​Ruhi Kumar

Workshops 

 

ESF Drama Workshop-September 10th 

Today we went to KG5 for a whole day drama workshop. I got to attend student run workshops such as 'From page to stage', Brecht, Directing and Chris and Sue. During my workshop I explored the theatre style of Brecht further which is what we have been learning in class. One exercise  we did that I really enjoyed during the Brecht workshop was when we were given a scene from the Brechtian play Mother Courage and had to explore the text by reading the dialogue and by using the dialogue and our own interpretation create three tableaux. I found this to be very interesting as each group had their own individual interpretation of the text but the message still remained the same. One of the workshops I found super interesting was the one called 'From page to stage' the students were all Literature and Performance students and taught us how a simple poem can be transformed into a theatrical performance. This was a very interesting workshop as one of the activities we did was to take away the dialogue and represent the words by using our physicality. I also did a directing workshop with my ensemble leading from ISTA and we learned all about choosing the perfect piece to direct and the amount of research that you should do before casting and setting up your performance. This would be very useful when I have the opportunity to choose a piece and direct it for example when I have to direct my own 24 hours theatre piece. 

 

 

Chris and Sue come to DC

Chris and Sue came to DC to teach us about devising and improvisation. One thing that we instantly learned with Chris and Sue was the importance of understanding your character and why and how you were in the scene. They thoroughly  explained the importance of analysing what you see as a performer and how by understanding who your character is and not only their given circumstances but also your interpretation of this character you can create more three dimensional, realistic pieces of theatre. One of the first activities we did was create a historical tableaux of the Titanic, I was one of the first people who helped create the scene so I found myself doing a very stereotypical position as a shielded my head and crouched down. However, one thing Sue pointed out was that I was not truly immersing myself into a character I was simply doing actions that 'looked good'. After I took a minute to re-examine my character, deciding who I wanted them to be and why they were on the titanic I changed my position and connected it with my peer on my side to show our relationship more clearly. Another activity we did was when one person created a tableaux while holding a stick of bamboo as their stimulus, and the other actors had to create the situation that the actor was in purely by taking clues from her posture, facial expression, and level of tension. It was astounding to see the different ideas people had and how easily we let our imagination change the true picture of something that is right in front of us. I feel this was really useful and interesting as so often in theatre we don't look at the whole picture, or the entire meaning of a piece we simply look at what we are told or what we can imagine. This exercise  taught me that in order to succeed when devising it is important that you define your character as the more you understand about your character, the more the audience is going to understand and pick up on. 

 

Butoh Workshop-Mark Hill October 16th 
Today we had the opportunity to have Mark Hill a theatre practitioner for the art of Butoh come to our school to teach us the basics of Butoh and the skills it requires. Initially I was not very excited for this workshop I was more nervous and scare as I am quite uncomfortable with my physicality. However this has probably been one of the most informative and exciting theatre workshops I have done. I had the opportunity to learn about using different aspects of your body to convey a message, story or portray a specific character. For example one activity that I enjoyed engaging with was the activity where we closed our eyes and had to communicate with our partner using just our backs. I found this activity really forced us to focus on the movements and the flow rather than any other external stimuli. This activity really emphasised the importance of communication between actors on stage as well as actors and their own bodies. This activity felt very therapeutic and I felt like I really got a chance to communicate with my body and create something interesting and unique physically and emotionally with my partner. Another activity I really enjoyed was the insect one where we were given a situation and had to portray it solely using our bodies and physicality. This activity reminded me a lot of metamorphosis as we had to use our bodies and minds to think of the insect how they would move and react. I think this was a beneficial skill to understand as I feel that one thing that often stops be from experimenting with theatre and my movements is the fear of not being able to achieve something or looking silly as everyone knows my physicality is not one of my strengths  This activity made me realise that being physical can help with developing my improvisational skills as well as being able to help me when needing choreographing a certain scene.  

 

What is Butoh?

Butoh is a theatre dance style that originates from Japan. In the Japanese language the word Butoh consists of two separate elements; Bu which means dance and toh which means step.  Currently Butoh is becoming a very popular form of Japanese theatre,  Butoh is relatively new as it was created during post- war Japan in 1959. Two famous Butoh practitioners are Kazuo Ohno and  Hijikata. Hijikata would often take the role of choreographer and would direct dances for Ohno to perform.  

 

What are the Characteristics of Butoh? 

Some characteristics of the performances include white body paint, bald heads, and a slow, contorted dance designed to evoke images of decay, fear, eroticism and even stillness.  The actors that perform butoh must be comfortable with their bodies and physicality as it requires the actors to be physically trained. Butoh deals with the act of becoming someone new as through the process of the dance, the actors become someone or something else this is expressed through organic natural movements that are usually abstract and open to interpretation. For example in our workshop we were given different situations one of them being to transform our bodies into that of a cockroach. As Jerzy Grotowski spent lots of time in Asia he was well aware of Butoh as a form of theatre and called Butoh “A very ancient form of art where ritual and artistic creation were seamless". (Osinski, 1991). This actually helped Grotowski when directing his own pieces as he was inspired by Butoh to incorporate ritualistic and physical elements into poor theatre. Another exercise I found interesting was the isolation activity where we had to isolate parts of our body and move them in a certain way given a certain stimulus, in this exercise it was challenging to isolate different body parts and staying focused however it helped to develop our movement and create a different more unique image that is portrayed to the audience. For example when we had to make our face like an old oak tree our faces were very grotesque while our arms were very free and fluid. Developing these skills helped us become more abstract and learn to create more complex and unique images. 

 

Elements

-Use all the senses (similarly to Artaud but not necessarily in a negative manner)

-Butoh groups are traditionally all men or all women 

-Focus on isolation of the body 

-Focus on imagination and memory

 

 

Source:

http://dlibrary.acu.edu.au/staffhome/siryan/academy/theatres/..%5Ctheatres%5Cjap_perform.htm