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Urban Research Theater Newsletter - December, 2007 ------------------------------------------------------ CONTENTS ------------------------------------------------------ ANNOUNCEMENTS 1) Another City: Heart of Winter - Call for Participants PROSE 2) Ben: Notes from the Studio 3) Michele: Instructions for Daily Work 4) Ben: Setting Aside the Social Brain 5) Michele: Notes on Singing: Devotional Contact ------------------------------------------------------ ANNOUNCEMENTS ------------------------------------------------------ 1) ANOTHER CITY: HEART OF WINTER - CALL FOR PARTICIPANTS We need just a few more people to make this event happen. Please help us by forwarding this information to your friends in the New York area who might be interested - and please join us yourself if you can!! Urban Research Theater presents - ANOTHER CITY - - HEART OF WINTER - Four big days of work and wonder in the beating heart of winter. group singing - theater craft - personal discovery - urban pilgrimage January 3-6, 2008 New York City Participation Fee: $300 Limited to 8 people. This January, when the days are short and cold and the year is new, we will kindle our internal fires through spontaneous vibratory singing, urban pilgrimage, and joyfully physical performance explorations. We will spend part of each day in the beautiful North Woods of Central Park, and then move into a white-box theater studio for rest of the morning and afternoon. "Another City: Heart of Winter" 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. To register, email: ben@urbanresearchtheater.com For details and to read comments from previous participants, please visit: www.UrbanResearchTheater.com ------------------------------------------------------ PROSE ------------------------------------------------------ 2) BEN: NOTES FROM THE STUDIO FROM IMPULSE TO ACTION. Last month I learned that when doing real creative physical work, you don't start with movement and then "add" images. That only leads to collage, or what we call "physical theater," which is not what we are trying to do. For us it has to be that you go so deeply into the movement that it becomes action directly, without passing through separable acting techniques. It's the same with singing. MF was just doing it a moment ago. Her song became action directly, without passing through acting. I do not understand how this happens, but I no longer doubt that it can. SEQUENCES AND NODES. Inside each song is something like a "node" or "kernel" that needs to be worked on, worked at, chewed on. It can't exactly be structured, at least not yet. For example, I can't set the exact number of times that I will repeat the song, because that depends on the calling of that thing and how long it takes to arrive. This is different from the "sequences" or lines of actions that can be structured precisely. Maybe the sequences can be used in between the nodes, connecting them? MARGIN AND MINIMUM. Any structure is the minimum that you must do. If you can relax into the structure, if you can do it without fear, then you will always do more than the minimum. We have an exercise called "minimum jogging." It means that the least you can do is jog around the room in a circle. You always do more than this, but more is not required. Even when you go to see a ballet, what you are really going to see is a "minimum ballet." The least you will see is the structure of the ballet, and if that's all you see, it will be enough. But a great performance is always more than the minimum. What we really care about is the margin between the minimum and what is actually done. This margin is the irreducible and irreproducible fullness of live performance. Of course, there can be no margin without a minimum. The minimum determines the nature of the margin. The more subtle or high-energy the minimum is, the more subtle or high-energy the margin can be. ------------------------------------------------------ 3) MICHELE: INSTRUCTIONS FOR DAILY WORK We come in. We don't speak. We make a written list of anything that needs to be discussed at the end. When you walk into the space, you are clear to begin working. We have two rituals: first, arrange the furniture so that the space is clear; and second, change our clothing. As soon as your clothing is changed, you step into the space, even if I'm not there, because this is your private time. You start out with warm, soft movements, and no pressure, and then continue through your whole physical work structure. At some point, I'm going to start to follow you. You notice this. I may sometimes also interact. At some point we agree to leave the space. After that we change into our singing clothes. You enter the space first, and I am your witness. You search with singing, and go through the four songs you are working on now. When you leave the space, I enter, and it's your turn to witness, when you are ready. The outside eye can speak during this part. After I leave the space, we talk about what we saw and did. We can ask for specific feedback and assignments. We will not separate until we are each clear on what we have to do next. Then we go into different rooms and work separately on our structures. The other person can come into the room and watch silently, and the first person should continue to work. This is a good practice for disarming. If we both stop, we talk and clarify again what we are doing, and then go back to work separately. ------------------------------------------------------ 4) BEN: SETTING ASIDE THE SOCIAL BRAIN From "The Gregarious Brain" by David Dobbs, New York Times, July 8, 2007 (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/08/magazine/08sociability-t.html): "To find food, some of the newly hungry primate species moved to the forest edge. Their new habitat put more food in reach, but it also placed the primates within reach of big cats, canines and other savanna predators. This predation spurred two key evolutionary changes. The primates became bigger, giving individuals more of a fighting chance, and they started living in bigger groups, which provided more eyes to keep watch and a strength of numbers in defense. "But the bigger groups imposed a new brain load: the members had to be smart enough to balance their individual needs with those of the pack. This meant cooperating and exercising some individual restraint. It also required understanding the behavior of other group members striving not only for safety and food but also access to mates. And it called for comprehending and managing one's place in an ever-shifting array of alliances that members formed in order not to be isolated within the bigger group. "How did primates form and manage these alliances? They groomed one another. Monkeys and great apes spend up to a fifth of their time grooming, mostly with regular partners in pairs and small groups. This quality time (grooming generates a pleasing release of endorphins and oxytocin) builds strong bonds. Experiments in which a recording of macaques screaming in alarm is played, for instance, have shown a macaque will respond much more strongly to a grooming partner's cries than to cries from other members of the group. The large time investment involved seems to make a grooming relationship worth defending. "In this and other ways a group's members would create, test and declare their alliances. But as the animals and groups grew, tracking and understanding all those relationships required more intelligence. According to the social-brain theory, it was this need to understand social dynamics - not the need to find food or navigate terrain - that spurred and rewarded the evolution of bigger and bigger primate brains. "This isn't idle speculation; Robin Dunbar, an evolutionary psychologist and social-brain theorist, and others have documented correlations between brain size and social-group size in many primate species. The bigger an animal's typical group size (20 or so for macaques, for instance, 50 or so for chimps), the larger the percentage of brain devoted to neocortex, the thin but critical outer layer that accounts for most of a primate's cognitive abilities. In most mammals the neocortex accounts for 30 percent to 40 percent of brain volume. In the highly social primates it occupies about 50 percent to 65 percent. In humans, it's 80 percent. "According to Dunbar, no such strong correlation exists between neocortex size and tasks like hunting, navigating or creating shelter. Understanding one another, it seems, is our greatest cognitive challenge. And the only way humans could handle groups of more than 50, Dunbar suggests, was to learn how to talk. "'The conventional view,' Dunbar notes in his book 'Grooming, Gossip and the Evolution of Language,' 'is that language evolved to enable males to do things like coordinate hunts more effectively. . . . I am suggesting that language evolved to allow us to gossip.'" "Dunbar's assertion about the origin of language is controversial. But you needn't agree with it to see that talk provides a far more powerful and efficient way to exchange social information than grooming does. In the social-brain theory's broad definition, gossip means any conversation about social relationships: who did what to whom, who is what to whom, at every level, from family to work or school group to global politics. Defined this way, gossip accounts for about two-thirds of our conversation. All this yakking - murmured asides in the kitchen, gripefests in the office coffee room - yields vital data about changing alliances; shocking machinations; new, wished-for and missed opportunities; falling kings and rising stars; dangerous rivals and potential friends. These conversations tell us too what our gossipmates think about it all, and about us, all of which is crucial to maintaining our own alliances. "For we are all gossiped about, constantly evaluated by two criteria: Whether we can contribute, and whether we can be trusted. This reflects what Ralph Adolphs, a social neuroscientist at the California Institute of Technology, calls the 'complex and dynamic interplay between two opposing factors: on the one hand, groups can provide better security from predators, better mate choice and more reliable food; on the other hand, mates and food are available also to competitors from within the group.' You're part of a team, but you're competing with team members. Your teammates hope you'll contribute skills and intergroup competitive spirit - without, however, offering too much competition within the group, or at least not cheating when you do. So, even if they like you, they constantly assess your trustworthiness. They know you can't afford not to compete, and they worry you might do it sneakily. "Deception runs deep. In his book, 'Our Inner Ape,' Frans de Waal, a primatologist at Emory University, describes a simple but cruel deception perpetrated by a female chimp named Puist. One day, Puist chases but cannot catch a younger, faster female rival. Some minutes later, writes de Waal, 'Puist makes a friendly gesture from a distance, stretching out an open hand. The young female hesitates at first, then approaches Puist with classic signs of mistrust, like frequent stopping, looking around at others and a nervous grin on her face. Puist persists, adding soft pants when the younger female comes closer. Soft pants have a particularly friendly meaning; they are often followed by a kiss, the chimpanzee's chief conciliatory gesture. Then, suddenly, Puist lunges and grabs the younger female, biting her fiercely before she manages to free herself.' "This 'deceptive reconciliation offer,' as de Waal calls it, is classic schoolyard stuff. Adult humans generally do a better job veiling a coming assault. The bigger the neocortex, the higher the rate of deceptive behavior. Our extra-big brains allow us to balance bonding and maneuvering in more subtle and complicated ways." In other words, the brain's neocortex is responsible for the astonishing complexity of human social interaction. This complexity, which has given rise to civilization as we know it, evolved on top of what are called the "dog brain" and the "reptile brain" - those parts we essentially share with dogs and reptiles. Is it possible to set aside or get 'under' the social brain? What does it feel like to burn aside the burder of social analysis and accountability for a few moments? What does it mean to place your allegiance, for a little while, with the human-pack instead of the human-society? This is not an easy thing to do. Some people go sky-diving or take drugs or visit war zones or have constant sex in order to get to that place. We are looking for a practice by which to locate that place in a daily context rather than an extreme one. To make it sustainable. M "I feel a gap between myself and my body when you are watching." B: "It's actually a gap between who you think I expect you to be and who you really are in that moment." "Myself" = "Who (you) think I am" "My Body" = "Who I really am" What are we aside from our bodies? The expectations of other people. The social self. How can we put these expectations down for a moment, in the act of performance, and be ready to take them up again when that act is completed? It is a question of allegiance: allegiance to something that is outside, or rather below, civilization. Are you willing to go to the dog world? Are you willing to transfer allegiance to the pulse of the reptile? Not unless we make adequate provisions for the return journey. That is what technique is for. It is the way there and the way back. ------------------------------------------------------ 5) MICHELE: NOTES ON SINGING: DEVOTIONAL CONTACT Just singing a song is no longer satisfying to me. What I want to satisfy now is: how does the song call my body into its meaning? Dancing to the song is not enough. Dancing to the song means I am being physically moved by its rhythm and carriage. I belong to the song's muscle, to its skeleton. I have not penetrated its heart. I repeat the song again and again, stretching out in different directions, traveling to different keys and ranges, trying to get to the sentence of the song. I am so lucky when it arrives. I have no trouble singing the high notes then, no trouble keeping the most demanding rhythm without running out of breath because I've descended into a place that is deeper than the exterior shape of the song. It's a mystery: from that deep place, I no longer struggle with the technical efforts of trying to keep the song alive. It's alive. I'm touching its life. I cannot devote myself to something whose meaning is closed to me, no matter how beautiful it is. I want to be included in its reason, its purpose. This is what I fight for in our work space while singing. This is when song play becomes the work of singing. There are many lines of melody whose sound I love, but whose meaning I have not penetrated yet. To love a song and not penetrate its meaning--to love the melody, but remain outside of it--can be maddening. These times, I want to leave the work space. At the same time, I must stay in and keep searching for the entrance into the song which is really the descent into the place in myself that seems always to be longing for, reaching for, voice. Why do I want to sing the meaning of the song? So I can devote the part of myself that is searching for meaning to making a sound that is more than just beautiful. This is why I keep coming back to try again. ------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------ As always, comments and feedback are welcome. Ben Spatz ben@urbanresearchtheater.com New York City