Work continued this week with Eva Burgess at Dixon Place. Eva is truly inspired and inspiring. She may be the most innovative director I've had the privilege of working with. It's so completely different from what I do most of the time. No pre-existing script, no prescribed method, no anticipated results at this point. So refreshing! What we are discovering is a great sense of play. As Eva said, "We'll trick ourselves into writing it!" I love that. Because access to that other part of the mind doesn't come about by thinking. Here's a little recap of the last two rehearsals.
Dixon Place #2 - Monday, June 11, 2007
We did a good physical and vocal warm up first. Then Eva suggested as a jumping off point we choose some word groups at random. We tore up squares of paper, and on each piece we wrote words or phrases connected to the idea of themes, proverbs, and text. We mixed them all up and then randomly pulled the following: "stardom", "one good turn deserves another", and "what will the neighbors think". We played with the obvious notions around stardom for a minute, and then it occurred to us that maybe "stardom" suggested a floor pattern. So we laid out a star pattern on the floor with points numbered 1 thru 5. I walked the pattern several times, then we decided to explore the idea of creating an event that would occur at each point in the star. So at each stop-over in this star-pattern on the floor there would be1. an event, 2. a task that had to be completed in order to move on, and then a particular way or challenge in 3. the actual movement from one point on the floor to another. Our homework for the next rehearsal would be to come up with ideas to try around these three concepts.
Dixon Place #3 - Wednesday June 13, 2007
I got there a little ahead of Eva and began playing once more with the star pattern on the floor. First I walked it, then tried moving in all sorts of ways from one point to another. Then I added 3 more points, numbers 6 thru 8, so I had an octave if I wanted to create a kind of "keyboard" on the floor. The I thought it might be fun to try getting from point to point in a given number of steps. For example, from point 1 to point 2 in two steps, from 2 to 3 in three steps, etc. This became a very interesting way of moving because it is so specific and it requires some degree of concentration. It's also very fun.
When Eva arrived she brought with her (in addition to her beautiful 3-yr. old baby Sabina) - a game! It's a children's game with cards, and each card has on it a task: make a funny face, find something blue, pile it up and spill it, etc. She also added in the requirement to use the words we had chosen at the previous rehearsal, so at each point in the pattern I had to do a task, use the words "one good turn deserves another", say the number of the next point to travel to, and then go to the next point and repeat the process. The results were - well, alot of fun! I don't know exactly what it all means, but it suggested to me innocence. Play. Spontaneity. It also brought an interactivity with the audience that we hadn't previously thought about.
If you've had the patience to read all of this, then you're interested in process and process is what we're all about in this work. This is surprising work. I'm excited about the possibilities. Its a way of making theater we don't often allow ourselves the time to do. Thank you, Eva!
