1. To examine the transition into the final stages, we must first establish what the initial stages were. In the case of ‘Fractal’, what preceded was a separation. The company built and created separately creating a huge amount of material from which to work and in that sense, the creative sense, this way of working was very successful. However, because of this the ensemble became disconnected and disjointed in its awareness of its separate parts and in its sensitivity in trusting the process. When the company was together as a whole it was clear to all that each fractal part was held in the same esteem as any other. When separated this trust is lost as focus on the whole has to tighten in and constantly shift. Similarly, when performers’ concentration is focused only on their work, they become precious about it but they also loose touch with the work of others.
Combine all these factors together and you are presented with a possible reason as to why there was a certain amount of dissention on a particular subject at one point. It may also have contributed to a wane in focus and commitment towards the end of the second semester.
In hindsight there may have been ways to avoid the negative atmosphere that developed. An example of this may be returning to the group warm-ups more often; or if that was not possible due to people arriving at different times, assigning someone to lead a warm up with those who arrive together. That way the ensemble, or a fractal part of it, come together again and reconnect. It would also have maintained the established structure of warm-up – work, aiding focus and concentration. It would also ensure that warm-ups would have been effectively carried out because an observation that could be made about any one of the fragmented sessions in the workshops was that many did not warm up efficiently enough to gain the body-mind connection and concentration required for the work.
To examine this transition in a positive light what must be said is that the individuality of this way of working allowed each couple or trio or lone performer to develop a physical identity true to them that was clear and sharp. There was no blending over of edges. While there was a physical language that was used by all, there were many dialects creating character, mood and emotion in distinctive ways.
2. Over the three shows there was a growth and change that was different to what was expected by the performers. It was different in that it did not feel free and erratic when things changed; everything was still grounded in the performance space and the world of fractal. When being told that the shows change and morph in meaning and detail through the run, a performer new to the way of working is presented with a frightening prospect but this is not at all how it is when experienced on stage.
The idea of change is daunting and frightening at the open because the concept of our way of working is not understood. This concept is entwined with the ownership of the work belonging in the hands of the performer in a similar way to the work of Theatre du Soleil and Ariane Mnouchkine who had a commitment to having “collaborative, and hence potentially democratic, ways of working” (Murray and Keefe: 2007, 94). With this sense of ownership comes a control and surety that allows the work to change and grow without the explicit command of choreographer or director. This also allows a wider range of physical ideals or attitudes to be expressed which can be positive or unhelpful depending on what the company is trying to communicate.
Over the three shows one thing that changed and developed dramatically was that of the emotional intensity felt by all, audience and performers. The balance seemed to shift from a high level of nervous energy to a high level of deep commitment in feeling as the shows progressed. Where this was most evident for me was in the bowls section as the lunch box section was more rigidly choreographed. The bowls section was fluid and undetermined to a point where the impulse of the time directed the movement almost entirely. A way to illustrate this would be to take an example of me forgetting one of the synchronised moves. While it would seem that it changed the piece because I made a mistake, it was more that it changed the emotional significance of the light and the movement within it for my character. The motion of pushing the fist into the light was initially my movement and was intended to show a struggle, but during development of the piece of a whole, this meaning was lost. Because of this my character’s place there became dampened and the emotion became smothered by the imposed motion. When this pressure was released by me forgetting the first of the three movements, the meaning and reason for my character came flooding back to me. In that moment it was difficult for me not to loose the piece as a whole in the newness of the feeling. The character shed a few tears in that time as she began to find herself in that golden light, as she began to understand a new her that was strange and that had forceful impulses controlling her behaviour. With this in mind, to remember the first two shows’ bowls sections feel empty and meaningless in comparison. So in this sense for me this section grew and changed dramatically over the performance.
The lunchbox section needs to be considered differently because of its pedestrian nature. Here the movements were preselected and rehearsed to death in order to gain the synchronicity. The quest then was to find in it the emotion and the means to express it. This did happen over the course of the shows a surprising amount because of the feed between performer and audience. Because the movements themselves were not intrinsically expressive, a physical intensity had to develop and this is what grew for me over the shows. I felt as if all the emotion was being squeezed down into the movement of the eyes and the tension in the muscles and it was a challenge but I think we managed it.
3. As a means of charting our progress, the blog was valuable, but as a means of developing our thinking throughout the process it was invaluable. If you look back now you can see how the performers’ thinking develops though the process and you can also see the commitment to the process growing. The comments rise in complexity, astuteness and length as time progresses. To look back to the first semester where the bodies were learning, the responses from each session and post are person accounts and responses, a sharing of experiences from the lesson. This semester the posts have more direction and drive, they have a more theoretical or work-driven base, asking us to think in a particular direction. This means the comments became more formal in their phrasing as people began thinking and connecting the work with the research we had done for the essay as the questions were more formal in their own presentation. In this sense the blog was an effective means of charting the process, providing you are charting the process of those committed to it and the blog, which was not always the case.
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