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.