This journal contains both personal and professional writing. You can subscribe to it via email as a monthly newsletter.
Urban Research Theater Newsletter - June, 2008
------------------------------------------------------
ANNOUNCEMENTS
1) Another City: Joyful Days (August 22-24)
PROSE
------------------------------------------------------
1) ANOTHER CITY: JOYFUL DAYS
Urban Research Theater presents
- ANOTHER CITY -
group singing - theater craft
In the heat of the New York City summer,
August 22-24, 2008
Early Registration: $200
Limited to 8 participants.
This urban adventure session is a unique 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:
Questions and registration:
------------------------------------------------------
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) BEN: SONG AND ACTION
Three years ago, I witnessed some individuals singing in a way that I could not comprehend. Their bodies were fully engaged, but they were not dancing. Something was coming from within them, something that I found myself actually shocked to perceive. It was a kind of inner meaning, so profound as to seemingly indicate peak emotional experiences, yet precisely structured and executed on cue. At the time, this event was a puzzle of song, movement, and action that left me sobbing with an overwhelming need not only to witness it again but to accomplish it myself, to make this thing happen again under circumstances that I could understand.
Over the past few years, this kind of song-event has appeared occasionally in my own work with songs. I recognize it from the inside, but I have not had any reliable way of structuring or re-calling it after the fact. Nor could I explain it in words. A few months ago, it began to appear sometimes also in Michele Farbman's work, but still, it could not be recalled or articulated in technical terms. It was something to do with the arrival of meaning... but how to ask for meaning to arrive? How to re-create or re-approach this thing that seemed to appear of its own accord through an uncontrollable synthesis of chance and will?
As of the past two weeks, I believe I can say that I have finally understood what this thing is, at least in its most basic manifestation. In plain words, it is action appearing through song. It is not only song giving rise to action, but more importantly it is that action flowing back through the song so that it actually becomes audible. Here is a very simple example: a rhythmic, repetitive song, when sung competently and in a condition of relaxation and openness, conjurs an association. This association can be mined, shaped, extended, elaborated, and eventually re-lived using the acting techniques that derive from Stanislavski. It comes to involve something external as well as something internal, a kind of active relation with an unseen partner, which we call an action. When this action flows back into the song, so that it can be heard in the quality and details of the singing, then this is the event I described above. The song becomes a bridge between the performer's interiority and the external, invisible partner. This active relation becomes tangibly audible in the song.
In order to reach these (tentative) conclusions, we had to progress through many steps of what I would call performance research: 1) To generate songs with precise melodies, rhythms, and distinct "resonance choreographies" or "nodes"; 2) To learn these songs well enough for them to become flexible; 3) To practice exploratory movement based on perception, contact, and sensation; 4) to distinguish pure movement from action, and then to apply experiential body-knowledge to the release of action through the body. Finally, after taking these steps, I believe we have come upon a process through which song and action can become a mutually flowing river, allowing for potentially unlimited musical precision and complexity and, at the same time, potentially unlimited depth of engagement with action.
In the following section, Michele discusses her experience of these recent new discoveries from inside the process, as doer / performer.
------------------------------------------------------
4) MICHELE: TERRITORIES OF MEANING
What are the inner adjustments that need to be made in order for a song to truly touch the body, in order not to hold the body away from the song? Certainly a relaxation along with a driving determination for these two vital parts of the human being to meet.
When Ben instructed me to "Do less," meaning don't invent physical movements parallel to the song, what became apparent were the two worlds of my body and song and the desert between them. I had never considered making them meet. He asked me to try and I was like a plane having trouble landing on the runway. I was just learning how to locate territories of meaning and now he wanted me to touch down on those inner places and stay long enough to let them seduce my body into exploring them.
How can the song provoke the body into a true telling? The performer must be willing to do a task more rigorous than move to the song's rhythm. She must, at every moment, be alert to the impulses evoked by the song.
To sing from a territory of meaning is one thing. To have the body move within that territory is an act of great attention--great meaning vast, meaning the performer's attention encompasses body, song and meaning. There is a wholeness and the innocence of this act comes from the lack of manipulation of the performer. No pieces are being seamed together, there is no trying to plug in to a meaning proposed from the outside. There is simply the courage of searching patiently in dark, muddy places. There is surrender and along with it a child-like (and lion-like) necessity to express what has been discovered.
There is another magic that goes along with this kind of singing, which takes its power from desire. To sing from meaning means desire is more important than skill. Something primal in the singer breaks through and is larger than the mechanics of singing correctly.
One week ago the question came up: What makes a song dead or living? I thought at first that a song lives when the singer strictly adheres to its rhythm and melody. This challenge wakes the body's attention and this wakefulness is given to the song. It seemed obvious that the opposite--a lazy blurry attention paid to the song--leaves it and its singer without vitality. It seems now, though, that what makes the song live is the non-mechanical life, the singing out of inner territories with voice and body. These territories of meaning demand--for the sake of their fullest expression--that the song be sung correctly. Once discovered, they do not leave the singer to repeat the song like a beautiful machine.
------------------------------------------------------
5) AMBER WU, TAIWAN JOURNAL: U THEATRE
It is said the walkers move like clouds drifting across the sky, taking one step after another and focusing on nothing except the moment. Between March 23 and May 11, the "clouds" had covered a 1,200-kilometer tour of the island, enduring dampness in Taipei, biting winds in Taitung, sunshine in Kaohsiung and the pouring rain in Miaoli.
Are these 12 people ascetic monks on some kind of ancient pilgrimage? Not exactly, although they do adhere to a daily regime of hand-to-hand combat training, meditation and Tai Chi at their headquarters on Laochuan Hill in Taipei County. As members of U Theatre--a 20-year-old internationally acclaimed performing arts group, they believe that a search for inner strength and peace through Zen techniques always comes before the practice of other skills. "We learn meditation first, drumming later," said the percussion director, Huang Chih-chun, when he was invited to join the troupe in 1993, after studying meditation in India and Tibet for years.
Such philosophy makes U Theatre stand out from others in Taiwan, and even renders an aura of mystery to it. However, it was never the intention of the founder, Liu Ruo-yu, to establish some kind of religious sect. Once a student of the Polish theater guru Jerzy Grotowski, Liu focused on creating a unique style of performance comprised of drama, percussion, singing and dance. To express the beauty of the pieces, she instructed her team to search for inner power through physical exercise, in particular by embarking on long walking tours.
On their first journey, back in 1996, members of the theater walked through the western part of the island. In an attempt to acquire greater physical and mental strength, they marched silently during the day and performed at night. "We traveled nearly 600 kilometers over 28 days," Huang stated. "It was important for us to see where our limits lay."
Another purpose of that trip was for the U Theatre to explore the island, instead of being a group of self-indulgent recluses. "We wanted to find out more about Taiwan's traditional culture, in which religions, mainly Taoism and Buddhism, play important roles," he pointed out. "We ended up being surprised by the diversity of Taiwanese culture," the Malaysia-born percussion expert said.
In November 1997, the group set out on another journey, this time with the intention of being inspired by aboriginal people and the landscape of eastern Taiwan. It was on this trip that Liu and Huang met Rahic Talif, an aboriginal artist who would later make impressive driftwood supports for the theater's gongs and other instruments. "His works add an extraordinary visual power to our music," Huang acknowledged.
After two walks overseas, Tibet in 2002 and France in 2005, and much critical acclaim, people might ask why U Theatre chose to walk around Taiwan again. "While receiving praise in other countries, we knew for sure that the beauty expressed in the music came from one source--Taiwan," Liu answered.
In that sense, Huang agreed, it was the most natural thing for the group to travel to every corner of their beloved homeland. "How else should we celebrate the theatre's 20th anniversary? Some people might open bottles of champagne or have a party, but we thought we should go full circle, back to our starting point," said Huang.
Thus, on March 23, the performers took their first step on the road. "People asked me why we set out one day after the presidential election. They thought we had some kind of political agenda," said Kuo Ken-fu, the manager of U Theatre. In fact, "We just wanted to remind our fellow countrymen to get back to normal life and stop being so obsessed about politics," Kuo exclaimed.
"This particular tour was also a chance for our group to restore their inner strength after a hectic performing schedule," Kuo continued. "Plus, some of our newer members had not experienced this kind of training, and we hoped it would transform them."
Indeed, such a journey not only challenges a person's body, but also offers a "purifying shower of inner spirit," as Huang described it. If physical pain is a strict teacher who demands discipline from his performers, then the natural environment is a gentle guru who advises them to merge with the wind, the river and the mountains.
"The first day, you are full of hope. On the second day, your feet usually swell up. When it comes to the third day, people get annoyed and complain: 'There're still 20 kilometers to go, and we have a performance to do at night.'" However, after these initial emotions, the beneficial effects start to show, according to Huang. "Powers flow through our silenced minds and are revealed by the energy-filled performances," he added.
Another aspect was the unexpected nature of every new day. "No one ever knows what will happen next, which means that we are always surprised," Kuo said. Leaving behind their professional lighting and sound equipment, the team presented their works in a host of unusual settings, such as under old banyan trees in Kaohsiung, in front of a lake in Taitung and even outside ancient city walls in Henchun Township, Pingtung County.
The team was often surprised by the bare-bones nature of some of the performance venues. "Once, for example, when we arrived at a temple in Tienjung, there was nothing even resembling a stage," Kuo recounted. "However, we found out later that the temple had the best-ever acoustics that performers had ever experienced."
The general public offered up a few surprises of its own as well. Due to a lack of funding, the theater had to look for sponsorship. The response was overwhelming. Owners of bed and breakfasts offered free stays, restaurants invited them to eat for free, and vendors would sometimes even run after the walkers with bags of fruit. "People might not have heard of U Theatre or only have a rough idea of who we are, but they still treated us like special guests," said the manager, expressing his gratitude.
"This is not the kind of relationship that usually exists between performers and their audience," Kuo said. "For us, accepting people's invitations to perform was a normal part of the 50-day tour, but for the locals, it was a once-in-a-lifetime experience to see our performance on their doorsteps," he said. Members of the public even occasionally walked alongside, providing assistance, such as directing traffic away from the walkers. "People yearn for this kind of simple life spent walking and resting," Kuo pondered. "With us as their companions, they had the courage to realize their dream."
Besides being a much longer journey than previous ones, this tour was different because the artisans made a point of visiting people who they felt contributed to society in some way. "We once visited a farmer in Taitung whose harvest was crowned as the 'King of Rice,'" Huang said, "It was not until then that I realized how much effort a farmer has to put into producing food. He told us that nowadays machines can take care of most of the work in two days, but in order to experience the relationship between human beings and the soil, he carried the plow himself and worked in the field for 15 days."
Arriving back in Taipei City on May 11, the troupe invested all its energy and insights they had picked up on the road into a performance of "The Sound of the Ocean," their signature 10-year-old piece that won international recognition at the 1998 Avignon Theatre Festival held in France. More than 100,000 people sitting in Liberty Square were moved by the lively power of Taiwan's culture expressed through rhythmic dance and the pounding of drums and gongs.
This last performance signaled the end of a grand odyssey, yet the quest for perfection and spiritual contentment is everlasting for every person. The unwavering dedication of the group and of all the beautiful souls striving to create a better future for Taiwan will ensure that the journey continues in an eternally benevolent cycle.
Amber Wu (amber0207@mail.gio.gov.tw), Taiwan Journal, May 29, 2008.
------------------------------------------------------
As always, comments and feedback are welcome.
Ben Spatz & Michele Farbman
ben@urbanresearchtheater.com
CONTENTS
------------------------------------------------------
2) Membership Community
3) Ben: Song and Action
4) Michele: Territories of Meaning
5) Amber Wu, Taiwan Journal: U Theatre
ANNOUNCEMENTS
------------------------------------------------------
- Joyful Days -
individual work - urban pilgrimage
experience another way, another city, another self.
New York City
(After June 30: $250)
www.urbanresearchtheater.com
ben@urbanresearchtheater.com
PROSE
------------------------------------------------------
http://taiwanjournal.nat.gov.tw/ct.asp?xItem=44005&CtNode=118
------------------------------------------------------
Urban Research Theater
New York City
michele@urbanresearchtheater.com