SITI COMPANY (Will Bond & Stephen Webber)

18|12|19

I want to come back to the idea of intention, and how it relates to stage presence – especially now we’ve started with Eddie from Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch. In one of my previous posts, I ruminated on how the perceived intentionality of a performer could be the difference between being present or not, but there’s another layer worth looking at: what is the intention. This begins to delve into more acting theory, however, it applies totally to physical performance also.

Looking back at the differences between good performances and truly great performances, it could be said that the former had performers whose intentions were clearly to perform something, whereas in the latter you could believe the intentions were that of the character. It then also becomes fuzzy when it comes to less narrative or character driven works, like dance, or the Suzuki/viewpoints training.

When stepping out of the viewpoints exercises to observe, it was remarkably sharp the differences between someone who had the intention to listen or pursue a certain viewpoint, and someone who had gone into “performance” mode. When I say performance here, I guess I mean that state of trying to perform so much that it becomes your clear intention, rather than the state of performativity that something like the Suzuki training develops. Maybe that becomes the real benefit of the Suzuki training in collaboration with the viewpoints. You first train this sense of performativity without “performing” anything, so you can then have that quality while playing with the viewpoints, perhaps.
This brings me to Eddie’s 20% / marking it advice for movement. By bringing It down to 20%, you take away a lot of the overreaching performance you can sometimes inject into movement unintentionally, and your intention and presence turns to the movements you are doing themselves. Maybe. I’m sick right now and don’t want to proofread a lot of what I just wrote, so I’ll pretend it was insightful and move along.

 Adding to the list of things I loved about our time with SITI, was in fact one of the final pieces of advice we received from Stephen. He made the rather astute observation (and now it’s been pointed out I can see how true it is) that we tend to put out a lot of material, but we don’t listen nearly as much. Listening, in this case, translates to observing and receiving in our improvisations. I really hope I don’t forget this, and the group doesn’t either, because it can become painfully apparent when everyone begins throwing their movement ideas into the mix when improvising. In the same way that you could have a really overcrowded stage in traditional theatre improvisation, the same can happen in movement improvisation. It reminds me how we had such trouble finding an ending for our improvisation in the gala performance in September – I think if we were listening to each other, the space, and the information being put out, we would’ve been able to understand an ending all together. Instead, information kept being pummelled out.
I love this advice so much because it’s so calming to understand you don’t have to be constantly creating and putting things out there. You don’t have to put that pressure on yourself. It’s very Stacy Makishi in a way.

This concept can be proven time and time again by simple exercises like the “zen garden”. By having a group of performers place themselves in space in relation to each other to create their perfect idea of a zen rock garden, you force everyone to really listen to the group. You can sense immediately when someone heads in with a preconceived idea of what they’re going to do, without listening to what’s going on already.
I was working with a group of young dance artists recently on stage presence, and although I’m content with what I left them with, I wish I had more time to explore, because I don’t think I ever got to the place I wanted to. Maybe this Zen garden exercise would’ve been a perfect one to bring to them. As young artists, I think that pressure to make is even greater, and that’s something I see between older classmates like Rasmus and Iveta, compared to Keithy and Leah for example. They’re more content with just observing.

I also quite liked being reminded of the possibility of making and then feeling later. It somewhat relates to the outside-in method of performance making, but maybe a little less character based. The notion was presented to us that maybe it’s possible (and valid) to create a composition for yourself or with others, and then see what it feels like in it. So you’re not necessarily going ahead with an idea like “this is going to be real sad, let’s make it as sad as possible”, but instead working on simple physical properties, and then observing how you naturally react to them. Standing across the room from someone looking into their eyes is going to feel very different from standing beside them facing away. It almost seems childish to work from this way, but there’s a truth in it that is extremely valid. The danger would be not exploring the composition enough, and leaving it in a stripped down form with broad brush stroke emotions – then you have a great example of a high-school applied drama piece.

SITI has felt vital to me right now as a maker. It’s reminded me of some very simple truths in making work, and allowed me to relax a little in my process of making. I can maybe let go of understanding for now, and instead play compositionally to form new and potentially very interesting meanings, and that’s valid. Also Suzuki is great, and anyone who disagrees is wrong.

13|12|19

If anything is lacking from the two weeks so far with SITI, it’s that we haven’t had the chance to explore the Viewpoints in the context of making work. We’ll go into these viewpoints focussed improvisations, and afterwards Bondo and Stephen might point to some moments that could be used theatrically, but I wish we were using these moments theatrically. How do you integrate material with the viewpoints? From memory, when I worked with Barney in Perth he would allow us to bring in material that we were exploring for the show - whether that be text, choreography, or even music – and inject it into these open improvisations. What it meant was, that there was a larger range of creative opportunity to mine material.

Right now, we’re working in these small groups to devise a small performance based on the Bacchae, but it’s remarkably difficult to engage in the SITI methods of viewpoint improvisations because we don’t have time to explore and refine. I think maybe it needs to be said that the viewpoints open improvisations are starting points, and it can sometimes take work to build the material you receive into a performative context.

Something highlighted to us the other day was the dilemma of bringing all these viewpoints back into a single focus. Shortly put, it is difficult. That’s the point. It keeps you alive, and aware. The point of learning these viewpoints is to highlight the differentiation between them, so you can develop an individual relationship with each, then reintegrate them together to have a more widely spread awareness.

It actually made me reflect a little bit on the philosophy of the CPPM, and a slightly new perspective. I’ve had thoughts lately around how I can be to making the most of all these artists, and maybe the ‘differentiation and reintegration’ philosophy is a helpful mindset to work from. Maybe I need to begin focussing on the differences between artists, rather than the similarities?

10|12|19

A question that surfaced in my mind last week during one of the SITI sessions was that of, “How does perceived intention detract or contribute to the Viewpoints methodology?”

I came to this question through a particular exercise where we were asked to focus on Space, walk around the blackbox, and curate our own personal ‘frames’ of theatre. Meaning, I could look to my left, see three individuals standing around someone who is sitting, and call it my theatre. What I found so remarkable about this, is that their actions and movements suddenly became so wonderfully engaging to observe. They hadn’t changed anything, but now that my mind had switched into this theatre mode, it was able to view all happenings as intricately choreographed pieces.

I thought about why this was such a significant shift, and what was actually allowing me to believe it so easily, and I came back to one concept: intention. This word has been a hot topic before, especially in Ana’s early lectures on framing, to-do to-act to-perform, and what is performance as a whole, but now I was able to put it into a precise observable practice.

For me, the biggest shift is in giving these players in your frame an intentionality. A soon as I invest in the narrative that all their movements are intended, every little movement becomes filled with a greater meaning/interest/readability.

It then becomes an interesting back and forth between the performers and the audience for determining the intentionality. A performer could be improvising, but if the audience decides (or is encouraged to decide) that everything is planned out, then it may become more interesting. At the same time, a performer may be working with a piece that is highly specific, but the audience reads it as loose – what happens then?

Returning to my own practice, and currently the solo process, I’m interested to give attention to how I encourage the audience to read my performance – if I’m challenging myself to take time on stage, it may be even more important to ensure the audience feels intentionality. This could be seen almost the opposite to a lot of acting technique, which is in service of making your stage performance seem in-the-moment and responsive.

Is this an aesthetic question for myself? The work I create is highly specified and inflexible, but maybe that is aiding this heightened interest that comes with the sense of intentionality?




06|12|19

I’m finding this week that I am wildly more alert and awake throughout the days than I was last training block – even last week felt more physically and mentally draining than this week has. I’m thinking either:

A)     These vitamin D pills have officially KICKED IN !

B)     The ridiculous LED light that I’ve made turn on in the morning (emulating the colour temperature of the sun) to help wake me up.

C)     Suzuki is back baby.

I’m honestly thinking it might be a simple combination of the three, but we’ll see what happens when we move into Tanztheater Wuppertal – honestly considering coming in early to do my own Suzuki warmups in the morning, but we’ll see how we go. There’s just something I so wildly energising about it, and I’m so glad I’ve been able to rediscover this in a new environment from my previous training.

Naturally, we’re doing a whole heap of Viewpoints training with SITI, and there’s been a few interesting questions and propositions come forward in the workshops. Firstly, of myself I have been trying to ask why I like this style of working so much. It’s almost like a chicken and the egg situation, where I don’t know what came first; my viewpoints training, or my love for it. Looking back, I do think that this way of thinking is possibly attributable to the more tangible and logical way my mind seems to work – between that and my video editing experience it’s no wonder I am drawn to this more ordered way of seeing theatre.  

By this ‘ordered’ theatre I guess I mean the practice that viewpoints encourages, of working and analysing from specific focuses, rather than abstract concepts or clear narrative. Stephen put it in the term “A Theatre of {insert viewpoint here}”. You can really look at many performances and identify them (or parts of them) within the viewpoint terminology.

With the viewpoints in mind, it also helps free you as a performer from necessarily feeling so alone on stage. You can always find yourself in a dialogue with one of the viewpoints, and you’ve got a nearly limitless supply of creative possibility. Harkens back to a previous post I wrote on another artist, where I discuss how limitations and frames can actually propagate creativity.

I’m anticipating I will be looking to the viewpoints a lot to continue making my Greek solo.

03|12|19

It’s an interesting effect coming back to the Suzuki/Viewpoints training methods in such a wildly different environment. First and foremost, it’s a very different group to the one I previously trained with. The CPPM group is significantly more experienced, but at the same time this experience is potentially making it more difficult to reduce back down to the simplicity that Suzuki and Viewpoints demands.

Secondly, it’s surprisingly difficult synthesising my previous experiences with these new ones. I think I (naively) expected the training to be like putting on an old glove, except I’m now experiencing that this glove is actually slightly differently shaped and of a different hue. The method of the teaching is altered from my previous experiences, and I’m finding that I get ahead of myself a fair bit. I now need to really focus on stripping back to the basic elements we are working through – which is parallel to the teaching of Viewpoints.

One particular phrase that Stephen has presented a few times, is a really effective representation of how to free yourself more as a performer.
                  “Competence doesn’t equal comprehension”

I’m finding all this work so beautifully comfortable and exciting, and I think it’s because of this base philosophy – that you don’t need to understand what’s going on, to be doing it effectively. It’s completely fine to commit yourself completely to the work without an understanding of what it needs to mean. This approach has been tremendously helpful for me in the past, in making work, in training, and it actually allows me to find the joy and the pleasure in what I do. I am so glad to be rediscovering this revelation at this time, because of solos and all the other things we need to do. I don’t need to necessarily understand it while I’m doing/making it, I just need to commit.

More literally with Suzuki, it comes with the idea of performer discipline at all times, and its only when you reach that final “prove it” moment, can you look back on what you have done in the space and try to understand it. Try and look back at yourself in the moment and you will lose the moment.

There’s really so many more beautiful points of information and lessons flooding out of these sessions with SITI, but as we are not permitted to take notes in class (which I happen to agree with), I’m running off poor memory here.
The training feels like coming home, and I’m hoping that even without a smorgasbord of notes taken, these lessons will be reinforced and remain in my body and practice.