IBTA Theatre TPPPPPPPP List

Plays seen:

- The Odyssey

- Pina Bausch movie
- Gulliver's Travel
- Black Watch
- Artifacts
- The Vagina Monologues
- Passion Play
- The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
- Merrily We Roll Along
- The Book of Mormon
- Matilda
- Once
- The Jersey Boys
-

Plays been in:

- Last Days of Judas Iscariot
- The Good Soul of Schezuan
- The Pajama Game
- Other Desert Cities

Plays read

- The Exonerated

- The Last Days of Judas Iscariot

- The Good Soul of Schezuan
- Mother Courage
- A Doll's House
- The Pajama Game
- Other Desert Cities
- Love of Three Oranges
- Antigone
- The crucible
- Sam Shepard

Workshops

- Butoh /physical theatre

- Andong Mask Dancing
- Katakali
- Bongdan talchum

Festivals

- Seoul Performing Arts Festival
- APAC Theatre

Work Done

- Publicity (Judas)
- The Good Soul of Schezuan

Types of Theatre studied

- Post Modernism

- Butoh / Physical Theatre

- Tadashi Suzuki

- Viewpoint
- Epic
- Bunraku
- Kabuki
- Kyogen
- Noh
- Realism
- 

Tadashi Suzuki Presentation

Tadashi Suzuki - Andy and Joel

Worried because he's such a revolutionary practitioner and he hasn't got an apprentice

Movement

• In Suzuki's theatre what method of acting and movements does the Old Man and the Nurse incorporate in Suzuki's adaption of Shakespeare's King Lear?
• a collection of exercises that cultivated understanding 
• three theories: 1) to act, one must have a point of view 2) for acting to begin, one must have an audience 3) To sustain acting, an awareness of the invisible body is required 
• (energy, oxygen, centre of gravity) way of expanding energy focus on centre of balance. All the things that are invisible that we rely on
• Goels: understanding different ways in which the feet contact the floor
• Breathe through the nose
• Send the energy through the floor onto the ground when stomping
• Keep the upper body free, but strong
• Be constantly focused and aware, lose yourself in fiction, keep the lower body constantly enraged and powerful underneath the centre of gravity to support the breath and vocal instrument
• One of the most important ways of moving: ten ways of walking/stamping shakuhachi
• Standing statues
• Sitting statues
• Doing movement with a different relationship of your body to your floor

Rise of modern japan

• World war two - effects of the atomic bomb
• US influence - Start of capitalism, globalisation
• Movement into the 21st century
• Resistance to change - modern japanese theatre

Globalization and culture

• decrease in communication, decrease in theatrical appreciation?
• Non-places - welcome to the west, culture extermination
• Rules of society - theatrical spaces

The village of toga and theatrical spaces

• Form of silent protest - artistic enlightenment outside of the capital
• Dynamis location
• Audience has freedom

The Tale of King Lear

• Blending of cultures
• Stage space - dynamic, multicultural
• Theatre acting as a bridge - english writer, japanese practitioner
• Audience and Actor connection

Angura (underground) japanese theatre presenation

Angura Theatre - Underground movement

• Underground theatre

1. Anti american sentiments
2. Discontentments toward Shingeki Theatre Conforming to Western Ideal

Shingeki means New Theatre

After WWII - forced japanese to open their eyes to, not only politics, but art and culture

Started to conform to the western ideals: realism stanislavske, humanism, proscenium stage, adaption of western plays (anton checov)

History: upbringing of angora

• new movement of the arts
• against the renewal of the japanese american treaty in 1960
• Zengarukan student led organisation
• violence
• Rodosha engeki hyogikai - working people's theatre
• Major angora groups: - kurotento or black tent company, jokyo geikijo or the situational theatre by kara juro, the tenjo sajiki of terayama shoji, the tenkei gekijo or the theatre of transformation, the waseda shogekijo or waseda little theatre by tadashi suzuki - SCOT
• Rituals: relations
• Kara Juno "Karaqa kojiki" riverbed beggars, kabuki theatre
• Rituals: historical impact
• The fight for independence
• Shingeki - "selling out"
• Western ideals
• "against our people"

Philosophy

• Counter-cultural - violent
• Search for meaning, search for beauty

Oto shogo: Passicity, life is journey from birth to death, distance audience to give them perspective, silence, stillness, etc.

Kara Juro: rejected the tradition "western" stage, Beauty of the human spirit (stayed away for political plays), Flexability in appreciating beauty

Terayama Shuji: Day to day routine id meaningless, "more intense and meaningful" reality, transcendent experience for audience

Theatre was based off of the violet student riots

Noh Presentation

Noh Theatre - G^2

• Hard to give an exact start of noh theatre
• 14th century Sangaku was imported to japan from china (pantomime, acrobatics, magic, music, dance)
• Over 600 years, arts shaped and developed
• Nambokucho perios noh was officially created
• Zeami - most well known practitioner of non, kan'ami's son, entrusted with leadership of his father's Za, Wrote new plays

Characteristics - Combines elements of dance, drama, music and poetry

• Written in 15th or 16th century
• Recreated famous scenes from well known works of japanese literature Not a dramatic reenactment of an event but its retelling
• Scenes are actual spots in japan - in spirit or ghostly form to the site of a significant event
• A lot of the stories have these spirit and supernatural aspects to them
• Attain salvation by going back to these traumatic places and "facing" your experiences
• Zen buddhism and Noh - Japan very much influences by religion, prominent during Zeami's time, Hana (flower) feeling of perfect balance, mystic suspension in time, state of awareness
• Staging is very centred around spiritualism everything is there for a reason
• Tree in the back of the stage is very important, japanese pine tree, buddhist ideas of simplicity
• Movement - Kata (movement patterns), once the kata is named then it becomes known and becomes a fibre of Noh. 
• Hakobi - same centre of gravity as kamae (basic posture of Noh)
• Shiori - to express sadness or greif
• Sashi uses the fan.
• The voice is very important to Noh - Utai = vocal - performed by Shit (master) and students, keeps the story moving, Ji-utai (chorus) sing to movement/shit's thoughts
• Sung in 1st person
• No set pitch
• Sings as one voice, no harmonies
• Based on a 7-5 or 12 syllable count sung over an 8 beat measure

Kabuki Presentation

Kabuki

• Started out really simply
• Mihae - casting facial expressions
• Kabuki stage and set - Dry riverbeds, First pioneer: Izuno No Okuni
• Pre Kanbun Era - bigger, more known theatre form. Makeplace cultures, Crude backdrops or Noh Stages, "Scibble-Scrabble" art form

Kanbun Era - More complex performances, legitimacy of Kabuki develops, Introduction of hanamichi (wooden plank that extended into the centre of the audience, translates into flow path, dramatic exits or entrances or where mihae is performed)  and the pull curtain, crude backdrop.

The first theatres - Bofuku government's allowance, stone and wood materials, rapid development, different types of design, development of Keren

Seri - trap door, developed in the Kansei era (1700-1800), allowed actors to make dramatic introductions onto the stage, it was originally man powered, was electrified in the 10th century

Keren - revolving stage: first of its kind, invented in Japan, was man powered by workers called "Anaban", wasn't electronically powered until 1911, when the Imperial theatre was unveiled, It's first use was in 1758 during the finale of the play, it was used as a trick to change scenes by the "divine power" of one of the characters

Chunori (wire flying) - reserved for characters with magical abilities (spirits, ghosts, foxes, etc.), Adds on to the stage magic that a character can possess. Traditionally

Makeup

• Simple white makeup, black makeup for exaggeration, wig, oil, and oshiroi (white paint), used to highlight characters (earliest form of spotlight), Commonly used in wagoto or soft style kabuki, destroys features
• Rough style - telling action hero stories and for action comedies, folk tales, clothes and makeup were very ostentatious and loud, mie
• Kumodori - the makeup technique and symbolic meaning to the makeup in the aragoto style of kabuki theatre, belief in yin and yang
• Belief in yin and yang - red is yang and the colour of youthful protective anger = hero, blue is yin and the colour of bottles and resentful anger = villain, green = ethereal and godlike, purple = rich and noble, each streak represents something specific to the character

Kyogen presentation

Kyogen

• Very similar to aspects of noh, performed on same stage
• pursuit of symbolic beauty, realistic expression of humour, true essence of human nature passed down in these mutually complementary roles
• Comedic, satirical, day to day lives of working class, muromachi period
• developed same time as comedia
• Kyogen - wild, precious words (form of japanese comedy and satire), primary intention is yo make audience laugh and smile
• Sengaku entered japan during Nara period - comedy, mine, acrobatics, etc.
• Renamed sarugaku
• Improvised
• became a lot more fixed and less improvised

Stage design 

• same stage as Noh
• polished wood floor
• seeks to find elegant simplicity
• Minimal props
• Pine trees represent optical illusion of going into the distance

Movement

• Gliding walk - sure-ashi - all of you energy all of your balance comes from centre point
• everything is slower
• set of gestures that indicate specific characters
• Hara
• Role of stillness
• Minimalism
• Completely choreographed to perfection
• Character announce themselves wen they come on
• Dialogue close to audience
• Any section of the stage can transform into any location, when announced
• Don't use masks (have four that are popular but rarely use them)
• strict separateness between what happens between the actor and the chorus