DAY EIGHT

By Charlotte Vincent

Valentina/Alex
Question – discussion over favourite question…
What if I had to spin for ten minutes and then try to deliver a text?
What if we got possessed by Charles Manson?
Discussed and found a relationship between the two. Does the first disassociate the body and the mind through getting dizzy – and does this in fact relate to becoming possessed by Charles Manson idea. You have to keep the body busy to distract it, which can then allow the spirits to leave out the back door.
Is spinning that interesting its self? – but more about becoming out of control. Not in control of your gaze – this is internal disorientation – then are the words really yours?
How do you create physical vulnerability?
What if PK was to be a monkey for the rest of the day!!!
PK-is it about separating yourself from your everyday self?
V – interested in the personal sensation of how it would feel to do the spinning task. Interested in seeing the unclear disorientation and the effort to complete the task. Is the task to separate the elements if it for the sake of the viewer? i.e. 20 mins spin somewhere else and then the text with viewer.
CV – How does disorientation affect the delivery of a text? Keep the questions simple to really understand the underlying task. Keep going back to the basics of what you are trying to discover.
RBT – what is the text? Does the text have significance? What are the approaches to the text – i.e. is it already known? Read for the first time? Charles Manson? What are all the variations of the task? Is the idea of possession part of the underlying task?
SS – disorientation – is it a visual concept? (Charlotte’s interpretation was anatomical). Space centre task – in a gyroscope you had to draw a line and then are graded at how well you would cope in space. Spinning chair and then made to stand up. Vision is anatomical. Inner ear/jar of water – there are little stones, which keep spinning after the jar stops (as does the brain/ear). Specific tasks based around disorientation. The task is the antithesis of the thesis. The synthesis if the performance – i.e. how well you stayed on the line (and by not dropping your pencil!). Main interest is in the somatic experience.
We are the DIY end – what are the boundaries that we are working with? Simple spinning as opposed to astronaut training? What boundaries do we have in the studio in order to achieve the task – are we limited in what we can do in our space?
V - Not a replication of being out of control but to really see the act of being out of control.
CV - Part of skill of directing is to incorporate the things that people are interested in. Be open enough to trust the intuition that motivates your ideas – this intuition has its own validity and logic. Go ahead with the experience that you have it is likely that your UNDEFINED urge is worth pursuing.

Questions arose as to why the children are in the space and what can we learn form them being here. What tasks will include them. Do we want older people in the space?

Leah/Janusz
What if I were a well-known violin player?
Leah felt most attached to this question of hers.
What if we stand still? – One of Janusz’s ideas – chosen by Leah.
One idea – to play the violin, but without sound. Janusz will stand still. Leah not as musician, J not as dancer. Idea is to try and to wait for something to happen – to do for as long as possible, and see where is the end? The task is for the audience to see the response. How long can the audience sustain watching the “non-action”? And how long can the performers sustain their “non-performance”?
CV – how would we mark the end-point? Are the performers waiting for a signal? Who decides the end – and with what language? I.e. PK might play. Can we choose the language of interference?
RBT – how does this task relate back to the original question? How do the performers set up the notion of what ‘they are’ – i.e. a dancer and a violin player.
Leah – just didn’t feel like playing the violin, so preferred to mime it. To mime – is to be the well-known violin player.
JO – how different would it be if we perform to people who know us, or to an unknown audience.
More about people’s expectations, rather than the actual ability. Perceptions of people. How might Leah kid us into thinking she were a ‘well-known’ violin player – and what does that look like? What if I was/what if I looked like?
Is it about the outside perception – or the ability?
SS – suggests to try the task and the audience can still measure their own attention to it.
After discussion – will the task still work?
We try the task.

3.39 Leah mimes playing, J stands still and watches her audience members move around the space. Some laugh. 3.41 continues 3.43 continues performers smile at audience, audience laugh, 3.44 J is still other than eyes, performers continue audience giggles, some move around, 3.45 performers continue, 3.45 Rachel says STOP.

Leah found it not exactly fun, but interesting. As she had the feeling of playing, but was not playing. She was smiling because that’s what she does when playing the violin. She was glad of the STOP because arm was aching and got boring, but was not glad because she wanted to see how far it could go. She thinks she would have continued in much the same way. She likes that J was in the space and looking at her – she noticed his attention, differently to that of the audience looking at her.
J found that he concentrated on the face, and lost track of the violin playing. Continued focus, he just saw the motion but not the action that she was miming. Found it pleasurable to stand still, and to know that he would not move whilst Leah did.
JT interested in his own response. Why are they doing that? Who are they? Someone forcing her to play? Playing for simpleton? Started constructing narratives from the continued picture. Liked watching the effort in continuing.
Discussion as to whether L was exploited in doing this task – and how long should it have been allowed to continue. Were the performers allowed to stop themselves – task was perhaps unclear at this point. Responsibility as an audience to allow the performers to stop at an appropriate time.
Interested in responsibility of a child taking responsibility for themselves – or of adults taking responsibility for them. The issue of duration. At what point do we intervene? Is it a question of endurance?
Leah devised the task – therefore would it have been ok to go on for longer? Was she testing our thresholds?
Was the tasking testing us as an audience? What are our different thresholds?
SS – the questions that we had about children in the space have become important. Complex morality issue has arisen. Who is benefiting from this task? What if we watched two other people – there would be different reasons to end it? There are always measures of watching and of tolerance. What if we saw the same exercise with diff combinations of ages.
There is something about perversity as a theatrical value. We project our own values on what we see.
Leah’s movement became more abstract – the bow moved away from the violin.
RK – what do we want to do over the next couple of day with the children in the space? Is there a fine line, with experimenting on the children and to see what happens.

Darren/Jem/Nom
Darren the master, with the microphone, gives instructions and rules constantly to a solo dancer.

What if I was the master? What if I set up the rules? What if we documented on the microphone?

The task is tried. Darren is the master – Jem is dancing. 2 minutes.

After the task – questions are whether Darren was the master arose. How different would it look if different dancers adult/child were in the space? Jem had expectations before he went in the circle – he wasn’t sure what his limits were in the circle, had he been asked.

Task is tried again but with both Nom and Leah in the space. 5 minutes. Darren again is the master.

Darren was conscious not to be too mean. To be master he shouldn’t say “can you do…..” or to say “brilliant”. Children thought that he could be meaner. Task was not about them being younger.

Task is repeated with Leah as master and Nom as performer. 3 minutes.

RK asks why Darren was originally interested in his question. Darren was interested in both having rules imposed upon himself and of being the master. What do rules give us? Are they a hindrance? Were they instructions or rules? Difficult to read the master/servant idea whilst the performer seemed to be enjoying the task.
Issue of whether is fiction or not. Was the interest in the fiction of being the ‘master’?
What is the question of this task?
DA – just about being in control, not necessary in a vicious way. Just about having a vision of something set. What does it feel like to have someone telling you constantly instruction.
SS – what if the instructions didn’t allow so much choice? Was this a response to exercises that have been more open in the previous weeks?
AC – could the task be to set up a huge amount of rules at the beginning and see what happens rather than to continually instruct throughout.
Conclusion that perhaps the continuous instruction, was not the best approach.
A desire for specifity rather than power.
Perhaps the task needed to be more specific beforehand.

Jem actually planned that these tasks be refined in smaller groups first, before presenting the task itself, in order to make the task clearer. What are we investigating – and why are we not able to break into smaller groups?