Inspiration from Grotowski... A Few Words !

Everyday we are faced with challenges, everyday something occurs.
We must face the day, face the time and live in time.
Only a few of us do so, only a few of us face the day, face the challenges, learn about them and go through them.
We can get distracted, this happens, we don't realise, only do we realise, when, we get back to our original matter of truth... Which in itself is a challenge.


Life is magical and I don't want to miss a thing...

Introducing Jerzy Grotowski

Jerzy Grotowski was born in Rzeszow, Poland on the 11th of August 1933 and sadly died in 1999.
He was a Theatre Director, Actor Trainer and Theorist whose work was split into 5 phases:

1)Theatre of Production- (1957-1969)
In 1958 Grotowski moved to Opole where he was invited by the theatre critic and dramaturg Ludwik Flaszen to serve as Director of the Theatre of 13 Rows.There he began to assemble a company of actors and artistic collaborators which would help him realize his unique vision. He explored the actor's and audience's relationship, and developed his methods and idea's of what an actor and theatre should be. After a few of his productions it was then his realization now known as Grotowski's notion of 'poor theatre.
Stripping everything away from the actor and stage, to the point of no props, no make up and simple costume was something that Grotowski believed to be real theatre, the bare truth in a sense.

2)Paratheatrical phase- (1969-1978)
Grotowski did not perform after his theatre of production, during this time he took his journey towards self discovery within himself and other actors and groups, there was no audiences during any of these meetings. It was more of a training process in a sense, in search of the truth beyond theatre, where only creativity was sought, asserting the purity of nature and openness and opposing the falseness of society. This phase is known as the 'Paratheatrical' phase of his career because it was an attempt to transcend the separation between performer and spectator. Grotowski attempted this through the organization of communal rites and simple interactive exchanges that went on sometimes for extended periods, attempting to provoke in participants a deconditioning of impulse.

3)Theatre of Sources- (1976-1982)
During this phase Grotowski returned to working with small groups, this helped for his continuous research in human self discovery.
He travelled far and wide across the world, intensely through India, Mexico, Haiti and elsewhere, seeking to identify elements of technique in the traditional practices of various cultures that could have a precise and discernible effect on participants. With the help of good friends helped Grotowski managed to settle in the US, where he taught at Columbia University for one year while attempting to find support for a new program of research.

4)Objective Drama- (1983-1986)
This phase of research was characterized by an investigation of the psychophysiological impact of selected songs and other performative tools derived from traditional cultures on participants, focusing specifically on relatively simple techniques that could exert a discernible and predictable impact on the doer regardless of her belief structures or culture of origin.

5)Art as Vehicle (1986-)
Grotowski was invited by Roberto Bacci of the Centro per la Sperimentazione e la Ricerca Teatrale to shift the base of his work to Pontedera, Italy, where he was offered an opportunity to conduct long-term research on performance without the pressure of having to show results until he was ready.
Here he reached into the past to find old ritual songs that had a deep imp[act on the heart, the head and the body. He wanted the ancient history to connect back to man today and to reach the truth through original rituals.

A quote By Peter Brooks.

"It seems to me," Brook said, "that Grotowski is showing us something which existed in the past but has been forgotten over the centuries; that is that one of the vehicles which allows man to have access to another level of perception is to be found in the art of performance."

Below - Jerzy Grotowski

The Frame

The Frame is the opening scene to our show, it starts with one person speaking and we all one by one interact with this person using a word that sums up what we are feeling. However we are using this word as if to say that they are feeling this, for instance my word is unsettled, my question is " Are you unsettled?" the purpose of this frame is showing how other people can bring out another emotion that you may be feeling, or pushing on there own emotional conflict with themselves onto someone else. It's a very random conversation that leads to self discovery... Or does it?
Each person came up with a word from truth, the word came from a long process of devising our truth. We had to go through a lot of different exercises to reach this truth. One exercises was to draw a picture of ourselves with our eyes closed, another was to write about how we see ourselves, who we are and what helps us through life. All very personal and all that comes from truth. Below are some pictures of the strange picture I drew of myself with my eyes closed, also an idea for the frame!

Devising- The Progress

We have been working on a piece called 'The Ritual of the Lost Souls'
It starts with us being spread out, using our bodies to create levels, We are as still as can be, slowly reaching out for something, hoping it may the truth, something that makes sense to each individual. We have in our mind set something that we are truly searching for, this allows us to keep focused and give an honest performance.
The further we reach the harder things get, or the more frustrated we are in not finding our truth. Some people get extremely vocal whilst others use their facial expressions to show their emotions. During this whole ritual there is music played throughout, until suddenly it turns off, everybody gets back to the real world , and start sweeping things under the rug, which will symbolize how people don't always take the truth , or in finding it well...

Devising for the 45 minute piece- the process!

So far things have turned out to be rather emotional, in order to create real theatre we must find the truth, the truth inside ourselves. This for some has not been an easy exercise and for me personally was also hard, however it's very satisfying to speak about true emotions, fears and secrets.
This process is 'A Way In', in helping us with the devising process. It also allows us as actors to be real and comfortable with our emotions on stage. Letting go only allows an actor to be more free. Lots of improvisations have been part of this process too. We have been learning about 'Plastics' which is a full body movement, using our bodies to show emotions, a training method of Grotowski. We used plastics whilst listening to music, reacting with impulse which too allows us to free our minds. In other lessons we had to write a few paragraphs to express our thoughts and feelings about our lives, how we get by, what are morals may be, how do we guide ourselves, etc... Through this exercise we used a few lines from each written piece to form a small piece of theatre. This whole process developed into something a little more interesting. Each day we are building new pieces of work, it seems so far that our play will be about identity and will be short pieces interlocking rather than a full flowing 45 minute piece, however things do change.

2nd Year so far... :o)

Second year so far has proven to be a joy! After so much time away from uni I feel inspired and ready to go.

Our first day was spent at 'The Tate' to get some inspiration from the poetry and dreams exhibition.

Below are a few pieces that I loved.

It was interesting to see and I guess in a way it did inspire me in preperation for our first module of the year. After being out of a creative environment for some time, being surrounded by art most definitely opened up my mind, which gave me an idea!

THE IDEA - where it came from!

Sitting at lunch with Dominique... I get a call from my boyfriend, he starts rambling on about how he had to stay up ALL night sending some music files to a producer. He had the files ready to send in a minute format but as soon as he loaded them up to send he accidentally DELETED all the files! The consequences were for him to stay up all night to re bounce them into this one minute send format, thank goodness he had backed up the original files! This got me thinking...
This gave me an idea about how reliant we are on technology, what a shame if you loose all your work! What a shame if you didn’t back up, I mean it's kind of a crisis these days if we loose our valuable work.
Dom and I discussed this and came up with a few ideas.

We needed to come up with a proposal in order to show off our ideas.

Below reads the proposal, ideas, etc!

THE BIG EYE!

The idea is to find the meaning of cyber world.
How far do we actually live inside it?
Are we dictated by cyber world?
Do we live in cyber world or the real world?
We’re we more real in the 60’s?
Was that the ‘REAL’ revolution?
Is cyber world a dream or reality?

Passwords
Trapped

Life without a phone documentary


Can we trust cyber world?
They know my mother fucking bank details!

Bugs
Viruses

Research- finding the true emotion-How did Nick (teacher) feel when his computer got stolen?

Iphones

Cyber world- this is my life, this is your life
Facebook statuses, gather our statuses to create a script,
Do we want to live forever- does cyber world enable that? Is that why we are so obsessed?
You do live forever; is that our subconscious speaking? Are we scared of ending? Dying?
We want to speak, be heard, and see our name in lights, on screen.
In cyber world we are heard, or do we just want to hear ourselves? Remind ourselves?
Why, what, where, and who are we with?
It’s a way to speak to the word, but it’s not THE WORLD it’s cyber world!
It makes us feel bigger…rather than the small speck we really are.





Back at The Arts Depot :)

Meeting the new 1st years was really nice, and now every Monday it has been decided that both 1st years and 2nd years will share a morning class exercise, which involves, stretching, warm ups and generally getting HOT!
The games we play allow us to forget about the weekends and concentrate on the days to come.

Having Michael as a new teacher is also proving to be a success, he has set the class some interesting challenges in order to get our creative minds thinking.
We started with an exercise called 'The Grid'.
The Grid is basically an imaginary basic grid that we follow, using sharp moves to turn and change direction. We started walking the grid in silence, then eventually, naturally, took on characters and tasks, which only involved ourselves. This grid carried on for around 2 hours, people could jump in and out of the grid to watch, or could carry on the grid task to see where it would lead... After some time it seemed that the grid had disappeared and soon was a piece of theatre, where people were connecting and interacting, however no words were spoken. Though so much was said.
At some points of the exercise, it seemed like you could of been in some mental hospital, people lost there inhibitions and went... well slightly mad!
I took myself out the grid to shoot videos of some moments...
click on link below

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NbhiHvzQOPE

The Radio Script Workshop

The year is nearly finished and soon I would have completed my first year of Uni! I am very pleased to say that I feel very proud and excited at the same time... For the last few days at Uni we have been working towards a radio drama recording, we have written our own scripts and soon will be recording them.
I have been working with Mario and so far the process has gone smoothly. We have sound affects organized and the script is complete.

We have written the script in radio drama format.



You & I

By

Kate Meranda & Mario Hitra


The Characters, The Boy (TB), Little Girl (LG) & Mum

SCENE 1

THE SOUND OF A TAP DRIPPING, ECHOING THE ROOM

SOUND OF HEAVY BREATHING

BOY: I feel so stupid

GIRL: Why do you feel stupid?

BOY: I am stupid:

GIRL: Stupid

BOY: I can’t believe we’re back here again, back to square one

GIRL: I though we we’re gonna get out?

BOY: We we’re supposed to get out, but we’re back here again

Pause… Breathing

GIRL: Think I’m growing- Do you think I’ve grown?

Pause

GIRL: I’m starving, I need to eat, cant focus

BOY: Not sure we can eat right now

NOISES OF SCRATCHING OF THE WALLS

GIRL: Stop doing that, you always do that, I’m sick of that noise

BOY: I’m sick of these walls, I’m sick of this place, I’m sick of this situation we’re in

GIRL: What we gonna do?

BOY: Shut up! Sound of scratching of the hair… Just give me a minute

Pause

GIRL: Why are you being like this? You promised me we’d get out of here, I can’t go on my own, I need you… Are you even listening to me?

BOY: (loud) Alright, Alright shut up

GIRL: Why have you stopped listening to me? We used to be a good team You & I… If you start listening to me again… we’ll be out of here in no time!

BOY: (angry) Without you we wouldn’t even be in this situation, you’re always in my ear, (shout) just shut up for once

GIRL: Shhhh , don’t shout, they might hear you !

SOUND OF HEAVY FOOTSTEPS

INNER VOICE: BOY: It’ just a black hole, I haven’t seen the light in days

GIRL: Could be weeks, could be months.

BOY: I keep hearing the same noises, over and over again; we’ve been down here for days,

GIRL: Could be weeks, could be months…

A DOOR OPENS

MUM: (OFF) Darling what are you doing? We have to go now; we’re going to be late.

GIRL & BOY: OK I’m coming