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Urban Research Theater Newsletter - August, 2007 ------------------------------------------------------ CONTENTS ------------------------------------------------------ ANNOUNCEMENTS 1) Another City: Final Call! MISCELLANY 2) The Rat 3) Eating Fruit in the Shower ------------------------------------------------------ ANNOUNCEMENTS ------------------------------------------------------ 1) ANOTHER CITY: FINAL CALL! This is the last call for participants for our three-day intensive workshop from August 17-19. We've got a great group of people signed up, and I would love to have one or two more. Please contact me ASAP if you are interested! In the heat of the New York City summer, experience another way - another city - another self. /// ANOTHER CITY /// One intensive week of outdoor meditation, group singing, performance creation and urban pilgrimage. August 17-19, 2007 New York City $200 for three unforgettable days. For details and a complete schedule, visit: http://www.anothercitynyc.com/ ------------------------------------------------------ MISCELLANY ------------------------------------------------------ 2) THE RAT I asked a good friend and mentor about the strong desire I have to stop an exercise as soon as it gets good. The moment arrives, I am teetering on the edge of presence, and something struggles, fights, resists. I want to stop. If I am the leader, this is very often when I end an exercise: Bringing us up to the door of the unknown, I knock, but do not lead the way fully in. I asked if he had any thoughts or experience on this. He told me a story from an earlier teacher of his. It's really a metaphor, or an image: That in this work we are like a rat who has come up out of the dark tunnels into a bustling subway station. The rat comes up through a grate, cautiously, carefully. Then a sudden movement nearby startles it away from the grate, across the floor a few feet, and BOOM. It cannot get back. It is exposed. Terrified. All of those flashing lights and big moving bodies. Another kind of awareness is needed in order for the rat to become comfortable moving above ground. But it can happen. Something has to wake up, and something has to relax, in order for the rat to make sense of its new, more intense environment. This is how it is in the exercises. I come up out of the grate, see what this new world is going to demand of me, and want to flee back underground. But if I can chase myself away from the grate... run out into the middle of the crowd and trap myself in exposure, so that I cannot escape... Every day, a bit farther from the grate. Greater risk. Farther into the light. ------------------------------------------------------ 3) EATING FRUIT IN THE SHOWER When I got home last Friday, I was so happy that I ate a plum in the shower. I feel like I am rediscovering, or even recreating, theater from the ground up. My partner and I are working 4-5 days a week. She has never done theater or performance before working with me, so I am teaching her everything I know, and at the same time, learning all over again how to work. It is like when I was working alone, starting from the most basic elements, except that everything is different now because there are two of us. We are working on physical exercises, singing, and actions. The creation of structure. How to create structure that leaves room for spontaneity. What to set. What not to set. How to work. We are not in a hurry, but we are moving as fast as we can. I want everything to be clear. No muddy steps. I catch myself stopping work on a particular thing, because it is difficult, and moving on. Okay, it's not the end of the world, but I will make a note to go back to it. Nothing will be left undone, nothing will be skipped. Nothing will be created that does not have a solid foundation. I am tired of doing and seeing theater that does not know what it is made of, that does not know what it is. We will discover or create what performance is for us. There are different kinds of knowledge, different levels and depths. It is not just a matter of doing but of process. When you discover something through your own searching, you own it in a different way than if someone teaches it to you. That's why the creator of a craft, someone like O Sensai, is always on a different level than even the first generation of students. There is something unique in quality that comes from discovering your own work. It comes from thoroughness, from having to go down every road, reaching every dead end and turning around before finally discovering the way through. Ultimately this depth of understanding is irreplaceable. Last Friday we began to explore the possibility of using actions in a small repeatable cycle. Not physical actions, but inner actions. Not setting the manifestation of the inner action, not setting the story or image. A line of inner actions? Does that make sense? Will it bear fruit? It doesn't matter, because if it doesn't bear fruit, it will still have been a necessary detour. I want to leave no stone unturned, no path uninvestigated. I don't just want to solve the maze, I want to possess it. ------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------ As always, comments and feedback are welcome. Ben Spatz ben@urbanresearchtheater.com New York City