present: Dale, Marc, Jeff B, Barbara
We warmed up with the Vocal Sequence, all independently. As agreed upon, we faded out and Marc took the center, beginning a Quick Pass exercise. After several passes, the action was back to Marc, and Dale joined him in the center, where they paired up to continue the Vocal Sequence, with a little Contact Improv thrown in.
After a few minutes of that, Marc called a halt so we could debrief what he and Dale had done. [comments in the comments, please!] Marc also read out a list of interventions or responses for that kind of work from a handout he had developed for his classes at GHP. You can download a copy of that handout here: vocal-sequence-response-interventions [pdf].
Then Dale asked us to work on the Montage exercise. Everyone took a few minutes to write down five items of some creative effort of theirs, either a finished piece, or something they’ve been working on, or something they’d like to work on. Then we read them out loud around the circle.
There was actually some reticence, if not resistance, to this basic idea. We talked about the anxiety of “confessing” that we’re creative, of unashamedly claiming to be creative. What if we’re self-deluded? is the worry. However, as Dale pointed out, if we’re doing a piece on being a creative person in a noncreative place, then that paranoia is part of the process we need to explicate.
Also, to some extent we as artists must delude ourselves into thinking that what we’re working on it worthwhile, that it is “good” in some meaningful way. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have the courage to continue. That delusion is also worth examining. Jeff and Marc referred to the Lichtenbergian airing of Grizzly Man, with the delusion of that character ending with his being destroyed by those delusions. An idea worth exploring.
The idea behind the Montage exercise was that we could then take these items and turn them into a choral montage of creative bits, a barrage of ideas that the audience could then sort through as we began to reference some of them in other bits in the performance piece. We tried it once, but then we ran out of time. Dale went over to the other studio to help spot a ballet lift, and by the time he got back, we were done.
We did not get to two new texts that Dale had written, one he called the “giraffe piece,” and the infamous “nude performance” piece.
NEXT: FEB. 11 6:30, NSOD
- TEXTS: Old Man Wind [doc]; Dale’s giraffe piece, nude performance piece
- PATHS: Vocal Sequence; Montage exercise; Contact Improv
- HOMEWORK:
- (Neo-Futurist scripts, always)
- keep bringing in text, either randomly selected from one’s own library, or some online library like Forgotten Books; multiple sources OK; we’re dumping these in our box for use… somehow
- Montage assignment based on Structuring Drama Work
I did not mention in the post, so I will here, that the text we worked with in the Vocal Sequence part was a sentence from Jeff’s Old Man Wind:
I’m having ideas. I wonder if they will cohere enough to get them into visible format.
One of the elements in the Sequence is called “line by line ideograph.” The ideograph is one way of naming a character in languages like Chinese or Japanese in which a line gesture will represent an idea rather than just a expression of phonemes. Each character will combine several ideas which will in turn lead to new ideas through the sequencing of the characters.
I like to think that we are building a similar kind of language in our vocal sequence work. I heard Jeff chuckle when I incorporated his cough into a particularly strong sound/image he passed to me. I knew the cough represented his struggle with his voice, not part of the idea he ways working with, but to me it was important to incorporate the cough into the material. I added a trace of something particular about Jeff’s presence and his issues for the work. Now that particular “ideogram” speaks not just of a certain meaning that grew as I used it in working with Dale. It also can point specifically to Jeff. It can be used down the road to “write” new ideas involving both a feeling of “cutting strength” and of Jeff’s persistence in engaging. Or used for something else entirely but carrying the “ghost” of the previous meanings.
Think of these little bits that emerge as words or as little clipped images that can be collaged or little musical motifs that can be assembled or juxtaposed.
Because we meet only once a week, I think we need to relax and get very forthright with offering little ideographic moments to one another. And to be ready to see them or “frame” them all of the time. I will try to model that by showing you don’t need “foreplay” to build up to sequence work. It can just be expected that anyone can offer anything at any time and others can engage with it (or not) in any way they choose.
Here’s the most challenging thing: I won’t try to hold anyone’s hand by saying “there is no judgement.” There is judgement, or should be, from everyone, and it is perpetual. But with us the “judgement” is also part of our creative expression, the “judgement” too should be expressed with an ideographic intent as part of our process.
When Dale left the room to spot dancers, our work continued (Imagine!) as we began to describe how each of us seemed to engage in the creativity “montage” exercise. We played with the idea that each of us represented a particular kind of engagement with the questions surrounding personal creativity. I won’t articulate those yet since they are still gestating, but these ideas felt interesting and “dramatic” as we considered the montage.
Next time, let’s also do a bit of contact improv work. Give and take, passive and active, back and forth. It’s fun. No worries. “No judgement.” (Hah! Hah!)
“Without judgment. Because it’s judgment that defeats us.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGosYIlXdmU
Good point. And I should clarify. By “judgement” I mean point of view. In a way I was being a bit playful because “fear of judgement” can often be a reason not to perform, but judgement is also a response to whatever “idea” is being presented. And that “judgement,” too, needs to be performed, brought to bear, in order to dialectize (is that a word?)the issue.
An example. When I was bent over backwards and ariculating the second line of text referring to the “she” who did the actual work on the tree, I experienced it as a “feminine” moment and articulated it as such. The woman in our midst could have offered the opinion or judgement that only a “man” could offer such a ridiculous characterization. She could have performed such a notion, perhaps quoting my work or engaging with it, asking me to return to it so she could problematize it.
Another example. Somewhere inside me is boiling up a need to question the notion of an “uncreative place.” I want to symptomatize it, challenge it, explore it, etc. I would try to do so through performing when the opportunity presents itself.
My characterizing Dale as the “most perfectly deluded” was a performed judgement that I somehow want to enter the mix.
Etc.
So yes, judgements like “Your acting sucks” (addressed either to oneself or another) wasn’t what I had in mind. That kind of stuff is just resistance.
And resistance…is futile.
You will be assimilated.
I’ve created a performance graph to start playing with. At the moment, it’s inchoate, of course, but I need a way to keep up with ideas and material we generate that’s visual. Here’s today’s version in PDF format. I’ll bring the actual printout on Wednesday.
Also, will I provoke bad mojo if I suggest that while we work on material related to a putative performance piece about our creativity, we resist hiding behind “characters”? Especially during our sessions, there’s no reason to hide. It’s just us. If, before putting it before an audience, we want to muddy the waters I’m cool with that, but I am more interested in hearing about your actual struggles with process and product. Surely we trust each other enough for that?
(Post updated to add Contact Improv to our Paths for next week.)
Trust no one!
I require some explication on the pdf.
I’ll talk more about it on Wednesday, but essentially it’s a timeline/graph. We start listing the material we might include in this putative performance [hereinafter PP], chunk it into the graph, then start sliding stuff around. It allows us to see what we have and how it might get overlapped or related.