MCP503 ROUGH draft

Continuing from Introduction …

For this paper, I would like to present a report of this process.

In order to do this, I have divided my process into four separate methods of research / development:

1.     To define & develop my own distinctive body-based exercises (Body Tuning)

2.     To conduct workshops for the purposes of:

a)    Receiving critical feedback on my Body Tuning exercises

b)    Developing Creative Response exercises

c)     Exploring methods of creating New Work

3.     To research methods of others

a)    Research other body-based performance methods

b)    Conduct an interview survey of contemporary performance art teachers

4.     To use this information to develop a well-rounded performance art pedagogy

1. Body Tuning (BT)

To explore methods of preparing the body as a versatile medium for art

by developing exercises that engage in relationship with fundamental concepts of self, body, time, space, gravity, surface, form, body sound and motion.

Using the analogy of “tuning” a musical instrument or an engine in order for it to function smoothly and efficiently, I am developing a series of physical preparation exercises. It is my philosophy that one cannot really “invent” movement, only discover and utilize what is already inherent in the body for a specific purpose. Each of these exercises isolates one specific movement concept for in depth exploration and creative development.

Vibration

The use of vibration and shaking releases tension from the body – as well as energizing and preparing the body for further action. It also embodies the idea of energizing the space surrounding the body – which gives a relationship with space that creates an “energy field” around the mover, in turn feeding back energy into the body.

Spirals

This exercise isolates each joint in turn with a small spiraling action and gradually builds up to realize it’s full range of motion with an emphasis on visualizing “expansion”, “space” and “openness” inside the joint. The action of going through a joint’s full range of motion creates circular gestures in space. If one could see the air, it might look like flowing water with eddies and whirlpools resulting from these gestures. This imagery is continued in creative play.

Floor massage/Cat Stretch

A combined exercise beginning with the weight of the body released or “melted” into the floor. The desired movement quality is one of fluidity – like liquid being poured. From this emerges a cat-like elongation of the body that presses into a stretch and then melts back into liquid again, luxuriating in the movement as a sensual experience.

Breath

In this exercise, the breath is the sole motivating factor of all motion that occurs. The conscious use of breath facilitates organic movement responses in the body. This connection with the breath also develops a heightened sense of plasticity in the resulting gestures and forms. This exercise also seeks to develop a sense of full expansion of the body in space, as well as experiencing the opposite extreme of emptiness, deflation and release.

Transfer of Weight

This exercise is an intense exploration of the body’s weight in relation to gravity and a heightened awareness of the nuances of exactly where in the body weight is being supported. There is an emphasis on subtle shifts that occur inside the body in order to maintain balance and equilibrium – one that I find akin to structural ideas of “tensegrity”. Transfer of weight is also the key factor in locomotion – allowing a body to travel in space via its relationship with gravity.

Definition

This exercise serves to guide the individual away from a “self-conscious” cognizance of the shape of the self-body and into a more objective sense of their presence as a sculptural form in space. This allows a full ego-less embrace of the potential power in the raw material of the human form alone – before any action has even taken place.  It enforces a sense of defining ones edges, the surface tension separating matter from “ma” (Japanese word to summarize the concept of the in-between).

Shape

(1. Rounded 2. Straight 3. Twisted)

The goals of this exercise are to isolate the purist possible formats for the concept of shape in the body and to work with each one individually within its limitations to discover all the possibilities it will allow a given body. This works in conjunction with the resulting shaping of negative space.

2. Workshops

I have been conducting a series of workshop sessions with a variety of community groups. Among them are; a contemporary dance company, a group of Butoh dancers, art students and a group of mixed backgrounds, ages and ability levels.

The purpose of these sessions has been to receive critical feedback on my Body Tuning exercises, to explore ideas for Creative Response exercises and to put into play ideas for the artistic development and creation of New Work.

So far, the responses have been incredibly encouraging.

a) Critical Feedback on Body Tuning

Most participants concur on their experiences with the Body Tuning exercises and are making the discoveries I am leading them towards.

Something that seems to be similar in each individual’s report is the fact that they are having an inner dialogue about the process. The fact that these exercises give a defined enough concept and also enough space for that dialogue to occur is encouraging to me in itself.

There have been useful suggestions for how I might guide and instruct more clearly and less ambiguously in some instances and also for possibilities of expanding the exercises creatively.

Other BT exercises explored during the workshop sessions were:

Quality of Motion

My intention with this exercise is to explore a movement quality in it’s most pure and concise form. In the workshop we isolated the contrasting qualities of Percussive and then Sustained movement.

Body Soundz

I am gradually developing a body of “Body Soundz” exercises to explore sound that can be created by the body alone – as with my current movement explorations, I am trying to specifically isolate the most basic sound concepts in the body and address them individually in their purest form.

b) Creative Response (CR)

To use creative response, play and interaction for engagement in relationship with “other” in response to such entities as: sound, image, text, environment, object, color, smell, taste, texture, concept, narrative, technology, person and identity.

Below are examples of Creative Response exercises developed in the workshop sessions.

Call & Response

Played in partners to encourage intent “listening” (in both an aural and visual sense) to the call and a resulting spontaneous movement and / or sound response.

Finding The Essence 

Based on a Stanislavski theatre exercise for character development, questions are posed to assist in providing vivid metaphorical imagery. In this workshop, it was used like a party game with participants posing questions about each other.

Creative Synesthesia

A group game to explore the effect of sensory stimuli on creating a performative action. In this workshop, the action response choices were Motion, Sound and Language. The qualities being responded to were those of: shape, color, sound, texture, smell, taste, word and association (meaning a literal association with function) of a number of objects.

Abstracting Adverbs

This is a modification of the “Acting Adverbs” game – also known as “In the Manner of the Word”. In the workshop we approached this in two different ways – as an individual exercise and also as a group game, experimenting with a variety of structures.

Movement Telepathy

Derived from an established movement theatre partnering exercise of “Mirroring”,

with the goal of the partners coming to a point of “fusion leadership” – where they are both moving together in mirror-image movement telepathy.

Being able to work on ideas for Creative Response exercises in this synergetic setting has been extremely valuable, as it has given me an opportunity to really experiment and try out new material and discover the real-live responses of other human beings to these ideas! The participants have been very helpful and accommodating in assisting with functional structures for these exercises so that the concepts can be explored interactively. Some of this process has been a matter of strategy, rather like setting rules for a game.

c) New Work (NW)

Assignments with a view to developing a performance piece.

Place

 In the workshops this assignment was developed in three stages, guiding the performer through a process of creative responses to sensory stimuli associated with a specific environment. These actions were assembled into a time-line and presented as a short piece.

3. Research methods of others

a) Body-based performance methods

The main thrust of my current research has been to look at other body-based methods of approaching performance pedagogy. This research has been conducted by reading books and articles and viewing videos with the intention of identifying similarities and differences to my own developing pedagogy and making discoveries that can inspire the furthering of my work.

I have chosen three methodologies to include in this report based on how much they resonate with my own ideas and also how much information I was able to find.

“Exercises For Rebel Artists: Radical Performance Pedagogy”

Well this seemed like a good place to start!

Guillermo Gomez-Pena and Roberto Sifuentes (of La Pocha Nostra) did not disappoint me, they are rebel and radical indeed! The purpose of the book is to guide the reader through their pedagogy step by step, with enough information and clarity for the reader to conduct the exercises for themselves. I see connections in their work to Augusto Boal’s “Theatre of the Oppressed”, however even though their artistic, social and political choices are so radical and provocative, their pedagogy is one that does not necessarily dictate their political platform or aesthetic results, but allows the individual to develop their own artistic choices.

I found many similarities in their pedagogy to mine – including their approach to the body as “raw material” for making art. Also in their use of objects as inspiration for creative response. I feel I could very easily incorporate many of these exercises into my pedagogy.

Guillermo Gomez-Pena says of his approach to creating “…. always in response to the moment, with a sense of urgency.”

Of his pedagogical vision he states “ … the classroom … would become a temporary space of utopian possibilities” and “… a nerve center for progressive thought and action.”

His colleague Sara Jane Bailes states, “The body is a way of thinking, and intellectual work can be a creative practice.”

I agree strongly that the body is a way of thinking. There is a process that occurs in the body through focused movement that also causes neurological changes in the brain. I believe that this opens up possibilities of new thoughts and ideas in many capacities.

“Viewpoints”

I began to read about Anne Bogart’s work with Viewpoints and Composition as a result of investigating Tadaki Suzuki’s movement method for actors (which I had found to be incompatible with my own, as I felt there was not enough space for exploration and discovery.)

Immediately I felt like I was hearing my own creative language!

I followed the thread back to post-modern dance choreographer Mary Overlie’s Six Viewpoints or SSTEMS of Space, Shape, Time, Emotion, Movement and Story.

Bogart’s development of this system in collaboration with director Tina Landau includes Nine Viewpoints of Time and Space:

Time – Tempo, Duration, Kinesthetic Response, Repetition.

Space – Shape, Gesture, Architecture, Spatial Relationship, Topography.

Within these categories there are also sub-categories – for example, within Architecture are the subjects of Texture, Colour, Light and Sound.

Bogart and Landau have been examining vocal sounds with this type of deconstructive method as well – using categories of Pitch, Dynamic, Acceleration/Deceleration, Silence and Timbre.

All of this, plus their compositional concepts of using “ingredients” (objects, textures, colours, sounds, actions) and also of borrowing approaches and terminology from music and film composition is very familiar to me and the way I work.

Like “Exercises For Rebel Artists”, “Viewpoints” is an instructional guide for the reader to put into practice. I feel I can easily integrate elements of this method into my pedagogy, as much of it is already there.

“ … it is impossible to say where these ideas actually originated, because they are timeless and belong to the natural principles of movement, time and space.” – Anne Bogart.

Butoh

Since it’s beginnings in Japan as an expressionist reaction to World War Two and its aftermath (with connections to German Expressionism through choreographer Mary Wigman), this dance form has branched out into a variety of modern hybrids. However, I still see a link to its original roots through the pedagogical approach of any Butoh-based movement classes I have participated in or heard descriptions of.

What is most distinctive in Butoh methodology is the use of imagery. And although much of the imagery is nature-based, that certainly doesn’t mean it’s pretty! Butoh fully confronts and embraces the horrific and grotesque or perverse as well as the exquisitely beautiful or delicate – it is an art of violent extremes. It grapples with archetypes of human, animal, nature and spirit – forces seen and unseen.

Tatsumi Hijikata is recognized as “The Godfather” of Butoh. (To me his physical countenance bears resemblance to Albrecht Durer’s Christ.) Kazuo Ohno was also a leading pioneer of the movement and any current Butoh pedagogy holds a direct lineage to the methods of these two artists. Very early on, the body-based methods of Michizo Noguchi with his “Noguchi Taiso” (or Noguchi Gymnastics) were absorbed into Butoh training due to their image-based approach to the body.

Although I would not necessarily consider my own work and pedagogy as “Butoh-based”, it is certainly the practice that most resonates with me in its approach to the self as medium for art. Here, I use the word “self” to describe the complete entity of body-mind-spirit that Butoh demands the commitment of. It is here that I find the underlying themes in my work of Transformation, Metamorphosis and Transcendence are called into play, as they are inherent in the Butoh philosophy itself. It is here that my desire as an artist to feel the “voluptuous surrender” of the self into something greater than the self – yet would not exist without the self – is satisfied.

My main avenues of current research are through recent articles – some by practitioners I know within the Butoh community. Zack Fuller worked extensively with Min Tanaka, who danced with Hijikata before founding his community “Body Weather Farm”, where people from all walks of life could come and participate in his movement workshops and farm the land. Fuller has written about his experiences with Tanaka in his essay “Seeds of an anti-hierarchic ideal: summer training at Body Weather Farm”.

Tanya Calamoneri is a dancer, choreographer and teacher who has trained intensively under the direct Hijikata lineage. I am currently reading her PhD dissertation entitled “Becoming Nothing to Become Something: Methods of Performer Training in Hijikata Tatsumi’s Buto Dance”. Calamoneri also compiled a text guide of “Butoh transformation exercises” for Scene magazine – which I have been referring to.

Another article of great interest to me is an interview for the Japan Foundation with Akaji Maro, dancer with Hijikata and founder of DaiRakudakan. He speaks about his approach to the body in response to guided imagery, “… I will use any words as long as they get the body to move. But that doesn’t mean that the final movement is an embodiment of the words. The meaning lies somewhere else. The body drinks in the words and they completely dissolve there, leaving only the state of the body, with its movements …”

Of his introduction to Noguchi Gymnastics, he says “It showed me a completely new image of gymnastics as something flexible and formless rather than a set of strict movements and forms, and that the body was also something flexible and formless.”

Of responding to imagery in Hijikata’s pedagogy, Calamoneri states, “ … the images act as a gateway to an experience, which can then be interpreted and shaped by each individual dancer.” She quotes Hijikata as saying “… my body trains itself as a matter of course … when you come in touch with such things (these extreme nature images and experiences) something is naturally forced out of your body.”

According to Fuller, Tanaka is so anti-hierarchy and anti-structure that he does not want to be regarded as a “teacher” or as having a “method” or even his dance form being recognized as Butoh. He describes Body Weather as “ … an ideology that informs training dance and daily life.” and that Tanaka “ … envisions the body as a force of nature: ever-changing, omni-centred, and completely open to external stimuli.”

b) Interview survey

My other avenue of research has been to conduct a survey on contemporary teachers of performance art. (As of March 15, I am compiling the results of this survey and will include them in the final paper.)

Other research has been for the purpose of gaining knowledge and insights on pedagogy as a practice and the structures and systems of teaching.

4. Performance Art Pedagogy

How does this all come together to produce a well-rounded, comprehensive pedagogy for performance art?

I propose that in order to use the self to create art, one must address the self as medium. Therefore, in order to prepare this medium for optimum use in creation, the body and mind need to be “tuned” – alert, responsive and open to possibility.

I believe that these physical and creative exercises I am compiling and developing help to provide a universal, unbiased substructure for the body and the imagination from which to explore, discover and create.

Add Definition, History & Context – to research the history of performance art in order to gain an understanding of the platform it provides.

Add Production (presentation of work) – to gain a working knowledge of the procedures involved in making a piece, producing an event and presenting to an audience.

And so, I present a syllabus outline that includes all of these elements:

Comprehensive Objectives and Outcomes

* For students to understand the concepts that define Performance Art, its origins and its distinctive role in contemporary art.

* To investigate its potential for modes of expression, statement, aesthetics and presentation that are uniquely unpredictable, challenging, provocative and exciting.

* For students not to feel alienated by esoteric performance, but to be enabled to develop their own critical voice with which to comment on their experiences.

* For students to be enabled to confidently develop Self as performer/medium, creator/author with freedom from self-conscious inhibitions.

* For students to develop their own distinctive creative voice with which to pursue their work.

Specific Goals and Objectives

Definition, History & Context

* To research and analyze definitions of performance art – with the understanding that this is an evolving art form to be continuously re-defined.

* To introduce key historic movements in performance art, as well as individual artists and groups throughout the twentieth century.

And to regard the political, social and philosophical issues surrounding the creation of performance art in each era.

* To look at recent work in contemporary performance art, discuss how it fits into historic context, how it is now developing due to current influences and to contemplate its future.

Physical Preparation

* To introduce and explore methods of preparing the body as a versatile medium for art.

* To engage in relationship with fundamental concepts of self, body, time, space, gravity, surface, form, body sound and motion using “Body Tuning” exercises.

* To establish a routine of basic exercises in which to develop these principles as a regular practice.

Creative Response, Play & Interaction

* To utilize aspects of physical preparation in creative response and interaction.

* To engage in relationship with “other” in response to such entities as: sound, image, text, environment, object, color, smell, taste, texture, concept, narrative, technology, person and identity.

* To discover and develop the potential of Self as a viable means of artistic communication.

Assignments & New Work

* To apply physical and creative tools explored in the class towards the development of original new work.

* To establish Self as “author” or “creator” of artistic work.

* To foster a decision making process of creative critical thinking.

* To present original new work in a performance setting as a culmination of the project and manifestation of the work as art piece.

* To receive feedback and reflection on the work produced.