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Hotel Pro Forma displaces the notion of theatre into new territories that lie between art and non-art, theatre and non-theatre, between the physical and the metaphysical expression. Performances occupy a space between construction and sensation, consciousness and intuition, concrete and abstract. Hotel Pro Forma moves across the genres of theatre, opera, visual arts and concert. Every production is a new experiment and contains a double staging: partly of its contents and the space, and partly of the notion of theatre itself.
"In everyday life, we perform actions without giving it much thought.We are wired for contextual analysis, and for transforming this analysis into valid action.
Through different mapping strategies, we work on building a catalogue of actions derived from everyday life, from the immediate context, from memory, and from imagination.
This catalogue of ordinary actions is then translated into something out of the ordinary by a series of transformations.
This could include copying, repeating, transferring, slowing, speeding, or reversing, but the possibilities are virtually endless."
This laboratory with Ralf Richardt Strøbech will focus is on developing material using the body in space, through an organic process of alternately mapping and projecting - seeing and doing. participants will also work on changing the framework of the actions performed, by introducing text, music and imagery .
The workshop began with two anecdotes about Ralf’s journey to Aberystwyth. The first was about the three cigarettes he smoked in Birmingham airport while waiting for the train to Aberystwyth. The second was about a group of Belgian tourists in Aberystwyth. What both stories had in common was their focus on everyday life. They were both a verbal snapshot of the everyday given to those attending the workshop.
ReplyDeleteThis was to be our start, the everyday. Our first task was to go out of the studio and find pieces of the ordinary and everyday, a collage of items. We took off on our search, some in groups and possibly some alone. What we came back with were fragments of texts, as well as objects from both inside and out, ranging from a skeleton to fish and chips.
We then split into small group (3’s, 2’s and a solo) and selected some of these items with which to work. We created simple pieces, discovering different ways in which to use the objects and texts. These pieces were shared with the group.
We then embarked on a series of Chinese whispers, swapping the performers and the different pieces. We then added some together and again swapped performers. And added them together again to make one piece, where we again swapped performer. We also played which the space and object included.
It was not only the swapping, rearranging and rediscovering of the pieces that was the focus of the workshop. It was also very much, if not mainly, focused on that time in the making of work when something has to happen. When the work as it is has gotten to a stage in the process where a decision has to be made, a point of change. As directors we are faced with a choice, whether to go forward and continue, to refine or to explode it. We conducted one experiment with all of this in mind, which resulted in two pieces depending on the collection of performers. The laboratory will continue to work with this as the weekend continues.
Today we continued with the work we had created yesterday in the first laboratory. We started with the final two pieces from yesterday and placed a series of images projected onto a large white sheet acting as a screen behind the performers. These images were set on a timer to coincide with the changes in the sequences of the performers actions. The performers were given the instruction to look at the images when the changed for a few seconds, take them in, and use some of what is in the images while performing. This brought up something interesting. The images were not to be illustrated but to be used more as a context. The performers did not have to fit themselves into the image, but into the wider context of that image, whatever that might be. There was a tension between the interior and the exterior for the performers, which they had to try balance.
ReplyDeleteWe then, took the two pieces and put them together. This resulted firstly in confusion as we tried to negotiate how they went together. Timings, objects and positions had to be worked out anew. This lead to something quite beautiful and moving, very much with the interior and the exterior tension.
After this we completed another task. We ran an evolution of the work from the initial small pieces done in groups at the beginning of the first day yesterday to the final piece discussed above. This showed where the actions and movement the performer where doing had come from. Some things had changed and developed quite a lot, while others had remained very close to their first incarnations.
This exercise lead to a discussion on the need for an audience. Did the performers need and audience and the audience need this performance. Was it an exercise for process or product? Questions were asked about whether this exercise and work that was being done was more an experiment in a possible devise or method for making future work, more so than an exercise resulting in a performance product as we have achieved so far. I think we decided on the former, but we will continue to investigate this more on the final day tomorrow.
For the final day we continued with what we had already created once again. Ralf gave us an instruction to find something that was precious to us that we would like to add or incorporate into the piece somehow. What this could be was left very open, a piece of text, an object, a memory. We split into three groups to try to find these precious things and attempt to come up with ways of including them somehow.
ReplyDeleteWhen we all gathered back together we experimented with each group’s precious things. This was done one group at the time to the original piece, a clean experiment. We then worked with all the three pieces and put them together.
What arose from this was the idea of the sincere. In order for our precious things to work or function in a way that we and Ralf were searching for, they had to be sincere. Some of the results of including these - as we had started to call them – sincerities, was that it allowed the performers to connect with each other. There was both intensity and a care that entered the work. This allowed the performers to move more freely within the formation that we had created, while always having the formation to go back to.
What had grown from the first day to the last was a kind of ‘Organic Formalism’.
Directorial and Performer discoveries from diving, levitating, & climbing in Ralf Richardt Strobech's Laboratory April 9-11, 2010.
ReplyDelete- One of the ongoing journey's for the director or performer is a discovering of a new technique. However, it is not discarding the previous breakthroughs, but adding the new step to the staircase of theatrical evolution.
-Training becomes who you are inside/outside.
- Innocence - ground for resonance. A certain intepretational space to project myself into. The foundation for clown work.
-Developing electricity, high level of vibration on stage is a necessary quality of the ensemble. Arriving at the density of the space is very important.
- Fluctuate like weather: something lighter, something darker.
- It is necessary to walk backwards. Not knowing the difference between backwards and forwards.
- Develop intense and deeply caring peripheral vision - to see certain movement more clearly. There is a type of special movement that can not be perceived with a straight gaze.