Last Days of Rehearsal of Judas Iscariot

        * Rehearsal before opening night
  Today something happened in play rehearsal that has completely left me speechless.

I just want to start off by saying something about myself, which I’m not sure I’m proud of or not, but think it’s crucial to the message I’m trying to get across.

I haven’t cried properly in about 4 years (since my dog died). I’ve always felt terrible not crying during times when I should be, like last year one of my best friends left SFS and for some reason, even though I REALLY wanted to, could not cry at all. I ended just awkwardly standing around all my friends who were crying. Of course I’ve always shed the occasional tear in sad movies, songs, books or whatnot, but not properly cry because of my emotions.

Today in rehearsal during the final scene between Jesus and Judas and the monologue by Butch Honeywell, I was filled (and I mean FILLED) with this pure feeling of grief that I haven’t felt in years and I couldn’t stop crying. I can’t even describe it. I tried to stop myself because I saw that no one else but Christian (who was acting) was crying. I had Kevin to hug me while I cried which I was so grateful for because I had no idea what to do or where to look. I felt so embarrassed even though I know I shouldn’t have been because I out of my group of friends I was the one that was always emotionally strong for all of us. Last year before my friend, Jackie, left Korea she told me “Stay strong for me and look after Alice and Yage because you’ve always been the strongest out of all of us”, and I felt as though I had in a way let her down by crying (even though I know for a fact the Jackie wouldn’t care that I was crying).

I just wanted to write that experience down because I’ve never experienced anything like that in my life let alone as a cast member. It kept me silent, thinking all the way home that I started to worry my fellow taxi riders. I have never been so taken by surprise and so overwhelmed before. 

Out of all the things that this experience was, though, was an inspiration. It was a moment that proved the magic of theatre and the potential there is when an actor truly empathizes with their character. The three actors Christian, Sammy and Cullen are now huge inspirations of mine just for being able to make me properly cry and also the cast has done such an amazing job in the past week that I am so incredibly proud and inspired by every single member of it.

I believe this play will truly impact people and leave the thinking about it for a long time. It has for me.

* After Performance

-Emma-

Space Study Reflection

What are the artistic moments you don’t want to forget?

One moment that really stood out to me was how serene our “set” felt as we were performing. I must be honest in saying that my group wasn’t the most focused group there ever existed, so towards the end of our given time I felt very rushed to come up with something presentable, creative and something that will touch the audience. When it was our time to perform, I started having mini heart attacks because I thought my group wouldn’t pull it together and that our 3 scenes wouldn’t impress Mrs. Moon. Now I know the people I had in my group are amazing people and brilliant artists. I am not doubting that whatsoever, but I truly felt that this one time we didn’t really pulled together as a group. When we started our mini performance, however, somehow my group managed to get the feelings of our images and improvise the parts that were still iffy.

All in all, I think my group did a great job considering that I expected our outcome to be not so… impressive shall we say. I’m kind of ashamed of myself for having doubted the people in my group and their abilities as actors. It made me think that I should’ve trusted my cast to do well during the performance (something that I learnt from doing plays and musicals that seemed like they were going to be terrible, but ended up being absolutely amazing on opening nights)

What is one thing you experienced that you hope will inspire or challenge you in the future?

            I hope this practice in using my surroundings to shape my performance will allow me to create better performances in the future. It also taught me to cope with a time crunch and teach myself to focus on the task at hand. I feel as though this wasn’t the best performance that I’ve ever done in my life, but I hope to learn from this experience and become a better performer and work with my peers a lot better in the future.

            One thing that we did during this performance is using the people sitting around us in our performance. It ended up ending a lot more to the performance (in my opinion) and so I know to try and incorporate the people in the setting in performances.

What emotions did you feel as you watched the space studies?

           

            The woods we were in were very peaceful (as woods tend to be) and therefore it allowed the performances to be somewhat eerie and serene. This happened with all three of the performances. I think the woods inspired all the groups to create scenes, which were peculiar and somewhat unnerving; like the group where they had a person hanging from the tree in the background, and the group where they sat around the graves. It made me think about what kind of messages the performers were trying to convey and I found myself trying to think about what emotions I should be feeling. I wasn’t sure whether to feel upset by the images, in awe of the natural, eerie beauty of them or just try to understand the message.

What inspired your space study and how did the stimulus help you design your compositions?

            In our performance area, we found little bits of broken glass around the floor. When I saw them after reading the part of the poem Where Does the Poem Begin, Where Does It End? “The snake slides away; the fish jumps, like a little lily”, it made me think the glass being thrown against rocks would create an interesting sound effect and image of fish jumping.

            One of our images was of a man holding a walking stick. There was an old bamboo broomstick where we were assigned, so we thought it would be cool to have Christian covered in vines, sitting, while holding the broom. From this he turns into the snake mentioned in one of the poems.

            This is just a few or the many inspirations we had from the poems, images and surroundings.

Mark Hill and McGregor

“For me, choreography is a process of physical thinking. It's very much in mind as well as in body.” — Wayne McGregor

This quote really did stand out for me because of I found it to be true with what McGregor was saying and what Mark Hill explained to us when we did our workshops with him. One thing that I found really relatable between Mark Hill and Wayne McGregor is the movement of body using mental imagery. While we were learning Butoh from Mark, he taught us to isolate our body part and use them to imitate an image that we would have in our head (hair in a river, snake in the desert, etc.). In the TED Talk, McGregor talks about having an image set in specific space, and working around that image. For example he uses the letter ‘T’ to imagine it in front of him, and moves his body around that image. He then goes on to demonstrate this, using his dancers, with a few images and shapes to create a beautiful choreographed dance routine. I found it absolutely fascinating to watch the dancers create such a beautiful dance out of nothing but a few images in their minds and without being told what specific moves to do.

I think this way of creating a physical image, in your mind, in front of you is such a simple yet remarkable way of creating art with your body. It really is painting the image with your body. It never occurred to me that such a simple tactic as working around something, rather than trying to imitate it, could be considered dance or theatre.

While I was watching the video, I couldn’t help but wonder what was going through the minds of the dancers while they were doing this. I recall that when I was doing the Butoh activity, the only thing in my mind were the different images we were acting out with our bodies. McGregor’s way of physical thinking, however, seems like it encourages the dancers to imagine themselves in a different world. A world where what they see in their minds are obstacles around them which are always moving and changing, forcing them to work around the images, to maneuver between them, dodge them and play with them.

Lastly, another thing that stood out to me was the McGregor’s saying that physical thinking allows us to “Misbehave beautifully”. This little quote is just so beautiful and relevant to me because I feel as though this idea of misbehaving beautifully is the basic foundation for all forms of art.

Mark Hill and Wayne McGregor have both taught me really fascinating new ways of looking at physical theatre and creating it. Even though I have learnt a lot from these two people, I feel as though my understanding of the possibilities of physical theatre is still immature and only skims the surface. Physical theatre is a very new idea to me but from what I’ve learnt about it so far, there is SO MUCH of it out there and I can’t wait to learn more about it and expand my understanding of this vital form of theatre.

“Misbehave beautifully”

-Emma-

Andong Mask Dancing

Our trip to Andong was, to say the least, incredible.

I remember going to Andong once as a little kid with my family and running around carelessly along the little village paths and between the fields. I also vague have memories of visiting my the Ryu house there that was supposedly built by one of my ancestral grandfathers and tying my wish around the 600 year old tree in the centre of the village. It was weird being back there and doing all these things as waves of memories, that I thought I had forgotten, hit me. I found myself becoming really nostalgic, missing the careless days and it impacted me greatly considering all the struggles I’ve been going through lately with various responsibilities and just growing up and life in general. I thought that this trip allowed me to take a break from the outside world and just reflect on my life, whilst learning about my Korean origins and it’s culture with my fellow classmates who I have grown to care deeply about in just a month.

The night of arrival we all walked around the village in the dark and although there was practically nothing to see, we all bathed in the complete silence of the night absent of any sound of motors and filled with various chirping of crickets and croaking of frogs. When we got back to the small traditional Min bak in which we were staying, we change into our pjs and all sat around chatting and make music with George and Annie beautifully serenading all of us in the circle (I am massively jealous of their musical abilities). This last for about two hours, but it was probably one of the best two hours I’ve had in a LONG time and it was one of those sentimental moments that we will share as a class. At 11 us girls trudged back to our rooms and gossiped about life and (of course) boys before we very quickly fell to sleep.

Walking around in the early morning at 6am was just surreal. Fog concealed the entire village so that nothing was visible past about 5 metres. A small group of us walked together around the village, through the little forest and along the beach and sat there for a while just soaking up the serenity of everything. We even found a little old lady in her little garden tending to her crops. I mean who does the gardening at 6am?! I found myself sitting by myself on a rock overlooking the beach (whilst the others skipped stones on the river) thinking about how trivial all the things in my life right now seemed, and how I wished I could live as calmly as I was in that moment. I kept thinking about my family and how I wish we could be as close as some of the families in our school, perhaps all live in a little village like Andong together. We then walked back through the village to head back to out minbak and we walked past the Ryu house which I remember running around as a child. As I was standing outside the closed gates, I really wanted to go back inside and see how the place looks now compared to my memory of it, and introduce myself to my distant uncle who my mother says lives there. But, of course, it was closed so I couldn’t. We also yahooed at the top of a (kind of) mountain and I was one of the last to run out of breath. I think that was another indicator of how much stress I had all built up inside and it was AMAZING just letting all of that go after the struggle of getting up the mountain.

We then headed over to learn the traditional Talchul mask dancing. I felt as though I could’ve done a much better job at translating the Korean and felt quite guilty while we were being taught that I had a much better understanding than most of the others. The dancing itself made me feel VERY in touch with my Korean side. I have to be honest. I haven’t really embraced my Korean side as much as my British and after this I’ve realized what big of a mistake that is, and how beautiful the Korean culture can be and how fun it can be. The dance itself felt quite natural for me (whereas I could see others in the class struggling with coordination and moving the shoulders) and I think that that might’ve come from me having watched this kind of performance as a child and always reenacting Korean performances after watching them. There were so many things I learnt over just 24 hours about my mother’s culture. In my house in England, I have a whole wall covered in the very masks from my mother’s family village, but I never thought they had a meaning behind each mask until we were taught the different meanings. I also learnt about the spirituality of the Korean people that I have never known about before. The idea of the mountain spirits being carried down to the performances on a man’s shoulders. I can keep on going on for days about how much I have learnt about my Korean origins that my mother simply hadn’t been bothered to teach me. I really hope to go to Andong again with my family so that I can learn about it and share more experiences with my family and perhaps even show off my newly discovered mask dancing skills to my mother :P.

I’ve learnt so much in just ONE day and have gotten so much closer to the IBTA class we are literally a family. I really hope we have more trips like this in theatre and cannot wait for the Fab 5.

-Emma-

A Full Week with Mark Hill

A whole week of physical theatre, complete.

This week has definitely been one of the more physically challenging, yet extremely fulfilling, weeks I’ve had in a while. I’m pretty sure my muscles have grown at least 3 inches in each of my thighs, but, mostly, I’ve gotten so much more closer to our theatre group than I think I could’ve possibly have gotten in such a short period of time. As I have mentioned in previous posts, this workshop has helped me allow myself become more vulnerable in front of this group in particular and encourage myself to stop being so self conscious.

Mark taught us several important points to physical theatre:

• -       Spatial relationships
• -       Body Shapes
• -       Architecture

Out of these three, the one that enlightened me THE MOST was the idea of really taking into account the architecture of your performance area. Mark’s story (about the play he went to see that had the beautiful doors open at the beginning of a performance only to reveal an audience member that was late) was so… understandable… for me. I never really thought of the stage as having such an impact on a performance until I heard that story. It gave me a whole new view on performing spaces, particularly the Lyso center (which I’ve performed in 3 times now) and all the surrounding areas. I can’t really explain it, but before this week I’ve always thought of stages as just stages, but now I see so much potential in everything around me, and to think that what I see is only a small fraction of it.

Another thing we learnt with Mark Hill was the Suzuki method of Actor Training by Tadashi Suzuki. We were taught a slow walk (which I can’t remember had a name) that needed a lot of focus and effort from the core of our bodies (abs, thighs, butt, etc.). With this, we did an exercise where we acted out scenes in which we were to walk past our ‘enemy’, choose our weapon (on the spot), turn, kill our enemy using our weapons, and then we were to act out our deaths very slowly. I found this exercise tiring because of the constant control over my core, particularly with the dying part. I had to think hard when it came to choosing an interesting weapon to use (I was being a bit of a perfectionist with this part), but overall this exercise was so much fun! It was definitely one of my favourite out of all the ones that we did.

On Friday, when we actually started getting into Butoh, Mark taught us about isolating each of our body parts and having different images for each of our body parts (like wings on our arm, chicken legs, snake spine, hair flowing through a river, etc.). When spent 15 minutes of class performing this exercise as a class with music and a single spotlight, and it literally felt like 2 minutes. It was INCREDIBLE how quickly that time went by. I found myself kind of stupid at first (especially with making my face into an old tree) doing these kinds of things in front of Mrs. Moon and Mark, but once I got into the frame of mind that everyone else around me is doing the same thing, and Mrs. Moon doesn’t care about what stupid things I do, I found myself getting into a somewhat of a meditative mode. All I could think of was a blank, white screen and the images that Mark said playing out on the blank screen in front of me. It was a surreal moment for me. I wish I could’ve been an audience member watching our class perform this activity, and I definitely wish to do it again.

I’ve done things this week that I’d never thought I would have the courage to do, or even the physical ability. It has also shown me a whole new side of theatre that I knew was there, but (if I may be completely honest with my immense ignorance) didn’t really care to learn about or thought was that important. But after this week, and watching the Pina Bausch movie last week, I’ve found a whole new love for physical theatre and have found myself wandering what I will do with my life after having dedicated so much time into it in such a short period.

I’m really sad that Mark Hill couldn’t be with us for longer than a week, because there is so much more that he could teach us, and that we can explore with his guidance. I know for sure that, after this experience, I am going to force myself into trying more forms of theatre rather than the bog standard plays and musicals. This workshop has definitely spark an interest and almost a young love for alternate forms of theatre and it just makes me even more glad that I’m taking this class so that I have a chance to explores these things and become more aware of all that is out there.

There’s one more thing I want to add.

I am so incredible thankful for this week with Mark Hill. As I have mentioned over and over again, this past week has helped me so much with not only becoming more physically fit, but also getting over my self-consciousness and just throwing myself into things. Mrs. Moon pointed out this week while I said a quick hello to her that she had noticed how I started getting more involved in these workshops than I usually do and I’m so thankful, also, that she pointed this out and made me realize it myself. I couldn’t say a proper goodbye and thank you to Mark because of the lame fact that I had to catch the bus home (although now, I wish that I had just stayed a little longer to say bye). I just wanna throw the BIGGEST thank you at Mark Hill and I really truly hope I get to work with him again.

This week has been a huge honour and learning experience for me.

Thank you so much Mrs. Moon for giving us the chance to do this. <3

Emma