#TDE
It was a full on rehearsal day today at 35 MHS – formerly home of Theatre Delicatessen, Marylebone Gardens. The afternoon was spent with Prams In The Hall, working on the stylization of a poem about a single father longing for his young son. It was a bit of a chaotic session, not because of the little one running through the room almost the entire time. Because everybody had to catch their breath after a late start and somehow things had to be done in a hurry. We still managed to make some discoveries – to steal director Ain Rashida Sykes’s saying – which, I presume, will probably be more useful for the workshopping of the other scene than the one we’re exploring at present. To me, today’s objective was mainly about checking the actors’s ability to move and to think with their bodies first as opposed to their mind or their acting logic (if you can call it as such?). In that sense, think my mission has been fulfilled. The next rehearsal will be the real challenge though, trying to find the “correct” characterization through physicality for each actor. I’ll be looking forward to it!
After Prams in the Hall rehearsal and catching up with the director about what has been done today I went to my own session of workshopping ideas. Or a session of fooling around as I like to call it. The original idea was to go through some ballet and pilates to refine my movement range and get back in tune with my body. It has had its moments, since I’ve started 3 weeks ago. When it works, it is really fun and I can see myself pursuing some of the ideas I accidentally discovered more seriously when making a new piece. When it fails to generate any improvised movement which doesn’t feel part of an healthy set of exercises, it leaves me with some frustrating thoughts about my limitations and lack of inspiration. After a while, I have to remind myself I purposefully came with no plans in mind except that going through what I’ve learnt a few days before in class.
Tonight was a mix of both emotions. Felt ecstatic after the first part of rehearsal then quite preoccupied with the fact my movements seemed to be similar to the ones I had the session before. For quite a while, I had a moment of panic: I wondered if I was still in it – in other words interested in moving, communicating heavily through my body or simply making movement-based work. I have had this sort of faith’s crisis before and still haven’t got the solution to get over it. I usually tame it by working on other ideas and then come back to my choreography work. This time, though, I seemed to have known why this panic occurred. I have been stuck with this rehearsal for the past two sessions. I’m half-way through the month period and I’m clearly reaching the point when I need to give the sessions a proper direction. It’s probably a good sign. It probably means that I’m ready to actually explore ideas in the aim of making a piece. It probably means my body has a few more things to say?
The next stage then is to decide how I want to use the remaining rehearsals, how I would like to use my body and what for? The ideas I’ve got need to be put in a proper context, which means some proper “academic” research first before thinking of developing them in the studio. The ones that came out of my fooling around need more practising and pacing. And I’m not at that stage yet.
So we’re back to square 1.5. I’ll need to find out over the next few days what sort of direction I’d like to give to my “fooling around” and how to use my body in this new context. And what for?
