Theatre-Making & Processes
Devising
Category
Devising is a method of making performance that is not dominated by text, and includes the collaborative participation of the whole creative company in all stages and aspects of the creative process.
Video
During the revival of An Die Musik in 2000, Simmons discusses the origins of the original production and the process of its creation and compares it with the process of recreating it 25 years later.
Video
Are You For Real? addresses how the
heavy American workload and multitasking fact pace
of life can impact the sense of
self.
Video
Pearson takes a group of practitioners through the many exercises that formed the central concerns of Brith Gof. These include physical training, spatial and temporal awareness and group choreography.
Video
This video is documentation taken from a weekly contact jam session with the
actors in the MFA Actor-Training program at UC Irvine. Contact Improvisation is
a large part of the movement arc in the first year of actor training, and jam
sessions are held weekly, integrating all three years of MFA actors.
Someone happened to video this session, and I give a brief description of
our use of contact as a tool for actor training in the
voice-over.
Video
This video is documentation of an exercise with 3rd year graduate actors at
the UC Irvine Actor-Training program, speaking a monologue while contacting with
a silent partner. At a moment of heightened activity, the silent
partner is removed, and the resulting delivery of the monologue is focused and
intensely communicated.
The athleticism and sensitivity of the contact created a culture of
expressivity. Tenderness as well as rage and challenge emerged in the contact
session and remained present in the solo monologue. So, the complexities of
emotion that were embodied metaphorically and rhythmically in the extreme lifts
and rolls and balances of the partnering could be seen as an emotional
“rehearsal” for the solo performance. But once the partner was removed, the
speaker had to reach out to us, and address each deeply felt idea to the
audience in the room.
No longer in a contact with the literal “other,” we, the audience, now become
the necessary focus.
Video
In this video presentation, Avra discusses her book and some fundamental
principles that permeate the directing art.
Video
This video presentation features playwright and director Oriza Hirata’s
concept of robot theatre. Making Robot Theatre: An interview with Oriza Hirata of
Tokyo-based Seinendan.
Video
Back to Back Theatre creates new forms of contemporary performance imagined
from the minds and experiences of a unique ensemble of actors with disabilities,
giving voice to social and political issues that speak to all people.
Based in the regional centre of Geelong, the company is one of Australia’s
most globally recognised and respected contemporary theatre companies. Seeking
to make a body of work that exists in repertoire across time, the company tours
extensively locally, nationally, and internationally.
Video
A narrow catwalk between two flanks of spectators: ‘Maran Ata! The Lord is coming! A child is born in Bethlehem. He will destroy Jerusalem. Kyrie Eleison. He has not come to bring peace.’
Video
let’s take a
walk is an audio journey around the
Barbican that starts with a question from a
stranger hoping to take us out of our social
bubble.
Video
let’s take a
walk is an audio journey around the
Barbican that starts with a question from a
stranger who might take us out of our social
bubble.
Video
let’s take a
walk is an audio journey around the
Barbican that starts with a question from a
stranger who might take us out of our social
bubble.
Video
mountaineering explores choice, interaction, and personal conversation with audience participants at the Roundhouse and Salisbury Playhouse.
Video
mountaineering explores choice, interaction, and personal conversation with audience participants at the Roundhouse and Salisbury Playhouse.
Video
Sand tells the story of the history and
evolution of sand dance as it is passed down from
father to son.
Video
This video is an introduction to the company of Anthony Neilson’s Royal
Court show Narrative in 2013: Anthony Neilson; Zawe Ashton; Imogen Doel;
Brian Doherty; Christine Entwisle; Barney Power; Olly Rix and Sophie
Ross.
Video
This video provides a window into other aspects of Neilson’s authorial
propensities via a snapshot of rehearsal room discussion concerning what to name the
characters in the show.
Video
This video shows how Neilson authors and develops his script in the moment
during rehearsals. This process occurs as actors Barney Power and Zawe Ashton work
on a scene where Power’s character is humiliated while attending an advert audition
conducted by Ashton’s maliciously bored character.
Video
This video clip shows actor Zawe Ashton employing the Affective Memory
rehearsal technique while running a scene with actor Olly Rix.
Video
This video features Neilson and actors Zawe Ashton and Christine
Entwisle’s work on developing a newly-written scene in which Ashton’s character
attends an unconventional counselling appointment. It contains excerpts of
discussion, as well as a full-length improvisation where Ashton’s head is masked by
a cardboard box.
Video
This video is the first time the company run the improvisation concerning
the arbitrary items found in the rehearsal space.
Video
In this video actors Christine Entwisle and Zawe Ashton discuss the Box
Therapy improvisation.
Video
In this video Anthony Neilson, Christine Entwisle and Zawe Ashton finalise
the performance of the therapy session during the technical rehearsal in the Jerwood
Theatre Upstairs at the Royal Court.
Video
Anthony Neilson and Brian Doherty talk about Neilson’s use of
improvisation in his rehearsal process in this video.
Video
In this video the whole company conduct an improvisation run by music and
sound designer Nick Powell. During the improvisation the participants attempt to
create a multi-layered vocal score by splicing together various random sounds
articulated by individual company members.
Video
Anthony Neilson, Brian Doherty and Christine Entwisle discuss features of
Neilson’s methodology as a director.
Video
This video shows the similarities between the beginning and the end of
Narrative.
Video
This video contains rehearsal room footage of the company discussing the
idea of having some kind of audience participation as the ending to
Narrative. Then the video moves to the technical rehearsal in the
Jerwood Theatre Upstairs at the Royal Court, where Neilson directs a different way
of concluding the show.
Video
In this video Anthony Neilson, Imogen Doel and Sophie Ross discuss the
interaction between the actor’s process and Neilson’s directorial/authorial
approach.
Video
In this video the assistant director of Narrative, Ned Bennett,
and actors Brian Doherty, Zawe Ashton, Sophie Ross, Barney Power and Olly Rix,
discuss the effects of being filmed while rehearsing the show. Then the video moves
into the rehearsal room, where Rix is running a scene from the play.
Video
In this video the Narrative company have come to the end of the
rehearsal period. Here Neilson discusses with the cast how the following week-long
technical rehearsal will be conducted and attempts to allay any concerns they may
have about the forthcoming opening and subsequent run of the show.
Video
This video contains footage of the note session before Press Night where
Neilson introduces an entirely new scene to be performed by actors Imogen Doel and
Zawe Ashton that evening. The video then shows the only rehearsal of the scene
before the performance.
Video
In this video actress Christine Entwisle talks about her experience of
being filmed rehearsing her role in Narrative. The video then shows the
impact Entwisle discusses, during the technical rehearsal in the Jerwood Theatre
Upstairs at the Royal Court.
Video
Anthony Neilson considers how actors can influence the authorship of his
work in this video. Then the video moves to the rehearsal room where the
Narrative company throw various ideas around concerning how one of the
characters being out of sync with reality can be theatrically rendered.
Video
This is a video of the Narrative company’s second discussion and
running of an improvisation using some chance items found in the rehearsal
room.
Video
In this video the company and music and sound designer, Nick Powell,
continue to explore the ways in which the character being out of sync with reality
can be theatrically rendered. The footage then proceeds to show how this idea is
audio-visually represented for the on-stage performance.
Video
In this video Anthony Neilson, assistant director Ned Bennett and the
actors Imogen Doel, Sophie Ross, Barney Power and Christine Entwisle, reflect on the
tangential properties of Neilson’s authorial process.
Video
This video shows the authorial input of actor Olly Rix, as he works on a
speech in the rehearsal room and then during the technical rehearsal at the Jerwood
Theatre Upstairs at the Royal Court.
Video
Anthony Neilson and actors Olly Rix, Brian Doherty and Imogen Doel give
their views on the connection between the actor and Neilson’s authorship in this
video.
Video
A public domain
theatre show,
part voyeuristic meditation, part urban
thriller, it unfolds amidst the high volume
pedestrian traffic of a public
space.
Video
This film documents the work of Iben Nagel Rasmussen (Odin Teatret) with her
international group The Bridge of Winds during a two-week closed work session held
in December 2011.
![you'll see me [sailing in antarctica] — non zero one — Trailer](/propagator/data/img-dc/original/image/youll-see-me-sailing-in-antarctica-non-zero-one-trailer/image-thumb-191102.jpg)
Video
A look at the science behind human perception through performance lectures,
surround sound, hidden televisions, and sweeping panoramic views of the London
skyline.
![you’ll see me [sailing in antarctica] – non zero one – Full length Wide](/propagator/data/img-dc/original/image/youll-see-me-sailing-in-antarctica-non-zero-one-full-length-wide/image-thumb-191101.jpg)
Video
A look at the science behind human perception through performance lectures,
surround sound, hidden televisions, and sweeping panoramic views of the London
skyline.
Commentary
by Annie Loui
Contact improvisation is a form of dance improvisation based on energy and weight
exchange, incorporating elements of aikido, jitterbugging, child’s play, and
tumbling
Commentary
by Calvert, Dave
Reflections on Ganesh versus the Third Reich by Dave Calvert discusses the
work created by back to back.
Commentary
by Calvert, Dave
Reflections on small metal objects by back to back.
Practitioner
An international touring company co-founded by Simon McBurney in 1983, Complicité has helped shape the landscape of contemporary theatre, with acclaimed physical, devised and multimedia work.
Practitioner
Nature Theatre of Oklahoma is an OBIE-winning New York performance group led by Pavol Liska and Kelly Copper. They create unsettling situations that demand total presence from everyone in the room.
Practitioner
Pip Simmons set up his own experimental company in 1968. It made intense, physical and musical work through collective devising. The group split up in 1973, and Simmons increasingly worked abroad.
Related Items
Practitioner
Goat Island was a Chicago-based collaborative performance group that made nine intimate, low-tech and intensely physical performance works that toured internationally, between 1987 and 2009.
