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An ensemble is a grouping of performers or theatre-makers, preferably with an extended professional commitment, working towards an individual performance or as part of an established company.
Combining the insights of a playwright, actor, sound designer and an artistic director, this interview with Adriano Shaplin provides a distinct perspective on ensemble.
A film following the street performance Anabasis in Peru. It was an itinerant performance, based on exploiting the connections between the actors and the spectators who they encounter on their way.
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.
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.
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.
This video is from a workshop which brought together performer Miranda
Manasiadis and choreographer Malia Johnston. The workshop took place at Footnote
Dance and Deirdre Tarrant Studios.
This film, shot in the early part of the 1990s by leading Polish film-maker Jacek Petrycki, shows Gardzienice on the road in the Carpathian mountains in the Ukraine, rehearsing and training.
Since 1981, I have been conducting research on black women behind the scenes in the
American theatre. As a black female lighting designer, I am aware of our
invisibility within the larger American theatre and have made an effort to expose
these women to a wider audience. I have interviewed numerous black women who have
made significant contributions to the American theatre. These women include
designers, producers, directors, playwrights, artistic directors, and other
individuals working behind the scenes. This is a rare interview I conducted with
Glenda Dickerson (1945-2012) during a rehearsal of her adaptation of The Trojan
Women, performed with an all-black cast during January 1983. This interview
is very dear to me as Dickerson was a mentor. I followed her career with various
interviews, tapings at conferences, and the publication of one of her plays. Glenda
Dickerson was a director, folklorist, actress, adapter/conceiver, and educator. With
a career of nearly 40 years she was known for her unique adaptations of Greek
classics, African American folktales, the feminist theatre approach, and ensemble
work. She was the second black woman to direct on Broadway with the 1980 musical
Reggae. Her work has also been presented nationally and
internationally. In the commercial arena she was constantly presented with racial
and gender challenges. After working in mainstream theatre for many years, Dickerson
chose to focus her talents on educational and community-oriented theatre. She also
began to concentrate on feminist/womanist theatre. She taught at Howard University,
Spelman, Rutgers, and the University of Michigan. Only in recent years is her work
finally gaining recognition, but as with many other black women, Dickerson’s
contributions are largely unknown.
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.’
Gardzienice’s physical and vocal training hinges on two main ideas: mutuality and musicality. It usually begins with song, perhaps discovered on a rural expedition or taken from ancient Greek music.
With its underpinning in the principles of the Alexander Technique, this workshop introduces a somatic framework for movement training for performance which develops Alexander’s directions.
A film made by Rekha Tandon’s company, Dance Routes, that begins with a description of Odissi’s background as a temple dance tradition, and an account of its basic form and ornamentation.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
In this video Anthony Neilson, Imogen Doel and Sophie Ross discuss the
interaction between the actor’s process and Neilson’s directorial/authorial
approach.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Soldier, Child, Tortured Man (1989) was Goat Island’s first performance. It considered the physical and mental conditioning that militarises first the individual and then the social structure.
Sun, Moon and Feather presents a musical comedy-documentary about three Native American sisters growing up Native in an Italian neighbourhood in Brooklyn during the 1930s and 1940s.
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.
The Lastmaker (2007) was Goat Island’s ninth and final performance, composed by the group with ending in mind. The piece took its inspiration from the historical trajectory of the Hagia Sophia.
A performance-demonstration about the difference between theatre and dance. European culture suffers from the division between theatre and dance. They are, in fact, a single world.
An interview lasting almost two hours, covering the extraordinary breadth of Mike Alfreds’s experience as a theatre director working across different decades, cultures and continents.
Contact improvisation is a form of dance improvisation based on energy and weight
exchange, incorporating elements of aikido, jitterbugging, child’s play, and
tumbling
Having worked with Grotowski for five years, Wlodzimierz Staniewski founded Gardzienice in 1977. Based in a Polish village, it is now one of Europe’s most innovative and distinguished theatre groups.
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.