Re: First Rehearsal

Marie, that beginning exercise sounds great. I've done similar ones before.

The idea of this being about "psyching ourselves out" and falling on our own arrows...eros...yes, I'm very much there with that, nice, nice...

I like the idea of people having read th story, then talking through the story and DRAWING the thing on some huge-ass piece of paper...making a map, if you will. Still of the original story.

And then generating?

Tom, thoughts?

I feel like we're still at the point where we should each lead a piece of the rehearsal...then the next time we meet, we can plan a broader arc for the time we have this semester, and figure out our rotation.

Yes?

Do we need to get a room? Do we need any props or supplies?

New to the blog world

So this is my first time working with a blog. I personally have a strong dislike of the word "blog" but the idea is great!

Anyway. Thoughts. First. I think some of Jenny's ideas for jumping into the material are great. I think a homework assignment of reading the myth and finding one image that resonates would be fabulous and not too much to do. I actually did a shameless internet search the other day to find a quick version to read and found a whole bunch with no problem. So a far as I am concerned that is all it has to be. Just something to get a little refresher on the details of the myth.

I think actually that as far as time-breakdown percentages go maybe more like 20% physical and 80% material would be better right now. I think I personally want to jump start the whole thing.  The sooner we have some sense of a piece to fiddle with, the sooner this will feel like it is breathing on its own. 

As far as the physical...I was thinking of doing an ensemble exercise I have always found really effective at either building ensemble of demonstrating what needs to happen to build ensemble.

It goes like so. Everyone standing in a circle. Lock eyes with the person across. Soften gaze. Include the two people on either side into your scope of awareness. Then add the new two and the next two until you are "looking" at the how group. And then with no particular leader everyone simultaneously take two steps forward and on the the left. It usually takes a few tries but once it is going we just let it go and see where the group goes. This can lead to incredible things when everyone is able to give into it.

It would take maybe 15 or 20 minutes.

As for content work, I think taking part of the time to talk through the story the major plot points, and identify the really rich symbolic elements that resonate for each of us; the points that there can be lots of exploration. And then we can take the rest of the time to take a few scene titles ( as Jenny suggested) and try to explore those through either scene work, or more elemental compositional gestures and tableau; in a sense just start to explore the physical vocabulary we might want to work with. 

For me I look at this myth mostly in reference to the symbolism of how we interact with love. The ways in which we hide ourselves from our lovers for fear of what...? of being as fully ourselves as we absolutely are?...of having sides that are to big, too ugly, too powerful, too weak, too divine to handle?  That we lay too much value in the perfection, blind faith, trust. That we fall on our own arrow when we either least expect it,  or would really prefer not to cause it's gonna make mamma real angry. That we are so able to "psych ourselves out" (HELLO!!) and to convince ourselves or be convinced our partner might be not right, they might be false,  or not good enough, or  stupid, or downright monstrous when really all those fears are parts of our own dark side more than anything else.  And how mythologically typical to finally realize what you have as it flies out the door. And all the ridiculous bologna we put ourselves through to get another chance. That is what I am excited to explore in this story. 

that is all for now.

Dream Image

Had a dream last night that we had a woman walking along the top of the high wall in Tom's courtyard, wrapped in a sheet and carrying the excess fabric. She was crying. Someone asked why. She dropped the fabric and it unfolded, that incredibly light, reflective silk that is almost parachute-silk. The story of why was projected across it in images and words. Then she jumped, and the fabric became the river Styx.

Planning First Rehearsal

So we had a good audition! Good energy in the room (some of it, as Marie pointed out, was the "nervous energy" of an audition) and, by the end, we had a good crowd. A few surprises, a few punches to roll with, but a good start.

If all the folks we liked accept, we've got a working group of seven -- three men and four women, with the strong chance that we'll add two men and one more woman, bringing us to an even five and five.

We want our first rehearsal to be three hours long. We know that we want to push movement, continue to push physical training, but that we don't want the session to break down as "class, then making stuff" -- we want to INTEGRATE training and generation, to the degree we can. We got a little of this today, and we want more.

IDEAS for FIRST REHEARSAL
- I'd like to get the story in the room. HOW to do this? Have someone READ the story...go around the circle and TELL each other the story, passing off the wand...Bring in a huge sheet of paper and do a timeline of the story...pair people up, and have them come up with a way to tell the story, then share with the group? I just want to give us a base point of "these are the things that we know happen in the original story"

- What about doing more of the GENERATIVE work with the story...We could pick a part to deal with...my idea would be to give everyone the title of their piece "and she fell in love with the mysterious voice" or "so she went to the underworld and" or "there were once three beautiful daughters," then give everyone an IMAGE from our collection of images, or a few PROPS, or a few more elements to include like "a silence, an entrance, a moment of ecstasy," (or all of the above) and give them time to work something out. We could have a pile of pieces of text (I'd have to work on this) that folks could mine for dialogues or diatribes...and see what happens. So basically we'd control it somewhat, decide what variables we want to fix, and give folks time to work. We could work in two small groups, show the pieces, the do what Tom talked about at our "breakfast meeting" and keep things, throw them, have people do the pieces again but differently, etc.

- What about giving EVERYONE the homework, between now and first rehearsal, of reading the C&P story, and finding ONE image or piece of music that feels, to them, like their way into this story?

Okay, that's what I've got for now. Thoughts? Comments?

New Materials

Found several books at the PCL yesterday, including a couple of children's books that re-tell the cupid/psyche or beauty/beast story. Also an analysis of a c&S in afganistan, a psychological analysis of the story, and that wonderful "how to be a good mother-in-law" pamphlet. I'll bring them on Friday.

Have been thinking about what is motivating me to explore this myth. I think the myth itself is interesting, but what's really behind this for me is interrogating how the ideas behind the myth work on us now. The fact that this is a story to which other stories can trace their lineage, to which we can trace certain tropes in our culture (the rich man with the trophy wife? The pageant queen? The jealous mother-in-law?) is what really gets me going. I think one of my hopes for this piece is that it will go beyond telling the C&S story, into somehow creating layers of story that comment on the story, talk back to it, unearth it.

Does that make sense? I think that's why the pop-culture aesthetic keeps resonating with me.

Was just thinking about that today as I was walking the dogs. Thinking about hopes for our final product.

after audition

hi

am looking at my schedule for this week and I have big love after our audition, if we could be done with our post audition talking by 6PM, which gives us an hour, that would be great.

what an exciting first post!!!

T