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.