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Urban Research Theater Newsletter - August, 2008 ------------------------------------------------------ CONTENTS ------------------------------------------------------ ANNOUNCEMENTS 1) Another City: Joyful Days (August 22-24) 2) Membership Community 3) Two Articles PROSE 4) Michele: The Performer Noticing Herself 5) Ben: The Egg ------------------------------------------------------ ANNOUNCEMENTS ------------------------------------------------------ 1) ANOTHER CITY: JOYFUL DAYS Urban Research Theater presents - ANOTHER CITY - - Joyful Days - group singing - theater craft individual work - urban pilgrimage In the heat of the New York City summer, experience another way, another city, another self. August 22-24, 2008 New York City Registration Fee: $150 Limited to 8 participants. This unique session of urban expeditions and studio work offers a chance to rediscover your world through the techniques of Urban Research Theater. You will never experience your city or yourself the same way again. Each full day begins at sunrise in the serene half-wilderness of Central Park's North Woods. Here we will slow down, breathe deeply, and step out of the busy rhythms of urban life as we walk, sing, and explore simple physical exercises among the trees and waterfalls. Afternoon and evening sessions will take place in and around the Chez Bushwick studio, where participants will learn to work with traditional and original songs as a basis for developing short performance fragments. Details and participant testimony: www.urbanresearchtheater.com Questions and registration: ben@urbanresearchtheater.com ------------------------------------------------------ 2) MEMBERSHIP COMMUNITY Urban Research Theater ultimately intends to support itself through community-based interactions rather than through ticket sales. In order to do this, we need to build a supportive membership community. If you support the work of Urban Research Theater; if you have participated in one of our workshops or events; if you believe in our philosophy of art and practice; if you enjoy receiving our monthly newsletter... Please become a member of our community! Supporting members donate at least $5 per month ($60 per year) to support our continuing work. Five dollars is not very much - the price of a single cheap lunch or an expensive coffee. But we consider it a serious gesture of support. And with a big enough community, this small amount can add up to a lot: - If our community had 10 members, we would receive enough income to rent a space for one Body + Song workshop each month. - If our community had 100 members, we would have enough money to cover all our work expenses for the year and run several week-long or even month-long events. - If our community had 1000 members, we would be able to dedicate ourselves full-time to Urban Research Theater! Our goal now is to build a community of 100 members. All donations to Urban Research Theater are fully tax deductible. You can also donate to us directly, if you do not require the tax deduction. Please follow the link on our website to become a supporting member of the Urban Research Theater community! ------------------------------------------------------ 3) TWO ARTICLES We are please to announce the publication of two scholarly articles relevant to our work. Both articles are by Ben Spatz. They do not discuss the work of Urban Research Theater directly, but analyse the practices of two important groups that have inspired us: The Gardzienice Theatre Association and the Workcenter of Jerzy Grotowski and Thomas Richards. - Ben Spatz, "To Open a Person: Song and Encounter at Gardzienice and the Workcenter" in _Theatre Topics_ 18.2 (September 2008). - Ben Spatz, "Iphigenia in Aulis at La Mama: Microculture and Musicality in the Work of Gardzienice" in _Slavic and Eastern European Performance_ 28.2 (Spring 2008). ------------------------------------------------------ PROSE ------------------------------------------------------ 4) MICHELE: THE PERFORMER NOTICING HERSELF What does it mean to create a performance piece from one's invisible places? Inner regions that have been both carefully and recklessly mined for meaning by singing and moving with the intention of digging until melodies and meanings arrive. To dig up and bring out into the open places that have been hidden below the surface. To make the invisible visible and to make music out of the inaudible. Then to arrange the expression of such inner regions into a performance piece. To share these regions precisely and consciously while feeling them. What does this mean for the performer of such a piece? It means that she and he must recognize who is driving the song, the physical play. This work calls to presence powerful and long hidden parts, and although such a notion sounds romantic to me, tonight I am exhausted from beginning to see myself. Ben said to simply notice. Notice while doing. Tonight, as he sang his songs and I simply noticed myself while trying to remain in contact with him through singing, I saw how my attention skips over me and would much rather focus on the task of singing perfectly. Imagine, achieving a technical perfection as a way of not noticing myself in my ordinary body, singing with another person in an ordinary room. Imagine trying to be perfect as a way to escape noticing that I am alive. I wasn't prepared for how exhausting it is to step into my own blind spot. I did, though, get an inkling of the power keg I would tap by directly recognizing that I am alive. ------------------------------------------------------ 5) BEN: THE EGG Michele said: A practice is something you do every day. But what do we do every day? The repeatable structure itself is a practice -- but so is the larger, more flexible structure of our overall work schedule. Is it 'the work' only when we are on our feet, singing and moving? Or is it the work as long as Michele and I are in that empty, ugly classroom together? Is it the work when we meet for coffee? Is it the work when I send out emails? Two understandings of 'the space' in which we work: Inner space and outer space. The space of 'doer' and the space of 'outside eye.' I call the inner space the 'yolk'. In that space, words are sparse, and actions are essential. In the yolk-space, we can go for hours without a single word, communicating across what Thomas Richards has called the "superhighway" of nonverbal technical exchange. The yolk-space is the heart of the work. Without the yolk, there is no work. The yolk is the embryo. The yolk is where the new is born. But the egg-white-space is also essential. This is the place of interface with the world. In this white-space we discuss technical, personal, and philosophical matters. The white-space is the frame of the work. It protects the yolk, nurtures its dense tenderness. The white-space is home to the outside eye: the strategist, teacher or director. It is where spectators or witnesses sit. Other guests, fellow practitioners and students, enter the yolk with us. The border of the yolk is clear. In the space / out of the space. Working / resting. The borders of the white-space are fluid, flexible, runny like the white of the egg. There are different kinds of "resting," depending on our proximity to the yolk. We can lie just outside the yolk, near its border, feeling its vibrations in silence. A bit farther from the yolk we can sit up, begin to use words, begin to ask what our practice might look like from the outside. Farther still and we begin to scheme, maybe take the conversation to a coffee shop or diner. Maybe we adjourn for the day. Maybe we take a day off. Separated by hundreds of miles, we are still somehow in the white-space. The white-space has no border. It fills the world. Close to the yolk / far from the yolk. Two parts of the egg. Two understandings of practice. It's the same with zen or yoga or aikido. Zen can be understood as a practice of techniques: sitting, walking, chanting. But zen can also appear in washing dishes, riding a bike, running a business. Is yoga a sequence of asanas, or is it a relationship with a guru? Is aikido a martial art, or is it "the way of harmony"? Two understandings of practice: The technical and the nontechnical. If I sing my work-songs in the shower, can I enter the yolk right then and there? Can I carry the yolk with me as I move through the white-space of the world? The hard part of the work is ascending the technical ladder. For this, one partner goes into the yolk while the other remains outside. Actor and director, performer and teacher, doer and outside eye. This work is labor. In the relationship between doer and outside eye, it is the outside eye who is responsible for technical ascent. The doer is responsible for a different kind of ascent, one that appears through the commitment to doing and trying. The doer's is an act of presence, a ladder which is visible but not technical. An ineffable ascent. At certain times it is possible for both of us to be in the yolk together. Such a period can last for minutes, hours, or days. I experience such times as a reward for the technical work that has gone before. It is like the crest of a wave, giving us permission to play as children. Freedom. These moments are timeless -- but they always end. One or both of us must come out of the yolk, blink, and look around. Rest. Consider. Even theorize. Plan for the future. Cultivate the yolk from outside. Assess our position on the technical ladder. Two parts of the egg of our work. Yolk and white. A border defined by the techniques we have cultivated. A yellow heart, the site of fertilization, the zone of creation; and a white exterior, our work schedule, our commitment to continue, our ability to carve out space for the yolk and to protect it. And a shell: our face to the world, sending out emails, writing a newsletter, building a website and a mailing list. Throughout the coming year, we will begin to have monthly informal 'showings' of our work. We are still looking for the right studio space in which to do this. But 'showings' is not really the best word. These events will be different from workshops because we won't invite our guests into the yolk with us. Simply, we invite you to come and be in proximity, to sit in the white-space, close to us, supporting and protecting and perceiving what it is that we call our work. As close to us as we and you can bear. --- "Egg white is the common name for the clear liquid (also called the albumen or the glair/glaire) contained within an egg. It is the cytoplasm of the egg, which until fertilization is a single cell (including the yolk). It consists mainly of about 15% proteins dissolved in water. Its primary natural purpose is to protect the egg yolk and provide additional nutrition for the growth of the embryo, as it is rich in proteins and is of high nutritional value." - Wikipedia, "Egg white" ------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------ As always, comments and feedback are welcome. Ben Spatz & Michele Farbman Urban Research Theater New York City ben@urbanresearchtheater.com michele@urbanresearchtheater.com