How can I radiate through the space with a sense of stillness and simplicity?
“Parvathy (Baul) is stronger than me,
because she has no weapons.”
Eugenio Barba, at Tantidhatri Festival.
As an actor I
have a tendency to close down and internalise when confronted by a significant
emotional response and/or direct audience connection. I also have an inner
energy that flicks about at 1000 miles an hour which limits my capacity for
communion with my audience. While away I witnessed that 99% of the actors and performers
I saw contained a greater sense of inner stillness and a consistency or how
that energy was directed to their audience. The artists who worked very
physically also maintained this. All artists worked with the qualities of
simplicity and precision while radiating out openly and easefully to their
scene partners and audience.
“Deborah, your spirit is like the moon,
you must move like a sunset”
Keiin Yoshimura to me during my Noh training.
I know that an
audience prefers me when my work is very focused and when I slow right down. I
know that the audience can read a lot by my doing little. Currently when I do
manage to slow right down I become vulnerable and disengage with my audience,
my performance becomes internal and only for me.
“Whatever that is right there in this
moment you have to stay and face it, get closer, don’t run away, go to it” Drew Der Kinderen (Principal Instructor
of Zen Zen Zo Theatre Company) to me during my Suzuki training.
My goal is to be
able to sit comfortably in vulnerability, communing with my audience strongly
and easefully.
To discover this
I will continue to investigate and pull from different theatre forms and
traditions to discover what they do in each moment which encourages connection,
inner stillness and openness.
I will mostly be concentrating on the similarities between:
I will mostly be concentrating on the similarities between:
·
Noh
Theatre (Kamigata-mai tradition)
·
Commedia
Dell’arte
·
Topeng
·
Clown
·
Butoh
Using these
forms as a vehicle, I will explore the similarities and cross-overs they share
of methods to allow a strong audience connection through simplicity. I am
interested to know how all of the training and knowledge of a performer can be
delivered easefully in performance.
.......THEN said
the teacher, Speak to us of teaching.
And he said: No
man can reveal to you aught but that which
already lies
half asleep in the dawning of your knowledge.
- Kahlil Gibran
-
Research:
·
Investigation
of artists performing successfully with openness, ease and audience connection
from a variety of cultures and forms.
·
Exploration
of vulnerability through Margi Brown Ash acting as a guide
·
Exploration
of Suzuki Method
·
Primary
interviews with artists
·
Study
of Autobiographical books by artists
Testing:
·
Practise
and investigation through Go Solo seeding
·
Testing
work in different locations; e.g., the foyer at lunchtime, the middle of a busy
pedestrian area, a quiet beach, etc.
·
Sharing
my creative process and discoveries through a public blog
·
Filming
myself in stillness for 5 minutes at a time and reflection of emotional
response and physical viewing. Repeated throughout the year.
Projects:
·
Our
Country’s Good (Arthur Phillip): Performance and creative process
·
IPP:
Networking, Voice Over/Radio, casting
·
Go Solo: Performance and creative process.
During these
projects I will be working with the following sub questions to aid in the
exploration from my working question:
(i)
How
can I open up and be vulnerable within process (how to commit in times of
fear/lightness in times of struggle).
(ii)
How
can I trust and to allow myself to be held by my company and my director.
(iii)
How
can I become savvy to when the work is hot/on and why it's working?
(iv)
How
can I investigate and stretch moments that work?
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