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Urban Research Theater Newsletter - March, 2008 ------------------------------------------------------ CONTENTS ------------------------------------------------------ ANNOUNCEMENTS 1) Upcoming Body & Song Workshops 2) Another City: Flame in a Jar 3) Membership Community FROM FELLOW TRAVELERS AND MENTORS 4) From Cheryl Cutler: The Church Without Walls 5) From Antero Alli: Three Stages of Paratheatre Work 6) From Daniel Mroz: Thoughts on Where to Train ------------------------------------------------------ ANNOUNCEMENTS ------------------------------------------------------ 1) UPCOMING BODY & SONG WORKSHOPS IN NYC Urban Research Theater presents BODY & SONG WORKSHOPS in NYC This workshop is a rare opportunity to explore the organic intersection of song, movement and action. Participants are invited into physical and vocal explorations ranging from the dynamic to the subtle, and touching on all aspects of performance. Every participant receives personal guidance as well as safe and open space for wordless exploration. - Explore the subtle relationship between body and song. - Learn a kind of singing you've never heard before. - Meet other people inside highly active silence. Participants may be dancers, actors, singers, clowns, and anyone interested in the practice of performance. Beginners and professionals alike are welcome. Please come prepared to walk, run, sing, roll, leap, hum, and listen; to lead as well as to follow; and to work with a group, in pairs, and individually. Upcoming Workshops: - Saturday, March 29, 2008 - Saturday, April 26, 2008 - Saturday, May 24, 2008 All workshops are from 2:00pm to 5:00pm at Bill Young Studio, 100 Grand Street. There is a $20 participation fee. Details and registration: ben@urbanresearchtheater.com ------------------------------------------------------ 2) ANOTHER CITY: FLAME IN A JAR Urban Research Theater presents - ANOTHER CITY - - FLAME IN A JAR - In the heat of the New York City summer, experience another way - another city - another self. August 22-24, 2008 New York City "Another City: Flame in a Jar" is a unique chance to rediscover your world through the techniques of the 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 ParkÕs North Woods. Here you will be able to slow down, breathe deeply, and draw apart from the busy rhythms of urban life. The group will walk, sing, and engage in simple physical exercises among the trees and waterfalls. It is a unique experience in itself, as well as preparation for concentrated artistic work. Afternoon and evening sessions will be held at the Chez Bushwick studio, where participants will learn to work on traditional and original songs as a basis for developing short performance fragments. We also spend time waking our bodies through extended periods of playful and demanding physical work. Much of Another City takes place in silence. Participation Fee: $200 early registration $250 after June 1 The group will be limited to 8 people. Additional information and participant testimony is available at: http://www.UrbanResearchTheater.com/ To register or with questions, email: ben@urbanresearchtheater.com ------------------------------------------------------ 3) MEMBERSHIP COMMUNITY Urban Research Theater intends to eventually 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! ------------------------------------------------------ FROM FELLOW TRAVELERS AND MENTORS ------------------------------------------------------ 4) FROM CHERYL CUTLER: THE CHURCH WITHOUT WALLS Anybody can improvise. We've led workshops designed for populations ranging from corporate executives to performing artists to football coaches. And all our workshops are structured around one fundamental format. Everything we do has an action aspect and a reflection aspect. We act, then we reflect upon our action. This dual process is like gathering seeds from a blown flower. A flower - like an action - is short-lived, ephemeral. It blooms with an immediate, vibrant glory, then fades away. Though we will never see that exact flower again, we can harvest its seeds. Similarly, by reflecting, we can gather discoveries from our actions. The action itself passes away, but we can plant these ideas at some other time, in some other place. Then that which seemed so ephemeral gains a kind of eternity. ... To me, what we hear when we listen without fear is the answer to prayer. In the Old Testament (I Kings 19:12), the Hebrew prophet, Elijah, experienced that answer as "the still small voice." But [my partner] Ran, not claiming to believe in God, hears that inner voice just the same as I. Each of us hears it as clearly as the other and in the same way. How we each explain it? That's another matter. In our Listening Unlimited workshops, movement is our medium. Because this medium is wordless, people from an array of belief systems can join together in an event with a certain oneness of mind. How each individual interprets, explains, even feels about the phenomenon we experience together may differ broadly, but that difference presents no obstruction to dancing concordantly, even creatively, in the same dance. I think somewhere there's a real secret hidden here to handling human conflict in the world. I have a friend who says, "When people ask my religion, I usually decline to say. But I will talk to them about God all day!" Religion seems to divide people. Spirituality, on the other hand, unites. If it's lived. Spirituality lived is the church without walls. excerpted from INTERVIEW ANSWERS FOR JON BERRY Cheryl Cutler, Listening Unlimited http://www.listeningunlimited.com/ ------------------------------------------------------ 5) FROM ANTERO ALLI: THREE STAGES OF PARATHEATRE WORK "Three Stages of Paratheatre Work" The first stage is to cultivate enough internal receptivity -- via a deepening of the No-Form experience -- to energy sources in the body itself and give these forces expression without imposing any preconceived outcome or "look". This first phase is devoted to Self-initiation, to accessing and expressing the internal landscape with minimal manipulation. It is by its very nature chaotic, loud, convulsive and "messy". The second stage involves gentle application of a benevolent control and precision to clarify the forms and patterns that emerge from the spontaneity of the first stage. The intent here is with serving the direction of the energy itself, rather than dominating it with any preconceived idea, plan or image of how it should look. The third stage requires a sustaining care for tempering spontaneous expression with more precision. Too much spontaneity turns the work into self-indulgent soup but too much imposed structure kills its life. A delicate balance must be struck. There is a special kind of the stamina for maintaining this dynamic tension that constitutes the third stage of work; a stamina for serving the expression of a more conscientious convulsion. excerpted from STATE OF EMERGENCE, Part 3 A Paratheatre Manifesto by Antero Alli http://www.paratheatrical.com/manifesto3.html ------------------------------------------------------ 6) FROM DANIEL MROZ: THOUGHTS ON WHERE TO TRAIN I am often asked by would-be performers where they ought to go to train. Its not an easy question to answer. In order to develop high level ability performers need sustained training in a disciplinary practice based on prearranged movement patterns. Sustained training means a course of study that is a lifetime practice. Musicians and dancers must practice every day in order to develop and maintain their craft. This is in stark contrast to actors who have a very loose notion of technique and train only for a short period at the beginning of their careers. A disciplinary practice is an art form where there are strict aesthetic rules that govern performance. Ballet, Taijiquan, Decroux Mime Corporel, and Bel Canto singing are all examples of disciplinary practices. Prearranged movement patterns are choreographic units that discipline the body. They include the attitudes of classical Ballet, the Kata of Karate and the Taolu of Taijiquan as well as the choreographed actions of the various traditional Asian theatres, such as Jingju, Kabuki or Kathakali. Training must be sustained so that it can be able to change the performer. Workshops and terminating courses of study may open the student's mind to new possibilities, but they do not provide the opportunity for real engagement with a disciplinary practice. Real engagement means accomplishing 3,000 hours of training to become a novice, 7,000 to become a practitioner and over 10,000 hours to become an expert. All need to be done under the supervision of an expert teacher. Recall that traditional European craft apprenticeships required 14 years of tutelage in order to learn a practical trade (thanks to Lisa Wolford for this info!). Training must be in a disciplinary practice in order structure the student's body and mind and inculcate them with a deep framework or matrix that organizes how they move down to a microscopic level. Loose, individualist or conceptual approaches to training that are not disciplined will not produce visible change in their practitioners, because they are not based on strict prearranged movement patterns. Prearranged movement patterns are the means by which the performer acquires a deep structural matrix and movement vocabulary from which they can eventually improvise or compose. For performers all other types of training are secondary to prearranged movement patterns. For example, Yoga, Alexander Technique, Pilates, Aikido, Contact Improvisation and LeCoq or clown training, Authentic Movement, Linklater voice technique and all types of Method Acting are all secondary approaches to training, i.e. insufficient unto themselves, because they do not take the lone body, independent of all relationships except gravity, and confront it with postural and movement tasks sophisticated enough to create stage presence. Approaches that can be considered primary are martial arts with sophisticated prearranged movement patterns (Chinese and Indonesian are the most complex and therefore effective), Western classical dance, traditional dance and theatre from Asian cultures, Decroux Corporeal Mime, Tadashi Suzuki's Theatre Training, Eugenio Barba and Jerzy Grotowski's theatre training and Meyerhold's Biomechanics. So, while its possible for the student to take a workshop in Barba's approach or Kabuki or Biomechanics, and while most commercial theatre training programs have students doing Method, Linklater, Yoga, Alexander Technique or Contact Improvisation, it remains very challenging for the student to find the opportunity to be able to do their 3,000 hours, let alone a full 10,000. What to do? For the independent and determined, I recommend creating a long-term study program. Study an Asian martial art and take up classical Western singing. Experiment with partner relationship training by taking 'electives' in Argentine Tango or Capoiera. Try to ensure that you are practicing or training for at very least 2 hours every day. Train like this for 3 years and then begin to compose your own performances. Find an experienced artist whose work you admire to mentor your creative work. For those who are not so far along, I advise attending as many classes and workshops as possible, with the knowledge that this dilettantism, fun as it may be, only serves to help find the perfect cluster of approaches (or lone approach) that one will eventually commit to. excerpted from THE DANCING WORD Daniel Mroz, University of Ottawa http://dancingword.wordpress.com/ ------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------ As always, comments and feedback are welcome. Ben Spatz & Michele Farbman Urban Research Theater New York City ben@urbanresearchtheater.com michele@urbanresearchtheater.com