So, after we had all recovered from the annual dinner, NORTH had a brilliant session with the brilliant Daniel Bye.
It started off by playing 'fluffy bunny' in which Mark Calvert proved just how big his mouth is... (Meghan failed miserably as you can see below)
 |
After lots of silliness we then moved onto more serious stuff. |
The following statements are not strictly those of Daniel Bye's, but an amalgamation of what we discussed as a group and my own personal thoughts.
Values
We spoke about Dan's values as a theatre maker and how that is an essential part of the shows that you make. He also talked to us a lot about truth and lying - burying the truth in a massive amount of lies can be very effective.
- Not acknowledging your audience is actually quite rude, why do we still do that? (I must admit, that personally, I really enjoy doing that sometimes because it makes me feel as though I'm spying on someone else's story rather than being in it, but this certainly requires a much longer discussion, and something NORTH can chat about more)
- Knowing what your audience will probably do in a situation can enable you to make better art.
- The audience finishes the event, without them it's pointless.
- Aesthetic choices are also political/ethical choices - we ran out of time on this one.
- It's important to think about what the work wants to say and how it is constructed.
- As a theatre maker you must look at what is really happening.
- the assumed values that lie underneath something are always very interesting.
All of these brilliant bits of advice are things that NORTH will be thinking about when we start making our show next week. As a group, we felt very excited and inspired after our session with Dan, and are eager to explore different avenues when we begin devising.
Interesting fact: apparently more people remember being at the world cup final in 1966 than can actually fit inside the stadium.
“There is the drive to represent events accurately, which means being true to the often vivid impressions we have about what actually happened. And there is the drive for coherence, the need to produce a narrative whose elements fit together. In this case, coherence is a matter of agreement between people. Our stories need to make sense to us individually, but they also need to make sense to those who matter to us.” read more from this article here..
Less talking, more doing.
We explored a brilliant exercise which highlights the relationship between performer and audience.
Step 1) Someone leaves the room
Step 2) The rest of the group decide on an task for that person to carry out in the space (eg. pick up the chair and stand on it)
Step 3) When the person arrives back in the room, the audience give them a rapturous round of applause and keep on clapping until they do something that isn't moving them towards completing the task (eg. sitting on the chair) When this happens, everyone must stop clapping until the performer finds a way to understand the task through the guidance of the clapping audience.
Step 4) Give the performer a standing ovation as soon as the task is complete
(The task gets more difficult each time, and then, props were added to make it even harder)
Here we are having a go...
 |
| Task: To pick up the water bottle and use it as a microphone |
 |
| Task: To pick up umbrella and jump off the chair |
 |
| Task: To pick up umbrella and use it as a sword |
 |
| Task: To ride each other like a horse (which they did in record time) |
 |
| Task: To pick up water bottle, pour it into glass and have a drink (it took Alex a while to spot the glass which made it tricky for her but very funny for us) |
I could write down lots more observations that we talked about but I've probably gone on for long enough now and most people will be bored.
Massive thank-you to Daniel Bye for his wise words.
and as a thank-you for reading, here's a funny dog picture.
Love from the NOFFICE.
North_NS
No comments:
Post a Comment