practice-theatre 2011/2012
project tutored by Ian White in collaboration with Emma Hedditch and Jimmy Robert, and curated by If I Can't Dance, I Don't Want To Be Part Of Your Revolution. Coordinated by Tanja Baudoin.
BLOG : http://practicetheatre.wordpress.com/
From month to month
19 April 2012
special guest: Myriam van Imschoot
Thursday 10 - 11:30 am – voice exercise
Myriam: work on the voice, amongst other things through something I developed and that I call 'silly song'. It takes thinking and talking straight into the action of singing, and as silly as it is, we sing what comes to our minds. Of course the minds get lured into other patterns of thinking and perception, because that's what melody tends to do; it tricks us into other alleys. The purpose is not to compose a good song (ad lib), because also the song patterns get overruled now and then by the urgency of expressing thought.
Thursday 11:30 – 4pm - 'creative feedback' exercise (lunch 1-2pm)
Myriam: there are a set of 'creative feedback' tools that I have been working with in choreography workshops. We will collectively revisit, expand, reroute and develop work. In this approach the point is that feedback can happen through action, and through entering or exchanging one's work/material. The tools are called 'translation', 'perverse translation', and 'remediation'.
Thursday 4pm - 5:30pm - summarise session + discussion about Dakar plans.
22 March 2012
In March tutor Ian White is present with Emma Hedditch and Tanja Baudoin. In this month's session of practice-theatre, the question we want to ask is: what does transgression mean to us, now? What forms it could take, how do these differ from or draw upon previous cultural/historical moments? Following last month's meeting with Jimmy Robert, we discussed a text by Claire Bishop in which she referrenced a DIY or punk method of working in relation to performance. Thinking further about punk now with Emma Hedditch, we will talk about how punk made use of certain conventions to explore the construction and power that these conventions maintained. We will look at the attitude of punk as a way to think about and take on costumes and props, both literally and theoretically. Students are asked to wear what they wear as a costume, either a newly constructed outfit or assemblage, or what we usually wear, but to wear it with intention. In preperation to the meeting we will read Susan Sontag's 'Notes on Camp' and watch a selection of films.
9 February 2012
Ian White and Jimmy Robert / location: ArtEZ dance studio
We’d like to start the day with a general discussion to get some feedback from you about the Matt Mullican Class of Masters event in Amsterdam. In addition, Vanja suggested a recent article by Claire Bishop that raises some interesting questions about the work we’re doing and how we might position it and ourselves. So please read this:
and come with some thoughts about the text and how it relates to our project and your own practices.
Then for the workshop proper we will divide the group into 3 smaller groups. Each of you should think about deriving a performance work from the ‘doing-observing-writing…’ text you’ve been compiling on the blog since last time, that you’ll develop within these groups. We’ll all be working from the same text this time, but otherwise, we’d like you to work in a similar way to how you did with the Yvonne Rainer poems – think about incorporating an object, movement, speech etc. and how this could function as a group work.
The difference this time is that when we come to show each other our ideas each group will occupy a specific role in relation to the others as follows: Group performing / Group directing / Group observing
It’s intended that the group directing manipulates/intervenes/makes suggestions to the work of the group that is performing and that this process is observed by the third group. We’ll take it in turns to occupy these roles. The interventions into the group performing’s work can take any form. As a means to provoke some ideas around how/what/why please have a look at pp. 108-35 in Augusto Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed. I’m not suggesting we literalise his ideas or even that we accept them, but the different scenarios he describes might be used as frameworks for our own explorations.
Please read and think about: Claire Bishop, Unhappy Days in the Art World? De-Skilling Theatre, Re-Silling Performance. Augusto Boal, Theatre of the Oppressed, pp.108-35
Read and think about how you would derive a performance work from the blog text
‘doing-observing-writing…’, think about objects etc to bring that can be incorporated.
note: Wednesday evening 8 February: theatre visit
12 January 2012
The group meeting on Thursday is led by Jimmy Robert, who works with diverse media including photography, collages, objects, art books, short films and performance.
1 december 2011
Practice-theatre Starting 10:00 – 17.00 location: DAI Audit I en II 12.00-13.00: guided tour Stadsschouwburg in Arnhem
The session is led by Emma Hedditch, who has composed a short text, outlining some points of focus for the students.
20 October 2011
In October tutor Ian White is present with Tanja Baudoin. During this first session, we begin exploring ideas about the positions from which we speak, the relationship between speech and silence, reception and (critical) production and how such positions are literally defined by the occupation of different kinds of physical space - the theatrical auditorium and/or its antechambers. We aim to establish some co-ordinates by reading and discussing a fragment from Roland Barthes' On Racine, as it relates to Aristotle's Poetics and Augusto Boal’s description of Aristotle's Coercive System of Tragedy in Theatre of the Oppressed and by visits to the City hall and City theatre in Arnhem. In the afternoon we will begin to develop a physical vocabulary derived from and aiming to enact and describe our experiences and thoughts. In addition, on 28 October at 20:30 hrs the students of ‘practice-theatre’ are attending Five Sisters at Frascati Theatre in Amsterdam, presented by If I Can't Dance. This performance presents the story of five sisters, who busy themselves with the problems and pleasures of modern life on a Sunday afternoon. The California sun provokes their reactions, emotions and moods. French-born artist Guy de Cointet (1934-1983) was an influential member of the Los Angeles art scene from the 1960s onward.