someone.] To what part of your body do you refer most often?
YOUNG MAN: To God. 
[Confused by the reply the Priest immediately shifts to a Swiss accent]
PRIEST: [In Swiss accent] But that isn't done any more. We no longer hear through that ear. You have to ask that of volcanoes and earthquakes. We wallow in the little obscenities of man in the confession-box. That's life.
YOUNG MAN: [Much impressed] Ah that's life! Then everything is shot to hell.
PRIEST: [Still with Swiss accent] Of course.

[At this moment night suddenly falls on stage. The earth quakes. There is furious thunder and zig-zags of lightning in every direction through the zig-zags all the characters can be seen running around bumping into each other and falling then getting up and running about like crazy. Then an enormous hand seizes the Bawd by her hair, which bursts into flame and grows huge before our eyes]
HUGE VOICE: Bitch, look at your body!

[The Bawd's body is seen to be absolutely naked and hideous beneath her blouse and skirt, which become transparent as glass]
BAWD: Leave me alone, God.

[She bites God in the wrist. An immense spurt of blood lacerates the Stage, and through the biggest fiash of lightning the Priest can be seen making the sign of the cross. When the lights go on again all the characters are dead, and their corpses lie all over the ground. Only the Young Man and the Bawd remain devouring each other with their eyes. The Bawd falls into the Young Man's arms]
BAWD: [With the sigh of one having an orgasm] Tell me how it happened to you.

[The Young Man hides his head in his hands. The Wet-nurse comes back carrying the Young Girl under her arm like a bundle. The young Girl is dead. The Bawd drops her on the ground where she collapses and becomes flat as a pancake. The Wet-Nurse no longer has her breasts. Her chest is completely flat]
KNIGHT: [In a terrible voice] Where did you put them? Give me my Swiss cheese.
WET-NURSE: [Boldly and gaily] Here you are.

[She lifts up her dress. The Young Man wants to run away but he is frozen like a petrified puppet]
YOUNG MAN: [As if suspended in the air and with the voice of a ventriloquist] Don't hurt Mommy!
KNIGHT: She-devil!

[He hides his face in horror. A multitude of scorpions crawl out from beneath the Wet-Nurse's dress and swarm between her legs. Her vagina swells up splits and becomes transparent and glistening like a sun. The Young Man and Bawd run off as though lobotomized]
YOUNG GIRL: [Getting up dazed] The virgin! Ah that's what he was looking for.


My initial response to this play was really out of my reach to be honest. We read this play as a group and I'm pretty sure most of us had the same view as one another about it. It's something that would usually be banned in certain countries and one that I'm positive would infruriate many readers. Simply because it's too explicit with touchy things in the world exploited in a trying to be funny way.
At the beginning I knew it was gonna be explicitly laid with the characters, one being a 'wet nurse' and when you have a bawd and a priest in the same context of a play you know it's bound to be atrocious.
In all honesty it was quite easy to link Artaud's ideas with the similarities of this play. He wanted to change theatre and bring something new to it but once again didn't meet eye to eye with the people who loved the Art and this meant that he wasn't sensitive with these touchy subjects such as incest and rape and that in my opinion is the main reason why he was disliked by some in his time.

Artaud Quote

Artaud Quote

“There is in every madman

a misunderstood genius

whose idea

shining in his head

frightened people

and for whom delirium was the only solution

to the strangulation

that life had prepared for him.”

― Antonin Artaud

First Lesson Reflection 08|01|2013

The beginning of the lesson went really well. Being asked the question 'What is Theatre' and literally all of us having a different view on what it was, some with a strong backing point, others with a weaker one but each effective. My opinion was that Theatre would be built around emotion and that it was perhaps the catalyst of theatre as theatre relies on lies and tales and maybe happy endings. Theatre can also bring together a sense of chemistry between you and your co-worker(s) as I have experienced in the past.

Personally I think this experimental term will bring about loads of independence and also serious thought into what we have to bring to the table as this is the term where anything can happen in our pieces. I am looking forward to the tasks ahead and also the activities because this would help us gain control of our independence and also bring us closer as it's now Term 3 of our first year at The BRIT School and people will now start to tie in well together.

Sarah Kane's extract of '4.48 Psychosis' was really an emotional one, one that would really touch the hearts of many people in terms of sadness and desperation. At first when I looked at the lay out of this play I thought that she had put all of her ideas all over the place all over the page as in her life she had been through all of these things that can mess up the human mind. The extract itself was really deep, filled with pure emotion of sadness. There were also glimpses of hope but then it was all brought back down by this sense of nothing in life. For us to create a non-verbal piece of a part of this extract we felt it was right to use sign language and almost no body experience because this would almost match someone's life who is in silence and who is basically not them as a person but someone they shouldn't be.

Over the course of the day we had completed many activities and exercises in order to help us shape up how the term would be and what would be expected of us.
Our first exercise was 'Invisible Task'. In this task we were asked to note something done that we believed was impossible to do in the specific room we were in and when this was done we shared the papers around and each got a specific task to achieve. Mine, simply was to get a chair and balance the end on the trip of my nose. Little did I know, I'm no circus guy so I tried over 100 times a failed. The main thing we gained from doing this activity was that some tasks weren't impossible and we should always try to do something more than just give up.
The second was my least favourite but I quickly saw the meaning of this exercise. We were told to see what would we use more, mind or body and in this exercise it was much more mind over body because even though music was playing we were constantly aware of our surroundings and almost got into this rhythm of where to go next if someone was in our way of walking. This exercise was called 'Walk The Grid'.

'Slowmotion Tennis' exercise was the complete opposite in terms of energy in the room wise mainly because the Walk The Grid exercise needed you to be speed walking, almost jogging in a square whereas in this exercise you were partnered with someone and your objective was to hit the tennis ball but of course in slow motion. In my opinion this was the hardest exercise and the one that needed the most focus and commitment into what you were doing. Without that happening I felt that the movement would just crumble and almost become like a game instead of an exercise.
This next exercise I really found useful, especially helping me and I'm pretty sure everyone else how to gestures and facial expressions are as key as the dialogue in any sort of performance. 'No Language Argument' exercise was my favourite. Again in couples and having us argue at one another at something we disliked and not using words. At first it really seemed like we were just doing it for a joke around but then at class discussion I found out that it's actually probably the most useful exercise if you as an actor would want to use more gestures and facial expressions to express feelings instead of words.
To round the day off the final exercise was similar to the last but instead we were allowed to involve one word with the no language argument. In my opinion this made no difference except make it harder on where to time it and use it correctly. In my honest opinion all exercises we had done contributed to something we need in the future.

Lastly, I understood quite a lot about Antonin Artaud and his work in Theatre. I learnt that he has his own way of entertainment and his meaning on the word 'entertainment' is a lot different to other's.
He is a man of his words.