Friday....Mid Afternoon.....GRRRR!!!
Its that feeling when you know you've got to the end of the week, and just want to switch off and relax, but you still have work to do!!
Not that I am complaining in anyway at all!! This week has been a really good week, full of ups and downs, reactions and counter reactions. A few things artistically have changed since I last posted and I would like to go into detail about why I didn't do some of the things I thought I was going to do, and how as a result new ideas have come apparent.
The big idea I felt really had legs this week was filming myself through a variety of media over a time based period. The concept behind was to see how I would react to being filmed in a confined space, a space which is personal to me and allows me to reflect on myself, escape from the world and allows me just to be myself. Secondly to this with the development of reality television in the last decade particularly, the ability to blog, deliver and upload a Youtube video, there are countless opportunities for anyone to become famous through any type of media. So filming myself through a video camera, recording myself on my mobile phone and the like, seemed a good idea. However during the week, the idea kept on rolling around in my head, and I felt at this stage I felt it was a bit too obvious an idea to do. I say this because I really want to try and explore lots of different media as I can, and filming myself maybe an idea that I keep hold of, which I certainly will, but I may wait a week or so before I commit to undertaking it properly to see whether it will work.
Whilst I am still in favour of trying any idea I come up with, there are of course a few which I always come back to, particularly my interest in incorporating the cinematic / film into the live theatrical performance space. Why you may ask, is this an obsession for me? Namely because although I feel I am drifting slightly more to the angle of becoming a solo artist, having spent my last 3 years working in mainly group collaborations producing, rehearsing, devising a performance to make in front of an audience, to suddenly go almost the opposite extreme. Whereby I am making a solo practice and probably have more in connection with a visual artist than I do a traditional theatre making process. I am still despite this move to a solo practice, I am fascinated by the dynamics of live performance from the audience / performer relationship but probably more specifically how the developments and breakthroughs in technology in recent years (i.e. film, social media, video) have impacted on and how they can take the theatre world forward and continue to make fantastic work. My current interest in this domain is of that of creating a two person performance which lasts between 5 and 10 minutes which contains live performers interacting with recorded media (namely film). Such a short piece would really test my ability at getting an idea across in a really brief time as well as not giving a huge burden of having to create a huge performance. As this is the first time, I am doing this individually I am going to through every idea into the pot and see what comes up. I have assembled a collection of film clips, namely from the 'Classical Hollywood studio' era and moving into film noir style. To me these films contain an interesting question of the role and power of film to comment on, change, enlighten and respond to contemporary political debates. Particularly when thinking of the 1930's, 1940's, 1950's and the issues of racism, sexism, homophobia, International conflicts, the threat of Communism and the impact of WWII. To try and generate idea I am thinking about inviting 2 performers to an improvisation session to try and brainstorm the impact of cinema on the theatrical landscape and what is interesting if we bring these two art forms together. This is on the to do list, so I will keep updating process on this idea.
My final idea for this week was that of a real life game. Now there has been a big explosion of these sorts of things in the past few years. I went to the 'Hide and Seek Weekender' in London last year, which was a brilliant experience. In essence based at the Southbank Centre you can enter into as many games as you like during the day!
http://www.hideandseek.net/playmakers/ - This video is a fascinating behind the scenes exploration of these sorts of games, explaining it better than I can!
This idea was just written down and not really thought out, so I'm not entirely confident at explaining it at the moment, but never-the-less it is another dimension to the sorts of things I am working with at the moment, so I will update it as it happens.
To conclude this post, what have I learnt this week?
Trusting your instinct is a valuable skill to have!
Thinking about the bigger picture rather than the immediate problem is also a valuable skill to have!
Passion is the key to success!
UNTIL NEXT TIME!!
Have a lovely weekend!
Marcus
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