Convener: Nigel Richards
Participants: Roisin Stimpson, Michele Frankel, Nick Coupe, Amy Ip, Sophie Larsmon, Andrea Kantor, Leo Ward, and others
Summary of discussion, conclusions and/or recommendations:
There seemed no argument in whether one can be an artist in Musical theatre. The responsibility, whatever the art form, was with the performer and our innate sense of the need and search for quality/ integrity and truth even in the face of the Accountants and Producers who run the ‘product’. In the mega-musical it should be a given that the artist surrenders him/herself to the ‘magnificent machine’ of a large or long-running production- but does this not deny the special-ness of the Artist? A ballet dancer is expected to fill the template with exactitude- why not the musical theatre performer?
The problem arises because Musical Theatre is the most debased of all the art forms for cultural and financial reasons. The Americans lay claim to inventing two art forms: the Musical and Jazz. Conversely, England considers the written word (through poem, novel and play) as its major cultural legacy. The United states revere both musical theatre writers and performers, and look after the future of the art form by inviting innovation in such buildings as the York Theatre, Playrights’ Horizons and the Lincoln Centre. There is heavy subsidy for the American Musical, whereas here, the Arts Council largely ignored the musical because it was deemed a commercial endeavour, whilst NESTA gave up it final ‘a’ for Arts!
So expensive are the big musicals that there is a poisonous trend to replicate what was a success (Les Miserable spawning the through sung form, Mama Mia gving birth to many ugly ‘back catalogue’ musicals.) What we forget is that Mama Mia and Les Miserables, even Cats, were innovative and ground-breaking in their time, not a perpetuation of an already existing template.
We have no such buildings here in which failure and innovation are encouraged. The play has The Bush, The Royal Court, National and Soho theatres- where is the Musicals’ home? Musical theatre is perceived in the UK as a popularist and commercial form, an arena of the emotion and not of ideas (as in say the work of Sondheim.) If the costs of mounting the big musicals are prohibitive and the producers seek a return on their huge investment (which make the producers have the final artistic power), where are the smaller pieces, the chamber musicals? It seems that these are being sold as plays in which the musical content is ignored in the publicity so as not to wrong-foot an audience with a certain preconception of scale when it comes to The Musical (eg. Enron, Serious Money etc). To perpetuate any art form there has to be allowed an environment of risk, innovation, and failure. When artists/ writers are out of their comfort zone they create something new, vibrant and specific to the times in which they are written.
In the end the new musical has to both have a building (Andrew Lloyd Webber has long promised a theatre specifically for new musical writing but this has not materialized in 10 years) or be borne from the artists themselves (eg Shockheaded Peter).Then we might truly have an Art-form in which the Musical Theatre performer is at last considered an Artist
Showing posts with label experimentation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label experimentation. Show all posts
Friday, 5 February 2010
Thursday, 4 February 2010
058 What one idea from outside theatre has most changed your practice inside theatre?
Convener: Chris Goode
Participants: About three dozen people, and we’re still going…
Summary of discussion, conclusions and/or recommendations:
I’ve noticed that often it’s the ideas that we translate across to the world of theatre from other disciplines, artforms, practices and cultures that can have the biggest impact on how we think about theatre and how we imagine what it might be able to do. Other theatre makers may influence us in all sorts of ways but often it’s an adoption or adaptation of ideas from elsewhere that make the real game-changing difference.
So I wanted to ask what those transformative ideas were for other people, and this is what came up, with blanket apologies for any mis-spelled names, garbled titles etc:
• Primatology. That monkeys define status through eye contact. (Makes you think about stage actors in a different way!)
• Lewis Hyde, The Gift. An examination of gift culture - generosity of spirit in action. What changes when instead of selling tickets we swap them for cake? (etc.)
• Paula Rego’s painting ‘The Family’ – supports loads of different narrative readings. Problematizing but not confrontational.
• Previous experiences in business sector, as a kind of negative shaping influence: wanting to not be dictated to by scheduling or fixation on product.
• ‘Linda Joy’: an experimental Canadian documentary about a woman battling cancer, with an intimate commentary added to the footage after the subject’s death. The idea of video as record; the present constantly passing.
• Funeral rites, ancestral worship rituals, esp Native American. Personal experience of funerals. (‘Funeral directors’: interesting performative terminology!)
• Also, giggling and then suddenly crying at a funeral – abrupt and slippery transitions between emotional states.
• The Lucifer Effect (sorry, didn’t make a note of the author): book about the Stanford Prison Experiment. How our behaviour is defined by situational rather than dispositional forces. By extension, how the structure you create as a director is fundamental to what work can be created.
• Argon: how the presence of traces of an inert gas in the atmosphere means that we’re all connected by the air we breathe. Every time you breathe you breathe a few atoms of argon that were once breathed by… [think of a person, any person]
• Psychics / spiritualists, and their performances. Does it really matter if the skills they claim to have are not actually real?
• Coma (missed the author again, sorry): communicating with people in coma states through touch and minimal signals. The ethical questions (about agency, choice, right to life, etc.) that arise from understanding that there’s a whole world going on inside coma states. Rehearsal exercises developed out of this specialized contact language.
• Harmonic chant.
• A childhood recollection of pretending to be sick so as to bunk off school, and then watching Powell & Pressburger films with mum – sharing those moments, entering into the world of the films, eating Lockets…
• Punk music; also,
• Punk ethos – DIY. (See Forest Fringe, STK etc.)
• Patrick Watson gig – the theatrical experience of togetherness, a sensation of collectivity
• Pulp albums: Different Class, This is Hardcore: an influence on understanding of narrative forms.
• Participatory economics – the collective ownership of an organization, and how that ownership is felt by participants; rotation of tasks etc.
• The 12 Steps (program for dealing with addiction) – e.g. principles of being of service rather than being in charge; stepping away from ego; principle counting for more than personality. This had effected a complete change of rehearsal practice.
• Rugby: a visceral, passionate, seemingly violent sport that promotes daring and the suppression of individual ego, and that is innately collaborative and smart in its reliance on strategic behaviours.
• Pixies, Debaser. ‘Nuff said. - Also, the experience of arranging a Pixies party in a phone box – a sense of “wanting everything I do to feel like this” – not setting out to create theatre, but wanting to do something renegade.
• A love of pathetic, futile gestures. Enjoying the absurdity of doing it anyway.
• A knowledge that things can change the world without everyone having to see them.
• Journalism. Some theatre could be seen as a kind of journalism, but wanting theatre to make it possible to enable a deeper exploration of issues and events. We talk about theatre being quickly responsive but it seldom is; journalism really is fast, and also good at being polemical. Theatre should take its time, avoid polemic, and concentrate on doing what journalism can’t.
• Good manners. Finding oneself wanting to apologize to the audience / fighting against the urge to say sorry for everything!
• Knowing that it’s OK to be paid for what you do…
• …and that you are not what you make: your art is not you. Once the work exists, let it be.
• Rothko exhibition at Tate Modern. No commentary / curatorial labels, so there was no sense of there being some predetermined stuff that you were supposed to understand or a particular set of ‘correct’ interpretations: and no reading or relationship was rejected by the paintings themselves – an object lesson in trusting the intelligence of the audience.
• Music in general, especially jazz: the use of abstract structures in a context of improvisatory liveness
• Gaspar Noe’s film Irreversible. Encouraging a reaction that’s visceral as much as cerebral.
A final conversation about The West Wing reminded me about an axiom often stated on that show: don’t simply argue about an issue – sometimes it makes better sense to reject the premise of the question. It feels like it’s exactly that that the practice of translating ideas across from other areas can remind us to do, because those ‘foreign’ ideas don’t just begin from a place of blandly accepting the premise of what theatre already is and can already do.
This was a really beautiful session – thanks to everyone who shared their ideas. People keep coming up to me and adding ideas or saying they wish they’d come to the session, so please email me if there’s anything you want to add to the list – I always really like hearing this stuff. Tell me things: chris at chrisgoodeonline.com xx
Participants: About three dozen people, and we’re still going…
Summary of discussion, conclusions and/or recommendations:
I’ve noticed that often it’s the ideas that we translate across to the world of theatre from other disciplines, artforms, practices and cultures that can have the biggest impact on how we think about theatre and how we imagine what it might be able to do. Other theatre makers may influence us in all sorts of ways but often it’s an adoption or adaptation of ideas from elsewhere that make the real game-changing difference.
So I wanted to ask what those transformative ideas were for other people, and this is what came up, with blanket apologies for any mis-spelled names, garbled titles etc:
• Primatology. That monkeys define status through eye contact. (Makes you think about stage actors in a different way!)
• Lewis Hyde, The Gift. An examination of gift culture - generosity of spirit in action. What changes when instead of selling tickets we swap them for cake? (etc.)
• Paula Rego’s painting ‘The Family’ – supports loads of different narrative readings. Problematizing but not confrontational.
• Previous experiences in business sector, as a kind of negative shaping influence: wanting to not be dictated to by scheduling or fixation on product.
• ‘Linda Joy’: an experimental Canadian documentary about a woman battling cancer, with an intimate commentary added to the footage after the subject’s death. The idea of video as record; the present constantly passing.
• Funeral rites, ancestral worship rituals, esp Native American. Personal experience of funerals. (‘Funeral directors’: interesting performative terminology!)
• Also, giggling and then suddenly crying at a funeral – abrupt and slippery transitions between emotional states.
• The Lucifer Effect (sorry, didn’t make a note of the author): book about the Stanford Prison Experiment. How our behaviour is defined by situational rather than dispositional forces. By extension, how the structure you create as a director is fundamental to what work can be created.
• Argon: how the presence of traces of an inert gas in the atmosphere means that we’re all connected by the air we breathe. Every time you breathe you breathe a few atoms of argon that were once breathed by… [think of a person, any person]
• Psychics / spiritualists, and their performances. Does it really matter if the skills they claim to have are not actually real?
• Coma (missed the author again, sorry): communicating with people in coma states through touch and minimal signals. The ethical questions (about agency, choice, right to life, etc.) that arise from understanding that there’s a whole world going on inside coma states. Rehearsal exercises developed out of this specialized contact language.
• Harmonic chant.
• A childhood recollection of pretending to be sick so as to bunk off school, and then watching Powell & Pressburger films with mum – sharing those moments, entering into the world of the films, eating Lockets…
• Punk music; also,
• Punk ethos – DIY. (See Forest Fringe, STK etc.)
• Patrick Watson gig – the theatrical experience of togetherness, a sensation of collectivity
• Pulp albums: Different Class, This is Hardcore: an influence on understanding of narrative forms.
• Participatory economics – the collective ownership of an organization, and how that ownership is felt by participants; rotation of tasks etc.
• The 12 Steps (program for dealing with addiction) – e.g. principles of being of service rather than being in charge; stepping away from ego; principle counting for more than personality. This had effected a complete change of rehearsal practice.
• Rugby: a visceral, passionate, seemingly violent sport that promotes daring and the suppression of individual ego, and that is innately collaborative and smart in its reliance on strategic behaviours.
• Pixies, Debaser. ‘Nuff said. - Also, the experience of arranging a Pixies party in a phone box – a sense of “wanting everything I do to feel like this” – not setting out to create theatre, but wanting to do something renegade.
• A love of pathetic, futile gestures. Enjoying the absurdity of doing it anyway.
• A knowledge that things can change the world without everyone having to see them.
• Journalism. Some theatre could be seen as a kind of journalism, but wanting theatre to make it possible to enable a deeper exploration of issues and events. We talk about theatre being quickly responsive but it seldom is; journalism really is fast, and also good at being polemical. Theatre should take its time, avoid polemic, and concentrate on doing what journalism can’t.
• Good manners. Finding oneself wanting to apologize to the audience / fighting against the urge to say sorry for everything!
• Knowing that it’s OK to be paid for what you do…
• …and that you are not what you make: your art is not you. Once the work exists, let it be.
• Rothko exhibition at Tate Modern. No commentary / curatorial labels, so there was no sense of there being some predetermined stuff that you were supposed to understand or a particular set of ‘correct’ interpretations: and no reading or relationship was rejected by the paintings themselves – an object lesson in trusting the intelligence of the audience.
• Music in general, especially jazz: the use of abstract structures in a context of improvisatory liveness
• Gaspar Noe’s film Irreversible. Encouraging a reaction that’s visceral as much as cerebral.
A final conversation about The West Wing reminded me about an axiom often stated on that show: don’t simply argue about an issue – sometimes it makes better sense to reject the premise of the question. It feels like it’s exactly that that the practice of translating ideas across from other areas can remind us to do, because those ‘foreign’ ideas don’t just begin from a place of blandly accepting the premise of what theatre already is and can already do.
This was a really beautiful session – thanks to everyone who shared their ideas. People keep coming up to me and adding ideas or saying they wish they’d come to the session, so please email me if there’s anything you want to add to the list – I always really like hearing this stuff. Tell me things: chris at chrisgoodeonline.com xx
032 How can we move beyond novelty in the use of pervasive media technology in theatre?
Convener: Katie Day
Participants: Amongst others… Mark Morren, Jasmine Pajdak, Peter Mumford, Sian Rees, Allen O’Leary, Leslie Goosey, Neil Keating, Aaron Minnigin, Dee Evans,
Summary of discussion, conclusions and/or recommendations:
I convened the session because I’m producing a new scheme called Theatre Sandbox, which will commission 6 new theatre projects that engage with pervasive media. Check www.theatresandbox.co.uk or twitter.com/theatresandbox for updates.
We started with a discussion about what pervasive media actually was.
Here’s a potential definition:
‘As computers and phones get smaller, more powerful, and stay connected to the internet almost all of the time, Pervasive Media sits at the intersection of mobile computers, media technology, networks and sensors.
From gaming to outdoor displays, performance to public transport, pervasive media is delivered into the fabric of everyday life: sensors and networks use context-rich information (like location) to deliver experiences that are designed to fit the needs of people, delivering the right thing in the moment, wherever they are.’
Notes:
A story delivered geographically.
Miss out on energy? If its just you, and no other audience.
Can we use the tech to widen not close?
Silent Disco
Providing a slightly different experience for each person can be exciting. Could watch the same thing – but with a different soundtrack.
How can you extend the experience to the unknowing audience?
People are wary of Bluetooth etc, as its already been hijacked by advertisers.
Foreground the narrative. Choose the right conduit – its only a conduit.
Can be useful for engaging people in advance of the story event.
You have to know WHY you want to use the tech. OR you just want to play with it to see what you could do.
Where is this just television delivered by pervasive media, and when is this theatre?
In terms of informing people about the technological possibilities – how can we do this.
Could we have one-to-ones with the technologists, to push and see where our ideas could go?
We can learn from what other people have made before.
We could have a one-to-one with an artist and a technologist – on stage for everyone to watch – where they push and explore their ideas and what they can do. Or something along these lines.
Participants: Amongst others… Mark Morren, Jasmine Pajdak, Peter Mumford, Sian Rees, Allen O’Leary, Leslie Goosey, Neil Keating, Aaron Minnigin, Dee Evans,
Summary of discussion, conclusions and/or recommendations:
I convened the session because I’m producing a new scheme called Theatre Sandbox, which will commission 6 new theatre projects that engage with pervasive media. Check www.theatresandbox.co.uk or twitter.com/theatresandbox for updates.
We started with a discussion about what pervasive media actually was.
Here’s a potential definition:
‘As computers and phones get smaller, more powerful, and stay connected to the internet almost all of the time, Pervasive Media sits at the intersection of mobile computers, media technology, networks and sensors.
From gaming to outdoor displays, performance to public transport, pervasive media is delivered into the fabric of everyday life: sensors and networks use context-rich information (like location) to deliver experiences that are designed to fit the needs of people, delivering the right thing in the moment, wherever they are.’
Notes:
A story delivered geographically.
Miss out on energy? If its just you, and no other audience.
Can we use the tech to widen not close?
Silent Disco
Providing a slightly different experience for each person can be exciting. Could watch the same thing – but with a different soundtrack.
How can you extend the experience to the unknowing audience?
People are wary of Bluetooth etc, as its already been hijacked by advertisers.
Foreground the narrative. Choose the right conduit – its only a conduit.
Can be useful for engaging people in advance of the story event.
You have to know WHY you want to use the tech. OR you just want to play with it to see what you could do.
Where is this just television delivered by pervasive media, and when is this theatre?
In terms of informing people about the technological possibilities – how can we do this.
Could we have one-to-ones with the technologists, to push and see where our ideas could go?
We can learn from what other people have made before.
We could have a one-to-one with an artist and a technologist – on stage for everyone to watch – where they push and explore their ideas and what they can do. Or something along these lines.
015 Does experimentation depend on access to technology?
Convener: Alex Eisenberg
Participants: Cob, Alex
Summary of discussion, conclusions and/or recommendations:
A starting point might be something like:
What if as theatre/performance makers/live artists we were able to get our hands on the sort of technology that created a film such as Avatar? How would this affect our ability to experiment?
That technological advances are not easily accessible (largely because of money) to experimental performance makers when perhaps it is precisely those people who might be able to expand, harness and reshape the use of these sorts of technologies in the most progressive and innovative ways.
What are you going to do with this technology?
Open Source:
• Free software
• Free hardware
• Open Source Movement
• How is Open Source similar to Open Space?
Virtual communication devices such as Facebook mediate communication in profound and political ways.
It seems that it could be easy to ignore this.
So perhaps what is needed is a “constant vigilance” – an attention towards the ways in which communication might or might not be impeded in virtual space.
Things to look out for(!):
• Barriers put in place by corporations to protect themselves
• Motivation for the creation of ‘social spaces’
• Deceptive appearances of ‘sophistication’ – i.e. facebook is actually a very very very simplified version of communication. Game: Compare an exchange in real space with one in virtual space – what are the differences?
Differences between virtual and physical space:
• THEY ARE VERY DIFFERENT
• i.e. do not assume that there is a need to replicate what happens in physical space with what happens in virtual space.
“But – why should there be a difference?”
“Maybe because we have not got it ‘right’ in physical space and the POTENTIAL of virtual space could provide us with the most wonderful possibilities?! – maybe…”
[Is it too soon to be talking about these ideas?]
[How about just working with what you have got?]
So – what about theatre – how does theatre fit into all of this? Because it is all (life?) about communication, about how we RELATE to one another. And it is clear that technology is having profound implication on this.
Consider the THEATRE as (THE) one of the best places to examine, interrogate and shape COMMUNICATION.
Consider the THEATRE as the place where humans go to watch (relate, feel, experience….) OTHER HUMANS.
In the ‘THEATRE’ the potential for discovery, experimentation in this space is immense. (NB: by theatre we don’t mean just theatre spaces!)
So as theatre/performance makers – as people who are in the (privileged) position of being able to construct social situations, encounters, behavior etc. we should be able to and perhaps have a responsibility to make performance based explorations that INTERFACE Communication and technology and quite often our access to technologies is restricted.
The importance of communication technologies – is it a HUMAN RIGHT?
POLITICS of technology – in terms of nations, wealth, class, race, gender, sexuality etc….
Attempt at definition:
What we mean by technology in this discussion is the current ‘cutting edge technology’. Some examples might be 3D television, holographic projection and all the other things that we don’t know about!
These examples in particular relate to theatre because of the three-dimensionality factor!
Is it impossible to make ‘experimental theatre/performance/live work’ without addressing ‘technology’ as a fundamental/deeply integrated part of it?
What do we mean when we are talking about technology?
Because clothes, floors, furniture ARE also technology – OR perhaps they WERE once and now they have been so habituated that we don’t notice that they are in fact still ‘technology’ (in terms of human evolution…).
Thinking about a point at which we experience the things that we call ‘technology’ now (computers, phones etc.) in the same way as we consider things that are seemingly ‘not technological’.
///////FUTURE (or now?)/////////
\\\\\
/////
Participants: Cob, Alex
Summary of discussion, conclusions and/or recommendations:
A starting point might be something like:
What if as theatre/performance makers/live artists we were able to get our hands on the sort of technology that created a film such as Avatar? How would this affect our ability to experiment?
That technological advances are not easily accessible (largely because of money) to experimental performance makers when perhaps it is precisely those people who might be able to expand, harness and reshape the use of these sorts of technologies in the most progressive and innovative ways.
What are you going to do with this technology?
Open Source:
• Free software
• Free hardware
• Open Source Movement
• How is Open Source similar to Open Space?
Virtual communication devices such as Facebook mediate communication in profound and political ways.
It seems that it could be easy to ignore this.
So perhaps what is needed is a “constant vigilance” – an attention towards the ways in which communication might or might not be impeded in virtual space.
Things to look out for(!):
• Barriers put in place by corporations to protect themselves
• Motivation for the creation of ‘social spaces’
• Deceptive appearances of ‘sophistication’ – i.e. facebook is actually a very very very simplified version of communication. Game: Compare an exchange in real space with one in virtual space – what are the differences?
Differences between virtual and physical space:
• THEY ARE VERY DIFFERENT
• i.e. do not assume that there is a need to replicate what happens in physical space with what happens in virtual space.
“But – why should there be a difference?”
“Maybe because we have not got it ‘right’ in physical space and the POTENTIAL of virtual space could provide us with the most wonderful possibilities?! – maybe…”
[Is it too soon to be talking about these ideas?]
[How about just working with what you have got?]
So – what about theatre – how does theatre fit into all of this? Because it is all (life?) about communication, about how we RELATE to one another. And it is clear that technology is having profound implication on this.
Consider the THEATRE as (THE) one of the best places to examine, interrogate and shape COMMUNICATION.
Consider the THEATRE as the place where humans go to watch (relate, feel, experience….) OTHER HUMANS.
In the ‘THEATRE’ the potential for discovery, experimentation in this space is immense. (NB: by theatre we don’t mean just theatre spaces!)
So as theatre/performance makers – as people who are in the (privileged) position of being able to construct social situations, encounters, behavior etc. we should be able to and perhaps have a responsibility to make performance based explorations that INTERFACE Communication and technology and quite often our access to technologies is restricted.
The importance of communication technologies – is it a HUMAN RIGHT?
POLITICS of technology – in terms of nations, wealth, class, race, gender, sexuality etc….
Attempt at definition:
What we mean by technology in this discussion is the current ‘cutting edge technology’. Some examples might be 3D television, holographic projection and all the other things that we don’t know about!
These examples in particular relate to theatre because of the three-dimensionality factor!
Is it impossible to make ‘experimental theatre/performance/live work’ without addressing ‘technology’ as a fundamental/deeply integrated part of it?
What do we mean when we are talking about technology?
Because clothes, floors, furniture ARE also technology – OR perhaps they WERE once and now they have been so habituated that we don’t notice that they are in fact still ‘technology’ (in terms of human evolution…).
Thinking about a point at which we experience the things that we call ‘technology’ now (computers, phones etc.) in the same way as we consider things that are seemingly ‘not technological’.
///////FUTURE (or now?)/////////
\\\\\
/////
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