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Urban Research Theater Newsletter - September, 2008 ------------------------------------------------------ CONTENTS ------------------------------------------------------ ANNOUNCEMENTS 1) Invitation to Showings 2) Membership Community NOTES FROM THE STUDIO 3) Michele: Acting Inside the Song 4) Ben: Contact of Comrades ------------------------------------------------------ ANNOUNCEMENTS ------------------------------------------------------ 1) INVITATION TO SHOWINGS This fall, we invite you to come and see our work as an observer and guest. You will not participate actively in our performance work, but your living presence will become part of the space in which our Song Cycle takes place. Only a small number of people will be able to attend each evening. There is no charge for attending, but we do gratefully accept tax-deductible gifts to support our ongoing work. Showings will take place on the following two dates this fall: - Sunday 10/26 at 6pm - Sunday 11/23 at 6pm Please contact ben@urbanresearchtheater if you want to be there. The Song Cycle is an active meditation made from theater techniques; an extended vehicle for practical research and self-discovery; and a performed structure that can be witnessed by others. Its basic structure is a sequence of repeated song fragments. Within the framework of these songs, the two partners search for contact on multiple levels: with themselves, with each other, and with the space. Urban Research Theater is a long-term partnership dedicated to discovering and revealing human presence through techniques of song, movement, and action. After one year of consistent work, we understand ourselves to be at the beginning of the process of developing a fully elaborated and fully enacted Song Cycle. For those who cannot attend this round, there will be further showings in 2009. ------------------------------------------------------ 2) MEMBERSHIP COMMUNITY Urban Research Theater eventually 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 consider becoming a member of our supporting 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 right now is to build a community of 100 members. All donations to Urban Research Theater are fully tax deductible via the umbrella organization Fractured Atlas. You can also donate to us directly, if you do not require the tax deduction. Please follow one of the links on our website to become a supporting member of the Urban Research Theater community! ------------------------------------------------------ NOTES FROM THE STUDIO ------------------------------------------------------ 3) MICHELE: ACTING INSIDE THE SONG In July, Ben proposed using acting techniques along with singing and moving techniques to more precisely express the meanings of our songs. I have no acting training and was suddenly confronted with the "danger" of feeling personal things in front of other people. So I avoided it. Instead, I began to play inside my song scenes, just moving around inside their landscapes. This was new and satisfying to me, but didn't exactly satisfy the task Ben had put to us. Weeks later he proposed that I notice how I feel while working on the songs. The task was still dangerous. It suggested inviting contact with territories I hardly revealed to myself. I felt them right below the surface, but how to approach them? I went into the space and tried to "feel", but nothing real happened. Just some digging around and play acting. And then, just three day ago, it happened in a real way. I was listening to one line of one song and noticed that it didn't sound the way I felt it. The inner experience of the song and the way it sounded in the room were two different things. And so I adjusted. I sang more quietly and more directly to the person who is in the song with me. Very gently, as I began to be shaped by the person to whom I was singing, I began to feel. It was very tender and I allowed it to take me over physically. Later I asked how I was suddenly able to allow myself to feel when before, I couldn't and wouldn't. The answer was that it had happened naturally from a more honest tuning into the song. It had happened in a way that was not at all embarrassing. It was appropriate for the scene and so I didn't hide from it. At that moment of singing, I considered that the imaginary person in the song was my partner and I understood how I might share this dimension of feeling with a living partner. ------------------------------------------------------ 4) BEN: CONTACT OF COMRADES There is something mysterious about the following partner. The partner is completely necessary. More than an outside eye. More than witnessing. It's a kind of joining. There is a layer of contact between partners based on technical precision, which I call "contact-of-comrades." Then, below or inside of that, there is another possibility of contact that is not technical, something having to do with empathy. I call this "contact-of-human-beings." Athleticism can give rise to a powerful contact-of-comrades, but it can also get in the way of this other contact. I challenged Michele to experiment with bringing emotions from real life to presence within the performance structure. That is, to draw on emotions and sources that don't have a place in everyday life, and to let them dictate how the performance techniques will be structured and used. This can't be done in order to make a good show. It's too personal. That would be like prostitution. But the two kinds of contact can exist side by side, one functioning in a "public" way and the other in a "private" way, for the partner and also for those witnesses who care to perceive such a thing. What appears ugly in life is a bad habit that manifests out of a deep and hidden place. The bad habit appears ugly because it hides the deep place. The deep place is never ugly. It can never be described or judged - it simply is, like animals, like the universe. When those deep unnameable things flow into a structure of song and movement, then it is not ugly at all, but indescribably beautiful. ------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------ As always, comments and feedback are welcome. Ben Spatz & Michele Farbman Urban Research Theater New York City ben@urbanresearchtheater.com michele@urbanresearchtheater.com