Conclusion

In conclusion I have used world theatre and creative approaches to performances from all over the world to explore the idea of narrative and story telling and being able to make this in to physicality. From my experiences so far I have learnt how important stories are in our lives and I understand that they needed to be treated with respect and care. I respect the Butoh principles of moving in any way we wish to do so and free expression, and I have also learnt some valuable information by connecting to images in this way. I realise how powerful physical performance can be and how important it can be in terms of passing stories on and telling them to audiences around the world. This has been a very valuable experience and I plan to continue working with the ideas I have learnt to help me in my devising.

Bibliography

Enright, Helena. (2011) ‘“Letting it Breathe”: Writing and performing the words of others’, Studies in Theatre & Performance, V. 31(2): 181-192

Schweitzer, Pam. (2007) ‘A Sense of Place and Time’ in Schweitzer, Pam. Reminiscence Theatre: making Theatre from Memories, London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers. pp. 111-129

Barba, E. 2002. The essence of theatre. TDR/The Drama Review, 46 (3), pp. 12--30.

Smith, Brett. and Sparkes, Andrew C. (2008) ‘Contrasting perspectives on narrating selves and identities: an invitation to dialogue’, Qualitative Research, vol. 8, no. 5 pp. 5-34.

Conquergood, Dwight. (1985) ‘Performing as a Moral Act: Ethical Dimensions of the Ethnography of Performance.’ Literature and Performance. 5(2): 1-13.

Session 7

Today the session was on playback theatre and was led by Veronica Need of True Heart Theatre. With Veronica we looked at how playback theatre is a unique collaboration between the performers and the audience. In one of the exercises we did with her we revisited the idea of using personal stories of narrative as performance and we did this by taking a story from a member of the audience and created a physical performance reflecting this. It was incredibly interesting to see personal stories be immediately recreated on stage and Veronica allowed us to explore physicality as much as possible in terms of representing peoples stories. One example of an interesting piece of physical performance we created was when a story was told by a colleague about their day at university. She talked about constantly looking at her mobile phone that day. When this story was performed as a piece of playback theatre, one individual actually took on the role of the mobile phone and looked at how they could physically portray it using their whole body. We saw how she shuddered with her whole body when the mobile phone vibrated, and physically followed the main character around as though being attached to her. We were also able to explore physical exercises with Veronica such as the "fishing" exercise where we would move as a group in close proximity to one other, in a type of "follow the leader" way where one person would come up with an action for the rest of the group to copy as they moved around the space. We played with this idea by having different groups of "fish" interact with each other and create a story. In terms of our devising we have decided to explore this idea when we are portraying the "shadows" that follow our main character around. The idea of all moving physically as one unit is a very interesting and creative idea and is a simple way to transform narrative stories to physicality. Veronica also talked about how in playback theatre or in performance in general we should not seek to find resolution from performing or telling stories but simply just acknowledge their importance and accept that they need to be told. This reminded me of Helena Enrights "letting it breathe" in that it places emphasis on the importance of narrative, and this reminded me that narrative stories should speak for themself and not be over complicated. The session with Veronica really supported my point that narrative can be transformed in to physicality making an interesting piece of performance, and I have contacted the playback theatre school to hopefully begin some training with them to be able to explore this idea further and use it as inspiration for future devising.

Session 6

In today's session we looked at technical aspects of performance and began to consider what technical possibilities we would like to consider for the assessment. We also continued our work on devising. At this point we have come up with an idea for our final assessment. Our story is based around a detective who struggles with schitzophrenia, paranoia and has general mental health issues. The performance will show him as the main character attempting to solve a murder case that he has been working on for years, and we will use physical performance to show his "dark side" by incorporating the idea of shadows and voices that follow and torment him in his day to day life. We would like to use many of the class exercises we have done so far so that we can make this story in to a somewhat abstract, physical piece of performance. So far we have experimented with the use of shrimping which we learnt in our session on wrestling, as well as incorporating monkey walk, and we plan to use progressive breathing and relaxation techniques we have been doing in class as a rehearsal technique. In terms of technical possibilities, at present we are planning to keep our performance quite simple with not much technical equipment. This is so we can let the performance speak for itself and place more emphasis on our actions on stage rather than having technical aspects to "lean on". We want the performance to be raw and powerful, and let the narrative be the most important aspect. At this point we are considering a few minor technical possibilities such as simple lighting, and perhaps the use of blackouts for dramatic effect. We have also scheduled some group rehearsals in order to continue devising for our final performance.

Session 5

In this session we began to focus on devising for our final performance. We focused on using the exercises we had been doing in class as tools for devising such as the Butoh inspired "Monkey walk" which is a free exercise in which we simply move around the space experimenting with different physicalities. In "The essence of theatre" Eugenio Barba talks about exercises as being "made up of memory, body-memory" and explains how exercises can become memory that we carry through the entire body. I definitley see some comparison of Barba's point to the work we have been doing in class. In doing the monkey walk exercise I feel like my body creates some emotional connection to the task and enables me to move physically in a creative way. When I revisit the task I feel as though my body remembers this mental connection and allows me to almost "pick up where I left off", getting in to the same frame of my mind as the times I have done it before. Barba also states that exercises are "like amulets which the actor carries around, not to show them off, but to draw from them certain qualities of energy from which a second nervous system develops". This statement relates to my feelings towards the work we have been doing each session in class in terms of transforming narrative in to physical performance. Qualities of energy have been very important in the type of creative work we have been doing, and as Barba says it is not about "showing off" work, but simply representing narrative in a create physical way. During my classes so far I have definitley come to terms with the idea of using performance in un-convential ways and I have enjoyed being able to use my body to portray narrative stories as this is something I have never done before. I like the idea of there not being a script to read from or acting techniques to develop, and just being able to express stories physically. In this class session we began thinking of devising ideas and worked in groups firstly just to respond to a piece of music, to give us inspiration for future devising. We will be revisiting this exercise to make use of our "body-memory" that Barba talks about, and we plan to come up with a creative idea to base a performance on.

Session 4

In today's session we looked at psycho-social approaches to creating performance work by experimenting with world theatre. We looked at using wrestling to create narrative story. In pairs we experimented with wrestling moves and looked at how we could use these physical moves to work with, over and around our partners. I found that when doing this I was focusing less on the wrestling techniques as physical actions and more on using these world theatre approaches to react to my partners body and work in harmony together to create a performance. When working with the idea of moving "with" my partner I felt we were very much in tune and were responding to each physical movement. It felt as if the movements were flowing and easy. When I experimented with moving "over" and "around" my partner, at first it was quite difficult because of the physicality of the moves. I was having to physically lift my partner around my body and vice versa which initially made me nervous. However when my partner and I began to play and experiment with this idea I came to realise that we were not striving to produce a piece of highly impressive acrobatic choreography, we were simply working with one-anothers bodys to create a performance. I did feel as though some Butoh inspired principles I had studied in previous sessions were coming in to play here in that the movements were sometimes quite un-human and strange, and I felt that this was OK and I could work with these images. I also remembered the Butoh ethos that there is no right or wrong way to move which helped me to perform to the best of my ability because I did not feel restricted in my movements. The performances we created based on wrestling by the end of the session were quite different to how we initially responded to these physical movements, and I noticed that at first the movements were quite rigid and forceful as wrestling moves generally are. However they became more dance-like and almost graceful. My partner and I were able to work with each others bodies to create an interesting piece of theatre, and on reflection it seems that if someone were to watch our end performance for the first time they would not neccesarily know we were using wrestling moves, as it simply looked like we were just moving. The movements felt powerful and emotional and led me to think about how we could turn them in to a piece of narrative for future performances. This lesson was a good example of my theme that narrative can create physicality, and this exercise also proved that physicality can too be used to create narrative.

Session 3

In this session we continued our work on Butoh inspired approaches to creative work, and worked with the idea of testimony to explore this. Before the lesson we were given the task to prepare a small testimony of how we felt about our experience of class workshops so far. In class we combined all of our testimonies to create a piece of Butoh inspired abstract poetry. We then used physical movements to respond to each line of the poem. I found this exercise to be extremely interesting in that with each movement I did I was aware that I was telling someones personal story, I felt as if I was bringing the testimonies to life through my physicality. In "Reminiscence theatre: A sense of place and time" by Jessica Kingsley publishers, three different types of testimonies are used to create a performance. The reading talks about recording testimonies based on local disasters that had happened in a particular area and using these to create a performance. It talks about a "respect for words and the way in which things are remembered" which re-inforces the importance of testimonies and personal stories in our lives. The role of the actor is also explained as having to "move from the individual experiences to the representative.... in a way which enables the audience to connect with it and relate it to their own lives". In terms of the abstract poem we focused on in class, the idea of testimony was very powerful and useful inspiration to work with as it felt as though through physicality we were telling stories of other people and in a way I felt as if I could speak to the audience by doing this. One of the images in the poem I had to work with was a small caterpillar being trapped in a box. Even though I was only physically doing very simple and small movements, I was conveying a sense of pain, anguish and struggle to the audience. The fact that it was inspired by real human feelings and someones personal story made it even more powerful. "A sense of place and time" also explains how when they heard peoples testimonies, they could feel it "triggering" other peoples memories. Every person could relate, making the testimonies much more meaningful. By responding to the abstract poem in class I felt that my memory was being triggered by certain parts of peoples testimonies, and that gave me some inspiration for how to physically react. I feel that using testimonies to create a physical performance is a very interesting and beautifully poignant approach to creative work, and I would like to explore this concept further in my future rehearsals.

Session 2

In Session 2 we looked at Butoh inspired approaches to creative work. We focused on various images given to us and explored physical responses to them. We were given a small amount of narrative to mentally connect to such as "you are a happy, fat, wobbly baby" and "you are glass cracking, piece by piece". We used the Butoh principles of physicality to respond to these images. We did this by adopting the Butoh principle that there is no right or wrong way to move. We simply responded physically to the images however we felt compelled to do so. When given certain images to respond to such as "wet towel being wrung dry" and "hot air balloon expanding" I first asked myself- how can I make an interesting piece of performance based on this? I felt almost as if I wasn't given enough interesting narrative to work on. However, as i progressed through this exercise I realised that my physicality for each image was extremely interesting and became a compelling piece of performance in itself. In "Ethical dimensions of the ethnogography of performance" by Dwight Conquergood he says performers "should not enter the field with the overriding motive of finding some good performance material". He talks about the importance of narrative and how we do not have to fall victim to what he calls the desire to "astonish not understand". I have to agree with this statement as in producing my own work I have realised that the purpose of performing is not simply to dazzle the audience with meaningful acting, but to simply tell stories in whatever way that may be. Conquergood states "I begin with text, then weave contexts around them to make them meaningful". This idea of using narrative as not the sole basis of a performance but simply a foundation to build upon is something I can relate to having done the Butoh exercise in class. I felt I was most successful in responding to the images when I took the narrative and tried to create some context around it to transform it in to physicality. An example of this would be the narrative of breaking glass. I tried to imagine the physicality of it, and once I became comfortable with moving my body that way I was able to expand upon it becoming more expressive and free with my movements. I felt as if my physical movements were actually telling a story. Another example would be the image of a hot air balloon expanding. For this image my movements were much less rigid and were quite free-flowing and loose. It felt almost dance-like and I was able to develop this idea in to a mini performance.

Session 1

In the first class session we looked at the role of stories in our lives. In pairs we were asked to tell a story to one another. I told a story from my childhood, and my partner told me a story that had happened to her that very week. After hearing these stories we focused on portraying them using actions and physical movement. We made a short group performance using one or two movements from each story we had heard, and tried to capture the essence of each story using only our bodies. In Helena Enrights "Letting it breathe" she talks about how narrative is transformed in to physical movement. When describing her portrayal of a a particular character in a play she had studied called "Walking away" she talks about how she created physicality based on the narrative she had heard by saying "You could tell she was in recovery and a little bit down... your physicality changed automatically becoming quite defensive". She supports this point with a quote from theatre-maker Anna Deavere Smith who describes narrative text as "..a physical, audible, performance vehicle". Enright also emphasises the importance of letting narrative speak for itself and talks about how it should be treated with respect and care. She goes on to discuss the danger of "over-emotionalising" narrative and states that as actors we should try to portray the narrative in a less complicated way, letting it "breathe". This is something I noticed in my own class workshop. After hearing my partner tell her story and studying the physicality of her doing so, I then attempted to isolate the words from the movement and simply perform the story rather than tell it. I found myself using hand gestures as if I was speaking, and in fact the physicality became so powerful when done alone without words that the performance as a whole was much more meaningful. John Palmer, an actor who worked with Enright in a play called "Under pressure" talks about how he avoided purposely trying to make his acting compelling or entertaining for the audience, and simply physically represented his character from the words he had been given. To build upon John's point I found that when I was doing the story-telling exercise, verbally telling the story took much more energy than physically performing it. When I turned my narrative in to physicality I did not feel the need to amuse, entertain or intrigue. I didn't need to worry about telling the story in a "funny" way or describing it dramatically enough to make an impact. I simply accepted the fact that all stories are important and let the narrative stand alone as a piece of physical performance. We also looked at the idea of stories being co-created and a collaborative process. By working in groups we were able to take individual narrative and use our own identities to understand it in different ways. This enabled us to see the narrative from many different perspectives and collaboratively create a new story as a performance. In his article on contrasting narrative perspectives on selves and identites, social scientist Andrew Sparkes explores this idea of stories being collaboratively created from different individual perspectives by saying they are constructed "around the things that appear most important in life, from either the first- or the third persons perspective, about a person's life over time". He also talks about how we can turn storied narrative in to performance by saying we look for "key experiences that may stand out as critical scenes in the story, important interpersonal relationships, the values and norms of society, and just about anything else that presents itself as..something that could work it's way in to a narrative to portray who I am". Certainly this point was quite resonant in my class exercises as I found that when telling my own story, I wasn't just telling a tale, I was portraying a piece of my identity and giving an insight in to my self as an individual. I also felt this from others when hearing their stories and seeing them be performed.

Introduction

In this blog I will be discussing the importance of narrative and stories in performance and how we can use it to create physicality.