Assessment 3 - Ross Gibson Final Blog

1.

When working within the genre of Physical/Dance theatre it is crucial to consider the ways in which meaning is conveyed to an audience. “Theatre is a transaction between actor and spectator.” Callery, D. (2001, pg. 103). The conventional use of language is often absent from Dance Theatre performances and so it is crucial for the performers to engage with their audience through another means. The idea of communities and the different relationships within them had crafted our performance from the outset and we had spent months developing personal relationships and scenario’s that were highly relevant to our own personal journeys. Having spent a long period of time working on individual tasks we needed to now come together and recreate the community we had first formed. Putting a structure to something that had developed in a fragmented way, using an organic framework seemed like a difficult task for Royona and Paul. The fractal pieces of our performance had to reconnect and form part of a whole piece. At this stage we had to pose the question would the relationships and scenarios we had created be transferable to an audience?

The title of our piece was Fractal and was highly relevant to how the company progressed throughout the process. It was not until the final couple of weeks before the performances that we got to see the work we had all produced. For this reason it was understandable that we should have doubts about how our individual work could come together to form one complete piece. It was amazing to see the strong bond that our company had developed over the months of devising considering how separated we had been for a large majority of the process. It was clear to see the close relationships between the couples who had individual pieces together, but it was interesting to note the close group relationship we as a whole company had. The fact that we had worked apart for so much of the process our collective appreciation of the piece and what we wanted to signify to the audience integrated us back together smoothly.

With the kind of work we were producing there was a tendency to become emotionally attached to our own pieces, especially as we had been working individually for much of the process. Not being witness to the overall picture that was being built by all of our separate work there was a tendency to become precious about we had created individually. When told by Royona or Paul to refine our pieces some people did find it hard to part with their work. Although this was an understandable reaction, it needed to be understood that anything that was being refined was being done for the benefit of the overall piece.

2.

For me the performances were the culmination to a lengthy journey of discovery. The emotional connection I felt to the piece and everyone within it reflected the hard work we had all put into the process of developing the piece. When we first began the module none of us truly understood the effect this type of performance genre would have on our personal lives. One of the reasons I think we were able to become so emotionally involved in the piece is because we spent such a huge amount of time creating the work. It has been a year long process with each performer taking their own personal journey of development. The emotional and physical barriers faced by each of us have helped us to grow as performers and as people.

Unlike traditional scripted theatre where everything is directed in some way or another and has a very structured format, Dance Theatre is much more fluid in its nature. The freedom of working in this manner is that as a performer you can put so much more of yourself into the characters. Royona said during a discussion with the first years: “The difference between acting in a traditional play and performing in a Dance Theatre piece is that with acting a character is generally imposed onto the actor. With Dance theatre there is the freedom to create your own characters from scratch.” I absolutely agree with this statement, because although most actors will bring something of themselves into a character, that character will have been written to behave in a certain manner and therefore there is not as much room to be creative.

Performing in front of an audience had an enormous effect on the emotional intensity of the piece. As a performer emotionally engaging with the audience is an important part of the performance. Feeling connecting to an audience whilst on stage and knowing they have an understanding of what you are trying to portray, is a very thrilling feeling. Dance Theatre by its nature is very much about interpretation, so whatever the audience decided to take from the performance is up to them. The positive thing about this is the fact that there really is no wrong or right interpretation. Even if the intension of the piece was to reflect on the relationships within a community and some members of the audience interpreted the performance differently, it doesn’t make them wrong. I feel that it is actually a positive thing that so many people can have many different appreciations of the same piece.

The fantastic thing about working on a performance like Fractal was the fact that no two shows were ever that same. I know from my own experience that I entered into each performance with a totally different mind set every time. The first performance in front of the first year Drama students was a nerve-raking but exhilarating experience. I personally felt a mixture of anxiety because it was our first performance, but also strangely safe because I knew subliminally they would be on our side as they were drama students. The second performance for me was the best performance. Personally I always feel I perform best if there are people in the audience who I know. The nervousness I feel before the performance seems to propel me forward and brings out in me a determination to prove myself in front of the people I know.

The final performance was the culmination to a year long journey and I did feel very sad that it was all coming to an end. The other performances seemed to have gone by so quickly without us truly realising and when I thought about the fact that after this performance I would probably never do Physical Theatre again I did feel very emotional. The performances which seemed to fly by so quickly, with each one seemingly over within a blink of an eye didn’t represent the long and arduous journey we had taken to get to that point. The emotional intensity from every member of the company during the final performance was electric. Each person brought with them to the performance their own emotional baggage. Some went into the performance with the knowledge that it was the last show and they were glad of it, others like myself felt sad that it was all over. Whatever motivated each performer, I truly feel that the emotional drive behind the performance brought a new level of intensity to the piece and concluded our journey through the world of Fractal.

3.

The blog has played an enormous part in the process of developing Fractal. From the outset it has been a productive and useful way of documenting our own personal journeys through the module. Being able to reflect critically on aspects of the process has given everyone the opportunity to engage analytically and theoretically to the work. The practical nature of the process meant that often we would move rapidly from one exercise to another within the space of a short time and often it was only when reflecting on the days lesson on the blog that you could fully appreciate what you and everybody else had actually achieved. Communicating through the blog meant that often you would be given a true insight into how different people within the company were engaging with the work.

I often find it harder to reflect theoretically about work when speaking to other members of the class face to face and it has been easier to do this when given the time to think about what you want to say and then write it on the blog. The blog has also been a great discussions board. Being able leave comments on other people’s posts meant that we could engage in theoretical and practical discussions with other members of the company. This was particularly relevant in the beginning half of the module where we were learning techniques. It was often nice to know that other people where struggling in the same areas as you and meant that strategies for overcoming these problem areas could be shared between the group.

Blog Assessment 3 (Final Posts)

Dear All,

Hope you are suitably rested and recovered from last week and have enjoyed the photos. Here, as promised, are the questions for your final blog posts. This week Paul and I have formulated the same questions for performers, scenographers and Tamara alike. Please read widely and use quotes to support your arguments so give your writing a theoretical context. Please remember to reference your quotes.

We look forward to hearing your thoughts from the final stages of our process. It's been a pleasure working with you all.

Deadline for Posts: Sunday 11th May, 5pm

Questions:

1. Evaluate the transition of the final stages of the process into performance, paying attention to strengths and weaknesses encountered by the company.

Word-Limit: 400 words

2. Evaluate the growth of the performance over the three shows, with particular emphasis on your own role within it.

Word-Limit: 600 words

3. Comment on the effectiveness of the blog as a reflective means of charting your journey through the entire process which began in September 2007.

Word-Limit: 200 words

Looking forward to your responses.

Royona

Blog Assessment 2

In referring to the ‘body as art’, the question implies the change in attitude toward movement when used in a theatrical setting. A walk across a space becomes dramatic, as famously stated by Peter Brook in his book ‘The Empty Space’ in 1968. When looking at the use of pedestrian movement in dance-theatre in this sense, it opens up a realisation that the smallest of twitches may become theatrical and of enormous significance to communication. Thus this significance follows though to performance.

Pedestrian movement refers to the use of physicality that can be seen in the everyday. It can be extrapolated from this that ease of communication may be taken from this form of movement in the same way that familiarity with a vocal language aids a persons understanding. Day-to-day familiarity with pedestrian gesture allows us to obtain a heightened awareness of detail. When this is combined with the frame of the theatrical environment, pedestrian gesture becomes stylised by its mere presence in performance and becomes art, as referred to by Susan Broadhurst.

In ‘Fractal’, pedestrian gesture is used throughout to great effect. Performers use little movement to communicate a huge amount and this allows for a large contrast between that and the more abstract and risk-taking movement that occurs. To use an example, in the men’s section the men use a cigarette box as a means of isolating and disciplining one of the group. They do this by passing round the box and putting cigarettes behind the ear in a familiar way as a gesture of masculine behaviour. Watching this becomes more interesting and ‘theatrical’ to an audience than the risk taking of a performer sitting on another’s shoulder, or even the stylised synchronised movements of the three men.

Similarly, in the women’s section the performers do little more than walk and look. However, due to the performance setting and the use of the movements in repetition and with the accompanying music, the movement becomes ‘stylised’ and is thought of in term of an Art form. The repetition allows the pedestrian movement to become underlined and the message communicated loaded with significance. The message repeated means it becomes overlaid with itself and thus condenses into strength and all encompassing meaning – he is in the wrong and must be put down.

Another example of pedestrian movement is myself and Ross’ section. In this we use the ritual of eating to communicate age and relationship. What is communicated to begin with is the familiarity the characters feel with each other and this ritual of their own that has developed between them over time. Then comes a change in the relationship and confidence in the movements appears to change. The gestures remain small, if anything they become smaller, but gain significance in emotion. It is this intensity of communication that makes pedestrian gesture so powerful and thus becomes Art.

Blog 2

The Idea of pedestrian movements has been around for forty years and has been developing ever since. In the majority of contemporary dance theatre there is always some form of pedestrian movement as it can sometimes be more powerful to watch than just watching physical work on its own. As within my section with Lauren and Sammy the simple idea of moving someone's face away to force them not to watch something is a clearer view on dominance and control of someone's life. For example Steve Paxton from Judson Dance theatre and Grand Union Believes...

“He believed that even an untrained dancer could contribute to the dance form, and so began Paxton's great interest in pedestrian movement. After working with Cunningham and developing chance choreography defined as, any movement is dance; Paxton's interest in the boundaries of movement was ignited. Paxton is one of the most influential dancers of his generation whose approach has influenced choreography globally. He attempts to be remain reclusive, except when performing, teaching and choreographing internationally.”

When it comes to the stylisation of body as art in relationship to pedestrian movements and physicality then the use of repetition can be a powerful tool. For example the penultimate scene in “Fractal” where the girls are now taking dominance over my character there are movements that are used within previous scenes and these highlight the change of role reversal and is more powerful as the repetition links it.

Trisha Brown also from Grand Union and Judson Dance Theatre. Also believes that narratives can be shown through basic pedestrian movements...

“Brown's rigorous structures, combined with pedestrian or simple movement styles and tongue-in-cheek humor brought an intellectual air that challenged the mainstream "modern dance" mindset of this period."


Now with this in mind we must start asking why this is being brought into our work of “Fractal”, as well as pedestrian movements for some of the funny scenes or aggressive scenes there is also some very physical work to show sophistication for example in Karine and Tolu’s piece going into Ashley and Joes piece to show the two differentiations of their characters.

One of the important things with the creation of our piece was to keep the idea of minimalism and repetition for example our opening ritual of the piece and how with the repetition of the ritual it highlights the exclusion of Frankie from the community and her role within the piece as a whole.

Craig Smith - Blog Assessment 2

In physical/dance theatre and in our homage to it’s genre in ‘Fractal,’ meaning and emotion is conveyed “through the body, rather than through the mind” or text alone (Callery, D., 2001, p.4.) Every movement originates from real life, only when we get the impressive lifts are we reaching into a totally expressive form of what strives “to say something that cannot be said” in everyday behaviour (Bausch in Fernandes, C. 2001, p.5.) This corporeal language through pedestrianisation is more relative to the viewer, as they can relate to the movements and their assigned meanings from real life. Thus they can understand the relationship and its depth between two performers by how they hold hands, how they share a gesture such as looking at a watch, or even how they eat a sandwich.

Pedestrianisation on stage brings the audience and its familiarities into the aesthetic space, its imitations of reality establish the blurred existence between the two forms of movement, the merge of which Susan Broadhurst comments on. This merge then allows the development to more surreal and expressive movement to happen. My character physicalises this progression at the pre-beginning of the piece, metaphorically taking the audience to the blurred existence and gradually guiding them through to physicalistion beyond pedestrianisation.

Through the process of ‘Fractal,’ the thought that smaller gestures say more than grand lifts became affirmed. “There is a greater emphasis on exploiting the power of suggestion.” (Callery, D., 2001, p.5) To say something, in most cases there is no need for explicit information, and so a suggestion is all that is required to make our intentions clear. Each action is stripped down to its smallest movement and providing the motive is kept, the meaning will be carried through. These ‘skeletons’ of actions can then be dressed and interpreted by the audience, giving them the freedom to determine what is being said. As Newson of DV8 says “It is not that I am necessarily against using an arabesque, but you must know why you do it.” This is an important philosophy through the process of physical/dance theatre and through our process to ‘Fractal.’

The holding out of a hand, for example is all that is required to tell the audience that my character wants to contact Frankie; that I am communicating a desire to reach out to her, that I am telling her my hand is there to hold and am offering guidance to her. This doesn’t need to be expressed through a highly physical duet between the two of us, and it was our decision to keep it simple which would carry a greater emotion for both us and the audience.

One of the greatest means of communication I have discovered in ‘Fractal’ is through the eyes. The eyes are the most common use of expression that, in everyday life tends to be taken for granted. Communication through the eyes is played upon throughout fractal between characters and implicitly towards the audience. This is easily communicated because we are “demonstrators of [our] own bodies, not the body of some passer-by” (Wright in Fernandes, 2001, p.10.) or artificial creation in a text-based play. Seeing this on stage opens up the subconscious awareness of how we use our eyes other than to see in reality, and so the audience is still aware of what is trying to be ‘said.’

-
Callery, D. (2001) Through the Body, Nick Hern Books Ltd.: London

DV8’s website, www.dv8.co.uk - accessed 13/11/07

Fernandes, C. (2001) Pina Bausch and the Wuppertal Dance Theater, Peter Lang Publishing Inc.: New York
-

Craig Smith

Assessment 2

Pedestrian movement began in the early 1960’s by New York’s Judson Dance Theatre “whether walking or getting dressed, hauling mattresses or throwing pitches, Judson artists found in the familiar gesture a neat alternative to the theatricality of dance.” (M. J. Thompson 2008) In dance theatre, Small pedestrian movements can be as expressive, or more so than extreme physical movements. Pedestrian movements are very easy to read as they are used everyday by everyone. Such movements like a handshake, the stroke of a cheek, a wink can be much more affective and readable then movements that are of high physicality.

In Fractal there is a high use of pedestrian movements such as; eating a sandwich, a pat on the bum or a nod. It is not only simple gestures that are used. Meetings and rituals take place which are ideas taken from what people do everyday only they are distorted, fragmented or exaggerated by using expressive communication techniques through the body.

Observing everyday movements leads us to believe that we will see movements and gestures that are predetermined. But while this may seem innocent enough it is very easy to take a simple, innocent gesture and turn it into something more shocking. In dance theatre it is so effortless to take a gesture and turn it upside down to, for example, break stereotypes, “performance styles, and identities shatter the same old, same old of the dancing body” (M. J. Thompson 2008). This is what Fractal aims to do. This performance is about a community and where would it be without straightforward gestures or messages that can be recognised by anyone?

However the performance is not just about naturalism and pedestrian movements, it’s about communication and expressiveness via connections of emotion as well as movement. There are many movements, which aren’t everyday but convey the emotion or meaning of which they are intended.

From watching Fractal develop it has been fascinating to see just how effective the use of pedestrian movements are and just how expressive the body can be. Using the body in such a way helps to communicate “familiar actions that are fragmented, as if broken apart and reattached in the way a mime might, but to a lesser extreme.” (M. J. Thompson 2008) By doing so a performance can still be readable but much more interesting and meaningful which is what the dance theatre genre strives to do.

(http://www.brooklynrail.org/2008/03/dance/who-plays-pedestrian-movement-neumann-style)

Assessment 2

“Pedestrian” movement first flared on the radar in the 1960s in the dances of Judson Dance Theatre. Judson artists found in the familiar gesture a neat alternative to the theatricality of dance.” The use naturalistic pedestrian movement can visually be as expressive and emotive within Dance theatre as highly physical movement. If a movement is executed with purpose the smallest gesture can have the greatest impact. Pedestrian movement due to its nature is very relatable to an audience, so when it is used within the context of art it can be highly affective.

The use of pedestrian movement is highly relevant to the development of Fractal. Naturalistic situations have been developed and exaggerated to create physical environments for the performance. Within these environments elements of human behaviour have been explored through the use of pedestrian movements.
Simple everyday scenarios have been stripped down to their distinguishing elements and then these elements have been explored. The predatory behaviour of men in a pub when a woman enters their space has been uprooted from its preconceptions and has developed in a manner that has explored social stereotypes and turned them on their heads.

The freedom of using pedestrian movement is that they rely on preconceived ideas for them to be instantly recognisable. “Ordinary movement seems readily legible, counting almost for the words assigned to the actions themselves”. Working with these preconceptions means there is the potential to go against what is socially recognised and encourage alternative interpretations. Society tells us that men are the dominating sex and that women are more vulnerable than men. When these roles have been reversed and the women have taken on the masculine social role these preconceptions have been thrown out of the window. This exploration of premeditated social behaviour has been a really interesting element of the devising process and has opened my eyes to the stereotypes we all place on ourselves and others around us.

“The place of the pedestrian in theatre and dance theatre reminds us of the felt intimacy between everyday movement in dance and language.” The examples of pedestrian movement shown within Fractal are so affective because they are used to express meaning in the simplest form. The slightest touch of a hand or the way in which a sandwich is eaten can portray so much meaning to an audience. Sometimes being heavily reliant on theatrical movement can, due to the nature of the genre, actually hinder the expressive process. As with a play, things can become over acted, the same can be said of dance-theatre. A well intended piece of pedestrian movement can carry as much meaning to an audience as a highly physical action.

Having worked mainly using pedestrian movement throughout the process of forming Fractal I feel that I have developed a good understanding about the effectiveness of using this type of movement. The physicality of I and Ruth's first section of the piece is so minimal, sticking entirely to pedestrian movement. The work that we have produced however is so poignant and entirely relevant to our characters. Had we gone down a different route and tried harder to incorporate more physical movement, I feel that the work would have become forced and as such would have gone against the organic process we have been a part of. When using everyday movement in an artistic manner, through physical means the body is able to emulate naturalism on stage, and art imitates life.


http://www.brooklynrail.org/2008/03/dance/who-plays-pedestrian-movement-neumann-style

Ross Gibson