Performance Notes

PLAY/WAR by Urban Research Theater

As performed at Where Eagles Dare Theater, March 12 & 13, 2010

In the beginning, darkness.

The creaking of a door as it opens…to admit two performers.

A low vocal tone resonates in the small room…

First one, then a series of these tones gradually coalesce into a fragment of vocal melody…A proto-song emerges.  In their song, the words “Come…To…Me…”, like an invitation to the spectator.

Still in darkness, they begin to speak, their voices measured, deliberate.

“You’re awake…”

“Impossible…”

“You are awake…”

“I was dead…”

“I guess not…”

“You woke me up…”

“Not really…”

“What will you do to me…?”

“It’s time to begin…”

“Not yet!”

“Turn on the light!”

Lights rise on an empty black room.

A bare stage.  A square of light.

A radiator upstage, pipes snaking down the walls and a set of heavy black curtains – all of them actual elements in the room –  make the only scenery.

Two men stand frozen across from one another, each clinging desperately to their respective corner.  One (Civilian) wearing a business suit, the other (Soldier) in a camouflage uniform.

They watch one another warily, eyes wide open and staring.

With a start, they begin slowly to circumnavigate the space – as if they are assessing one another’s intentions…  For several long seconds the two men describe a circle on the stage floor with their steps in a cautious perambulation, but when they move it is with sudden quickness and agility, first away from, then towards one another.

This short sequence of action repeats itself, until suddenly Civilian swings his arm towards Soldier in a wide and rapid arc, his fingers rigidly extended as in karate.  Soldier blocks the first swing, then a second, then a third, each time catching his attacker’s arm and shunting it aside in a display suggestive of hand-to-hand combat…

A momentary pause in the action, and then their roles reverse and now it is Soldier who swings his arm and Civilian who parries.

Civilian suddenly makes contact with Soldier’s head, but instead of his blow landing with the impact of a strike, Civilian gently pushes the hood back from Soldier’s brow.  When Soldier suddenly snatches Civilian’s skull cap from him, the true purpose of their actions becomes apparent.  These actions are not attempts to strike one’s opponent as at first seemed the case, but rather an attempt to uncover the other person’s head.  A childish game performed with the seriousness of men.

Soldier puts Civilian’s hat on his own head.

In the stillness that follows this initial flurry of action, the sound of their breathing in the quiet room makes for the only soundtrack.

Another quick round of strikes and parries morphs into a choreographed marching in place and the marching becomes a kind of skipping.  Standing side by side and facing downstage, they execute a series of synchronized hand gestures that culminates in a two-finger salute directed towards the spectatorship. 

The civilian leaps onto the soldier’s back and this begins a game of leap-frog.  Only a few moments later, they are bowed over, hunched like elderly men.  Then, they interlock arms and spin like hyperactive schoolchildren.  At last, they share a firm handshake, as if sealing their partnership.

A sideways glance at the audience, perhaps to see who might be watching…?

This acknowledgement of our presence, the first of its kind, elicits a few nervous giggles from the spectatorship.  The tone of the performance thus far might be described as serious, perhaps even dangerous, and the introduction of levity into the proceedings is met with familiar chuckles from the audience.

This moment is shattered when the two performers begin scrambling from place to place, ducking and dodging, looking wildly about the space above them.  The impression is that they are running for cover from some form of aerial bombardment.  There is no clue to this interpretation other than the action of their bodies in the space.

At one point Civilian is backed against the door and Soldier, closing in on him, clutches the other man’s leg and drags him hopping out to center stage…And just as suddenly, this action transforms into a modified tango…

Then, the striking begins again.

The series of blows between them leaves Soldier sprawled on the ground.  Civilian stands over him, having removed his shoe and seems about to strike…  Soldier cries out – the unmistakable sense of this cry (accompanied by hands stretched out above him) is for Civilian to have mercy.  Civilian obliges, reaching out a hand to help Soldier up.

The status of power between them shifts – the line that separates the victor from the vanquished is permeable and they each cross back and forth over that threshold many times throughout the performance. 

Repeatedly, the aggressor/defender roles seem to reverse.  The friend, the ally, the compatriot, the lover, the nemesis, the prisoner; at different moments they each adopt these roles, and just as quickly exchange them.

When Soldier has stood, he hides behind Civilian as if hiding behind a human shield.  Later, this image will also reverse itself  – Civilian hiding behind Soldier. 

Their faces glistening with sweat from the exertions thus far, the two men begin to sing a song in an invented language. 

There is a moment when the Civilian brushes a drop of sweat from the Soldier’s brow.

They begin wild spasms of laughter together, and then sing:

“All alone, all alone…

Rock, paper, scissors, bone…

All the soldiers killed all the men

Now it’s time to start again.”

This fragment of melody, like a twisted lullaby, repeats itself and accelerates…

Breaking from the song, the performers engage in more leapfrog, as if re-living previous moments in the drama…

Kneeling side by side, the performers sing a song that references Greek philosophers.  The lyrics playfully incorporate a game of counting backwards from six to one, while at the same time suggesting the gravitas of those philosopher’s lessons.

Soldier touches Civilian’s nose.  Then his hair.

Civilian touches Soldier’s nose, then his hand, then his ear.

Civilian pokes Soldier tentatively in the crotch…an innocent and intimate gesture.

Here, as elsewhere in the performance, they seem close to kissing one another; a homoeroticism which is alluded to, hinted at, but never consummated…

Civilian gently lifts Soldier’s foot, inspecting it.

Soldier takes Civilian lightly by the hand.

They lift one another’s shirts and investigate each other’s belly buttons…

Then, as before, they suddenly seem aware of their audience – they look out towards us, but do not speak…

Once again they sing:

“All alone, all alone…

Rock, paper, scissors, bone…

All the soldiers killed all the men

Now we have to start again.”

They repeat the exaggerated marching/skipping sequence from earlier in the performance.  Now the civilian leads the soldier by the hand…  The soldier whispers a single word: ‘boom.’  The civilian gestures as if to ask, “What did you say?” and the soldier replies: “BOOM!!!”

The two collaborate to offer variations on the word: ‘Boom!’  They speak it in different tones of voice and with different accompanying actions.  For a while they behave like two young boys playing with guns.  Civilian lobs an imaginary grenade towards the center of the playing space, and they each watch it descend in slow motion until – BBBBOOOOOMMMMM!!!! 

They each splay their bodies against the wall in the unmistakable gesture of being blown to bits.

They remove their shoes and throw them back and forth to one another.

C:  Your games are bloody.

S:  They aren’t my games.

C:  It’s good to have a companion.

S:  It’s better to be alone.

C:  Alone is too much…

S:   Who are they?

Are they arguing about who is in the songs, or about people in the war?

S:  Then talk about love…

C:  I never think about love.

S:  Never.

A recitation of military commands which Civilian struggles to obey.

Civilian chokes the soldier in a headlock.

Eyes wide in seeming terror, the soldier exclaims:

“Ghosts!  I’m surrounded by ghosts.  Ghosts killing ghosts.  That’s what I’ve seen…”

Civilian releases Soldier and a slow walking ensues…

And from this action, a song emerges…Its words indistinct, the melody gentle and soothing.  At first the song evinces familiar blues modalities and then a new song arises, its rhythms reminiscent of gypsy music or klezmer…  Without the meaning of words as a distraction, the sense of the song may be easily inferred from the performers’ subtle physical and vocal nuances.

And then a new movement in the composition: The performers begin a human beat-boxing routine, gesturing and moving about the space, adopting and inverting the conventional hand gestures and dance moves of hip-hop.  The modified rap song that emerges, although unintelligible, evinces a quality of playful confrontation that resonates with the themes of the show as well as in the context of this particular song-form.  This number, the longest of the entire show, continues for approximately three minutes before the performers break into a final synchronized pose, back to back, arms crossed at the chest, gazing sternly, defiantly towards us.

They turn simultaneously to walk upstage and, facing upstage, they each suddenly fall, sprawling on the floor and commence with a series of deep and horrible groans, like men who have been shot and must now bleed away the last of their lives.  It is an extraordinary use of voice and utterly contrasts with the playfulness that immediately preceded it in the faux-rap song.

When this too passes, Soldier and Civilian both rise and, slowly, retreating away from one another, return to their starting position, backs against the wall, staring warily across an empty room. 

And the lights go out.

Ben Spatz raises some profoundly complicated questions,  if not too literal. In my opinion,  these questions beg  qualifying criteria which can’t be applied when practicing or “doing” anything, whether in the realm of culture work or in the throes of life altering decisions in private, or in the day to day practices of survival.

The artificial line drawn between people for the sake of art, between public and private, is one of the accepted, the necessary criteria, or rationalizations, I suggest,  which are the result of dissonance caused by cultural forces beyond each one of us.

The world of  thoughts, of rational decisions, of ethical struggles, is different from the world of action. Or better stated, a different world of action. There, words like “real emotions”, can lead to misunderstandings.

Take, for example, the word “emotional”. What are emotions? Are they areas of neurological activity in the brain that light up in MRIs? Is it enough to describe them as feelings? What does it mean to “feel” some-one’s pain or joy? Can we feel some-one’s “reasoning”? Or, for example, what really is our learning, training, practice? Can we describe it without resorting to common rationalizations?

You may think you’ve discerned where this post is going, but hold on! Bear with me , please.

I started my journey in theater 35 years ago, as an actor in regional rep theater in Toronto, Canada. I was headed for a film career except that I woke up sick one day, with the same dumb song running through my head; I realized I was a cheap salesman of “culture”, developed an association with several others who were sick too and started breaking  all conventions by leaping over physical and vocal barriers without a methodology, a school or a text; we went silent, without words. I worked behind my own closed doors…many many hours of sweat, through many nights, and days, with shadows and visions appearing and disappearing, songs, words, memories, walls, echoes, always relentlessly moving, moving. There was no purpose there, no direction, only meanings, rhythms, sounds, and a striking familiarity with something ancient, as well as a striking understanding of knowledge. 

I emerged when I heard about Richard Nieoczym, a graduate from religious studies who pursued theater work in Hamilton, Canada and had sought for and found Jerzy Grotowski, a theater practitioner who had gained world  recognition for his creations with the Polish Theater Lab, based in Wroclaw. Oddly, Grotowski had already ceased to practice theater as performance, and was beginning something new which he called “para-theatrical” (On The Road To Active Culture, Wroclaw, 1978). In other words, he pursued a road which changed theater practice from within the status quo architecture, to a space and time without architecture, without time. Richard and he became friends. I joined the Hamilton, (now Toronto) company, Le Theatre de L’Homme Actor’s Laboratorium (LTHAL), only after having read the literature about Grotowski, and after doing some research withRichard.  I worked full-time (back then you could afford to work at non-paying activities because rents were lower) with LTHAL and became acquainted with Grot and all of the members of his theater as well as some of the people who worked on Grot’snewer projects named Theater of Sources and the Para-Theatrical events . I worked on research in movement and voice, movement and language/text, co-created performances and conducted events and workshops, at times with members of the Polish Lab, for 8 years. The events we conducted lasted days, weeks, unfolded in our studios, in the northern woods, in the streets and parks, in the unbounded internal spaces; we thought we were adventurers, explorers.

But I grew fed up again, and the cheap song in my head became a self-congratulatory one/a self deprecating one. Our work was inspiring, not beautiful, in fact it was brutal to some, and our performances were so uninhibitedly physical they were impossible to follow. We performed Lorca’s “Blood Wedding”, for example, after having dropped text, changed roles, interpreted whole sections in movement without sound, sang text, used the horse as a physical metaphor for the spirit of betrayal and revenge. All of this was done from very harsh physical work called “studies”. We wanted the actor, alone, “in flames”, crying out to the collected onlookers. We believed we knew what we were doing, we felt the heat, the ecstasy, the grace, through our senses- our bodies, our voices- but we came to the cold realization that others didn’t have a clue about what we had discovered about and for ourselves and if they did, it didn’t matter. At the same time I had become painfully aware of the presence of an unconscious prestige hierarchy, the “us and them” mentality that had become the most troubling thing about our thinking: the practice and thinking that some just happened to be more evolved, more in touch with their unconscious than others; an artificial line, a wall, not a literal third or fourth wall, but a wholey, successfully internalized meta-wall that functioned the same as a real wall, censoring, filtering, objectifying,  rationalizing, solipsistic;  I believe this is a substitution rationalization common to oppressed people in a highly structured post-industrial society. To Nieoczym’s credit, he tried to fight this tendency in himself and in his theater, by restructuring to make a more participatory system, but it failed mostly because we didn’t have the tools to leap over a     systemic obstacle- inherent hierarchical cultural training that,  apparently, no amount of good intentions can surmount. Richard’s still working, in Europe, Montreal and Northern Ontario, but his work is much more reliant on, more trusting of the equality (not quality!) of the people he’s working with.

For my part, I have since come to realize the remarkable similarities between theater performances and mating rituals, or displays. In the corrupted traditional practice in the west, repetition as performance in dance/theater is social habit; it’s also a solicitation, an investment which involves a seduction, the desired end result being the same as for any business-increased sales (repetition as reproduction).  For me the common “ethical dilemma” in western artistic practice is a useful fiction: good vs bad, right vs wrong, audience vs actor; emotion vs mind. Ultimately, in my judgment, if you give value to the survival of theater, that value can’t be associated, in any criterion of rational judgment, with the values which bring about its decay and destruction, except as criticism. The source problem with the “good/bad”, “inside/outside”, “performer/witness”, “active/passive” duality is that  there’s no escape from the vortex of this duality- the embodied practice and its meanings have become “natural”, or “the way things are” or “reality”. In order to survive you just need to give a numerical value to what you do, anywhere from 1 to 10 for simplicity. That imaginary duality is like the perfect storm. You might argue that, for example, Eastern disciplines such as  Butoh are repetition par excellence, but you omit the fact that the audience is a participant in an ancient drama and so there is a direct experience for people, literally and figuratively

My experience of Grotowski the man, through limited personal contact, was that he was a shrewd realist who cared little for politics, political realities, or for any individual who didn’t meet with his personal standards. He was a brilliant artist and theorist who once said there was “too much democracy in theater”. He was a shape-shifter, so he may have changed, if he had lived longer.

At this point, I can hear your mumblings and groans, reader. Why is it necessary to “know” anything beyond the practice or the technique since nothing can be known using reason? Only experience gives knowledge. Only that which is experienced through some arcane magical direct connection can be learned. The questions of structural efficacy, utility or  ethics and the effect of social processes on thinking…ie. the structure we are engaged by, never arise.  I hear your conclusions, but differ. Please read on dear reader.

 Briefly, I next chose to pursue Decroux technique, a physical technique also called corporeal mime which was embodied by the practitioner, Jean Louis Barrault, and seen epitomized magnificently by him in the film, Les Enfants Du Paradis. I pursued the training in order to discipline my physical work. I worked with Margolis/Brown company (Adaptors) in NYC and Minneapolis for 8 years as actor, researcher, technician, and admin during which time we produced inventive physical and visual performance work, movement and sound collages using prevalent technology, as well as inventive marketing and fundraising. We were successful as an ensemble up to a point…we won many awards (NYC Bessie ‘87 for “The Bed: Experiment l”). 

 However, I encountered an obstacle with the assumptions I had madeabout the nature of our collaboration and the meaning of that collaboration in the context of the business of survival. The conflict arose because I didn’t see myself as a “volunteer” artist, yet it was generally assumed that I was no more than a (sic) volunteer. Even withyears of training and experience as a performer, I had to have a secondary job as a bike messenger, which allowed me free time to do the performing and the administrative/technical work. During the time I was in rehearsal for a new performance, I was “doored” by a car at work, separated a shoulder, and had to perform anyway withno medical insurance or rehab, an extremely physical piece that I had created and which would easily have been replaced withanother vignette if I couldn’t have done it. The experience with Margolis/Brown ended when I woke up to see that the operant principle of survival in the practice of art is separated by a vast chasm from the idealism, the love, the commitment to an artistic life, indeed even the relationships with co-workers, all of which which it gainfully exploits if we let it. The standards of practice of American theater Non-Profits are grounded in privilege and prevailing neo-liberal corporate thinking.  Aside from the fact that the absurd assumptions that some are more worthy of authorship than others (that some arbitrary numerical value defines creativity),  that a natural hierarchy exists,  or that creativity is of less value than the profit of the structure within which it’s practiced,  fail in any sustainable model based on human principles, the actual day-to-day work of survival is, generally, shared in smaller and medium-sized artistic enterprises and their survival depends on that sharing of the burden. But co-operation is denied in principle when prestige and survival are at stake. For my part, I had chosen to be unconscious, to bow to the fetish of “art-without-reason”.

That was my political comeuppance; i.e. I realized that theater or any eponymous artistic practice, is no longer a “reserve”, to use Grotowski’s term, a protected zone. No, the arts are moved, touched, infiltrated and secretly governed by the rules and the mindset that governs all societies. The dominant culture (using Gilles Deleuze’s”culture-as-training” reference) or practice, ubiquitously, is universal individualism, hierarchy and competition. We’re inculcated with it from birth, through games, ritual, art, media/technology, education and practice. It lurks behind the scenes in every effort. But, sadly, it’s the most ignored voice, the invisible but the most powerful actor. It’s the orthodoxy that keeps the imaginary line between the “audience”  and the “performer”.  Think of the power that a concept like co-operation has on the public face, and the inability to bring it into practice except as a way to establish a structure of power and control.

At some moment, having achieved training in any discipline, from blowing glass to court reporting to teaching theater, the desire to excel becomes subject to realities outside experience…or, practice for pay. In its general and ubiquitous use, there’s no such a thing as “artists”. The functional mechanics of belief and choice in our “artistic”  practice are based in the intrinsic structure of belief in the primacy of the individual and it’s individual experience, an ideology that functions well, that keeps us fragmented, keeps us struggling against others or against the environment, and this meta-conflict  objectifies emotions and pays big money. The analysis of greater happiness or well-being for all humanity is minimized.

There’s no room in the present structures and resultant relationships for democracy in the common practice of art, not in it’s original interpretation as participation and ownership by all members, nor in its popular use as rule by majority decision. Interesting conflict….everyone loves a good democracy as long as we don’t have to practice it.

 As artists of a different kind however, time is now to collaborate; to think through together and to make choices:  about how to proceed into the future, about the models we create and practice and the ones we reject, and about what’s important to do now. We need to break the spell of the dissonance. Can we agree in principle? My experience has brought me to the conclusion that nothing we do can be more important than love for all humanity- no technique, no practice is more important. Skill and virtuosity need to be in service to that. We need to talk about it.  What kind of art will future generations look back to us for? Will it be “my work, my company, my artistic vision, my artistic process, I, I, Me Me Mine”?

I have no reason to feel resentment. I am embarking on a new idealism, a new journey wherein the art and the practice of theater is to struggle with historical conditioning as well as personal obstacles with a commitment to equality, commonality, many voices and many visions. For me, there are no hard and fast rules of behavior, no techniques practiced that shouldn’t enhance collective as well as individual questioning and critical reasoning; this, for me,  is more important to “share” than individual (or national) identity experience.

As Miles Horton, founder of the Highlander Folk School in Tennessee said:

This is the art of practice, and the practice of art for me at this stage.

I have never done something like this. My work is always attached to either a class or a specific project, and I have a feeling I am not alone in this.  Yet to practice for the sake of itself is truly amazing.  Terrifying and exhilarating. I laughed. I cried. I ran in a circle for 20 minutes singing. I worked on the smallest muscles near my spine.  In the end, I felt like I had gone swimming in a clear pond and my sleep was like drying off in the sun.

The studio is clean, warm, quiet, large. It is affordable and close to my home. With these variables taken care of, there is nothing in the way of my work but me and my own exhaustion, doubt, impatience. And for now, I am content to let the practice have room for those and to nudge into, through, past them. Not perfect, and in that way, its own perfection- because it is alive and present to that moment in my body.

This entry gives nothing but itself the same way.

In hope more people find the time to be in their work not attached to a performance in order to find the root of practice or training, or presence.

Dear friends,

I am writing to invite you to come with me on an extraordinary musical journey to the historical land of Andalusia, where Jews, Muslims, Christians and Gypsies created the fiery Andalusi and Flamenco music and dance styles. THIS JUNE, we will spend time with the Gypsy musicians and dancers of Andalusia in caves, restaurants, intimate private homes parties, jam sessions, workshops and concerts, and present the first concert of the Yuval Ron Ensemble with guests Flamenco musicians and dancers in Spain. Just imagine witnessing our great Arabic singer Najwa Gibran and Armenian woodwind master Norik Manoukian going to the higher spheres with the Gypsy Flamenco musicians of Andalusia! I can’t wait for these blissful moments. We will also, explore the history that led to the creation of Flamenco and the interfaith Middle Eastern foundations of Spanish music, dance, architecture and culture.

The dates of the Tour are: May 31 – June 12, 2010

Space is limited! please reserve NOW by sending in the registration form below.

Here are some of the Tour’s highlights:

• Join Yuval and his long time collaborator Adam Del Monte (the leading Flamenco guitarist in the US today) for a visit to the Gypsy musicians’ Cave in Granada where Flamenco music was kept alive over hundreds of years.
• Spend a night with the foremost Flamenco Gypsy family in Jerez de Frontera and witness the meeting and jam session between Adam Del Monte and the family members of Parilla de Jerez – one of the greatest Flamenco guitarist of all times!
• Participate or witness Flamenco Dance Workshops with the dancers of Seville and witness the exciting interaction between the Spanish Gypsy artists and the Middle Eastern musicians and dancers of the Yuval Ron Ensemble.
• Enjoy Gypsy Flamenco music and dance jam sessions and parties, in restaurants, and private homes of the local gypsy artists and learn from them about their family heritage and history,
• Visit the spectacular Alhambra and the Generalife Gardens of Granada, the Great Mosque and the historic Jewish Quarter of Cordoba, the ruins of Medina Azahara – the “emblem of the world” during the heights of Al Andalus – and Seville’s Famous Cathedral, the Alcazar, and the Murillo Gardens.
• See the Yuval Ron Ensemble in their Historic Concert in Spain with Special Guests Flamenco guitarist Adam Del Monte and local Gypsy Flamenco musicians and dancers of Seville.

For more information, visit the website:

[Full Itinerary]
[Terms & Prices]
[Registration Form]

www.yuvalronmusic.com

At best I could only hope to not be imitating Grotowski, but at worst I feel I have scratched the surface towards his aesthetic without the sacrifice of daily work- perhaps no sacrifice is enough while I am still caught in my own daily performance. Peter Brook once remarked that “the temptation to be an armchair Grotowski will always be hard to resist,” but it has never been my intention to create his work; it’s too small a placement on too narrow a stage. How do we hold a daily practice while reaching past the rarifed form into something new?

New work has always had a savior complex: persecuted first and exalted later. There is also the risk of a survival essentialism- the new way often gets self-touted as the best way or the only way in its hope to survive. Bertolt Brecht once responded to this accusation, “Is this new style of production the new style? …The answer is no. It is one way, the way in which we have gone. Experiments must continue. The same problem exists for all art, and it is a gigantic one.” Often new work hails to remove itself from institutions and tradition, to be more accessible, more diverse and more affordable, but ends up co-opted by the only ones who can afford the novelty of newness.

It is the task of the artist to dismantle the master’s house with his tools and rebuild it with her own, yet I do not seek to do theatre that merely dismantles the rules of form without creating something in its place, something that needs to be created. New work always carries a great risk of being misunderstood, confused, dismissed. But it is that risk which carries the possibility of transformation. New work has the possibility of insurrection by its very nature of creating a context outside the established system, a body outside the socialized norm.

In new theatre, we perform in order to call to attention our daily performance. We extend and expand the imagination in our characters in order to glimpse the size life really is. We work our bodies to be able to have the agility and agency of specialized action so that we can sustain an experience long enough for an audience to see it in themselves. As a good ballet will invite the audience to see the body as fragile and strong, with both the weight of gravity and the ability to fly; the audience will not concern themselves with not being able to do it, or even with its difficulty. If we do our job well on the stage, we will disrupt the audience’s notions of themselves as witnesses, expand their perception to fit something larger than their initial expectation and we will create something wordless that lives with a magnified half-life in their sustained imagination.
***
practice is praxis
to be informed by the form
to be content with content
to not be narrowed by narrative
to be gracious with gravity
and craft to the cracks
to be quiet within text
and loud as if with song in the spaces between
to know the difference between a consonant and a vowel and yet hold the whole word
to feel a sense of arrival in the endless search
i would call this practice, praxis.

More information: [link]

Part of the purpose of this forum is to put forth the notion of “creative practice” as a link between artists, teachers, entrepreneurs, and scholars. Over the next few months, I’d like to learn more about who is visiting this site and how it can be useful to different communities.

Here are three questions that everyone can answer:

1) What do you practice?
Do you practice law? Medicine? Painting? Dance? Therapy?
What do you do every day? Where do you do it? With whom?

2) What brought you to Creative Practice forum?
What search terms led you to this website?
Did you find what you were looking for here?

3) What do you want from a site like this?
Are these posts relevant to you? Are they useful?
How could this forum serve your daily practice?

I specifically invite first-time visitors to answer these questions through comments. Anyone can write a comment – you don’t have to register (although you are welcome to). Please introduce yourself!

Typically, the first step in creating a work in Cole’s studio is to cut various shapes out of a flat sheet of stainless steel or bronze.  We accomplish this using a plasma torch that blows a concentrated beam of super-hot plasma – the torch we use fires a beam that burns hotter than the surface temperature of the sun.  Using a torch like this to cut prescribed shapes from the metal requires a steady hand and total focus on the physical demands of the task.  I find the experience to be analogous to corporeal mime exercises in which the performer must isolate movement in the extremities.  Cole emphasizes that one should keep the handle of the torch tucked in close to the body, minimizing the motion of the arms, transferring it instead to the hips (knees slightly bent…) and describing the shape with the entire upper body.

After a piece of metal has been cut, the second step is often to hammer it into shape, sometimes cold, sometimes after heating.  The art of hammering metal is known as repousse and has been all but lost with the advance of modern metal-casting techniques.  Striking objects with a hammer may seem at first like a rather crude operation, but I have found that working with metal in this way requires tremendous sensitivity and physical control.  Because it is almost impossible to ‘remove’ a bend that has been put into sheet metal, the hammer must be directed with precision not just in terms of placement, but in terms of force.  This means understanding the sequence of muscular contractions to bring a certain hammer into a certain piece of metal at a certain angle in order to produce a certain very specific result.  We use a variety of mallets, each one unique in its weight and shape and the visceral understanding of how to use these tools can only be developed through repeated trial and error.  If one introduces a mental image into the event, each strike has the potential to become a psycho-physical act.

After a piece has been shaped, it must be ground down to eliminate surface flaws and inconsistencies.  We use variable-speed handheld power grinders in combination with different blades to achieve a uniform surface appearance.  Depending on the size of the piece we are working with (and whether or not we are laying a pattern into the surface of the metal) a single stroke of the grinder could vary from a few inches to over two feet in length.  As with hammering the metal, using the grinders demands precision:  a consistent direction, speed and pressure are necessary to avoid pitting or gouging the surface.  I have learned through repeated failure that the proper stance is crucial to this stage, otherwise one has the tendency to admit variations into each pass of the grinder that might not be evident until you look at the piece from different angles.  Just as with other forms of physical practice, this kind of precision must be committed to body memory and the process of testing, refining and perfecting one’s technique pervades the work.  To spend forty-five minutes or more on this single step is not uncommon.

When more than one piece of metal has been prepared thus, the pieces are ready to be welded together.  The type of welding we do in Mr. Cole’s studio is called mig welding, and involves lacing a ‘bead’ between separate plates, tying them together with the red-hot weld.  This step, like all the others, necessitates intense concentration, because if the weld is allowed to build up too much in any particular place, it runs the risk of burning right through the metal.  Imagine a chunk of molten slag that drops to the floor with the viscosity of water but the weight of a small stone.  In the case of Bacchus (shown below, with Robert Cole standing next to it), a seven foot figure in bronze and stainless steel, after shaping the discrete muscles of the forearm and bicep we welded them onto a heavy frame of rod.  These rods of solid bronze (some of them up to one inch thick!) had first to be bent into organic lines that suggest the human form, a task that we accomplished with the aid of an acetylene torch and a jig.  Regarding these phases of process, I have observed how the specific demands of these tasks can be better met through the controlled application of breath support.  That is to say, timing the motion of the welder and the curvature of the rod become more consistent when I focus on the rhythm of my breathing.  I might not have known to look for this connection if not for my exploration of breath to support movement in the context of autodidactic actor training.

At least one other important similarity exists between the work taking place in Mr. Cole’s studio and the embodied performance practice which I have pursued for the last several years and that relates to the sense of contact (or responsiveness to one another) when we are working in tandem on a single piece of metal.  At such times our work in his shop resembles nothing so much as a duet between two leather-garbed dancers, one swinging a hammer, the other carefully shifting a bronze half-shape in a large wooden mold; one spinning a large plate of stainless steel while the other quickly welds a series of undulating rods around the perimeter, or perhaps in a series of maneuvers to heat a metal rod with the acetylene torch and then bend it around the jig.  At times I resemble a surgeon’s assistant to Mr. Cole, trading implements (a hammer, the welding gun, carpenter’s square or an oddly shaped piece of metal) with him or keeping the table clear of scraps as he cuts away portions of the work-in-progress.  As we manifest this kind of tightly controlled rhythm, the need for verbal communication lessens and a collaboration emerges which rivals my experiences in performance as an actor or musician.  More to the point, the process becomes the object of our practice and the aesthetic problems seem almost to solve themselves.  It is then that I understand my assistance to Mr. Cole as inhabiting the traditions of embodied practice.

What is the journey?

Where is the journey headed?

Whose journey is it?

Why is it a journey?

We all are very conditioned and comfortable with getting answers – but not questions. Questions unsettle us, make us uncomfortable, and sometimes force us to rethink and question our own belief systems, thoughts and perspectives, and the established norms and conventions of society.

Returning to the unanswered question: “Journey” literally means travel or passage from one place to another; travel upon or across; to travel over or through; to traverse. So, literally, journey is quite similar to travel or traverse – but then the question arises why the term journey and not travel or traverse. We leave this for you to think and ponder upon. It might get a little confusing, but Bibhaban loves to live & think like this. We want to understand the simplest and the smallest of things by experiencing them, by walking a little extra mile with these literary words where we can transcend their immediate meaning and understand their deeper meaning through a process where we share intimate moments with them, where we observe, experience and try to understand our existence through the co-existence of these moments. “Journey” is rather a collection of moments of co-existence in the relationship between it’s participants.

Every journey has a beginning. Just as every feeling has an experience, similarly journey too has a beginning. Those who carry the “Journey” on their tender wings too have a beginning. The churning of memories doesn’t always bring sweetness, but at the same time it feels great to see that Bibhaban is self-sufficient and more or less independent in its way forward even after crossing many hurdles along its way and with its own contradictions.

Bibhaban came into being in the month of December of 1996 with it’s first play “Bikalpa.” Since then, in a span of 13 years, they have dramatized intimate plays: “Tarpor”, “Swapno”, “Abartan”, “Khanan”, “Maithun”, “Ekti golper khoje”, “Hangar”, “Maya”, “Anway”, “For You”, “Bechara,” “Offering”, “Black Coffee”… and presently “Approach To Silence (A research in Open Theatre).” Amidst all these, the “journey” has been going on mainly with the association of the YMCA at 113 Vivekananda Road, Kolkata,Padatik, Prosenium Art Centre, and different places in Kolkata and abroad. Many people from outside the country have participated in this “journey” through open theatre in this dynamic and perpetual process. To start with, the idea behind the birth of Bibhaban was a simple wish that there will be a reflection of their thinking in their work in their application and experimentation.

They descended from the altar of the proscenium to the streets of the common man and journeyed again from the streets to the rooms of the common man to touch the most intimate space of the mind and heart of the man, to reach an extra mile closer to the hearts of the common man. And from this endeavor Bibhaban wants to touch and work upon those experiences and feelings which carry him and his existence. And thus the term “audience” is seen in a different light in this process of “journey”. The physical and the mental space between the actors and the audience ceases to exist in this process. It’s a system or a process which breaks through the concept of passive audience and the active presenters (actors) who share a very morbid relationship and presents a space to the participants to share their intimate feelings and thoughts. Here the audience is our friend or participant in the process. If anyone wants to participate in this process of “journey” then he or she is welcome irrespective of his/her background.

In the words of Bibhaban: “We don’t want to fix any direction or path for the dynamic and moving process of ‘journey’ consciously. This would not even be not possible for us. We endeavor to enter into a ‘dialogue’ with the participants in the process of ‘Journey.’ Perhaps one is into a constant process of dialogue with one’s own self, with one’s feelings and experiences; perhaps this is what keeps a person alive; and perhaps in this way we imbibe a freshness and liveliness into our existence.”

Every form of art speaks about and reflects the beautiful relationship of a man with his one self. The journey from the outward pretentious world and constraints, from the relationships in his day to day life that he has to go through, to the core of his body: his soul. “Journey” is a stride forward in search of this relationship lost somewhere amidst the mundane of daily life. And from this search they have given birth to their own language “Mukta Natya” (Open Theatre), where there are no actors or actresses everyone is a participant in the process at that moment, an attempt to connect with the man hidden by the mask. As I have said before, it’s all about an attempt to create a dialogue, a search for a new language.

We fix the word “commune” with the help of our dreamy imagination and try to apply it’s auxiliary and literary meaning into world blinded by literary faith, where emotions run beyond the wildest imagination of literary system of faith. But the person with whom we try to connect the word commune might be thinking something very different, contrary to our system of belief. The present system of belief which guides us, move us stops us from trying to connect to the person right beside us very much alike us, stops us from trying to understand him. We get stuck in the “immediate meaning” or definition and dare not transcend the boundaries.

Bibhaban’s “journey” questions these definitions or literary words in their own way. Perhaps we want to test the truthness of emotions like the sentiments in a love affair of the youth.

The present state of social, economical and political affairs has made the very existence of human beings vulnerable and a question looms large on the very existence of mankind. It has made every man very lonely and has forced him to lean his back against the  walls of his very own dark room of emotions. Perhaps somewhere our “journey” wants to give this message that we can still stay together in the sweet home of our hearts without building artificial skyscrapers. We are still human beings without losing the sweet bonds of  humanity that are  inherent in us.

You can either accept or reject our attempt, or abstain from it, but taking any middle path – which we have become very used to in today’s world – does not have any ground here. Today, when our class identity is under duress, then a JOURNEY becomes necessary to face ourselves in the mirror upfront, to connect with ourselves, rediscover ourselves, to rediscover the life lost in living.

In Bibhaban’s language, “journey” is a space where everyone can spend some time actively in his own way. “Journey” does not have any definite storyline or plot where a well sequenced action could take place with the help of dialogues & monologues. It does not have any barrier or restriction of language. Neither does it have any restriction or any barrier, which it has all but transcended. It is a smooth and free flowing process where anyone can come and share his feelings, so with time and space and participants our presentations or performance moulds into new shape every time.

There is a constant search for a new language in this “journey” away from the realms of life. Sometimes I do wonder: If languages and dialects were lucid, and arranged in a manner comprehensible and understandable by all, then our lives would have been a little less complicated and complex…

But amidst all these voices running down the bylanes of my mind, when I hear that my journey from the darkness of the womb to the lighted world is drenching me of my own blood and flesh and taking me towards another dark and gloomy world. Or when someone says that failure doesn’t exist – it is only a relative momentary disposition of time – then I start wondering again how these people have immense faith on humanity and human beings on one side, and on the other side they have a beautiful expression of the immense turmoil going within their own self. This is life all about. That’s why Bibhaban assigns great value to life.

If we try to decipher “Journey” with our intellect, then we are bound to get stuck because the life which propels and guides the brain is interpreted differently in this Journey. “Journey” puts a litmus test before it’s participants, to know if / whether he or she has a perfect blend of intellect and life or not. So the participants fear and shy away from proceeding and entering into the world of journey, with the burden of our heavily safeguarded veiled and masked life.

In a room painted with darkness, tinged with faint candlelight, where the light sound of live music fills our ears, we find it difficult to face this compromise-stricken and passive “me.” And when suddenly the candle lights are blown out, and complete darkness reigns, we try to search for light – the elixir of life. This search for life reminds me of the last words of Oedipus: “I want light, give me light.”

To highlight the truth in our mind. Where is the light, amidst the world stricken by the plaque of happiness among the glittering empires of modern technology and dazzling, sky-penetrating Babels of the post-modern world?

“Journey” takes us by the hand and guides us through this experience of emotions and feelings, sometimes through words, sometimes with music and sometimes through visuals. One question buzzes through the corridors of the mind: How do they want to view or introspect the contemporary time and society? How are they thinking? What is going on in their minds? And so on.

Art may only propel or force us to confront some bitter questions, but the search for the answer pertains to the seeker. And I come back again through my perpetual search for answers. Then after sometime I free the chain of thoughts which had clung to me – for I feel skills cannot be learned in this way. We can form some opinions or gain some knowledge after learning some concepts by heart, but they remain as mere storage banks of knowledge or as mere opinions after all.

Let me revisit the thoughts going on in the minds of those among the audience, who in the process of “Journey” have allowed me to participate in their way of living as an active friend. “Friend”: with whom we can spend some moments, with whom we share the myriad colours of life. Many thoughts of these kind comes to the mind when we start thinking about the word “friend,” but many disturbing questions start hovering on the periphery of my mind and I start pondering: “Why do they consider me worthy of friendship? I may not be one of their nearer and dearer ones! I may attack them ruthlessly; I may force them to think on the wrong path. I may give a wrong interpretation to their work. Perhaps all of these things are possible from the perspective of being a friend.”

How could an immense amount of faith be born in such a short span of time?

And I start wondering again, coming back to position – a little confused: that all of these things are possible from the perspective of being a friend.

Once a common man, who had not been involved in theatre, felt its charm and warmth, and he told me: Theatre educates people. I won’t mention his name here because then we would start thinking about the person in a different way, which he never wanted. This is what happens when you try to see life in a bigger way, in a way different from what everyone does, away from parochialities; when the wish to see life a in a different way becomes a crime; when in spite of being a social animal you have to live the life of an asocial; then, while walking down home with Bibhaban’s “Journey” in your mind, you try to figure out the answer to some questions: theatre – human beings – art – relationship – society – man.

Coming back to the words with which the idea of the article was born – what’s ‘journey’? Where’s the ‘journey’ to or whose journey? Bibhaban proclaims or believes itself to be a process for those who love theatre, for those live for theatre or do theatre for their living. May in this process of Bibhaban I (because of the love for theatre) was just longing for this “Journey”. In the following years of World War II many experiments were carried out in the world of theatre.

Among them the significant ones were Meyerhold, Piscutter, Antonin Artaud, Brecht and afterwards during 1957-58 came Jerzy Grotowski’s ‘Theatre of thirteen rows’ which gave birth to many further works and presentations in India – in Kolkata during 1971-1972 Shatabdi’s theatrical presentation, during 1977-78 living theatre’s theatrical presentation and after that in 2009 came Bibhaban’s ‘journey’, and perhaps all of these myriad display of the Grotowski’s thought rhythmically want to convey that it’s not difficult  to stand upright with your spine straight and keep yourself within the rigors of external physical discipline but it’s difficult to keep the man cocooned inside the shell of your body awake from its perpetual slumber , it’s really difficult to keep it active, fresh and upright to face things boldly. Is this turbulent time when the wave of greed is engulfing, for sheer recognition we are forced to compromise to keep ourselves in tune with times , then in these times ‘Journey’ beacons us to think afresh. 

Times are changing and in keeping in tune with these times the way people perceive theatre is also changing. It’s often heard that that this generation Y is not interested in theatre. When we ourselves are not comfortable thinking about the future then where’s the point in putting the blame on them (our next generation).

At a time when theatre workers are losing their faith in their work then Bibhaban’s ‘Journey’ stands out from the other group theatres and proclaims its uniqueness among the others.

If theatre is a reflection of our times then I am forced to say that an attempt of this kind to seek the human inherent in the word ‘human being’ has never being done before an attempt to understand the nuances of a relationship has never been taken before.

 Thus I think this ‘Journey’ of Bibhaban is an essential work of our times. In these turbulent times when there is rising totalitarian centralization of political, military and economic powers all over the world then I think we can view this humble attempt far from the realms of the so-called boundaries of the theatre. I cannot prophesize about tomorrow but I think the time has come for all of us to unite and come together. If those who love theatre want to or claim to see a reflection of the times in their way of living then it’s time we should unite together. 

It takes a while for a group, brand or product to familiarize or known among the people. Perhaps at the beginning which is just a name transforms to symbol or icon through common usage. Perhaps Bibhaban’s ‘Journey’ is a symbol or icon which strives to go ahead to bright and beautiful day with our thoughts and experiences where one day we hope that  theatre will transform from being a passive entertainment to leading to a path of internal self-discovery.

                                                                                               Supriyo Samajdar