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Urban Research Theater Newsletter - April, 2007 ------------------------------------------------------ CONTENTS ------------------------------------------------------ ANNOUNCEMENTS 1) FIRST SONG CYCLE: Call for Performers 2) STONE at Actors Theatre Workshop 3) Workshops at Theaterlab PROSE 4) on self-indulgence 5) tracing the body without organs ------------------------------------------------------ ANNOUNCEMENTS ------------------------------------------------------ 1) FIRST SONG CYCLE: CALL FOR PERFORMERS Urban Research Theater seeks actors / singers / dancers for a unique performance project: /// first song cycle /// april - july 2007 audition workshops in the first week of april Theaterlab Actors Training Studio 137 W 14th St. NYC This project will explore new territory at the intersection of song, movement and action. Performers will receive extensive physical and vocal training. The piece will be developed through an ensemble-based process around an existing cycle of original, wordless songs. Roles will evolve according to individual skill and commitment. This is a membership project. Participants will contribute $150 per month to cover space rental and other production costs. Rehearsals and training will take place 3-5 days per week. If interested, please send your resume with a cover letter indicating your availability during the time period to: ben@urbanresearchtheater.com ------------------------------------------------------ 2) STONE AT ACTOR'S THEATRE WORKSHOP _stone_ by Edward Bond featuring Seiko Carter, Caroline Reck, Ben Trawick-Smith and Chris Wild with song and movement by Ben Spatz _the maguffin_ by Adam Hunault and Stone Soup featuring Lauren Birriel, David Bryant, DR Hanson, Jacques Laurent, Marsha Martinez, Rachel Rhodes and Maria Schirmer Production Team Director - Nadine Friedman Producer - Leigh Goldenberg Stage Manager - Nat Cauldwell Set Designer - Czerton Lim Lighting Designer - Sean Linehan Costume Designer - Jessica Lustig Puppet Designer - Maria Schirmer Thursday-Sunday, April 5-28, 2007 Actors Theatre Workshop 145 W. 28th Street, NYC For more information and to purchase tickets: http://www.puppetpuppeteer.com/ ------------------------------------------------------ 3) WORKSHOPS AT THEATERLAB I am now a resident teacher at Theaterlab Actors Training Studio. Workshops and classes can be scheduled according to interest: http://www.theaterlab.info/bodysong.html ------------------------------------------------------ PROSE ------------------------------------------------------ 4) ON SELF-INDULGENCE I often encounter suspicion and anxiety when I speak of performance work that is intended to benefit the performers as well as the audience. It seems our culture is afraid of self-indulgence, but we look to root it out in all the wrong ways. It is good to avoid self-indulgence, but theater artists here seem to think that the way to do this is by performing in public as often as possible. This is wrong. In fact, the reason why so much theater is painful to watch is that it is so often premiered before it is ready to be seen. Ten or twenty or thirty shows open every weekend in this city, most of it not nearly at a stage where it can be valuable for spectators. Hundreds of amateurs practice yoga and martial arts at relatively low levels too, but they don't invite the public to watch them do it, and, if they did, they would certainly not charge $15 for the privilege! No, self-indulgence cannot be avoided by frequent premature showings. One can be self-indulgent in front of an audience just as well as alone, and the latter is clearly preferable. You might think that theater companies would realize they are being self-indulgent when they look out into the house and see only friends and family. This is a direct result of the artistic product having been virtually lost. Theater has become (as it has regularly been in past eras, but not always) a social event. Both rehearsals and performances are not too different from a nice party. You get to see people you like. Your aesthetics and the value of your community may be affirmed. It's a feel-good event. It should not be mistaken for art. Art is not self-indulgent. It does not ask for personal affirmation. It simply exists, in the way that animals and mountains exist. People who do art do it because it comes out of them. In addition, they may have to organize a business around the art in order to support themselves. But if the business becomes the whole event, then there is no more room for art. This is the same whether a show plays for an audience of one thousand, twenty, or one, and whether a company premieres new work every week, every six months, or every five years. How not to over-indulge the self? Work is the only alternative to self-indulgence. The process of true art is transparent: first comes the work; then, slowly, something emerges; at first, this something is not visible except to the artist; then, one day, it takes a form that can be perceived by others; at that point it should be shown. To show work prematurely is to indulge the self and to disservice the audience. What could be more self-indulgent than the ridiculous festivals that are now the fad, in which X number of shows are created from scratch in X small amount of time. As if quantity could make up for quality! Surely the feeling of paranoia that I have so often encountered is a response to this profoundly decadent and self-indulgent moment in our culture. But we cannot avoid self-indulgence by flashing people with superficial work. It is as if we are thinking: "I cannot end the war in Iraq, but I want to make myself useful, so I will broadcast what I am doing as loudly as I can." The result is loud advertising for a dubious product, which is precisely what we should be trying to avoid. Instead, we should simply do our work as best we can, and not make absurd claims about how ground-breaking or hyper-entertaining it is. Let us respect the artistic process, and show our work only when it has value. It is hard to work without feedback, but nothing less can be considered the task of an artist. During the long hours and years of process and exploration, we of course doubt ourselves and our usefulness. But can we make ourselves more useful by making ourselves more ubiquitous? No, this only drags down the general discourse and the cultural environment. How to make oneself more useful? Honest work is the only way. To look for that which has value. Then, when something of value is found, and not before, to share it with others who are able to perceive its value. Good luck to us all. ------------------------------------------------------ 5) TRACING THE BODY WITHOUT ORGANS It is not at all a notion or a concept but a practice, a set of practices. Why such a dreary parade of sucked-dry, catatonicized, vitrified, sewn-up bodies, when the Body without Organs is also full of gaiety, ecstasy, and dance? So why these examples, why must we start there? Emptied bodies instead full ones. What happened? Where psychoanalysis says, "Stop, find your self again," we should say instead, "Let's go further still, we haven't found our Body without Organs yet, we haven't sufficiently dismantled our self." - Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari (1987) For you can tie me up if you wish, but there is nothing more useless than an organ. When you will have made him a body without organs, then you will have delivered him from all his automatic reactions and restored him to his true freedom. - Antonin Artaud (1947) Jesus said to them, "When you make the two into one, and when you make the inner like the outer and the outer like the inner, and the upper like the lower, and when you make male and female into a single one, so that the male will not be male nor the female be female, when you make eyes in place of an eye, a hand in place of a hand, a foot in place of a foot, an image in place of an image, then you will enter [the kingdom]." - The Gospel of Thomas (circa 150 A.D.) ------------------------------------------------------ Ben Spatz ben@urbanresearchtheater.com New York City