present: Barbara, Jeff B., Marc, Dale, Edward
We began with an intro to simple contact improv, i.e., hand-to-hand weight sharing. The idea is that the two people give and receive weight in a deliberate, fluid, and improvisatory manner.
Marc and Barbara gave a reading of Jeff’s adaptation of Chekhov’s one act, “The Bear.” This is the South Park version of the play: foul-mouthed, coarse, and very funny. It has a raucous energy that translates for the 21st century audience the tensions involved in the original. The updated social references were completely analogous and effective.
We discussed how we might include this in the performance piece. Barbara suggested we could break it up into bits and thread it through the evening. Dale was leaning more towards finding a way to do the thing whole.
We discussed our developing axis of Bear <—> Giraffe. Bear = totem, powerful, giving <—> Giraffe = unknown force outside, looking in, vaguely ominous, somehow wants to take. The absolute absurdity [technical term] of the alignment appealed to everyone.
Marc referenced an article (?) called “Becoming Animal,” which led into a discussion of Cherokee shapeshifting, shamanism, and ceremonies attached to those.
Discussion followed about structuring the evening, again. (Actually, several such discussions threaded throughout.) Jeff added childhood/adulthood/childhood to our layers of meaning on the chart. Marc had run the giraffe piece through the translator a couple of times. Dale discussed how we might establish our several texts at the beginning, then cycle back through the distorted versions.
Marc began to talk about the process of generating “images” (and our need to do so) that we could collect and then assemble as we see fit. Dale said he would create 5×8 cards with storyboard frames and text areas for us to record these images so we’d have handy access to them.
As an illustration, Marc placed the three poster printouts of part-2 [pdf] in a triangle on the floor and suggested that someone sitting in the triangle, puzzling over the text, while perhaps “We’re Queer” [pdf] or “We’re Frauds” is being performed elsewhere on the stage, would be an interesting image.
Jeff and Barbara departed, Edward arrived.
Dale jumped into a Vocal Sequence session with the line “Line of flight alerts you like all good past phrases do. But back” (from part-2). Out of his exploration, the same image stood out: drawing a line with a finger on “line of flight,” then returning to box in “good past phrases” with a series of three boxes, then running backwards on “But back.”
There was also a moment of humor when he turned “But back” into a simple “Butt. Back.” while indicating each in turn.
We discussed further use of the part-2 text. Marc stood in the center. Dale approached him and placed his hand on Marc’s chest with the line “Your hand resting on the vibrations.” He then moved around Marc, placing his hand on Marc’s back, sides, exploring lines like “Find North. Find South. Find East. Saying life is not always linear.”
Marc responded with “It was some bespectacled guy in a bow tie and a deep voice,” and then continued with “he said/she said” quotes from the text.
They both kept working, Marc remaining disengaged while Dale continued to seek. Dale played with lines pertaining to listening, the radio, father. Marc played with lines pertaining to father/”she.” It ended when Dale, who had been circling Marc, seeking the source of the sound/father, ended behind him; Marc repeated “Your hand resting on the vibrations,” and Dale reached over his shoulder and placed his hand on Marc’s chest. In this quasi-embrace, they stopped.
NEXT: MAR. 18, 6:30, NSOD
- TEXTS: giraffe piece, bear pieces
- PATHS: Vocal Sequence; Contact Improv
- HOMEWORK:
- ???
Apologies if I left something out or misstated our business: I’ve been piecing the report together in two-minute increments between other tasks.
I am struck by how the Cherokee bear origin myth coincides with Dale’s thing about the boy who is not afraid to go outside. Here’s the tale:
There had been a clan called the Ani’-Tsâ’gûhï,
And in one family of this clan was a boy
Who used to leave home and be gone all day in the mountains.
After a while he went oftener and stayed longer,
Until at last he would not eat in the house at all,
But started off at daybreak and did not come back until night.
His parents scolded, but that did no good,
And the boy, still went every day
Until they noticed that long brown hair was beginning to grow out
All over his body.
Then they wondered and asked him
Why it was that he wanted to be so much in the woods
That he would not even eat at home.
Said the boy,
“I find plenty to eat there,
And it is better than the corn and beans we have in the settlements,
And pretty soon I am going into the woods to stay all the time.”
His parents were worried and begged him not to leave them,
But he said,
“It is better there than here,
And you see I am beginning to be different already,
So that I can not live here any longer.
If you will come with me, there is plenty for all of us
And you will never have to work for it;
But if you want to come you must first fast seven days.”
The father and mother talked it over
And then told the headmen of the clan.
They held a council about the matter
And after everything had been said they decided:
“Here we must work hard and have not always enough.
There he says there is always plenty without work.
We will go with him.”
So they fasted seven days,
And on the seventh morning all the Ani’-Tsâ’gûhï left the settlement
And started for the mountains
As the boy led the way.
When the people of the other towns heard of it
They were very sorry
And sent their headmen to persuade the Ani’-Tsâ’gûhï
To stay at home
And not go into the woods to live.
The messengers found them already on the way,
And were surprised to notice
That their bodies were beginning to be covered with hair like that of animals,
Because for seven days they had not taken human food
And their nature was changing.
The Ani’-Tsâ’gûhï would not come back, but said,
“We are going where there is always plenty to eat.
Hereafter we shall be called yânû (bears),
And when you yourselves are hungry
Come into the woods and call us
And we shall come to give you our own flesh.
You need not be afraid to kill us,
For we shall live always.”
Then they taught the messengers the songs with which to call them,
And the bear hunters have these songs still.
When they had finished the songs the Ani’-Tsâ’gûhï started on again
And the messengers turned back to the settlements,
But after going a little way they looked back
And saw a drove of bears going into the woods.
First Bear Song
He-e! Ani’-Tsâ’gûhï, Ani’-Tsâ’gûhï, akwandu’li e’lanti’ ginûn’ti,
Ani’-Tsâ’gûhï, Ani’-Tsâ’gûhï, akwandu’li e’lanti’ ginûn’ti–Yû!
He-e! The Ani’-Tsâ’gûhï, the Ani’-Tsâ’gûhï, I want to lay them low on the ground,
The Ani’-Tsâ’gûhï, the Ani’-Tsâ’gûhï, I want to lay them low on the ground,–Yû!
The bear hunter starts out each morning fasting and does not eat until near evening. He sings this song as he leaves camp, and again the next morning, but never twice the same day.
Second Bear Song
This song also is sung by the bear hunter, in order to attract the bears, while on his way from the camp to the place where he expects to hunt during the day. The melody is simple and plaintive.
He-e! Hayuya’haniwä’, hayuya’haniwä’, hayuya’haniwä’, hayuya’haniwä’,
Tsistuyi’ nehandu’yanû’, Tsistuyi’ nehandu’yanû’–Yoho-o!
He-e! Hayuya’haniwä’, hayuya’haniwä’, hayuya’haniwä’, hayuya’haniwä’,
Kuwâhi’ nehandu’yanû’, Kuwâhi’ nehandu’yanû’,–Yoho-o!
He-e! Hayuya’haniwä’, hayuya’haniwä’, hayuya’haniwä’, hayuya’haniwä’,
Uyâhye’ nehandu’yanû’, Uyâhye’ nehandu’yanû’,–Yoho-o!
He-e! Hayuya’haniwä’, hayuya’haniwä’, hayuya’haniwä’, hayuya’haniwä’,
Gâte’gwâ’ nehandu’yanû’, Gâte’gwâ’ nehandu’yanû’,–Yoho-o!
(Recited) Ûlë-`nû’ asëhï’ tadeyâ’statakûhï’ gûñ’näge astû’ tsïkï’
He! Hayuya’haniwä’ (four times),
In Tsistu’yï you were conceived (two times)–Yoho!
He! Hayuya’haniwä’ (four times),
In Kuwâ’hï you were conceived (two times)–Yoho!
He! Hayuya’haniwä’ (four times),
In Uyâ’hye you were conceived (two times)–Yoho!
He! Hayuya’haniwä’ (four times),
In Gâte’gwâ you were conceived (two times)–Yoho!
And now surely we and the good black things,
the best of all,
Shall see each other.
Also speaks to shape shifting and creation (conception.
I just remembered that I did an image with Edward, laying him down on the floor, then sitting behind him (he was supposed to be female), then playing on the lines:
I printed the image storyboard cards today. I’ll bring ≈100 next week. In the meantime, I’ve put it up on the Resources page as a pdf.
The book title is translated as A Thousand Plateaus. It’s part two of a two volume work by Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari entitled Captitalism & Schizophrenia. Volume One was the classic Anti-Oedipus.
The chapter I referred to is entitled “1730: becoming-intense, becoming-animal, becoming-imperceptible…”
I turned to this at random: “Theology is very strict on the following point: there are no werewolves, human beings cannot become animal. That is because there is no transformation of essential forms; they are inalienable and only entertain relations of analogy. The Devil and the witch, and the pact between them, are no less real for that, for there is in reality a local movement that is properly diabolical.”
Great stuff. Their project is sniffed at somewhat these days for among other things it’s lack of rigor. But it’s like exploring a philosophical amusement park Deleuze, a philosopher, Guattari, a shrink, both trying to participate in the intensity of post-May 68 French intellectual activism. They develop and institute a method of theorizing called “Schizoanalysis.” Each chapter in A Thousand Plateaus is dated to designate a plateau, a moment of intensity, the installation of a new desiring machine in reality: the chapter references a guote, “From 1730 to 1735, all we hear about are vampires.” Each chapter is an instance of “Schizoanalysis,” and a creative angle for interpretation, and a radical intervention in the body politic.
It’s work with becoming-animal is very much in sympathy with our conversation on Wednesday.
I’m intrigued by the fact that a Cherokee would never have seen a giraffe except in a zoo. Zoo-reservation. Looking over the fence.
Moment of peculiar anxiety: Rhodes Skinner announces the home games for Newnan Lacrosse. He peppers his patter with fun trivia facts. The giraffe can clean its ears with its tongue. I fantasize that the laughter in the crowd in response to this image, particularly from the women, has a certain frisson of something.
Bears are for love. Giraffes are for something else.
Actor in The Bear: feeling unqualified to be characterized as a Bear; wants to believe he is a giraffe, but realizes he can’t be that, either.