Dear All,
This is the second of two posts for this week and deals directly with the work of Vincent Dance Theatre, directed at unpicking their piece we saw last week called If We Go On. To answer questions related to this post follow the key stages below.
1. Look at the company website of VDT and try to get a sense of the company's history, biographies and style. www.vincentdt.co.uk
2. Look at the following links related to VDT's works. You might need to copy and paste onto your browser to do so :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYCf97S_o0w&NR=1
http://www.article19.co.uk/06/feature/vincent_dance_theatre_broken_c.php
http://www.article19.co.uk/06/feature/interview_charlotte_vincent.php
3. Broken Chords was the company's last ensemble piece in 2006. The next ensemble piece the company made was If We Go On. The piece was an expose on the company's current relationship to the physical theatre/dance theatre genre - where the company finds itself evaluating what else is left to do within the genre - whether anything is original any more and indeed if there is any value in simply reproducing tried and tested formulae over and over again. It was also an example of performance work where the process is itself the testimony and basis of the final product.
4. Now answer the following questions:
i. What was the relationship between spoken text, moving bodies and the very dynamic space within the piece?
ii. What were the things you took from the piece that inspired you?
iii. What things in the piece frustrated you?
iv. Were the frustrations valid or were they part of your own expectations of the piece and the genre and the fact that the piece played with your own preconceptions of the same.
v. What then was the piece's commentary on the genre of physical theatre?
Looking forward to your responses.
Royona
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ReplyDeleteThere is a blurb on the website that describes the dynamics of If We Go On perfectly; “If We Go On is a series of individual acts that lay bare the mechanics of theatre, placing the investigation of language at the centre of the work.” (http//www.vincentdt.com/projects/ifwegoon/index)
ReplyDeleteThey seemed to focus on communication. All of the characters had a different story to tell, through a different medium. Having a neutral play space meant that items could be added or taken away at any point, but most importantly, that it reflected the point in which the company was at. The set reminded me of Peter Brook’s The Empty Space, in which he writes “I can take any empty space and call it a bare stage”. The individual light switches meant that a character didn’t need to be in the spotlight, and could control whenever he/she was. Carly Best didn’t utter a word throughout the performance and yet her body told so much. Through her frustrated, frantic movement it was clear the dancer as a person didn’t want to go on; didn’t want to share her feelings; didn’t want to tell of her influences. Instead we could see where she came from, from her body. Each move had been influenced from something; a genre or an experience.
I was inspired by a number of things from the piece, and as I went away and reflected on the performance I noticed more. The biggest thing was that the piece didn’t comply with the audience’ preconceptions .Depending on what interpretative community you were a part of, you may have had a different response; but personally the idea of the actors first trashing the space and then making it part of the piece to clean up the stage I thought was genius! Scott Smith explaining “we will shortly observe a series of pauses” and the audience having no choice but to observe those pauses! It was also very refreshing to see such honesty in a performance. There is a huge pressure to entertain the audience and to feel duty bound to them, so I thought it was nice to hear that every performer reaches a point of no return, or a writer’s block:
“The dark stretches before us. There are people waiting. We would like to show you something, but we are not sure how. We are going to tell you what it is like, doing and faking, and doing and not doing. The dark stretches before us, but here we are, faced with the question, how do we go on?”
(http:// www.vincentdt.com/projects/ifwegoon/)
The point that clearly came across was that it is ok to be on stage and not actually “do” anything. There were a number of times when Patrycja Kujawska and Aurora Lubos were sat on stage and didn’t say a word. Another thing that inspired me was the story behind the piece of theatre. Considering Broken Chords was such a personal piece for Charlotte Vincent, when this piece emerged and finished, you can imagine that there were probably no feelings left. She had been through a roller coaster of emotion; displayed it in Broken Chords, and then ended up where she is now – something to say, but how do you say it, when it’s all been said before?
The factors that frustrated me about the piece ended up being what was inspiring about the piece. As an actor you are taught that every move on stage has to have a purpose, and nothing is born from nothing. To have this instilled in you as a performer and then to watch a piece with no official narrative or lineal direction was completely frustrating and perplexing.
The frustrations were all part of my own expectations. I’m not really sure I did go in with a preconception per se, but I did expect it to be faster paced than what it was. I have not seen much physical theatre with a large amount of text either, but this piece included it.
I would say the piece was very open, honest and through the body we saw all of this being communicated. The movement doesn’t necessarily have to be fast paced and choreographed beautifully. They can be awkward, manic, frustrated; or, in fact can be completely still. If We Go On is a piece of art that fits nicely into a postmodern era.
Gemma
The relationship I found, was very much co-operative in all that was going on during the whole performance. The space was cluttered and full of safety violations, something which most people do not associate with a physical theatre. The movements were also gave of the appearance of being cluttered and sometime, they did not fit in with what was happening around them. The words were not what I expected. Most physical theatre performances are performed with little or no speaking words and this performance had a lot of talking, which I felt most of it represented the cluttered space and movements.
ReplyDeleteThe most inspiring moment for me, was the build up to the end, where they became more and more angry with what they were doing and this resulted in the destroying the set before they replaced everything back in it's original place and began again.
I found myself frustrated, because after looking at physical theatres in Investigations 1 and now in P & P, it was nothing like I had ever expected to see. There was more spoken word than I expected, less movement than I expected. As I have looked back on it, I feel more frustrated because I feel like I understood it, but yet, I feel as though my ideas on what it meant aren't correct.
I felt that my frustrations were valid. It was nothing that I expected and it totally threw me when it came to my own thought about what a physical theatre piece should be. But, after all my frustrations and expectations, I really enjoyed it. However, I felt like I was wrong, because most of the other students disliked it. I think everyone would have watched that performance and gone away, all thinking different things, because at the end of it all, we are all different people with different experiences.
This piece gave an unusual commentary and if anything, they were telling the audience that physical theatre is not all about risky movements, that there can be more in speech and in stage design.
Toni Alonzo
The relationship between spoken text, the moving bodies and the very dynamic space for me I thought was very mutual and everything worked well together to accommodate the times when so much was happening on the stage at the time. Despite the very cluttered stage, something that we are never told to work with in physical theatre, the movements were conducted and instigated without any reservation and the majority of the time the cluttered stage never created a problem in which to fully perform the piece. However I did except for there to be hardly any speaking as I have only known physical theatre using their body as their voice rather than using the voice itself. This just paralleled however the theme they seemed to play with in their work and from what I interpretated, a cluttered space represented their cluttered mind, shown mainly through the varying degrees of movement and the speech more or less always been continuous at a varying pace. When looking at the stage before the show started I thought straight away that the many light switches placed on the floor so close together would hinder the performance because I had been taught so much physical theatre technique that involved rolling around on the floor however from watching the piece I realised this is not the way they chose to commit to physical theatre showing me what a wide genre it truly is.
ReplyDeleteThe most inspiring moment I think for me was the end, where after they’d completely destroyed the set they simply replaced everything extraordinary quickly back into its original place and began again. For me this was inspiring not just for what they did but from what they managed to represent for me. I felt they had returned to how they had started to represent how in physical theatre you can never have the same moments again so if they actually had started again it would have been completely different. Showing us truly that each movement will be different and mean something different every time you do it, representing that these movements come from an impulse only.
For me I did enjoy the piece however it was something I had not expected and as soon as I saw just how cluttered the stage actually was I knew that it wasn’t going to be as dance and movement related as I hoped it would be. However I was open to watching and learning something knew about physical theatre but the only aspect I can say that frustrated me was the pauses and the narration. For me they weren’t necessary and was hard for me to gain anything from it however I wouldn’t say this was a negative aspect to have in physical theatre as moments of stillness are often key and this was clearly the way they had chosen to take the piece. It was purely due to the fact I had not expected this from physical theatre.
This piece gave an unusual glance on physical theatre as a genre but it showed the audience especially us as students that the technique we are learning can be used in many ways in parallel with other aspects of performance e.g. the use of speech, narrative and the cluttered stage space. It shows us all that physical theatre is an impulse but this impulse can be shown in various other ways therefore showing us just how big the genre is and how much we still have to learn.
Charlotte Swaby
Physical theatre normally requires a large and cleared space to work. However, Vincent Dance Theatre did just the opposite of this; the use of chairs, microphone stands and papers scattered across the floor were just a few of the obstacles the performers had to work with.
ReplyDeleteThere were many things that inspired me in the piece. I was surprised at how the different elements of music, spoken text, song and dance could be integrated into a physical theatre piece as I was expecting more dance based work, considering the company name. Before going to see the show, I was convinced that all these elements couldn’t be all packed into one piece. I now realise that this is achievable, but debatable whether it’s workable from diverse audience reactions and have leant that a physical theatre piece isn’t necessarily just based solely on dance or movement.
The pauses were slightly frustrating. Although, at first I found it interesting to watch the actors and listen to the audience’s responses and I felt it gave the audience time in which to reflect what they had seen in a moment where they wouldn’t miss the following action. However in spite of this, overall I felt the repetition of pauses frustrated the audience and lowered concentration levels considerably. I also felt the relevance of these pauses weren’t communicated effectively because I thought at first it was indicating the interval!
I wasn’t expecting there to be pauses throughout the piece so I guess this went against my expectations, however, there were some elements of the piece that went beyond my expectations of the piece that I particularly liked, for example the use of musical instruments.
The piece’s commentary on physical theatre is that it is open to possibilities and there is no right or wrong, something which we have often talked about in our sessions.
“If We Go On is a series of individual acts that lay bare the mechanics of theatre, placing the investigation of language at the centre of the work.” (http://www.vincentdt.com/projects/ifwegoon/index.html )
Vincent Dance Theatre states that it is “a series of individual acts” meaning it has no lineal structure or narrative so it leaves the audience questioning themselves; what is it actually about? and what is the relevance of each act today? The dance company have also placed language at the centre of the piece which is interesting in the genre of physical theatre.
Rachel O’Connor
If we go on incorporated many elements of text and movement. These were usually shown simultaneously, along with music played by members of the company on various instruments. There were times in the piece where all of these elements would be used in the piece getting louder and more hectic building up to a crescendo. The use of space was very clever, although the space was cluttered and full of chairs and microphone stands, the performers knew exactly where all of these objects were and none of them collided with anything in space. I was shocked to see a physical theatre piece performed with so many props in the space, as I have always imagined an almost empty space when producing this kind of work.
ReplyDeleteI had many problems enjoying the piece, as It was unlike anything i've ever watched before. But putting my personal opinions aside, the most inspiring thing for me was that they challenged everything they work for and believe in, by standing infront of an audience is questioning Physical Theatre and the conventions within it.
The most frustrating part of the performance for me were the moments of silence, I found this very strange and unnecassary. I am so accustomed to watching performances with far more pace, so having to endure moments where nothing happened were extremely frustrating. I feel I was also frustrated because I didnt understand the piece until after I had left the theatre and really thought about what I had seen.
I wouldnt say that my frustrations were necassarily valid, more personal preference. I had expected the piece to be similar to the kind of work we have seen by Void, so to watch a performance that contradicted everything I had grown to believe was physical theatre frustrated me.
The commentary on the genre of Physical Theatre within the piece was that there is no point in movement unless it means something to you emotionally. If there is no emotion within the movements, they are empty and useless.
i. Each one was given an equal opportunity in the piece to be showcased. I think the space was used very effective considering it was very cluttered and cramped; however this was never a problem for the performers who dealt with the situation very well. The movement was quite repetitive with different combinations of people copying each other, the same choreography being repeated in a different position of the stage and even the beginning being repeated at the end to signal that a conventional play starts the same every time. I didn’t expect there to be any spoken text as my predetermined ideas made me believe that the piece would only be about the body.
ReplyDeleteii. I was intrigued at how the piece took away conventional theatre practises and thought this was done quite well which I must admit was not my initial reaction. The fact that everything about it contradicted ‘normal’ theatre procedures was interesting to think about and to see how I have been secluded to only a few styles of theatre, which If We Go On changed.
iii. What frustrated me the most was not only the long silences as other people have mentioned but also the man who was playing the keyboard was reading his lines from a script. After thinking about It, I realised this was one of the elements the piece was trying to give me as an audience member but it really frustrated me whilst I was watching the performance as I am so used to people telling me to learn lines and that you cannot use a script on stage.
iv. What I watched was completely different to my preconceptions of the piece which I imagined would be very similar to what we have been learning in lectures. Also we learn in lectures that you should have a clean, empty space to work in, whereas the staging for If we go on was cluttered and almost dangerous. This I felt was definitely not what I expected to see when going to see a piece of physical theatre.
v. The piece conveyed that you must strip away all preconceived ideas of theatre and discover new genres such as physical theatre to understand the different workings and types of theatre.
I went to the theatre expecting to see a physical theatre performance as I know it. I had seen some clips from the company's previous work. The name on the ticket even implied that it would be related to dance. So it was a somewhat frustrating experience for me. I sat there in the dark with a constant expectation that later faded into a small hope, that they would get to the point and do some “cool moves” or tell a story of some kind. I stopped feeling as an audience member and more as a lab rat in this performance experiment.
ReplyDeleteI think I might have been more patient if I had seen the same performance but set within an arts museum, or if I had been told they were drama student researching the boundaries of stage craft.
Yet looking back at the piece now, I am more appreciating of it. I see it as they were trying to express “nothingness” in an aesthetic manner. It was interesting to see how the word became the only driving force. They started off telling us that there would be “No more!” and all there was left was the word. Spoken words and noise then became the only driving forces for the performers on stage. In silence everyone would would be waiting for the next task.
The performance was a rebellion against everything they used to stand for. For some reason they feel as if they have emptied out their opportunities within the genre. Looking at their website of their previous achievements, it does seem like they have reached in every direction their skills would take them. I think this have left them with a feeling of having done everything already, so what is now left to do for them? But physical theatre or “dance theatre” as they call it themselves, is in my opinion, just another tool of telling stories. And there are still a million ways to express the same 7 stories.
Mette