Today was time to move to story, to narrative. This is a hard jump for me to make, but necessary. Everyone that does devising work has different methods for doing this and if you are new to this type of theatre creation I suggest you read some of the things I mentioned in an earlier posting (resources) and talk to others that might have. Having said that, my methods change each time. For this project I decided to use image work, or rather image play. A lot of this comes from Augosto Boal and his intererters. I find the easiest to follow methodology is outlined in Chris Johnston's House of Games. He makes a great distinction between working with movement and image. In movement, he says: the starting point is the physical impulse (this was our earlier work)--image work lends itself to a more discursive, polemical process--there's more to discuss and argue about. It is time for our ensemble to discuss.
What we first did, to prepare for the work, was to randomly collect into groups of 4 or 5. Each group had large pieces of butcher paper and markers. They were to think back on all we have done in the past month and write words, ideas, images, fragments, themes, phrases, questions....anything that came to mind from our work. They did this in 15 minutes. Then the papers were posted throughout the room. And we looked at them. Some of the things that were written would be obvious to anyone following this process: power, covering, synchronicity, death, sacredness, history, treachery, ritual, theft, myth, wisdom, recreation..
but a few stood out as new: Grace, angels with dark shadows, intolerance, tradition, bitterness, blood.
These will remain on our walls and continue to be added to as we work.
After that students then broke up into new groups. This time I let them choose groups (after a month of random grouping to build ensemble, I thought it might be nice to just see how they divided up). In those groups they were to select on phrase or word from the list. Then in silence (and this is key) they create a narrative image in this way: the first member of the group will sculpt the first image of the story. They have an idea in their head but they can't explain it, they just sculpt it, using the other participants as their clay. They should aim toward a picture that has a certain momentum. They sculpt all the members of the sub group into their picture, then they put themselves in it. Then the next person takes over and they sculpt the second picture in the story. Again, no discussion and no consultation as to the content of the story. But they should aim to portray what they think happens next. As before they put themselves in the picture last. This continues for each member, with the last one ending the story. Then the sequence is memorized and rehearsed. When everyone is done they perform for the rest of the class.
The audience then makes decisions as to what the story is--to say what is happening. Interpretation has happened on two levels, the narrative and thematic--the thematic is already clear by what word has been selected. The audience imposes the narrative.
We only got to two groups. I included video of them below. I began a new procedure today that I think is useful. When we talked about the "story" we saw, whoever presented their idea about what they saw, was given a clipboard with paper and a pencil and was told to write down what they said. In that way we can keep these stories and see if we want to expand them.
They really enjoyed the activity and I think these will lend themselves to creating plot for our play.
Here are some videos and photos of todays work. The next entry I'll include some of the story ideas that developed in this session.
What we first did, to prepare for the work, was to randomly collect into groups of 4 or 5. Each group had large pieces of butcher paper and markers. They were to think back on all we have done in the past month and write words, ideas, images, fragments, themes, phrases, questions....anything that came to mind from our work. They did this in 15 minutes. Then the papers were posted throughout the room. And we looked at them. Some of the things that were written would be obvious to anyone following this process: power, covering, synchronicity, death, sacredness, history, treachery, ritual, theft, myth, wisdom, recreation..
but a few stood out as new: Grace, angels with dark shadows, intolerance, tradition, bitterness, blood.
These will remain on our walls and continue to be added to as we work.
After that students then broke up into new groups. This time I let them choose groups (after a month of random grouping to build ensemble, I thought it might be nice to just see how they divided up). In those groups they were to select on phrase or word from the list. Then in silence (and this is key) they create a narrative image in this way: the first member of the group will sculpt the first image of the story. They have an idea in their head but they can't explain it, they just sculpt it, using the other participants as their clay. They should aim toward a picture that has a certain momentum. They sculpt all the members of the sub group into their picture, then they put themselves in it. Then the next person takes over and they sculpt the second picture in the story. Again, no discussion and no consultation as to the content of the story. But they should aim to portray what they think happens next. As before they put themselves in the picture last. This continues for each member, with the last one ending the story. Then the sequence is memorized and rehearsed. When everyone is done they perform for the rest of the class.
The audience then makes decisions as to what the story is--to say what is happening. Interpretation has happened on two levels, the narrative and thematic--the thematic is already clear by what word has been selected. The audience imposes the narrative.
We only got to two groups. I included video of them below. I began a new procedure today that I think is useful. When we talked about the "story" we saw, whoever presented their idea about what they saw, was given a clipboard with paper and a pencil and was told to write down what they said. In that way we can keep these stories and see if we want to expand them.
They really enjoyed the activity and I think these will lend themselves to creating plot for our play.
Here are some videos and photos of todays work. The next entry I'll include some of the story ideas that developed in this session.
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