ship to shore, dir. Daniel Passes, London Film School

performing in the dance chorus and Eurycleia in Odyssey rock opera by Khamsina

movement-voice-mutuality

Through an osmosis of Grotowski’s ‘via negativa’ (Schechner and Wolford  239) and Gardzienice’s (Allain 1997, Staniewski and Hodge 2004) performance lexicon we constructed a score exploring the movement-voice-mutuality depending on breathing emanating from the solar plexus. 

Espousing the theatre-as-exploration model I pitched to Vickie and Kayleigh a question close to my heart: ‘is homecoming possible?’ Through an aleatory free-associative process we began to investigate our memories and whatever flickered through them; the root of the piece was based on our experiences and feelings. Accompanying this primary ‘text’ was Euripides’ ‘Women of Troy’ and ‘Ithaca’, by Dimitris Dimitriadis, a contemporary Greek playwright, which we adapted adding our own spin; also real stories of Sudanese refugees on the BBC’s website. Without at first knowing how this material would fit in, using our bodies as a 3-D metaphor of self-remembering and ‘homecoming’ (Steinman 13), we started connecting these threads up; originally in a hodgepodge way ‘smelling’ our way into the piece integrating movement, song, rhythm. 

We prepared a composition using discursive consciousness but aimed to enact it in Shaner’s ‘pre-reflective awareness’ (48) with no anticipation or over-determination of meaning avoiding any sentimentality (Zarrilli 197). In an equidistant triangular configuration offstage we started from Copeau’s ‘motionlessness’ (Rudlin 46) i.e. in an energized alert readiness. We then moved onstage in the space of our kinespheres using Gabrielle Roth’s Five Rhythms to release the body in order to find the voice through the layering of movement based on a cognizance of its parts. Each explored one rhythm for a stretch of time punctuated by a sound at which we all stopped awaiting that moment of deep listening to each other to spring us back into action with no extemporized dialogue. The primary task was to tell the story of our individual struggle in exile through motivating our movement devoid of unnecessary stylization. 

Breathing through movement without a psychological foundation facilitated our body-voice empathy so introducing speaking to further dymamize our physicality seemed a valid choice in our middle part. Improvised in terms of spatial and time sequential relationships our material included a locomotor change: cross-legged on the floor I started to speak the Ithaca extract soon to be joined by Vicky and Kayleigh, the echoing of our voices enabling us to create a corporality of our homecoming yearning. This litany of polyphonic repetition was accompanied by slight torso movement, our heads turning to look at each other as if to arrive at an interconnectedness/recognition through the subtle vibratory qualities of our voice. Embedding a Greek folk song sung by me broke this repetitive incantation off. Vicky joined in a drone while Kayleigh flew off into a solo of phrases evocative of home. This became the bridge for our final section where our movement material included us advancing in a phalanx uttering our chosen phrases. The main loci of activity were the feet keeping the syncopated tempo on the ground leading us to sing our text in unison. To conclude we see-sawed our pelvis-led bodies delivering our final line with the movement receding backwards as if in its fading divesting closure on our homecoming quest.

If Devising is an ensemble - often mnemonic - process of theatre made physically through ‘assembling, editing, and reshaping individuals’ contradictory experiences of the world’ (Oddey 1), then it is a process I wish to build upon; achieving an active cohesion through what was an episodic piece seems worth exploring further; as is finding the way into thought viscerally through the organic flow of physically-led speech/song, tapping into impulses, expanding our soft focus and movement vocabularies. This is the start in the journey of a creative ecology based on my experience of movement and voice as discovering in an orectic, kinaesthetically felt encounter prior to exegetical consciousness. 

The bodybrain finds through the hinc et nunc of 360-degree embodied praxis the life of the action and its psychophysiological impact; the lead is given to ad hoc intuition, consensus and bricolage rather that a priori aesthetic postulates; the meaning arriving not illustratively, through the physical responsiveness and the listening required to receive impulses via non-verbal channels of communication.

Indeed where we stayed awake trusting and in tune to a mutual pulse, there was an instantly shared feeling of smooth symbiosis. When that connection failed, the piece could no longer sustain its fluidity/clarity. 

If we were to do it again we would need to invest more rehearsing time in clarifying our found movement and in deepening our self- and shared awareness. Establishing a sustained relationship and momentum through orchestrating our voices and keeping the rhythm with our feet proved a real challenge. Sheer performing perseverance saw us through the awkwardness but staying connected and vulnerable with an innocently embodied presence behind which is that ever blazing ‘flame’ (Zarrilli 197) would be a perpetual quest rather than a finality for every future piece.

References

Allain, Paul. Gardzienice: Polish theatre in Transaltion, Amsterdam: Harwood, 1997.

Oddey, Alison. Devising Theatre, London: Routledge, 2006.

Rudlin, John. Jacques Copeau, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986.

Schechner, R and Wolford, L. The Grotowski Sourcebook, London: Routledge, 1997.

Shaner, David Edward. The Bodymind Experience in Japanese Buddhism, Albany: State

University of New York Press, 1985.

Staniewski, W. and Hodge, A. Hidden territories; The Theatre of Gardzienice, London

and New York: Routledge, 2004.

Steinman, Louise. The Knowing Body, Boston and London: Shambhala, 1986.

Zarrilli, P.  Acting (Re)considered , London: Routledge, 1997.