Today we finished our formal training and finished our presentations of movement pieces around the "personalizing" the Hagia Sophia. The thing that struck the ensemble was some of the movement possibilities--one group in particular presented a compelling image. The problem card was: You are the new kid at school and your mom drops you off. As you're walking up to the door, your mom says: "I love you, honey!". Everyone laughs.
The image they created was of a student walking in silence up a staircase that led to nowhere (they built it out of black stage blocks.) It was high, going up around 6 feet in the air, so when the student walked up it he towered over the others, who lined the staircase, there to greet the new student. As he was walking, all was silent, while the students stood by watching the walking. At the last moment, just when the new kid hit the top of the staircase his mom yelled: " I love you, Honey". And then "drove" off. All the students that had been lining the staircase pointed, while our student did a slow crumble. A powerful image. But of course the question is: How will this, and any of the other images that we have grown attached to, fit into our play?
We didn't have much time left in our session so I decided it would be a good time for some background on the Hagia Sophia. In this way they could begin doing what I am doing: making connections between the work we have been doing and the Hagia Sophia itself. I had collected a few videos from the internet (we can't get youtube in our school, so I went on a site called vimeo and found some short 5-8 minute videos (typing in Hagia Sophia) and found a short clip from national geographic that looked at the architecture of the Hagia Sophia.) The session ended and we agreed that our work at our next session would be on how to connect the 3 things we have done: pieces about sacred places, pieces about sacred places with a conflict or problem affecting the place, and pieces about things sacred to us, with problems with some of the history and architectural things we learned in the Video. And that we would begin looking at story ideas.
I am going to look at some of the things from Augosto Boal's games for actors and Michael Rohd's work to help me formulate a plan on how to get these linkages going. This is an exciting but nerve racking part of the process of devising--the transition from training to story.
As we move into our next phase of devising, I am finding it useful to be doing lots of background reading. Here's the resources I used.
1453 by Roger Crowley published by Hyperion
Hagia Sophia: quick guide info series
Hagia Sophia by Lord Kinross published by Newsweek
Byzantium by Philip Sherrard, part of time life books great ages of man series
Hagia Sophia by Heinze Kahler and Cyril Mango published by Frederick Praeger
Constaninople by Jonathan Harris published by Hambledon Continum
Sea of Faith by Stephen O'Shea published by Walker and company
And finally the guide I bought at the Ayasofia museum itself in Istanbul. This I will make copies of and distribute to my students so they can have it as a reference.
There are, of course, thousands of websites with much information as well. A google search will fill your evenings and weekends if you let it.
The image they created was of a student walking in silence up a staircase that led to nowhere (they built it out of black stage blocks.) It was high, going up around 6 feet in the air, so when the student walked up it he towered over the others, who lined the staircase, there to greet the new student. As he was walking, all was silent, while the students stood by watching the walking. At the last moment, just when the new kid hit the top of the staircase his mom yelled: " I love you, Honey". And then "drove" off. All the students that had been lining the staircase pointed, while our student did a slow crumble. A powerful image. But of course the question is: How will this, and any of the other images that we have grown attached to, fit into our play?
We didn't have much time left in our session so I decided it would be a good time for some background on the Hagia Sophia. In this way they could begin doing what I am doing: making connections between the work we have been doing and the Hagia Sophia itself. I had collected a few videos from the internet (we can't get youtube in our school, so I went on a site called vimeo and found some short 5-8 minute videos (typing in Hagia Sophia) and found a short clip from national geographic that looked at the architecture of the Hagia Sophia.) The session ended and we agreed that our work at our next session would be on how to connect the 3 things we have done: pieces about sacred places, pieces about sacred places with a conflict or problem affecting the place, and pieces about things sacred to us, with problems with some of the history and architectural things we learned in the Video. And that we would begin looking at story ideas.
I am going to look at some of the things from Augosto Boal's games for actors and Michael Rohd's work to help me formulate a plan on how to get these linkages going. This is an exciting but nerve racking part of the process of devising--the transition from training to story.
As we move into our next phase of devising, I am finding it useful to be doing lots of background reading. Here's the resources I used.
1453 by Roger Crowley published by Hyperion
Hagia Sophia: quick guide info series
Hagia Sophia by Lord Kinross published by Newsweek
Byzantium by Philip Sherrard, part of time life books great ages of man series
Hagia Sophia by Heinze Kahler and Cyril Mango published by Frederick Praeger
Constaninople by Jonathan Harris published by Hambledon Continum
Sea of Faith by Stephen O'Shea published by Walker and company
And finally the guide I bought at the Ayasofia museum itself in Istanbul. This I will make copies of and distribute to my students so they can have it as a reference.
There are, of course, thousands of websites with much information as well. A google search will fill your evenings and weekends if you let it.
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