THEATRE RE (Guillaume Pige)







14|01|20

There’s been a lot of very useful take-aways from our time with Guillaume: techniques, skills, structures. One major take-away for me was the interplay between form and content. Form has always been a big drive for me creatively, and I would feel comfortable saying that I usually begin from a place of form or structure (or image), before arriving with a content based on this form or structure (or image). The mystery for me has always been how one would arrive to the next, and I think I’ve often left this up to chance. That’s also valid, but Guillaume pushed us more to investigate this transition.
For example, Liisa and I created an original physical dialogue together, based loosely on the principles and techniques we had been working on in the mornings, so there was already a clear form. In this process, there’s naturally going to be thoughts and feelings coming to you about the pseudo narrative of what you’re creating, but the emphasis was away from this, which is remarkably freeing for making work.
Once this dialogue was formed to enough of a degree that we could repeat and finesse the technical aspects, it seemed like it was time to add some content. Something to really note here is that the content was brought in by a drip-feed of elements, as opposed to throwing a whole cavalcade of material at once. We began by simply adding a pen to Liisa’s hand, and a piece of paper on the table. Instantly this steers the work in a more specific direction – at the same time the task becomes exponentially more difficult, as we need to balance an acknowledgement of these elements and what they add, without letting them overwhelm what we had created. I struggled a lot with this, as I couldn’t shake the narrative that was coming to my mind, and suddenly the crippling feeling came to me that made it harder to make developments on the piece.
The same occurred when the next information came, in the form of loose character and objectives. The importance here is that those objectives are physical, and can stay physical. Now the abstract dialogue we had made had the makings of a housewife struggling to sign the papers regarding her dead husband who now was using his ghostly presence to prevent her from signing said papers. When you keep working like this, it’s so hard to stop this very specific narrative from overwhelming your physical choices, but I guess that’s the who point. If it was too abstract it might not work as well, and the same if it goes for the obvious choices that fit the narrative like a glove.
I think for my work, especially when I’m focussing on physical and not text, this balance has to be held onto. For my solo specifically, I have a loose physical score, but now maybe I need to add in an element to allow it to develop further, and delve deeper?

I think also because of Guillaume’s extensive experience in teaching at drama schools, he brought up a lot of really useful ideas about what we’re doing at the CPPM with all of these artists and varying skills development. He kept using a particular word, “choice”, in the training itself, and when speaking about making work. In the work, it’s self-explanatory, in that everything can be valid, it just has to be a choice. I think this relates to what I’ve been ruminating on this block with a lot of the artists, and how the content itself is less important when compared to how you perform said content. If you perform it like it’s intentional (aka a choice) then it can work. If it’s an accident, then you can see that and it won’t work as well.
The same notion relates a lot to what we’re absorbing from all these guest artists over the two years of the course. The very valid question was raised recently of the effectiveness of having these short intense periods with guest artists, as opposed to extended training. A discussion was had, and a few conclusions came forward to me. Firstly, a lot of these forms and styles take years of training to become well versed in, and if we were to pursue one, then we wouldn’t experience the others. Secondly, the purpose of these sessions is not to become well versed in these styles, but to reach a point of understanding that allows us to use them to make choices in our own work. Thirdly, we can pursue any one of these forms following the CPPM if we so desire.
I must admit, I feel like there comes a point where you can no longer be operating as a “jack of all trades” and need to focus in on a certain methodology, whether it’s your own or another’s. It’s like learning a language – hopefully we reach a point after each of these workshops that we no longer need to actively translate in the work, but instead there’s a direct line from the brain to the work.


Finally, and this is something that resonates with me more for its validation and encouragement, we have the view that every movement needs a reason to be there. On a more superficial level, this could be a literal physical reason eg. You’re moved by another force, you need to go somewhere etc. but this is limited when it comes to more abstracted work where the physical gestures don’t correlate with anything from our understood body languages. How can you make a pirouette have a reason for being? That’s the difficulty, but that’s one of those differences I find ever-present in physical work. Pina said it herself: it’s not how you move, it’s what moves you.
I think I found validation in the more superficial interpretation of this philosophy, but now I’m really trying to engage with the latter. My solo is really an exercise in this – how can I make less mean more?

10|01|20

A few key points on the techniques of corporeal mime:

Weight is everything. Even Eddie began so many exercises by saying that “all movement is, is weight being shifted around. Working on these corporeal mime techniques, this is reinforced ten-fold, especially when we’re playing with illusion. It’s really the difference between a professional dancer and an amateur – they can be doing the choreography, but the professional’s weight is going to be under significantly more control than potentially the amateur.

Speaking of, misdirection is a huge part of what we’re training with Guillaume – it’s almost like a stage ‘magic’ of sorts, with the intention of hiding the real effort, to accentuate the creative effort. Eg. When your head travels towards a point on the ground, you want the audience to see your head moving, but not notice your limbs and torso carrying it. It’s a niche exercise, but although we might not use these exact techniques, it’s a really interesting skill to train for a myriad of other potential uses.


The final point I want to highlight is when we were instructed to not be drama students, and activate our imaginations. Very ironic, and difficult, when we literally are drama students, learning a new technique, but very helpful. It’s something I’ve noticed for years: when you’re in a classroom environment you always perform worse than when you are not. It’s not so much the environment however, than it is the relationship between you and whoever is leading what you’re doing. I’ve found that if you feel a sense of ownership and comfort in what you’re doing, it’s easier to engage with because you’re not trying to satisfy or please or achieve. You’re simply doing the thing itself. Hence, the difficulties of being a student. Some artists have allowed us to overcome this, like Stacy or Eddie, but I think I need to be able to put this mindset on myself in the future. Good training.

05|01|20

The most immediate thing I noticed about the corporeal mime work we’re doing with Guillaume, is how much it compliments and contradicts my own movement style. The body isolation is something I think I can say I am familiar with. All that popping and locking in front of the mirror as a kid really paid off with this one – although the amount of control Guillaume has, and is asking of us, is beyond what I’ve had to use before. The last time the work resonated with me like this was probably all the way back with Ryen and our Gecko sessions. Ironically, I’m now bringing in so much Gecko to these mime classes, it’s actually disrupting me a little. Instinctively, I make noise alongside a lot of my movement, which was amplified by Gecko, and now Guillaume is asking for the exact opposite. If I’m linking movement to vocal energy, then I close off the possibility of adding text later on – and this is a very valid point, in the same way that Gecko is also valid. It just goes to show how these contradicting methodologies can both work in their own ways, and I don’t think there’s been such a direct contradiction yet in the course. Exciting.

It turns out Guillaume and I share a lot of the same values when it comes to theatre, and how you present it. One such point today actually helped me breakthrough a mental struggle I had been going through for the last 6 months (and probably longer in reality) regarding avant-garde theatre. I’ve seen a fair share of this type of work, and it always seems to be such a hit or a miss. I think I’ve also stayed away from it for this reason – I think I have never felt confident enough to make the work, in fear of people feeling the same way about my work as I did about others. I never could work out exactly why some of these works were so successful, and some failed so tremendously. I think what Guillaume said today helped a little: “you can go all the way to the moon if you want to – you just have to take us [the audience] with you”.
So many successful pieces are not so different in content or form from many more unsuccessful pieces, they were just the ones who managed to consistently bring the audience along for the journey. It relates to something I want to improve next time (god willing) that I do drag: to let the audience in more. I was feeling down for the first few drag performances because I didn’t feel like I was getting much back from the audience, and although some of this could be put down to other factors, I realised it could mostly be due to me not leaving any time for the audience to keep up with me. My housemate even said that by the end of my routine, she was a bit dazed. I somewhat realised this before the final 2 runs, and even by just staying on stage a few seconds longer allowed the audience to engage with me more than when I ran off immediately.
It’s made me think a hell of a lot more about how I begin my solo piece, especially when I’m going to be surrounded by many other solo works throughout the program.