073 Are we all saying the same thing?

Convener: Alex Eisenberg

Participants: Adrian, Lindsey, Liam, Rosin, Joe, Alex

Summary of discussion, conclusions and/or recommendations:

Are we all saying the same thing? [OR maybe Are we all doing the same thing?]

That we articulate things in different way (in language) BUT maybe there are some fundamental things that we are all in fact always trying to say (or do?).

The example of an argument comes up – when there is conflict but really that is getting in the way of the fact that you are ‘saying the same thing’.

How can we think of this as broader! Are there some fundamental principles of life?

Love

Sex

Death

Thinking about the question in relation to theatre? Are all people making theatre trying to say or do the same thing?

What about differences in politics? Or differences in motivations? Differences in intention?

How important is intention in theatre making?

Compare to Lady Gaga – what is the difference in intention between a Lady Gaga concert and a Romeo Castellucci show?

Let’s consider that:

Maybe we are not all saying the same thing.

Thinking about collaborative processes. The problem of trying to get everyone on the ‘same page’. Or ‘forcing’ a group to compromise.

Does it matter if we are all saying the same thing or not?

Perhaps it’s about empowering difference in your work (and in your life). Perhaps it’s about finding ways to incorporate the NEGATIVE or the NO voice?

RECLAIM THE NEGATIVE?

SAY YES TO NO!

Thinking about certain theatrical techniques like Le Coq which operate from a place of attempting to access certain universals – such as:

What is universally funny?

OR

What is a universally great story?

Maybe we should ‘overcome postmodernism’ and revert back to more traditional notions of storytelling.

BUT maybe this is a move in towards the individual as opposed to the group and maybe that is not so good?

“Saying the same thing” – in relation to the production of a project.

How certain members of a group might talk about the project in terms of marketing or PR?

How there might be a good coherence within the group in terms of the performance but when it comes to sharing this in ‘public’, outside of the theatre space, that this is not always the case?

Do these things hold us back?

• Chasing after novelty.
• Always trying to do the thing that is new.

CONVERSATION MOVED AT THIS POINT TO (and notes stopped being taken – so this is from a loose memory!):

Nostalgia or sentimental forms of engagement – such as Lady Gaga, Football or X-Factor

IN COMPARISON TO

Certain forms of theatre/performance/art which seek to set up an ethics where (for only a short moment perhaps) there is no option but to be ‘overcome/bound’ by the moment. And where this is the intention.

That theatre is an amazing place to do this. (Maybe it’s the only place to do this.)

THEATRE MAKERS – BE RESPONSIBLE!

RAISE THE BAR VERY HIGH – AND THEN RAISE IT AGAIN!

That theatre has the potential to leave ‘a stone in your shoe’ – like Forced Entertainment/Goat Island.

The shape and texture of that stone depends of the ‘intentions’ and process of the work.

Accessing reality – opening portals beyond reality?

Dream States

Emotion, feelings, thoughts AS SHARED

Therefore a commonality even when you don’t know it.

It’s just about how to access or bring forth this commonality.

Catharsis as a way?

What is the most pure way to do this?

Big Questions

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

039 The Things I Found in My Pockets and My Notebook

Convener: Peter Cant

Participants:
…
Undisclosed.

Summary of discussion, conclusions and/or recommendations:

THINGS WE FOUND IN OUR POCKETS
Donations To The Group


Receipt Vue Finchley Road with 2 pizzas for £12 offer
Ticket stub from Norwich arts centre
T Kettle Bonus Card
Norfolk and Norwich business card
A whole garlic
A phone number (07752219228)
A photo of four women on Graduation Day, one has had her head cut out
A free party invite
A Receipt for FABULOUS WELSHCAKES
Sanisbury’s Waterloo – Receipt for bottled water and croissant
Receipt for Nationwide account, account number ending *************44288
LINDSEY HOPE PEARLMAN business card with glamorous headshot
CAFFE NERO reward card with one stamp on its way to a free coffee
Envelope with loads of phone numbers and addresses and this code: J89*XLFJ
A branded piece of paper from the Young Vic with the name Mark Rosenblatt written in red ink
New York Wallet Subway Map
No fit state Carnet Valid for 10 weeks
10 Nov – 19 Jan
Plastic bag for 3D glasses
Shopping list for making couscous (ONION,
GARLIC
CELERY
COUSCOUS ORGANIC
CUMIN
PAPRIKA
RED PEPPERS
CORRIANDER
PARSLEY
MINT
RAISINS
ORANGE JUICE
EGGS
CANDLES
STOCK
WINE)
A stick


Other Things

The process of taking out everything from your pockets and bags and wallets

SHAME?
- dirty handkerchief, tampons, business cards, drugs in handbag
- train ticket to Cardiff

EXPOSING

SCALE

CLUTTER

Maps people draw you when you’re somewhere strange. In which “DISTANCE IS MEASURED IN MINUTES” or by the landmarks. The pubs etc

Letter from Grandfather – “ The joy of life is in the struggle for what you want to achieve “ (He is a bad man)

Little pieces of paper

Master Key (do not copy)

Banana

Moisturizer

(COINS) Change that’s worth something £ £ £ $ $ $ $

“you had a piece of garlic in your pocket…”

NICE to reflect on what you carry with you . A RUBBISH SHOW. A PIECE OF RUBBISH

Tickets, receipts, cards

Photograph of me as a baby, used for A THERAPY SESSION
??

How to survive? A shack in Suffolk.

The word IMMURE

Thoughts on abroad and on boundaries

SURVIVAL

CONTROLLED RECKLESSNESS

Conscious awareness of only 7 things

BEAUTY

How can we control the context around the objects in order to make everything beautiful?

HAT and FLAT

Charles Simic

Melancholy= desire to change
Fear= Reluctance / Avoidance to act
Anger=Desire for clarity
Joy= desire to live

“ I think the very nature of Art is Affirmative, and in being so it reflects the laws and the evolution of the universe” (Barbara Hepworth)

“We are such stuff as dreams… etc”

GUADALUPE NETTEL
El Huesped: In the wound there was something familiar and at the same time unknown

En la heirda habia algo familiar y al mismo tiempo irreconocible

SUBCONSCIOUS Keep things stowed away. Why> ? like atime capsule, a subconscious reminder. Waiting for them to reappear in your bag, your pockets, your notebook …

The phone card I WAS GOING TO USE TO CALL MY GIRLFRIEND IN AMERICA AFTER SHE HAD SLEPT WITH A WOMAN AND HAD SEX WITH MULTIPLE PEOPLE AT THE SAME TIME AT THE BURNING MAN. I NEVER USED IT.I NEVER CALLED HER. BECAUSE SHE SHOULD HAVE KNOWN WHAT I WANTED TO SAY

Click on the image above for the full gallery

018 Staging A Last Tango in Paris

Convener: Lawrence O’Connor

Participants: Lawrence O’Connor, Dodger Phillips

Summary of discussion, conclusions and/or recommendations:

Themes discussed:

• STORY
• CHARACTERS
• AUDIENCE
• MORALITY
• ETHICS
• LOGISTICS
• OTHER STORIES
• PHILISOPHY
• TEXT
• POLITICS

CONCLUSION

Probably the most effective way to communicate what we agreed was beautiful and interesting about this story is to stage, in very truthful terms, the basis for and the process undertaken during this Open Space Session no. 18 to unearth what it is that we find of value in the story and, using snippets and extracts from the text/film, enable the audience to take that journey with us.

THE STORY

Components of the telling of The Story:

• Exploration
• Animality
• Animals have no need for…
• Worry
• Self-justification
• Living outside the moment
• Humanity
• Beauty
• Why it needs to be told
• Why it is difficult to tell
• Reactions to it
• Reactions, obstacles and challenges to the telling of it
• And those described in the following themes…

CHARACTERS

• Flawed***
• Worlds
• Inside (together)
• Outside
• Need to be understood
• By
• Themselves
• Each other

AUDIENCE

• Chooses to…
• Question
• Judge
• Reconcile
• Story accesses…
• Their personal experience
• Their images

MORALITY

• This is the personal world view that the story tellers and the audience will inevitably bring and that will enrich the giving and receiving of the story.

ETHICS

• This is the social & political external, cultural dimension that will inform and, at times clash with and contradict the personal morality of the story, its tellers and of the audience.

LOGISTICS

• Simply staged
• Lectern
• One actor
• Flip chart and large space on which the map of the story will evolve.
• Screen for projections of movie snippets

OTHER STORIES

It seemed helpful to look at other stories that include some of the elements that we wanted to address in this staging:

• The Piano & Blair/Iraq
• Flaws
• All the main characters are flawed**
• Voyeurism + revelation
• Key moments seen through…
• Slots
• Holes
• Gaps
• Self-destructive
• Privately
• Publicly
• Need to be:
• Discovered
• Understood
• Swimming to Cambodia by Spalding Gray
• Useful model for staging.

PHILOSOPHY

This is where we spent most of our time in discussion – it was a way of unfolding what the ideas were that made staging the story of A Last Tango Appealing and getting beyond the common perception of the story as only about ‘fingers, butter & bottoms’.

• Human evolution
• Existentialism
• Process
• Choice
• Possibility
• Beauty
• Risk
• Being Wrong
• Disapproval
• Nihilism
• Dark aspect
• Satre
• Typical, general perception
• Responsibility
• Light aspect
• De Beauvoir
• In the moment
• Absence of ‘worry’

TEXT

What will be the content…

· Extracts

o Screenplay/script

o Research about the original film/story, the making of it and the impacts of it having been made.

· Story of the story of…

o First encounters/impressions of A Last Tango’

o Finding beauty in the story/emotions/tears.

· Impro

o Engaging the audience

POLITICS/CULTURE

One of the things that will make the staging of the story of the story is interesting is the context in which it is told, the tensions between that and our current social politics and culture and the disconnect between them and the themes of A Last Tango’.

• Rules
• Other People
• Who are they anyway?? (we bearly know ourselves, how can we ever claim to ‘know’ other people???).
• Social
• ‘Inclusion’ it is a futile and sometimes destructive exercise to set out to attempt to ‘include’ everyone. People will include or exclude themselves based on their choice.
• Important to remember that, on one level, people are organisms.
• The importance of:
• Time
• Place
• The story staged must be personal and truthful to be a sufficient antidote to the challenges above and enable the interest & beauty to be revealed.

017 Stories & Learning

Convener: Lawrence O’Connor

Participants: Louise Platt, Amy Wackett, Andrew McLay, Jennifer Pearcy-Edwards, Stephen Darcy, Colin Atkinson, Thomas Hescott, Cheglee Houston, Alison Goldie, Liz Porter, Andrew McLay, Rachael McGill, Antonio Arrara, Jen Lunn,
Zoe Cobb, Mary O'Connor, Dominic Cambell, Martin Aukland, Mark Pheonix, Sharon Seager, Kiplacet, Rupert Jones, Grefor Henderson-Begg, Jack Knight, Nick Coupe, Lawrence O'Connor

Summary of discussion, conclusions and/or recommendations:

This session was a truly amazing, inspiring and encouraging dialogue by a group of people both passionate to both contribute and to listen.

The participants requested that the map that resulted from the session be the included as reference in the record of the conversation.
Time permitting, text notes to explain the ideas will also be added.

The ideas discussed extended and interconnected rapidly with passionate sincerity. The map also grew rapidly, therefore, and so it is presented in sections below in the interests of legibility. It is best viewed in colour- click on the images to view fully.