Lesson 5 2/02/16

Japanese Butoh:

Today we learnt about a Japanese style of theatre called Japanese Butoh. We learnt that it was very spiritual and involved rituals. Many other cultures have been influenced by this style of theatre. They view energy and its benefits as fundamental to Butoh.

There are two types of Japanese Butoh:

·         no theatre

·         kabuki theatre

It’s known that Butoh Dance came from Butoh Theatre.

Butoh Dance:

-          Butoh Dance means that you move with absolute freedom, only doing what your body naturally wants to do. This means that every Butoh dancer would dance differently and have individuality in their own movement.

-          Butoh Dance often looks at opposites and tries to find beauty in the grotesque.

-          It also asks the individual where can they find free movement.

We next did a Butoh Dance exercise:

Some music was put on to allow us to focus on something other than our own thoughts. We were then asked to move with the music allowing ourselves to be absolutely free, moving at a pace we felt we wanted to move at without any constraint. I found that this exercise was helpful in allowing me to understand the importance of moving and also being free. In being free, I found that I could be more genuine and honest with myself, as I began to think less about what I was doing. It also put in a very relaxing state, enabling me to tap deeper into my freedom. I felt the exercise stopped us taught us how not to constrain ourselves both physically and mentally.

Cling Film Exercise:

In this exercise we had to put a piece of cling film over a clenched fist and try to force our hand out of the cling film by trying to burst the bubble. The hand had to work against the force of the cling film much like how an actor may need to work against the force of constraint due to insecurities or lack of knowledge or will to free oneself. We all noticed that when trying to force our hand out, there was a build-up of tension and then the cling film suddenly popped. After this, the hand finally finds freedom which is mimetic of how an actor will only find freedom once they work against the force of constraint (whatever is stopping them from being free)

We then tried to recreate this moment but instead left out the part in which we covered our hand with the cling film. We found that because there is no tension or force you can only imagine it. I personally found, that there was no sense of unpredictability that there was the first time in not knowing when your fingers will burst through because you seem to be deciding when and which finger will pop out.  It also felt quite unnatural to create this feeling of ‘restriction’ when actually there is nothing there to restrict you. This sort of reminds me of how all the things that are there to stop you from being free are all actually in your head and the only thing that is stopping you from freeing yourself is your own self and the barriers you decide to create.

Following in A Circle:

We had to stand in a circle and turn over with our right shoulder so that we were facing the back of our neighbours head. We all had to walk behind this person maintaining the same distance between ourselves and them. I found that when concentrating on maintain the same distance as our neighbour meant that my feet very heavy because we had to work harder to be in more control and create more awareness in what our legs were doing. Personally, I found that I often hesitated to put my foot down because I was trying quite hard to make sure my foot was always positioned an equal distance from my neighbours. I found myself copying my neighbour therefore whenever he hesitated I in return hesitated.

Skipping 4 Year Old:

In this activity we had to skip around the room like 4 year olds until we were asked to slow right down into a much slower pace. We were asked to this a number of times. I found that I felt as equally as out of control, moving at both speeds, due to the great contrasts between the two throwing me off of balance. This exercise is linked to Butoh as it shows the transition between freeness (in being a four year old) and control (in walking very slowly).

Rehearsal:

In rehearsals, we had to practise singing a Tom Waits song called Blue Skies. The song at first sounds quite positive and happy but the lyrics talks of a person not having any possessions or money but still being happy. I feel that the song relates to the theme of mental health because in some circumstances in some mental illness cases people often don’t feel the way that a person without poor mental health would feel. It could be argued that a person with good mental health would be quite saddened by not having many possessions. (The song will be sung at the end of the performance both in ensemble and in a solo).

Some of us with characters that were not as developed as they had the potential to be were then assigned a character with a minimal characteristic. I was given ‘a gossiping and judgemental old neighbour’. This matched the characteristic I had already planned for Gladys previously. The line I was given (a lyric from a Tom Waits song) was ‘what’s he building in there’.

We spoke about how we should behave when the audience arrived in the room and we decided that we would stare at them in order to make them feel uncomfortable as if the bar/brain was a bar that no one would really want to walk into.

Diction 20 Game:

The next exercise we played was one where we as a class had to sit in a circle and count to 20 in no particular order and whenever someone repeated a number or said a number at the same time as someone else the game would have to be reset back to 1. We had to restart the game quite a few times but this practise helped us to work on slowing down the pace of our voices and also diction so that we could make clear to everyone else what number we were saying. This can also be applied to our performance in terms of using clear diction as a more effective way to communicate.

In our rehearsal I feel that we really had to rely on each other a lot to move the whole process of the run through of our performance. for example, when forgetting what we were supposed to say as an ensemble being able to look at someone else and know from them what you should do was helpful.

Doing exercises before the rehearsal meant that we were able to get rid of any negative energy from outside the room helping us to get on a bit better with each other. (grotowskis teaching)

Doing exercises together in general has helped us to become a good team as a class because we have been able to see that we have to support each other because we felt that our group responsibility us increases to really work together.

Hannah's told an on the spot story about a house fire- i felt was so organic because she gave herself space to think of more material through her repetition of Tom waits lyrics. she kept it very simple and this meant that the story was so much more significant and put together.

Overall I feel that today's rehearsal was more of an organised chaos because we don't always know what we are doing but we know what we are supposed to do in the order.