MerryChristmas

Dear Theater people, dear friends.

I am sorry for not showing up at various events but I was terribly ill. I even skipped work. I am specially sorry for not being able to say goodbye to Amparo. I will work on the play and some conceptual things that we can work and discuss next year in my holiday. I will return on the 9th of January so it would be nice if you could email/comment me your possible first rehearsal dates. I am glad we formed this group and a lot of interesting things are developing but patience is important to see and feel what is good and what was only a good exercise. We will loose Amparo and Moreno and I think we will all miss them in the process. I felt that by the end of the year exhaustion was sinking into our bones but the new year will give us new spirit to take up our course and get a play on stage.

Love

Ulf

Task 5

At Night. Cell Phone. Phone box. Dead. Empty. No Bus. No Metro. Walking.
At Night. Chat. Shut down computer. Fridge. Eat. Bed. Sleepless. Go for a walk.
Collison.
I am sorry.

Please memorise this bit of text. It will be the start of an impro.

I know it's late

Text from Merida

“...And then again, there's nothing more suitable for bringing tears to a prisoner's eyes, than those accounts of breathtaking journeys. Since my call-up, I have often missed the cities and landscapes of the world I know - and sometimes that's bitter. But this evening I miss Argentina, the Sahara, all the parts of the world I don't know, the whole earth - and that's much milder, more resigned and hopeless, it's a 'tender suffering' that resembles happiness. It's like missing a life I might have had, when I was 'a thousand Socrates'."

Jean-Paul Sartre
from Hopscotch – Julio Cortazar

Listen, this is just for you, don’t mention it to anyone else, Maga. I was the hollow shape, you used to tremble, pure and free as a flame, a stream of quicksilver, like the first notes of a bird when dawn is breaking, and it’s nice to tell you all this in words that used to fascinate you, because you thought they didn’t exist outside of poetry and that we had every right to use them. Where are you now, where will we be from today on, two points in an inexplicable universe, near or far, two points that make a line, two points that drift apart and come close together arbitrarily (great figures who had made the name of Bueno de Guzman renowned, but how corny can the guy get, Maga, how did you ever get beyond page five…), but I won’t explain to you the things they call Brownian movements, of course, I won’t explain them to you and still both of us, Maga, form a pattern, you a point somewhere, me another somewhere else, displacing each other, you probably now in the Rue de la Huchette, while I am discovering this novel in your empty apartment, tomorrow you in Gare de Lyon ( if you’re going to Lucca, my love) and me on the Rue du Chemin Vert, where I’ve discovered a wonderful little wine, and little by little, Maga, we go along forming an absurd pattern, with our movements we sketch out a pattern just like the ones flies make when they fly around a room, from here to there, suddenly in mid-flight, from here to there, that’s what they call Brownian movement, now do you understand? A right angle, an ascending line, from here to there, from back to front, up, down, spasmodically, slamming on the brakes and starting right up in another direction, and all of this is drawing a picture, a pattern, something nonexistent like you and me, like two points lost in Paris, that go from here to there, from there to here, drawing their picture, putting on a dance for nobody, not even for themselves, an interminable pattern without meaning.

We must learn better
What we are and are not
We are not the wind
We are not every vagrant mood that tempts
Our minds to giddy homelessness.
We must distinguish better
Between ourselves and strangers
There is much that we are not
There is much that is not
There is much that we have not to be.
(From “the why of the wind” Laura Riding)

Two types of strangers/outsiders

I'm absolutely sure there are more types. to begin with, here are two with examples. could be merged, one could be both, but i think it's important to note the difference in the feeling if one is to play the role of a stranger/outsider; especially if different parts of one's act are to be accompanied with different types of stranger-feeling. would be great if you share other outsider types you think of or examples.

1- Strange but connective: the magical wierdo
Some people have the capacity to change a very daily and normal setting into something extraordinary, magical, or monumental. They make one feel something special is happening, or that things are more significant or beautiful or alive than one thinks. Help one see things outside the preordered interpretative schema of categories and judgments. Like a non-verbal comunication that makes you feel you're not alone. To me, Kieslowsky is a director that is the master of creating such moments. These outsiders are inspirational, but people avoid seeing them too often cause they can disrupt the normal tempo and pace of daily life for the people around them. They need not do wierd things: sometimes just the way they'd listen to you or look into your eyes or smile without trying too hard to appeal could change a moment.
I'd like to share one of those "situations" with you. Amsterdam train station after a long day; on the other side of the track a person, non-persistently female, simply started dancing passionately with the railway. The pictures aren't that good, but hope they give you something, I tried to capture at least one complete form of her dance.
http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=298464062&size=l

2- Disconnected Stranger
I guess no comment is required. Inspirations from L'Etranger, Albert Camus:
"Maman died today. Or yesterday maybe, I don't know. I got a telegram from the home: 'Mother deceased. Funeral tomorrow. Faithfully yours.' That doesn't mean anything. Maybe it was yesterday." Part 1, Chapter 1, pg. 3
"She was wearing a pair of my pajamas with the sleeves rolled up. When she laughed I wanted her again. A minute later she asked me if I loved her. I told her it didn't mean anything but that I didn't think so. She looked sad. But as we were fixing lunch, and for no apparent reason, she laughed in such a way that I kissed her." Part 1, Chapter 4, pg. 35
"On my way out, I was even going to shake his [the policeman's] hand, but just in time, I remembered that I had killed a man." Part 2, Chapter 1, pg. 64
"'I am on your side. But you have no way of knowing it, because our heart is blind.'" Part 2, Chapter 5, pg. 120
"...for the first time in years, I had this stupid urge to cry, because I could feel how much all these people hated me." Part 2, Chapter 3, pg. 90
"They [the jury] had before them the basest of crimes, a crime made worse than sordid by the fact that they were dealing with a monster, a man without morals." Part 2, Chapter 3, pp. 95-96
"In a way, they seemed to be arguing the case as if it had nothing to do with me. Everything was happening without my participation. My fate was being decided without anyone so much as asking my opinion." Part 2, Chapter 4, pg. 98
For everything to be consummated, for me to feel less alone, I had only to wish that there be a large crowd of spectators the day of my execution and that they greet me with cries of hate." Part 2, Chapter 5, pg. 122-3

Task 4

Please choose an arbitrary person on the street. See how he/she crosses the street, how she walks. Try to imitate. Try to add something new, something you are satified with. Make up short cornerstones of the life of this person. Remember the reduction to the essential. You don't have to make up a 3 act play. A short impression, a glance is enough.
Note the text links on the left of the page.

Task 3

Please memorise the following text:

But even I, As sick as I am, I would never be you
Even I, As sick as I am, I would never be you
Even I, Sick and depraved, A traveller to the grave
I would never be you
I would never be you

Ida et al. ideas

I thought it might be helpful to have this as a main blog post

1- A collective form in a circle, starts with one person, each one adds something, ends with the begning move
2- (Moreno had experienced this if i'm not wrong) 2 people improvise based on each other and interactions for 3 minutes
3- better explore others' rolse and bodies (to figure out limits, characteristics, character) during improvisation and come to a end together; not absolute awareness at all times but a minimum other-awarness
4- some people need time to think of what they do. feel free to create a sleeping or resting or thinking form with a begining and ned which looks good and you can go to whenever you need time to think or observe others to determine your own. Errida also suggested that we do not need to jumpo into improvisation immediately and we can wait and watch others a bit before getting off the chair.
5- collective forms two lines facing each other. each line makes a form, the line in front makes a form reacting to the first line. different exercises are possible: the reaction could be miroring, complementing, agreement, disagreement, resistance towards the first line, etc.

Task 2

Memorise any of the following two lines:

1. I'm so happy cause today
I've found my friends

2. two tickets torn in half
and a lot of nothing to do

3. You are someone else
I am still right here

Task 1

Look at the pictures on the left. Please associate one word for each picture. We will do an improvisation on it. You might have to right click on the images and press view image to see the full picture.

Start

Dear theatre enthusiasts,

this blog should help canalise our thoughts to finally find a form for our play. It should involve thoughts and pictures and it will also contain some text:)