today we arrived for the first day after the selection. In all we are about 350 people, about 250 performers and a hundred auditors. It is really insane at how many people we are, but it is quite an amazing experience performing in that space with a full house!!!
The day started with some amazing inspirations from Ariane. She started off by saying, she was so moved by us being here, and thanked us so much for making the trek to be here. She said, "last night i had tears in my eyes thinking what i would say to you. I asked, who has allowed us to still be practicing theatre here today...who is responsible for this?" (C'est grace a qui que nous sommes ici?) She went on speaking about those French Revolutionaries who met in secret so long ago. They met in secret and planned a new vision, a new way for France to be. They were against all odds, and they were filled with some kind of hope, some desire for a better future, and it is this what forced them to endure the hardships and get dirty and build a new future. To make visible to invisible. I love this woman.
Then she talked about the workshop and how we are going to focus on the chorus and on improvisation. "Imprevu" before knowing. She spoke about acting and how it is reacting and living (not simply being onstage). As an actor we must enter into the unknown, but have an awarenss of the game and what we want to know. did i say i love this woman?
"Acting is the metaphor of nudity...it is simplicity... I want to be able to enter into your soul through your eyes".
Then, the space. Ah l'espace. The performance space is huge, and has a side line on either side separating the playing space and the off stage, and there is a curtain along the back. When an actor enters (that is to say walks on the boards, in the area of the side line) she said that moment is poetic. It is a huge event and not to be taken for granted. As soon as you step up, it should be beautiful, suspended and full of all the drama you could ever play. Even if what you do onstage is crap, you have that moment before you begin. Similarly, you wait there to enter, you are ready not relaxed like on a sunday afternoon. When you cross that line to enter, again, that experience is an important one.
I have to tell you, only when i worked with the SITI company or in a brief Noh workshop in Sweden have I ever felt this energy and spirituality when walking on stage. It isn't anything for anyone but me, but it is something i will make sure i forever keep in me. The level of work that it inspires in people is amazing, the level of focus, respect and attention it demands is necessary in order to create theatre (even if our first improv was pretty bad...my group that is! more on that...)
One final story she told of an Indian actress she worked with while creating a show based on the partition of India. Ariane and the actor were sitting in the seats, and the French performers, playing Indian characters entered the scene. The Indian actress whispered to Ariane, "when they enter, are they thinking about God?". She said, "well, no, i don't think they believe, but i do know they are thinking of the Gods of the Theatre". The Indian actress, said, "good, that is all that i need them to do".
She speaks a lot about "the way they do things here, and if you don't like it you are free to go somewhere else". But i love the attention to details and the connection to the spirituality of theatre, the whole event, it isn't religion, it is spiritual, and being there i feel and see the difference.
We then spent the next hour and broke off into random groups to create an improv situation around the terror of the first day. It was pretty chaotic as we were so many people and from all over the world. It reminded me of the first Lecoq autocours, which for most people is a bit of a nightmare. After lunch we presented. It was quite a long rest of the day as there were many groups, BUT, it was great because in the improvs, the Theatre du soliel actors also joined in. And they are really really good. Their bodies and sense of play is a level of engagement and play i rarely experience. It raises the bar!
The first groups were great. They started off pretty rough, but Ariane worked with them. It was really great to see her work with the actors. She is brutally honest and really knows how to push something to create a situation in which something will happen. A really cool moment was when one guy came in, he was from Iraq, a really funny actor, he was performing and doing an "actor's warm up" and he was discovering a lot. Other actors tried to enter the scene and she kept saying "NO! listen, look, he is not finished. Your time to enter has not arrived". He played for 20 minutes, and it was a huge lesson to see the others waiting in the wings. Sometimes the scene does not call for you. If you really are listening, you will be called, or else you will impose yourself on the scene, it will be false.
Our scene was tough, we were 15 people, which is way too many...however, it was our fault. Our scene was to poke fun at the selection audition, where we had to follow a leader and do a dance. Though we got lots of laughs, we were quickly tapped for being too much like a parody... It was fair, our group didn't really click very well to be honest. The fun thing though, was i met 3 people from Lecoq who were a year below me and it was nice to connect with them and play... I am excited to work with them in better situations... only way to go is up from there! It was an amazing feeling though, i have to say, to be on that stage performing and hearing the laughs from the sea of faces. I mean a full house.
The improvs continued for the rest of the afternoon and it was great to see her work with each group, sometimes booted off the stage quickly, others given more time to develop if there was something there.
The main things she emphasized were internal rythm, there MUST be a rythym! Space and knowing where you are. Don't speak if you don't have to, it is amazing to see how talking kills any and every situation. At some points she even played music to help the actors find internal rythyms and states of emotion. It was not unlike an open viewpoints session, only the way the space was constructed was different. It was more chorus like and seemed to have more of a focus so it told a clearer story.
I was very tired at the end of the day, there was a lot to take in, many pearls of wisdom and just being able to see her in action...wow! i love this woman. I just met a guy from Bangladesh and a woman from Japan as i was heading home on the bus and i am excited to speak with them tommorow and meet more people.
Hey there are two torontonians here too! Jenny Jiminez and her partner Stephen... they are really nice and we are talking about doing a share or open workshop when we are back in toronto.
Tommorrow is finishing off the work we did today and then we get into the thick of the workshop. All of the costumes from previous shows are laid out for us in the lobby of the theatre...we get to use them in our improvs! its like a dream!
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