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Urban Research Theater Newsletter - November, 2007 ------------------------------------------------------ CONTENTS ------------------------------------------------------ ANNOUNCEMENTS 1) Another City: Heart of Winter - Call for Participants 2) Fiscal Sponsorship from Fractured Atlas 3) Fellowship in Laboratory Theater Ethics 4) Summer Project 2008 PROSE 5) Ben: Thoughts on Theater Studies 6) Michele: The Song Gives the Singer the Body to Fly ------------------------------------------------------ ANNOUNCEMENTS ------------------------------------------------------ 1) ANOTHER CITY: HEART OF WINTER - CALL FOR PARTICIPANTS Group Singing ¥ Theater Craft Individual Discovery ¥ Urban Pilgrimage /// ANOTHER CITY: HEART OF WINTER /// Four big days of work and wonder in the beating heart of winter. 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 yourself 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. To register, email ben@urbanresearchtheater.com. For complete details, schedule, and participant testimony, please visit: http://www.urbanresearchtheater.com/ ------------------------------------------------------ 2) FISCAL SPONSORSHIP FROM FRACTURED ATLAS We are pleased to announce that Urban Research Theater is now a sponsored project of Fractured Atlas, a non-profit arts service organization. This means that financial contributions, made payable to Fractured Atlas, are tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law! Over the next few years, we intend to apply for a range of arts and other grants, and to develop a membership system that will support our ongoing work. In the meantime, we are extremely grateful for individual donations, which can be made easily via the following link: https://www.fracturedatlas.org/donate/1327 For more information about Fractured Atlas, please visit www.fracturedatlas.org. ------------------------------------------------------ 3) FELLOWSHIP IN LABORATORY THEATER ETHICS We are even more thrilled to announce that Urban Research Theater has been awarded the 2008 Rachel Rutherford "Excellence in Theater Laboratory Ethics" Fellowship. URT was selected "because of the work you do; the intentionality, purity, ethics, and faithfulness with which you do it; and because of the thoughtful, private artist-journal entries which you publish, which nourish other artists." Funding for this fellowship comes from Rachel Rutherford, with 100% corporate matching from Microsoft Corporation. The Urban Research Theater is very grateful to Rachel and to Microsoft for this vote of confidence and material support. See below for our plans to channel this funding into a major project next summer. ------------------------------------------------------ 4) SUMMER PROJECT 2008 Urban Research Theater is planning a month-long, multi-faceted event for June 2008. We intend to sublet a large studio apartment or loft in Manhattan for the entire month, and to make our work publicly available during that time period by holding a large number of workshops and performance showings for a wide range of participants, spectators, and guests artists. Our activities during the month will include: - Open workshops for the general public and all interested parties. - Closed work sessions for invited guests with skills in performance research. - Encounters with theater companies and other practice groups. - Showings of our two performance structures now in development. - A rigorous schedule for the core team to continue our daily work. Funding for this project will come from the Rutherford Fellowship (see above) as well as other grants and donations that we may receive in the coming months. IF YOU ARE INTERESTED in participating in this event as a student, teacher, guest artist, coordinator, academic, theorist, funder, documenter, or intern, please contact me at the email address given below. IF YOU KNOW OF A SPACE, private or public, that could be used for this project, please let me know as soon as possible. We are eager to create this unique event in a welcoming, hospitable space, and welcome proposals from potential hosts. This project is a test phase for an alternative model of long-term, ensemble-based performance research: one which is based on the principle of continuity between teaching, performance, and collaboration, so that all three of these modes can take place fluidly in the same place and on the same day. ------------------------------------------------------ PROSE ------------------------------------------------------ 5) BEN: THOUGHTS ON THEATER STUDIES Since beginning the doctoral program in theater at City University of New York, I have started to think and write in a new way about the field of theater studies. Obviously, my approach to this field cannot be separated from my practical work. They have to be two sides of the same coin, and I intend to work daily to destabilize the dividing line between theory and practice that is so heavily inscribed in academia. Theater studies as a purely academic field is incomplete, because it is impossible to fully understand the act of performance through rational and discursive thought. Rather than taking a side in the relationship between theory and practice, theater studies should be a bridge between the two. The act of writing about theater should come out of the act of perceiving theater, which is an embodied act. The role of theater-thinkers must be to mediate between the thinking and the theatering. As we develop the practice of critical thinking, we should not lose our innocence. Somehow, the animal ethics of the body must be understood alongside and in relation to the political concerns of postcolonialism, feminism, and other struggles for social justice. We cannot ask whether there is "room" for innocence in politics or theory; this is like a mind asking whether it's useful or not to have a body. There is no mind without a body, and there is no theater studies without the intimate act of performance. To respond fully to such an act, theater scholars must speak not only about bodies but from bodies--our own. Specifically, I have begun to notice the difference between statements that begin with "I'm interested in..." and those that begin with "I was angered by..." or "I was moved by..." The former are far more common in academic discourse. Theater studies should be, first of all, a place where such different registers of response can be accommodated, and second, a site for the rediscovery and analysis of the relationships between them. ------------------------------------------------------ 6) MICHELE: THE SONG GIVES THE SINGER THE BODY TO FLY What I mean by flying is being pitched along a trajectory of meaning that moves like a force from the inner space out into the room. I use this Peter Brook quote to know what it is I'm searching for: "So what is our aim? It is a meeting with the fabric of life, no more and no less." One night, alone in the studio, I felt an impulse to sing something specific: a song was waiting at the door of my throat and I sang simply to find out what it would sound like. A melody I had never heard before came out. It was four notes long and each note had a syllable: Eh-ma-lay-yah! It sounded like a question. That first line of melody was an answer to my intent to wake up the room. I sang another four notes--the same syllables--but this melodic phrase was an answer to the first, the opening question. I continued setting notes until I had four distinct lines of melody. Then I leapt an octave higher and sang another four lines in answer to the first. I wasn't proud of the song. I wasn't not proud. I was neutral towards it. It had come from me, but it wasn't yet mine. It was hard and impersonal. It had come from a cache of melodies I had access to and I only wanted to repeat it until it softened and revealed a new quality of sound in me. I stood in silence then tried to find the song again. I found it again and again and again until its structure was right there for me as soon as I began to sing. I had memorized the song, but I didn't yet trust it. I had not softened myself enough to be changed by it. I sang it until the notes were very precise--that is, I sang the notes so that they only took up the exact amount space they should and weren't blurry or smudged, then I started to move. As soon as the song was precise, it began to dance me around the space. Sometimes I tried to resist the song by adding movements that were not inspired by it. That felt terrible. It felt like my body was doing two unrelated things....singing and dancing, and the singing and dancing were not paying attention to each other. So I silently focused on being moved only by impulses the song freed in me. This worked. It wasn't so hard. I simply preferred the real impulses. Moving now was far more intense than when I was thinking up moves that were unrelated to the song. The song pitched me across the room. I leaped. I threw my arm forward and it carried me across the white space. My head went back and my body followed. My body was being moved, truly, by the intelligence of the song, but this wasn't enough. It was too internal. I was having a wonderful inner journey, but it was incomplete. The impulses wanted to be pitched out into the room. I reminded myself to wake the room. I looked at the windows, the black pipes in the ceiling, the wooden crates piled against one of the white walls. That's when the meaning came. My body moved less wildly and the song, like a trajectory from the innerspace, pitched straight out into the room. I had found a truthful inner anchor and when I focused my attention on the room outside of my skin, I flew outward. This was the meaning of the song and my body couldn't ignore it. ------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------ Apologies for the delay in sending out this newsletter. Some of the announcements above had not yet been made official at the beginning of the month. As always, comments and feedback are welcome. Ben Spatz ben@urbanresearchtheater.com New York City