THE JOY OF SOUND PART II

Today we began our lesson again doing a cleansing exercise to warm up our bodies. Today I focused on my Harrah rather than my eyes, and I felt more in touch with my body.

We mainly focused on different theatre practitioners and how they all influenced each other and what their methodologies were.

Peter Brook

Peter Brook

"I can take any empty space and call it a bare stage.."

Name: Peter Stephen Paul Brook (CBE, CH)

Born: 21st March 2925 (aged 91)

Peter Brook is an English theatre practitioner who was heavily influenced by Antoine Artoud. Brook believed in minimalism, a technique that stripped the performance to its bare minimum. He would often have nothing but a few chairs on his stages. He believed that it is the actors ho drive the story forward rather than dressing a stage. His style of rehearsal and devising was enduring intense physical exercise. This made the company's he worked with to feel more in tune with their bodies.

Yoshi Oida

Yoshi Oida in practice

"The invisible actor" 

Name: Yoshi Oida

Born: 26th July 1933 (Aged 83)

Yoshi Oida created the theatre exercise 'The Cleansing of the Nine Holes', in which an actor will lay on the floor in semi supine and massage their eyes, ears, mouth, belly button (harrah) and other parts of the body. He also believed in cleaning the space before every rehearsal. Everyday before rehearsal he would conduct a process of Misorgi. His cleansing exercises are known as Kabuki.

Antonin Artaud

"This cruelty is a matter of neither sadism nor bloodshed."

Name: Antonin Marie Joseph Artaud

Born: 4th  September 1896, Marseille, France - 4th March 1948 

Artaud was a theatre practitioner, playwright and poet. Artaud came up with 'The Theatre of Cruelty', which argued that "drama must abandon it's emphasis on text and rely on more mysterious, primal expressions of sound, movement and light".

Artaud was educated at the Coll'e du Sacre Coeur in Marseilles and became a writer for a magazine aged just 14. After committing himself into a mental hospital in 1918 - he was released three years later. Upon his release from the institution in Switzerland, he travelled to Paris and studied alongside actor and director, Charles Dullin. Artaud began to work on stage and backstage  from the mid 1920s.

Oliver Sacks (Musicophilia)

"We see with the eyes but we see with the brain as well. And seeing with the brain is often called imagination" 

Name: Oliver Wolf Sacks

Born: 9th July 1933 - 30th August 2015 (Aged 82)

Oliver sacks is an internationally known neurologist who studied music and it's effect on the brain. He wrote a book called Musicophilia which is his studies into the field. Peter Brook and Yoshi Oida collaborated together to produce one of Sacks works, 'The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hate'.

Brian Wilson (Beach Boys)

"I think in terms of emotions. And feelings. So sometimes what I say may not always be clear. But creatively, there's a lot to be said for that way of thinking."

Name: Brian Douglas Wilson

Born: June 20th (Aged 74)

Wilson is an american musician, songwriter, singer and record producer notably known for his work in the Beach Boys. Wilson had a deteriorating mental heath after taking drugs in his young life. These drugs caused him to have a strange phenomena in which his mind would always hear music even if there wasn't any.

LIVING GALLERY

In this lesson, Phoebe and I put our ideas up on it's feet. I brought in a piece of rope about 2 metres in length and we explored ways of puppeteer each other. This was difficult as in did'n't seem right when we performed it. The piece wasn't developed enough that we could create any sort of purpose to the piece. It was simply there because it was there. This meant we decided to go back to the drawing board and rethink of an idea.

We came to the conclusion after much discussion that our piece will be called 'Self-Esteem' and will feature myself inside a sack being dragged by a dirty Phoebe, whilst I sit emotionless in the bag with a party hat and a party whistle. This idea was striking in it's imagery and was entertaining to devise. We feel the piece is effective as it creates the sense of contrasting images. The girl struggle to carry the entire world of a joyful and happy person which is so far away from herself. This links to the mind as when a child hits their teenage years, they become more conscious of things around them. What makes them sad? What makes them angry? What makes them happy? Our piece symbolises the stage where you're sad for no apparent reason and always trying to lug a happy persona with you at all times. This piece could also represent depression and mental health. 

Quick mock up of our initial idea

THE JOY OF SOUND

Nine Holes

In todays lesson we learnt the warm up techniques of Yoshi Oida and the Cleansing of the Nine Holes. Yoshi Oida believed that by washing our bodies before a rehearsal, it creates a fresh new start to each devising session. We washed our Belly buttons, mouths, ears and eyes to wake us up. By washing our belly buttons, also known as our Hara, we are connecting to our mothers, as it is  a spot of extreme spiritual value as the Japanese believe the soul is in the Hara. This is why when samurai warriors kill themselves after something shameful, they put their katana swords through their belly buttons, as it destroys the soul. We also cleared the space before the rehearsal as this is another Oida technique. An ensemble will work in silence to clear the space of anything that's impractical to the rehearsal. This develops a mutual respect for the space and clears the mind as well as physical environment.

Class Experiment

Today we conducted an ensemble exercise. The experiment consisted of three different songs being played, and as an ensemble we had to choose whether to respond to that piece of music by writing, drawing or physical movement. This exercise made me broaden my mind to different ways of thinking when listening to music. Music is a form of expression and by combining it with other mediums of expression creates something powerful. This exercise was interesting as it made the class get to terms with the joy of music and how our minds respond to sound in a primitive fashion. Some songs make you feel different emotions and we crave a need to express ourselves whether that medium be dance, art or writing. By expressing ourselves it is a release. Thus being joyful. So each song has an element of joy. Songs are created to stimulate different emotions.

Track 1: Leadbelly - Goodnight Irene 

This song made me write a piece of writing based upon my Nan. Since both of my Nan's suffer from Dementia and Alzheimer's disease, this song reminds me of my Nan on my mums side as she used to dance to the Irish version of Goodnight Irene. In the care home, we always play music similar to that song and we see her smile and get up out of her seat to dance, and in our way, music brought back our Nan for a short period of time. This song captures the joy of family in my opinion. 

Track 2: Tom Jones - It's Not Unusual

This song made me get up and dance. It wasn't so much a physical theatre movement, it was more of a primitive need to get up and dance. It was very happy and joyful which made me think of the brain in the sense of just responding to music without thinking. The beat, rhythm, pace and the instruments in the song strike a chord in all of the class as the song oozes fun. 

Track 3: Brian Eno - Music for Airports

In response to Eno's 'Music for Airports', I created a piece of drawing. Said drawing consisted of lots of different stairs leading in a winding circle, leading to the nowhere but always seeming as if there is an end. This piece is very spiritual sounding in nature and doesn't necessarily bring joy, but relaxation. I felt like I could fall asleep peacefully. Which is what Eno had designed the song to be.  

MY SONGS OF JOY

This is a tiny collection of songs that bring me joy and make me happy. These songs may be about depressing and sad topics but they still bring me joy.

Jimi Hendrix - Voodoo Child (Slight Return) 

Led Zeppelin - Moby Dick + John Bonham Drum Solo

Nirvana MTV Unplugged 1994 - Where Did You Sleep Last Night (Leadbelly Cover) 

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LIVING GALLERY

In today's lesson, Phoebe and I began to develop our ideas for our paired duet piece. We grouped together and shared our thoughts on different pieces from the TATE gallery. This would become our stimulus.

Phoebe shared her image and I shared mine. I chose to explore the Gaonkar exhibit. Which was a sound responsive piece. We brainstorm what we could do with a sound responsive piece of art as our stimulus. We could've had a speaker and every time the sound gets high pitch we change our body shape. Or manipulate sound with our voices. However, we eventually turned this idea down as we thought this could be very restricting to only focus on sound as the audience will be milling around and viewing us. We finally settled on this piece of art shown below.

Suspended

This piece, called 'Lightning with Stag in its Glare' by Joseph Beuys, is interesting as it shows a triangular structure being suspended from a high ceiling. Both Phoebe and I thought of this as exciting as we thought we could play around with the idea of claustrophobic spaces. Phoebe came up with the idea that the giant shard of suspended metal represents a persons image of themselves in their head, whilst the solid beam holding it up is our self confidence.

From this, phoebe and I developed the idea that our piece could include puppeteer. I could use a rope or a piece of string wrapped around her arms to create the illusion of a puppet and it's master. We would then take the puppet on a walk throughout the school. This is an effective idea as it creates multiple opportunities for the audience to develop their own interpretations, not just ours as the piece is vague.

Stimulus image for our devising

TATE MODERN TRIP

Today we went on a school trip to the Tate Modern Gallery at Southbank, London. We were asked to find three pieces of art which we found particularly interesting and related to the idea of the brain and the mind. I have been to the Tate before, but interestingly the pieces I chose aren't the same pieces that stood out to me on the first trip. This would because I had the task to find a brain related piece, meaning I was looking for anything that represented the vastness of the mind. Something complex, or something simple. Here are my choices.

Puzzle Canvas

Puzzle Canvas

This piece reminded me of how the mind tries to resole problems and issues that are within itself. The art reminded me of a jigsaw puzzle, or a Rubiks cube which further enforced me original idea of confusion. The raised and lowered blocks, in my eyes, represent the mind trying to solve a complex problem through its algorithms. We could even say that the grey colour of the piece represents how machine like the brain is when working out problems. It's not colourful and expressive, it's bleak to get the job done. 

Cildo Meireles Babel, 2001

 Babel 

This piece reminded me of how technology connects the world together by the click of a button, which made me find a correlation between how our brain sends messages to itself all over the mind. I did some research of the piece and found that that artist wanted to create a modern day 'Tower of Babel'. 

The Tower of Babel is a biblical story in which there was once a tower that housed the all man. In this tower, everyone spoke the same language, until one day the tower was smitten down and the tower collapsed. Leaving everyone who fled the tower speaking different languages. This relates to the brain as we develop our understanding of communication as our minds develop. 

The Tower of Babel by Pieter Bruegel the Elder (1563)

Gaonkar Umbrella

Sound Reactive Umbrella

The next piece I was unable to take a photograph of as it was too dark and involved strobe lighting. Inside this tiny exhibit was a wire framed umbrella, which vibrated whilst being suspended in darkness. The frame of the umbrella was manipulated by the sound of our voices. This reminded me of how our brains are our conscious controllers and our personality. Everything we is controlled in the brain.