Theatre-Making & Processes
Improvisation
Category
Improvisation is the spontaneous invention of performance. But while it specifies a particular form, elements of improvisation are intrinsic to all performance and the quality of liveness it produces.
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Drawing on a half century of documenting performance across multiple genres, from post-modern dance to physical theater to body work, as well as site-specific performance, with audiovisual examples from some 53 practitioners, including Eugenio Barba, Tim Etchells, Joan Skinner, Kristin Linklater, and Steve Paxton, Peter Hulton’s “A Digital Essay on Performance”considers performance as a body in operation with imagery and attempts to identify some of its foundational features.
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Active Breath Somatic Practice – the vital relationship of the breath in performance practice, Patricia Bardi, Lecture-Presentation at the Breath as a Tool in Performance Conference– National Centre for the Performing Arts.
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Strindberg Laboratory’s “demonstration project” through California
Arts Council’s “Prison Project” involving people who are about to be released
back into society.
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A modern day metaphor for the journey of the
lonely self to find peace with one's
identity.
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Solo performance vocalizing a US State Department questionnaire, a woman’s response to being mugged, and a existential soliloquy.
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CoNCrEte (2009)
screendance reveals
how the environment affects our emotions and ever-changing lived
experience.
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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.
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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.
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Patricia Bardi and Arthur Brooks (music: trumpet) create an improvised performance exploring a nuanced and textured expressive language investigating the relationships among embodied sound texture, music movement, dance, voice, and text.
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Patricia Bardi and Arthur Brooks create an improvised performance in 1998 exploring a nuanced and textured expressive language investigating the relationships among embodied sound texture, music movement, dance, voice, and text.
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This excerpt from an evening-long performance, Figment has improvisersusing compositionas a formal element.
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Walking Gusto Productions
explores the marginalised and disempowered female voices of South Africa by
using the body as a “site of resistance”
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From Starting to Cut the Wood translates the sounds of manual labor into
dance.
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Shot at a workshop held at La Bartra, a retreat centre in the Prades mountains. Most of those present had worked with Suryodarmo for many years, and they came from across Europe to share his practice.
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Zarrilli’s Psychophysical Acting methodology focuses on the relationship between the actor-as-doer and what the actor does. It (re)examines in practice and theory a psychophysical approach to acting.
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In between researches stillness and transition, focusing on the moments,
during which nothing seems to happen, but without which, nothing can
happen.
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This interview was conducted as part of the “Telling Our Stories of Home Festival”
made possible by Kathy Perkins and Tanya Shields at the University of North Carolina
at Chapel Hill. It is about the African Diaspora in India, particularly Siddi life
and culture in Karnataka, and descriptions of the arts and social conditions in the
Siddi community. Also included are the personal experiences of Girija Siddi and
Geeta Siddi, such as how they were able to continue their education and and how they
got into Theatre. They are the first Siddi women to graduate in Theatre, which has
motivated other Siddi youngsters to consider Theatre as a profession and to continue
their advanced studies. In the interview they also noted that they are now living in
a city, no longer within their own community. They are looked upon as strangers in
Bengaluru because most of the people in the community are not aware of the Siddi
people, who have been living in the same country for more than 600 years.
Girija now is practicing Hindustani classical vocal music, and she is the first Siddi
woman to study classical Indian music. Geeta Siddi, after her master’s in performing
arts, is doing her PhD on women artists in Kannada Theatre. She has been honored by
a fellowship from HRD, Government of India for her research on the Arts of the Siddi
Community in Karnataka.
Girija and Geeta are also the first women to travel outside of India. They were
invited as international artists to participate in the “Telling Our Stories of Home
Festival.”
Channakeshava G is founder trustee of the Siddi Trust and the Lokacharita Trust
organizations. He is a visiting teacher at NINASAM Theatre School and other
institutions. He has worked with the Siddi community of Karnataka for the last 15
years and has written and directed more than 50 plays in 5 of the languages of South
India.
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The full performance of Light Becomes Her is a dynamic collage of
voice, dance, movement, and character which looks at one woman and the multiple
aspects of the different women living inside her.
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The excerpt of Light Becomes Her is a dynamic collage of voice, dance, movement, and character which looks at one woman and the multiple aspects of the different women living inside her.
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A solo performance boldly exploring female empowerment and resilience in the context of male behaviour.
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In this demonstration-performance, Odin Teatret’s Iben Nagel Rasmussen shows and explains her working practice, from her training methods through to performance.
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This workshop has a strong focus on voice work. It takes place on Dartmoor, in an ancient stone circle, a village hall and a garden, and illustrates Suryodarmo’s individual movement practice.
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Pin Drop Echoes Through shows Patricia Bardi and pianist Alex Maguire creating a performance that build bridges and dismantle boundaries between movement, dance, voice, text, and music.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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This video clip shows actor Zawe Ashton employing the Affective Memory
rehearsal technique while running a scene with actor Olly Rix.
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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.
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This video is the first time the company run the improvisation concerning
the arbitrary items found in the rehearsal space.
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In this video actors Christine Entwisle and Zawe Ashton discuss the Box
Therapy improvisation.
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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.
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Anthony Neilson and Brian Doherty talk about Neilson’s use of
improvisation in his rehearsal process in this video.
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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.
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Anthony Neilson, Brian Doherty and Christine Entwisle discuss features of
Neilson’s methodology as a director.
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This video shows the similarities between the beginning and the end of
Narrative.
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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.
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In this video Anthony Neilson, Imogen Doel and Sophie Ross discuss the
interaction between the actor’s process and Neilson’s directorial/authorial
approach.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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The Organs’ Presence in Voice, Movement and Expression Workshop, Patricia Bardi holds a workshop on combining somatic practice and improvisation in integrating voice and movement in a creative process.
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Touchdown Dance, which includes commentary and analysis by Paxton, observes the experience of a visually impaired woman, Kirin Saeed, as she moves through a five-day workshop with Paxton’s company.
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Inthis lively performance, Patricia Bardi shares some of her discoveries and insights that have developed over many years of independent research and performance practice of Vocal Dance. Performed at the SDNO, School for New Dance Development, Amsterdam, 1995.
Commentary
by Peter Hulton
Drawing on a half century of documenting performance across multiple genres, from post-modern dance to physical theater to body work, as well as site-specific performance, with audiovisual examples from some 53 practitioners, including Eugenio Barba, Tim Etchells, Joan Skinner, Kristin Linklater, and Steve Paxton, Peter Hulton’s “A Digital Essay on Performance”considers performance as a body in operation with imagery and attempts to identify some of its foundational features.
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 McPherson, Katrina
Practitioner
Actor, director, teacher, author of six books and pioneer of ‘Active Analysis’, Maria Osipovna Knebel is arguably the most influential figure in 20th-century Russian theatre, after Stanislavski.
Practitioner
Steve Paxton worked with Merce Cunningham and helped found Judson Dance Theatre. He is the inventor of contact improvisation, and continues to perform, choreograph and teach around the world.
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Practitioner
The inventor of the internationally renowned Forum Theatre system and ‘Theatre of the Oppressed’.
Practitioner
Inventor of an influential somatic and performance practice known as ‘Joged Amerta’, Suprapto Suryodarmo has taught and performed in Indonesia, Europe, Australia, the USA and India for over 25 years.
Category
Applied to theatre practice, the term ‘Laboratory’, commonly associated with Grotowski, is used to denote concentrated and consistent experiment as being at the root of the theatre-making process.