Lincoln Center Day 12
Discussion about Creating New work/Adaptation/Devised work (whatever you want to call it)
Director as Editor, or Dramaturg as editor
Vice List and Sampling
Jackie Chan has an entire room in his house devoted to ideas for his projects. They are clippings of magazines, pictures, and newspapers of moves, ideas, and thoughts that he feels drawn to and wants to try and incorporate into his movies. An entire room! All the walls are covered, ceiling, bookshelfs full clippings on the floor. He can go into the room and literally fall into a great idea.
3D mapping of ideas, like the statues we put up for inferno, but keeping it their so the creators can continuously check on it.
The problem becomes keeping it from becoming a secret party that the audience doesn't understand.
A General observation from the two weeks so far: Some people need to learn to self edit their thoughts. Some people talk far to much, even after their thought has been presented. Some take forever to get to their thought.It is quite fascinating sometimes, it's like viewpoints, you can see the moment come and go, and yet the horse continues to get beaten. I don't talk much in everyday life, and I certainly hope that when I do it is becasue something needs to be said. I know that isn't always the case, but I do wonder if some of these people know that we dread it when they begin to speak, or we check out half way through their idea.
Everybody look into Punchdrunk- a theatre collective out of London. Experiential work
Discussion about Dramaturgy
What the hell is it?
Another title for Literary Manager. Provide research ( isn't that my job, or the actors) and provide structure.
Everything you need to do a show has been needed since the greeks.
Make an actor the dramaturg, anyone who like input and can share that with the group.
Peer Gynt- cast a different Peer in each act?
Find the people who know, Librarians are good, make friends with them.
I have this sense that Dramaturgs don't even know what they do. They seem to have this superiority complex, yet still can't explain what their job is. I don't want to feel this way, I want to actually know. Am I missing a huge part of my work, or am I just missing out on extra weight. Are they Smart people who like research and Theatre and just don't like being a part of the actual DOING of the creative process, so they create a position of importance? What do they do? Research? Isn't that my job, and the actors? Structure? Isn't that the playwrights, mine and the actors? If a dramaturg is so important, why doesn't every theatre have one, or school? And when a theatre has one, why aren't they there at all the rehearsals? Can You collaborate with someone who is outside of the room doing a research project.Or are they a test audience? They come in early on in the project, leave, and come back at the end to see what works. Doesn't an Artistic Director do that?
Ended the day with a discussion with all of our International Directors. There are 61 of us this year. 1 from romania, 1 from Hong Kong, 1 from Nepal, 2 from the Netherlands, 1 from Brazil, 1 from cyprus, 4 from England, 1 from Italy, 1 from Norway, 1 from Germany, and 2 from the Phillipines. The rest from the US.
Really great discussion, ultiamtely what I took from it is that no matter how bad we feel the system we have here is, we still have it really good. Yeah, the theatre is subsidized in Europe, but no new plays are being done, or young directors allowed to direct. They all came here, and want to work here. They want to take our ideas and change their countries. We are viewed as the leader in the arts. This could be Money, Population, Space, resources, innovation, or intellegence. But it may have more to do with our youth. USA may not have a long past, and that helps us in our forward thinking. Mateo, the director from italy, brought up a great point that I remember from being there: Italians have an amazingly ancient culture that surrounds them. They are surrounded by their past. How do you create your future when you are constantly looking at and being judged by your past? And the same question applies to the other countires as well. Nepal and the King and Religion. Cyprus and the divide between Greek and Turkish cultures. Brazil and the slave trade that lead to the largest inequality of the distribution of wealth on the planet.etc. etc. Yeah we have our history and our problems, but by our very nature we forget it and move on in some way. We take as pride constantly re-inventing ourselves. I still want to work over seas, I still want to change what have here, I still wouldn't trade it for the world.
This workshob Lab has been really amazing (and I still have another week) and has really opened my eyes, and more importantly my mind, to ideas that I actively shut out before. Is this growing up? Probably. But I don't think I'm learning to accept this system, but understand it and make it work for me while trying to change it from the inside.
I dunno. Or the maybe the opposite.
Director as Editor, or Dramaturg as editor
Vice List and Sampling
Jackie Chan has an entire room in his house devoted to ideas for his projects. They are clippings of magazines, pictures, and newspapers of moves, ideas, and thoughts that he feels drawn to and wants to try and incorporate into his movies. An entire room! All the walls are covered, ceiling, bookshelfs full clippings on the floor. He can go into the room and literally fall into a great idea.
3D mapping of ideas, like the statues we put up for inferno, but keeping it their so the creators can continuously check on it.
The problem becomes keeping it from becoming a secret party that the audience doesn't understand.
A General observation from the two weeks so far: Some people need to learn to self edit their thoughts. Some people talk far to much, even after their thought has been presented. Some take forever to get to their thought.It is quite fascinating sometimes, it's like viewpoints, you can see the moment come and go, and yet the horse continues to get beaten. I don't talk much in everyday life, and I certainly hope that when I do it is becasue something needs to be said. I know that isn't always the case, but I do wonder if some of these people know that we dread it when they begin to speak, or we check out half way through their idea.
Everybody look into Punchdrunk- a theatre collective out of London. Experiential work
Discussion about Dramaturgy
What the hell is it?
Another title for Literary Manager. Provide research ( isn't that my job, or the actors) and provide structure.
Everything you need to do a show has been needed since the greeks.
Make an actor the dramaturg, anyone who like input and can share that with the group.
Peer Gynt- cast a different Peer in each act?
Find the people who know, Librarians are good, make friends with them.
I have this sense that Dramaturgs don't even know what they do. They seem to have this superiority complex, yet still can't explain what their job is. I don't want to feel this way, I want to actually know. Am I missing a huge part of my work, or am I just missing out on extra weight. Are they Smart people who like research and Theatre and just don't like being a part of the actual DOING of the creative process, so they create a position of importance? What do they do? Research? Isn't that my job, and the actors? Structure? Isn't that the playwrights, mine and the actors? If a dramaturg is so important, why doesn't every theatre have one, or school? And when a theatre has one, why aren't they there at all the rehearsals? Can You collaborate with someone who is outside of the room doing a research project.Or are they a test audience? They come in early on in the project, leave, and come back at the end to see what works. Doesn't an Artistic Director do that?
Ended the day with a discussion with all of our International Directors. There are 61 of us this year. 1 from romania, 1 from Hong Kong, 1 from Nepal, 2 from the Netherlands, 1 from Brazil, 1 from cyprus, 4 from England, 1 from Italy, 1 from Norway, 1 from Germany, and 2 from the Phillipines. The rest from the US.
Really great discussion, ultiamtely what I took from it is that no matter how bad we feel the system we have here is, we still have it really good. Yeah, the theatre is subsidized in Europe, but no new plays are being done, or young directors allowed to direct. They all came here, and want to work here. They want to take our ideas and change their countries. We are viewed as the leader in the arts. This could be Money, Population, Space, resources, innovation, or intellegence. But it may have more to do with our youth. USA may not have a long past, and that helps us in our forward thinking. Mateo, the director from italy, brought up a great point that I remember from being there: Italians have an amazingly ancient culture that surrounds them. They are surrounded by their past. How do you create your future when you are constantly looking at and being judged by your past? And the same question applies to the other countires as well. Nepal and the King and Religion. Cyprus and the divide between Greek and Turkish cultures. Brazil and the slave trade that lead to the largest inequality of the distribution of wealth on the planet.etc. etc. Yeah we have our history and our problems, but by our very nature we forget it and move on in some way. We take as pride constantly re-inventing ourselves. I still want to work over seas, I still want to change what have here, I still wouldn't trade it for the world.
This workshob Lab has been really amazing (and I still have another week) and has really opened my eyes, and more importantly my mind, to ideas that I actively shut out before. Is this growing up? Probably. But I don't think I'm learning to accept this system, but understand it and make it work for me while trying to change it from the inside.
I dunno. Or the maybe the opposite.
posted by The Necessary Theatre at 7:23 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home