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.

rtsp://v2.cache8.googlevideo.com/ChoLENy73wIaEQkS4x4p9yykcBMYDSANFEgDDA==/0/0/0/video.3gp

30 seconds in.

rtsp://v1.cache8.googlevideo.com/ChoLENy73wIaEQkM5xMIqq7VCxMYDSANFEgDDA==/0/0/0/video.3gp

5 minutes in.

rtsp://v8.cache4.googlevideo.com/ChoLENy73wIaEQmnM5zfWVv1JxMYDSANFEgDDA==/0/0/0/video.3gp

10 minutes in.

rtsp://v2.cache7.googlevideo.com/ChoLENy73wIaEQnnyOFyVYGLSRMYDSANFEgDDA==/0/0/0/video.3gp

15 minutes in.

rtsp://v5.cache5.googlevideo.com/ChoLENy73wIaEQmzx2NMXTocOBMYDSANFEgDDA==/0/0/0/video.3gp

20 minutes in.

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.