Lesson 4

Our TATE inspired live art pieces

We began todays lesson by showing Sarah and our fellow classmates our live art pieces, inspired by a piece of art(s) we found at Tate Modern.

Oscar, Mateus and I had devised a piece showing the struggle that different people go through on a daily basis, showing the difference in class and how that effects the way we view the value of things. 

Our original idea was me sitting in between Mateus and Oscar and i was reading a menu contemplating what to eat, whilst Oscar kept running round the room getting really hot and sweaty whilest mateus was pouring freezing cold water over him - this showed how my biggest issue was picking out what to eat whereas oscar/mateus were struggling to keep warm/cool. We was all wearing the same type of clothing to represent how we are equal but the world has made us unequal by creating a hierachy which effects how easy our day to day life is or how hard it is. Although we was happy with our piece we all felt it did need developing and needed something more to really get our point across.

OUR RATIONALE 

Name of piece: Lose yourself 

Artist's names: Mateus, Hannah and Oscar

Material made of: human bodies 

Piece of TATE inspired by: Dorothea tanning - Eine Kleine Nachtmusik

Three humans with different struggles become numb to the pain it creates. With doll features they show no emotion and the impact they have over one another. The depth of the struggle is compared but never acknowledged as the three do not communicate with one another. Wealth, desperation and isolation are exploited through the three. So entranced with the routine they lose what is reality and what just becomes game. 

After we showed the class our piece everyone had really good ideas on how to develop it which i think an outside eye was exactly what we needed to give it just that bit more. After having a discussion with the class we then decided that i would be eating some 'edible money' throughout, out of my purse to show how some people can afford to just eat away/spend away their money when theres some people in the world who really need it. We decided to stick with Mateus pouring ice-cold water over him but we then decided that instead of Oscar just running around, every 5 times he runs around he would come up to me as i was eating my money and i would put cling film around his whole head/chest/arms and chest/shoulders/legs to make it increasingly harder for him to run around, making him more aggitated/more sweaty/more uncomfortable, all to show how people who have little problems (me eating money away) can make the lives of others harder and harder all because of the power of money.

I was really intrigued by Will & Myles' duet as I had saw the piece at Tate Modern that their piece was inspired by so i felt like i could connect with their piece the most. I liked the different emotions you felt when watching them & the different feelings it provoked. It was simple but so effective and i liked that. However, the whole class did question whether they could both see through their blindfolds - I think its a good thing for them to both keep in mind that it is imperative that they cant see as the piece will lose truth and will go against what they are portraying.

Will & Myles duet

Will & Myles duet

Group piece

We then began working on the group piece which i absolutely loved! Our piece is based on the Nature/Nurture debate. We were all given an ultimate question each e.g 'does intelligence depend on genetics?' , 'is there a gay gene? Or is sexuality based on social forces?' - mine and my partners one was 'is criminal behaviour determined by genes?' - i think this is a very interesting topic as there is no way of finding the defintive answer which is all the more reason to challenge it and create a theatre piece around it. We were looking into some stories that could be evidence and examples that challenge the Nature vs Nurture debate. E.g. The James Bulger Case/ 9/11 attack/ The murder of Lee Rigby and a few more. These were interesting to look up upon and really got me thinking about the piece we are creating and what I think. Which only made my love grow for what we are creating. 

Its hard to know what i think it is saying to the audience as i am in it and i have my opinion on what it is portraying but i am certain that it makes the audience think that the way we are brought up really does have a big impact on the poeple we become and how imperative it is for a child to be nurtured and loved. 

I really enjoy performing the whole piece but i do particularly like when myself, Esme & Eloise are eggs and we are about to be fertalised by the racing sperm. Although it is very comical I do think it could provoke some deep thinking. We were all once a sperm and I think that represents in a way that we are all not that different? Yes we may have different genes and all our upbringings differ but i think it shows that at one point we were all in the same position as one another so that makes us question that is your personality and your actions based on how you are nurtured? I think not only that but the whole piece can be interpreted in different ways which is the beauty of experimental work. The whole piece may not necessarily make logical sense for an audience member but that is fine, they can interpret it how they wish!

Lesson 3

FIVE PICTURES

We all got given 5 pictures each and were told to create a story just with those 5 pictures (inspired by Forced Entertainment) 

My 5 pictures

MY STORY -
''its pouring with rain so Pauline runs to shelter. All is well and good as she slowly dries off until a speeding car skids through and splashes a massive muddy puddle against her she is drenched from head to toe, her shoes are dripping and as she walks to find somewhere to dry off she finds a box of grit sitting beneath a brick wall she opens up the box of grit, meanwhile a seagull starts flying at her thinking she's a fish, Pauline runs to safety through a fire exit in a corner however as she enters she is greeted by a 5 men from Tokyo who give her dry clothes''

I found this task quite challenging as there wasn't a lot to create a story out of. It showed me that you can create a whole idea/story etc. out of pretty much anything. I believe that this works as a really good and beneficial exercise as it helps you think 'outside the box' and potentially create a story that doesn't make logical sense which is perfect for experimental work. I think its good that I found it challenging as it really stretched me and allowed me to go slightly out my comfort zone as I usually want things perfected and logical but this really changed my thought process when doing this task so I personally think it is such a simple but extremely effective task.
We then got into groups of around 4/5 and each person told their story. We had a wide range from people who were in the storys themselves (1st person) or simply narrating their storys taking us through their story like a guide. This was interesting as everyone in my group had similar looking pictures yet, all the stories differed massively and were all told in completely contrasting ways. 

We then got into pairs along with our pictures and we could either keep all 10 or get rid of a few. We then created a new story with those pictures, portraying it through a performance. I found this extremely exciting and gave me a real taster of creating performance work that doesnt necessarilly make perfect logical sense. We were allowed to perform it in any way we wanted to whether that be physical/naturalistic/abstract, anything and everything was good. 

After this task we then got into our duo/trio groups to begin discussing/devising something for our live art TATE inspired pieces. I am with Oscar and Mateus and we found this task really challenging as there was no limits to what we could do therefore we felt there was no path we could directly follow when deciding upon our idea.

We began by presenting to one another our pieces of art that we felt most inspired by. This helped give us a wider range of thought provoking pieces of art to inspire us for our live art pieces. 

Some of our initial ideas we threw about to get some thoughts on paper

I found a piece of art that inspired me to think about being enclosed/feeling hot then cold/never being able to get the right temperature/never being satisfied/the bad in the good/the good in the bad

condensation in a box

- This made me feel quite claustrophobic looking at it and that is where the inspiration for Mateus' pouring cold water over himself and Oscar making himself hot and sweaty stemmed from. The two extremes and myself in the middle who is just right, not too cold not too hot, therefore 'above' Oscar and Mateus on a social/cultural/economical level.

Tate Modern/Lesson 2

Title of art piece: 'Trip Hammer' 

Artist: Richard Serra

Materials made of: Steel

Themes of the piece: distress/ daring / risk / chance / luck / science / balancing tasks / perfection/one mistake could hurt a lot of people/ think before you do things /the fragility of life / we all have to compromise/meet in the middle

artist rationale

Title of art piece: white field

Artist: Gunther Ueker

Materials made of: painter nails/ canvas/board

Themes of the piece: how many times you hurt something with something it wont let it come down / shadows represent different aspects of life from different angles / no two people are the same / individual/opinion/ we are all the equal but just see things from differe t points of view

artist rationale

Title of art piece: XLT footbed 2013

Artist: Rachel Harrison

Materials made of: wood /polystyrene /cardboard /cement/acrylic paint/ shoe/ metal stanchions

Themes of the piece: different races/different colours/ boxes all piled shows dysfunction of life and how weird colours/objects can come together to create something beautiful - represent life/ grey cord could represent how society is trapped in a bubble and we find it hard to escape though you can if you just break free from the cord / running shoe represents us running away from the issues of the world

artist rationale

Title of art piece: works on paper 

Artist: louise bourgeous

 Materials made of: paper /paint / canvas

Themes of the piece: shows life and the mother/baby relationship - absent fathers - mother is a big part of babies development and birth - without their bodies no babies could be born / life at a vulnerable time / circle of life 

artist rationale

Title of art piece: the bigger picture

Artist: michael baldwin/mel ramsden/jaye cook

Materials made of: mirror

Themes of the piece: theres more to life than what you look like/ everyone sees something different when looking into the mirror/ different opinions/ different ways of living / reflect on yourself and the way you act in life / shows how we view ourselves just visually

ARTIST RATIONALE

LESSON 2

Body Over Mind

This exercise made me feel free and relaxed. I felt asif my body could move openly and interact with other bodies without thinking which created real, organic movements. I felt that i could explore different parts of my body i hadnt before and multiple levels in the room. I felt this was beneficial as helped me understand how my body moves and just what i can do with it.

Tickling exercise

When recreating our partners reaction to us tickling them was very difficult for the reason that it was fairly easy to recreate their physical actions but to feel the emotion they felt was quite impossible. You can only tell so much out of someones physical reaction as opposed to their mental reaction. 

The impossible task

My impossible task was to 'break through the ceiling and grab the moon' - my initial thoughts on trying to conquer this was to get as close to the ceiling as i could e.g. Jumping from blocks in the room/building up a pile of chairs then jumping off it/jumping as high as i could/getting on the window seal and jumping off of there. I had to drill into myself that this wasnt impossible otherwise i would have become cynical and not bothered at all. I tackled each small obsticle at a time to make it seem not so difficult. I felt in a world of my own and that i was on a mission, everyone else became a blur and my focus was the ceiling. Of course i didnt get anywhere but i tried my absolute best and didnt give up.

Music 

This task really set me on edge. I didnt feel asif i could relax and listen to what my teacher was saying, i was always waiting for the music to be played and therefore my concentration jolted. I felt myself thinking up a pattern of when she was going to start playing it and to physically prepare myself to stand up - my movements ended up feeling slightly forced and more of a chore as i wanted to have a fluent discussion on theatre and not be so suddenly interuppted.

An introduction to Experimental Theatre

WHAT IS THEATRE?

I find this a really difficult question to find an answer to or a 'right' answer to as i think theatre is so many different things so finding one simple answer is impossible.  I believe that theatre is unlike anything else in the world, it allows us to be completely immersed into a world we may or may not ever enter before. When you see good theatre i believe it can genuinally change your perspective and opinion on certain things (especially if the piece of theatre has a moral)

I find theatre so beautiful as it is so subject. One person could gain one thing from a piece of theatre and another person could gain the complete opposite. Theatre, (especially a lot of experimental work), is all heavily based on interpretation and no-ones opinion is wrong. I think that the fact that seeing a piece of theatre could potentially change the way you live your life is a pretty incredible thing.

I think often theatre is a form of escapism for some people, i feel that it can give some people a break from reality (or do the complete,polar opposite) and allow you to enter a world where your problems can be left behind, you are in a new one now.

Lesson 1

Cost of the Actor

Grid

This exercise mainly consisted of us walking as if we were walking on a grid (couldnt go diagonly/everything was quite robotic) - In this exercise it was imperative that we was pushed to our limits. I felt physically, emotionally and mentally drained during and after this exercise. One of the aims was to push ourselves as much as we could and to do this we had to make sure we had the mental drive to do so. We needed to have a goal to focus on in this task, which gave us a clear objective allowing our movements to have meaning as opposed to just unaimlessly making movements. Music was played throughout this exercise and was stopped/started/repeated a number of times, after a while it became very irritating and made me feel slightly aggitated, in turn this did make me walk faster and with more energy as my drive to reach my goal was hightened as i had another angry drive within me. When we first began the task you often saw people bumping into eachother/finding it difficult to invision the grid, but as we all grew some spacial awareness and had a clear focus on what we was doing, the task became easier and almost second nature (like nothing else mattered apart from what you was doing and what your goal was) this allowed us to become completely and utterly immersed in what we was doing.

Knee fights in pairs

We were told to get into pairs and try our hardest to touch your partners back of their knees. However, both of your objective was to not let your partner touch your knees but you had to touch theirs so it was a really tough and tiring exercise to do as you couldnt really find a technique to win. This was really frustrating as you always had to be alert to what your partner was doing and what you was also doing, it was mentally and physically exhausting and i found myself becoming really stressed as the exercise was going on. Sarah was also shouting at us throughout this ''WORK HARDER'' / ''YOU'RE NOT WORKING HARD ENOUGH'' so this also added an even more competative edge to the exercise and did actually make you work harder as you didnt want to back down and let your partner beat you. This tested both physical and mental dilligence massively. But on the whole it was far more beneficial coming out of this exercise knowing i had worked my hardest and the sweat and feeling light headed actually felt quite rewarding.

Fishing Lines

I found this exercise really tough, mostly physically, you had to imagine that your partner was reeling you in on a fishing line/ you reeling them in. It was really difficult and fun in a way. I liked imagining their was a fishing line and i created this kind of scene around me of me actually being on a boat in the middle of the ocean and reeling in a massive fish. I liked how this took me away from reality for several minutes. I also enjoyed being the fish being reeled in as i could invision the fishing line and i felt my body became the weight of the fish and i felt i embodied a fish's characteristics which was incredibly difficult. I liked having a partner to work off of and when they would reel you in and do different movements with their 'rod' you would work off that which really helped it become real for me. It was incredibly tiring but i felt really in the zone and in character so my physical body forgot its limits at points!

Lover trying to leave

I felt completely and utterly in the zone of trying to keep my lover with me and not let him go. I felt myself getting quite angry  and upset whenever i didn't keep 'my lover' with me and he got away. This exercise really tested myself emotionally and physically. Similar to the fishing line exercise, i found it really helpful working off a partner, their energy and emotion only hightened yours (and vice versa) it allowed it to be more natural and real, i didnt feel it ever became repetitive i just felt that as time went on my willpower to keep him with me only grew stronger. I felt physically exhausted throughout and after this which in turn, amplified my emotion towards my partner. I felt asif nothing else mattered apart from making sure he couldnt leave which really helped me maintain focus and commitment to what i was doing.

Alphabet boxes - group and solo

I found this exercise really challenging when i was on my own as i often forgot where any of my letters were in my 'box' so i ended up focusing more on looking for my letters which in turn made all my movements very slow and lost meaning. I found it difficult to create different movements with my body which made it not feel organic and real but more forced and unnatural. When getting into a group, the exercise did become easier as you had other people to work off of.

Dancing in the dark

I found this task the weirdest and probably the most difficult. I felt that i was always trying to look for the right thing to do, so rather than just feeling the music and having a natural reaction to it i was always trying to find out whether what i was doing was wrong or right which was the weong thing to do! As the exercise carried on i began to have a more natural reaction to it as it didnt feel right dancing/doing something in a way that i didnt really feel or have a natural reaction to. 

'The Spurt of Blood' written by Antonin Artaud

In first reading 'The Spurt of Blood' I felt incredibly confused of what it was about and what was going on. I thought it was really strange and i thought some of the text was quite disturbing. Due to Artaud being very ill and highly dependant on drugs you can see why this particular play he wrote makes very little sense. When first reading this it did help me understand that in experimental term, anything goes, there is no wrong or right nor does anything have to make logical sense. We were told to devise something using the text as a stimulus but no words at all, this automatically made it unnaturalistic and experimental which i found intriguing and a very helpful way of starting the term off.

Antonin Artaud 

Antonin Artuad was born on September 4th 1896 in Marseille, France. He was a French playwright, poet, actor and theatre director.

He has written books such as 'The Theatre and its Double', 'Antonin Artaud: Selected Writings', 'Watchfiends & rack screams'. 

In the early 1930's the French actor and dramatist put forward the theory for a Surrealist theatre called 'Theatre Of Cruelty' which meant pushing actors and audience to their absolute physical limits in order to have a fully commited performance by his actors. 

Jerzy Grotowski

Jerzy Grotowski was a polish theatre director born 11 august 1933 and died January 1999. He was an innovator for experimental theatre, the 'poor theatre' and 'theatre laboratory' concepts. Grotowski created the technique called 'Total Theatre'.

Grotowski really pushed his actors to not force emotions but instead follow their natural instinct. Grotowski belived that theatre needed to be reduced to its most simple and purest form, allowing the actor to show their raw self to the audience in order to promote getting the same in return. 

He really wanted his actors to feel closer together so he would often make his students go running (naked) together through the woods. He believed this would make them feel more comfortable with one another and evidently work more effectively as one which would result in them creating organic and real work. He strongly believed you couldnt possibly start working physically without feeling the emotion first.

Peter Brook

Peter Brook was born March 21st 1925 is an english theatre director and film director. He believes that the most imperative aspect of theatre is that the play is 'alive' - he wants his actors to understand the core meaning of the text, he would often use image to transfer meaning. He has often even re-wrote texts to communicate the meaning better.

Nature vs Nurture

NATURE = inherited/genetic

NURTURE = environmental influences

James Bulger Case

Researching into the James Bulger case and looking at the background of the two 10 year old boys , Robert Thomson & Jon Venables, to me, i believe that their upbringing did have a lot to do with why they did what they did. I think that if they had had a different upbringing they may have had a different frame of mind and not even thought about performing such a horrific act. Both of the killers had come from broken homes, they both had difficulties with attendance/learning and behaviour at school. They would often 'bunk' off school, shoplifted, they were violent - all these things resulted in the pair living broken and empty lives. I think all this must have played a massive part in why they carried out the killing and why they wanted to do it. I believe we are products of our environment and if Thompson and Venables had been brought up differently i think there is a good chance they wouldnt have done what they did.

Lee Rigby Murder

Michael Adebolajo murder of British Soldier Lee Rigby was an act on the basis of extremist views. I believe he did carry out the murder due to the pressures of society and what he thought was 'the right thing to do' and 'making a stand' to the problems in society and he thought killing Lee Rigby (as he has killed other soldiers) ''eye for eye'' ''tooth for tooth'' - was getting his 'point' across. I think that this is yet another product of someone's environment. What is going on in the world has possessed him to execute the crime. 

9/11

Alike to Adebolajo's 'reasons' for killing Lee Rigby, I believe that Al-Qaeda did what they did due to nurture, feeling part of something e.g. a gang/a religion/a group of some sort, is really important for our human development. If you feel 'part' of something sometimes that is more important than anything else and any act you carry out can not seem as bad as you are doing it with the people you are closest with. Again, I believe this is all dependant on the world you have grown accustomed to, what you think is right or wrong because of what you have learnt on the path you have led so far.

There is no definitive way of proving whether we do the things we do because of our nature/nurture so the debate will be ongoing. On the whole, in my opinion, i am a strong believer in thinking that the decisions we make in life are heavily based on the people/environment we are surrounded by. We learn as we go along in life, and if you have learnt along the way that killing someone is okay, then surely some past experience has made made you think that. Though, we cannot possibly decide on what is the answer. Maybe it is a bit of both. Who knows.