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.