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Urban Research Theater Newsletter - October, 2007 ------------------------------------------------------ CONTENTS ------------------------------------------------------ ANNOUNCEMENTS 1) Call for Participants: Another City - January 2008 MISCELLANY 2) Ben: Journal Fragments 3) Michele: Working on the Primal Body 4) Grotowski: "We are like trees..." 5) Tony Allen: "The storyteller serves the story..." ------------------------------------------------------ ANNOUNCEMENTS ------------------------------------------------------ 1) CALL FOR PARTICIPANTS: ANOTHER CITY - JANUARY 2008 Four big days of work and wonder in the beating heart of winter. /// ANOTHER CITY: HEART OF WINTER /// Group singing - theater craft - individual discovery - urban pilgrimage. January 3-6, 2008 New York City This January, when the days are short and cold and the year is new, we will kindle fires in ourselves through group song and individual performance research. "Another City: Heart of Winter" is a unique chance to rediscover your city and your self through the techniques of the Urban Research Theater. Previous experience with singing or performance is not required. Participants should be comfortable running, jumping, and lying on the floor. The group is limited to 10 people. Participation Fee: $300 if paid after December 1 $250 if paid before December 1 $50 deposit secures your place To Register, email ben@urbanresearchtheater.com. For a complete event schedule, visit http://www.urbanresearchtheater.com/ ------------------------------------------------------ MISCELLANY ------------------------------------------------------ 2) BEN: JOURNAL FRAGMENTS Sorting through our vocabulary: "Untaming" - "Exercises" - "Contact" - "Creative Life" - "Witnessing" - "Vulnerability" - "Associations" - "Impulses" - "Fountain" - "Play" - "Actions" - ... Every word must be tested and refined in practice until we understand what it is pointing to, so that we can use it together as a tool... "I want them to see the reality of my soul, not the content of my psychology." "Two lions in the room." "Continuous line of attention: The spectator is looking for gaps in the attention that confirm the unreality and imaginary status of the other world. If the actor does not leave gaps, the spectator is increasingly unable to prevent that other world from taking on the status of reality. So: I see the actor doing something which does not seem possible unless what they're reacting to is real. I wait for the gaps and breaks that will indicate its unreality, but they do not come. I begin to feel that it is real. That something is really there. It does not matter whether we say that the thing is real and it causes the actions, or the actions are real and they cause the thing." "Types of improvisation... Armored: You don't see any more of the person than if they were speaking at a cocktail party; actions are filtered through ideas. Shallow: The comic fountain, absurd, crazy, edgy, like the comic (partial) mask, revealing neuroses. Deep: Revealing inner life, vulnerable, present in fullness but without armor, like the tragic (full) mask, disarmed and whole." "Outdoor Structure: 1) Untaming - Run wild but with purpose like a dog; sudden changes in direction; use exercises while keeping wildness. 2) Hunting - Listen and see; wait until something moves; go to it quickly without making sound; when you reach or lose track of it, start again. 3) Singing - Find sound; go over and through the technical elements; go into the grain of the song." "Antigone = Cindy Sheehan" "We become superhuman so that we can become human." - MF "I had misunderstood. When she said that thing about the special moment, it caused me to doubt why we do physical work as preparation in the first place. So then I proposed that we do another 30 minutes of physical work, but this time I tried to just do actions rather than movement. The result was that it became (for me) an acting improvisation rather than the physical work. Afterwards, we talked about the 'dense' moment in the first session, and I realized that it was not just the fact of my picking up the bead and throwing it out of the space. The density lasted 2-3 minutes after that. Also, I quite often pick up things from the floor and toss them out of the space, and it is not usually a very dense action. So why was this moment different? Absolutely because of the physical work, the preparatory work that preceded it." "I now see that there are two sources of the word 'action,' and that it is possible to do physical actions and have them be very real but on a very mundane level. This is what Grotowski called a 'truthy'. Now I see the way in which action, like song and movement, can be an approach to the top of the mountain. And what is on the top of the mountain is not 'action' but 'total act,' the peak at which the paths of action, song, and movement converge. Many (but not all) paths lead to the top of the mountain. Some may be easier than others." "The total act can emerge directly out of the body. The 'imagination' of the mind can get in the way of this. Today I arrived knowing that I needed to enter the space only with the desire to free the body. The body of joy and play. And that you can never think of what you are going to do next. Never imagine or guide. To really search. You can say this and read it over and over again and it never matters until you feel it - recognize it - remember it. The work was so joyful today! The time passed so quickly! I have not felt that way since I worked with Rena Mirecka in 2004. Now, what does it mean to try to make it stay?" "Simplicity. In this good work the physical movements were much simpler. No need for them to be complex. The complexity and contradictions were coming from the mind. Simple is the exploration of the body. Simple but total, whole. The smallest movement invokes the whole body." "At one moment I was pushing against the wall as I crouched and stood up over and over again. Then I was throwing myself against the wall, and then rubbing myself against it. At that moment I suddenly understood why Grotowski was always using martyr figures like the Constant Prince and Jesus Christ. It's not because he wanted to depict those particular myths. It's because suffering and torture is the flip-side of ecstatic joy. There is a strange liminal connection between pain and joy, this total embodiment which is also transcendental. This gives insight into the medieval devotional practices of contemplating the Passion, not to mention that BDSM studio in San Francisco. This work that we do - it is the opposite of torture. Not the antidote to torture, which must be political, but the actual incarnated antithesis of the act of torture. I feel grateful..." "What is the beautiful place, the place where you realize that 'I can do this forever'...? It's the place where you are doing just what you want to do. You may feel the strength, flexibility, or energy that your body has, but you do not confuse athleticism with play." "To search with the body. Not to search in the mind while the body is still or is flailing about, but to search directly with the body... This is it, this is the difference. Another door opens..." ------------------------------------------------------ 3) MICHELE: WORKING ON THE PRIMAL BODY Ben said, "Your body is urban, not primal. All the energy is in the face and hands." I took off for the North Woods. I wanted to climb a tree at the edge, but couldn't bring my body to accomplish that wish. Instead I walked barefoot through the woods. The twigs and dirt and dead tree trunks felt good - sometimes sharp, but alerting me to my skin, my edges. I followed the sound of water and found a waterfall with a shallow stream. I stepped into the stream and my feet sank into the sand until the water was up to my ankles. A golden retriever joined me, cooling his foot pads and drinking, then rejoined his human running on one of the trails above us. I walked back through the woods and came to a clearing with bunches of high grass where butterflies congregated. I noticed a small bush with cherry tomatoes growing on it and, beside it, a rasberry bush. I suddenly felt free of the dense woods and wanted to sprint over the open grass. I saw Ben from a distance and waited for him to notice me running towards him. He was looking at the woods where I had entered before and didn't hear me until I was almost beside him. He smiled and said, "I was wondering how you would arrive. This was how I hoped you would." And then, a little later, "You couldn't climb that tree before because you didn't have the body to do it. Go and do it now." Next we looked for a hunter's walk. I got into a position of readiness - coiled and ready to spring. As soon as I lowered into the hunting position, my eyes sharpened - literally, physically - and my listening became more precise. I stepped slowly. I hunted the sounds of insects, two joggers talking loudly, an orange butterfly and a breeze - anything that disturbed the air. My ear was almost injured by the sharp sounds coming from a flock of birds who took off like flying scissors from behind a tree. I noticed the dirt underneath the grass holding me up. My skin felt thick, like a strong, inflexible house. Something inside of me wanted to move... to either speak or sing. ------------------------------------------------------ 4) "WE ARE LIKE TREES..." "Our rights as men should begin with our acts rather than with declarations or testimonials to ourselves. We are like trees. We don't have to worry in which direction destiny, climate, the winds, and the tempest are veering, or to know whether the earth will be fertile of sterile; the very fact of our birth obliges us to respond to the challenge of life and to answer it in the manner of nature itself, which never hurries or hesitates. If our seed falls upon stone, so much the worse. Even this does not free us from our duty; and if we refuse, on whatever pretext, to perform the acts required of us, we shall be like a tree thrown into a fire and destroyed. And that will be right. This fire is not of a social order; it flames inside me as soon as I betray, in one way or another, my duty as a living man, the duty to perform acts. The worst threat to man's survival lies in my own sterility; and this sterility is nothing but an escape from creation." - J.G. ------------------------------------------------------ 5) "THE STORYTELLER SERVES THE STORY..." The storyteller serves the story. The fool serves the moment. The shaman serves the tribe. - Tony Allen ------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------ As always, comments and feedback are welcome. Ben Spatz ben@urbanresearchtheater.com New York City