Learning as a director: Volume #1

Chapter 1: Choreography

I'm useless at choreographies. Visuals and I do not get along as pancake and syrup.

Solution #1: Dictatorship
Shout at the performers to do it well... or to just do it. Avoid distractions and don't allow yourself to laugh at their jokes or be fooled by their excuses. Stupid people will think you are stupid.
Summary: Be cruel, be feared.
This solution does not work.

Solution #2: Uninterested
Let them work on their own. Come up with something and they show it to show. Then you perform solution #1, and tell them to do more. At the end, you fix, cut, add, change some details and say you did it.
This is what many people do. Doesn't work.

Solution #3: Focus group
Converse with the performers what they should do and how to tacle to objective. Everyone gives their ideas and then they perform it. This method will make the performers believe they have more power and vote than what they actually do, though, and may lead to distraction. Also, they will never come to a unison decision on what to do unless you tell them.
Therefore, this solution is stupid.

Solution #4: The tree
Performers than work: Stay
Performers that don't work: Put them as trees on the stage.
Performers that don't like to be trees: Will leave voluntarily
Flawless.

What is the best way to approach directing to young unprofessional performers?

Royal Betrayal

Violence for power. Power for good. Power for bad. Power from violence.

Violence, don't try to deny it, is and approach to entertainment. Its instinctively entertaining. We are just thought that it is morally wrong... so we have to learn to control it and we see it on movies, plays, games, etc. 

Is it arbitrary to say that all entertainment comes from violence but I will say that most of it does. And here I turn the corner to the block of the play. We always have an epic fight. People like power rangers. People like chuck norris, star wars, harry potter, bullfighting, football, wrestling, pulp fiction... etc...etc...etc.

We require to have our epic fight in order to please the audience, which are expecting it so anxiously through the whole play. Every kids dreams to have super powers. Superman, Hulk, Spiderman. Ever wonder why they are so popular among kids and no one reads romantic comics? It is just how we are. We like violence, but are trained to control it. 

Hold your four-legged-living-transport. I never, if it crosses your mind, said it is the only entertainment. There is comedy, romance, violence, fun, alcohol, drugs, monopoly, some people even find porn entertaining (which is none of my business). But we can't play monopoly with the audience, we can't have super powers (some) we can't have a bullfight in the theatre, we cant do drugs, get wasted, and even less show porn in a school play ( This is not Botanica ). 

We rely on suspense for a long awaited epic battle. No battle, no fun. Now to think about it... To what extent are those who claim that the arts are the opposite of violence wrong? I claim violence can be an art itself. To what extent can that be applied for entertainment?


P.S. the title is a suggestion for the name of the play.

Applied Jerzy Grotowski vs XXI century puberty

3:50 am. 2 litres of coke (beverage of course... before you pun me into a discussion). This is going to be a fun blog to write...

Why is it actors and actresses feel ashamed of their body when on stage? It is just yer body matey... its yer tool. Open up your toolbox and take out your hammer, screwdriver and body.
and some nails... you are going to need the nails.

Now lets say that acting in puberty is like hammering a screwdriver. Or screwdriving a horse. It may work, but you should not do it. Puberty is not prepared for Grotowski as the horse is not prepared for the screwdriver. The actors will make you end up like the horse... screwed.

(oh how I love to play with language)

At this stage people are hugely influenced by outer influences, specially, mostly, or maybe even only, what others think about them. They can't, and won't do many things that are capable of because they are being watched. What is this fear to exposure?

In stage you are not you. You are a body in movement. or so they say. but "They talk a lot" - Uma Thurman
body. movement. actions. purpose. transmit something to audience. In a nutshell. Why should an actor be afraid or ashamed of his/her body?

It is puberty. this stage where everyone is like "no, i don't wanna. they are gonna laugh at me. They are gonna call me gay. They are going to hit my weewee" Grow up. That is one of the hardest things to work with in a school play. 12 - 17 year old people... HELL YEAH. There is no will to explore further from what is not laughable.

Apply some grotowski to the outer shell of the cannonball. shoot at target.
*WARNING: If in puberty, this may have no effects.

No energy. No explore. No ideas. No actions. No fap Artaud.

How can we teach puberty to forget about the outer influences? How can we take away the observer. Make puberty see no eyes judging it. This would speed the process of exploration and creating a school play much faster. exponential growth please. But what does puberty wants when it stays to rehearsals? Intriguing to think it is fun, or to be seen by the audience.

Ironic isn't it? They want to be seen, but they don't like it to be seen doing "funny" things. Oh puberty, you so silly. Confessing I do find some empathy within myself to understand this. Is autoesteem the solution to the mixture? will it dissolve? Or will these bits stay in the liquid which will only obstacle us.

I just wonder. I just wonder.
I just dare to think this is impossible. The other path leads the way.
How can we take away the embarrassment and leave the tool on stage? Kill puberty and hammer the nails. (I told you we were going to need them)
How can we make puberty turn its eyes inside out and brainwash outer influences? Make an efficient actor out of puberty. At least for a while, big enough time balloon to stay on the air until the 4th of July. Then it can explode with the rest of the fireworks. But where can we find this air to fill the balloon that is going to make it levitate enough time?


Sorry about the strange language... I'm exploring that myself :P
and I have watched too much Stephen Fry

DFTBA

Yo queria un poni... pero mi energia no era rosada

Wednesday we stayed for Kenzo's workshop.
We started as any normal roberto-stealed-from-grotowsky's exercise, sleeping (laying) on the floor and start to breathe and pretend (feel) the energy and how is runs through our body.
I don't mean it like that, but it is purely psicological. If you really want to feel the energy, you are going to feel it, even if it is not there. If you don't want to feel it, you won't. I know this is maybe not supposed how im to approach the energy feeling thing. But it is the only way. the only way to feel the energy flowing through your body is if you actually beleive it. Imagination is more powerful than facts, or so they say. your mind can make you believe that something that is not really there is actually there.

That is how i make it work, I just make myself believe it is actually happening. FEEL THE POWER.
like this guy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYxCrugJj_o
He showed me that if you really believe something, then it is possible... but only in your mind.

During the exercise, we were asked to choose a texture, a color, and other characteristics for our energy, mine was blue and water-like. yay :D

I already know my final question but im going to build towards it. When we stood up, we started walking around the space, and we had to choose and animal. I chose the ocean. But then, it transformed into a panther, a blue panther. a blue sneaky panther.
But I wonder if my animal was influenced highly by my energy texture and color, i guess it was...
it seems like it was.
I wonder what would had been Mikimoto's energy, and I also wonder if exploring Heisenberg could had been easier if I would had tried this approach.
Would it really help, when exploring a new character, to find a color and texture for your "energy" and build it from that? Or is it just an exercise with no practical use?

DFTBA

Vladimiro! Abre la boca, Vladimiro! .................. AH!

A tool to twist reality.


Helllooooo everyone! And welcome to another entry in Monchips blog... you are not prepared....
what am i talking about? no one ever reads this blog.... AAARRRRRRROOOOZZZZ


A puppet is an object that, with your actions, you give life to it. It can be your shadow as it, an apple, or anything.

On thursday and friday we learnt more about puppets, with a workshop by Martin and Maria laura, who kindly explained everything to us.

On friday morning we started to make our own puppets... we all seemed really exited, and got on to do them, it turned out to be harder then what we thought, but i managed and started exploring with what my puppet could do, how could i maximize the use of my fingers... how i could turn my fingers into a tool to make this puppet of mine do things that i could not do. For example, move its eyes with 2 fingers.

I thought, at the beginning, puppets were for children. I knew there were cool puppets and things, but i had never seen a puppet take life like Ian Curtis did.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVc29bYIvCM
I never imagined a puppet... that was not exactly representing reality, took life so amazingly. I was astonished.
The dances were awesome. The epileptic part could had been done better... and I did not understand when the naked girl shouted "INMORTAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAL"
ok... but the dance was AAAAMAAAZINNNG.
I wish my puppet could do that. But it can't. Mine is stupid. I will go cry now. No more blog.


_____________________________________________________________________

I'm done crying.

A puppet is a very variable and multi-use prop that can be used in various different ways. As a glove, "shared hand" or only torso and above, full body, with moving mouth, without a moving mouth, with moving arms, or w/o moving arms. It is completely free for you to make it as your wish... of course, as long as it is within reason and not something done for the sake of it.

Puppets can have different sizes, a puppet can be really small, or cover the complete stage. You can even have GIANTS. 3 arms? 4 legs? 5 eyes? 6 noses? no ears? 10 mouths? upside down head?
legs instead of arms
56 fingers
one bigger eye than the other
eyes in the chest
heart -shaped face
levitate
long to touch the audience
short to fit in your pocket
black to hide in the dark. to be your shadow
blue hair, green hair. spear hair, no hair,
the possibilites are endless.

So this is what a puppet is for. To help us show what an actor can't. A puppet is a tool.

A puppet can do what an actor cannot. If a puppet did equal to the actor then it would have no reason to be. And when a puppet doesn't have a reason to be. A puppet gets sad. And when puppets get sad... they lose their magic. And what is a puppet without magic?.... Just an object.
If an object with life is a puppet, and a puppet is an actor... Is the actor a puppet? If so... who controls the actor? The actor controls the puppet, and the puppet controls the actor. Who, behind puppets, controls the actor?

Can your turn this concept upside down on a stage?
Something to think about, and idea to develop.


"Dios mueve al jugador, y éste, la pieza.
¿Qué Dios detrás de Dios la trama empieza
de polvo y tiempo y sueño y agonías?"

Fragment of Jorge Luis Borges poem: Ajedrez

The actor moves the puppet, and this, the actor.
What is the actor then if not just a puppet?
To say that "we are not puppets because we have a mind of our own" is the easy way out.
think deeper about it. Get to the abstract. Get to the magic.
What does and actor transform to when he gets into character but a puppet? And what does a puppet turn when it turns into character but an actor? On a stage, there is no difference between these 2 but the possibilities one can achieve that the other can't.
Is the actor his own puppeteer?