And started working on the new ideas.
I started going through the order or more the idea of an possible order of the small pieces we have till now.
I also asked them when they would like to start learning the "piece on paper" (first piece), and we decided on after the christmas break, so I will have that ready for my next rehearsal.
Try out 1
We did a try out, of the second piece, (since the first piece will be more of an experiment and which will also not be rehearsed) means we tried going through the whole piece in the order I created in my head.
The try out went pretty well.
Since I couldn´t work with any lights and cameras yet (as I explained it in my last entry), I tried it out quite simple.
In this "run through" I noticed that I don´t like the walking arround of Sarah and Mareike, cause it was really disturbed and also not the sitting of Sarah in the beginning it still had to much of an "story telling" character in a quite borring way.
So I had to think again of the "statement of failure" sequence and what it exactly means to me and what I want to show with it.
Statements of failure
Well, for me those statements are supporting for the piece cause they bring in a certain honesty and also a focus and emphasis on the personal handle of a failure moment, which can make it more personal and relateable.
They bring in a very vulnerable moment for the dancers cause they reveal weakness and that can build a closer relation to the audience, through the possibilty of identification with the dancers.
The reason I wanted them to talk into a camera was on want hand the opportunity of having it personal, the camera as their friend, and the big projection of the face on the backwall, as a feeling of beeing close to it.
But after talking to a professional for technical realisations, I noticed that three cameras, three projections and cabels will be lots of stuff on stage which can totally abstract from the major happening. So I started thinking about another possibilty of how I can stick with the idea of the staments but show it in a different way.
Try out 2
I got the idea of playing a little with this moment of revelation of failure.
Since it is such a vulnerable thing which you don´t spill out to anyone I would like to play with the intimate moment.
The idea is to have the audience as "the friend" I tell my failure moment to. A close friend.
To show this relation I thought of having all three dancers sitting on a chair behind a table (three chairs, three tables, maybe each with a cosy light on it). The tables are directed towards the audience. So the audience is sitting on the other site of the table.Each dancer facing the audience.
I would stick with the light idea, the person who talks switch on the light on the table.
I the next try out I let them sit on chairs (din´t have any tables), and gave them an order of when to start with the statements.
Somebody starts talking (all three are already sitting on the table) and another one just starts talking after a while, the switch on of a light means the person who started before had to stop talking and switch off the light on her table.
So each of them gets to tell their moment of failure and gets interrupted by another one, but continues when she gets to talk again.So the audience has three different storys of failure they get confronted with and which they got shared with.
In the try out we had some really funny moments, cause the storys have been so different from eachother. While one person was talking about failing in riding the bike down some stairs and the other person falling her words with the story of her strong feelings of failing in beeing on time for work. The story fragments where very different from eachother, which made it really interessting.I also gave the task to jump into the story and not have it perfectly planned out before. It can just be feelings, and doesn´t need any filtered order.
That made it quite interesting.
After a while I let Mirjam get up and play the piano in the off (so you couldn´t see her), whe let her light on on her table so that the play on the piano was her statement.
She played the ronda alla turca with the new beginning whenver she made a mistake.
I also let the other two continue talking.
I liked the chaos of storys and the annoying failure of Mirjam on the piano, cause it gave an urgency to the storys. Which I think makes the piano play through emphasising the failure in making it present on stage and not just storywise. In that moment it becomes an issue to the audience, cause they have to hear and deal with the failure of another person.
I like the order of the "statements of failure" in the beginning and than go for the movement sequence, which stands for the try of reaching for the perfect, which comes like and emphasis on what they talked about before.
The talk about failing and following the steady try of avoiding it.And the avoiding of failure gets expression through the movement sequence with the dogma sentences.
Also the follow of the movement sequence of "caught up" movements gets deeper into the problem of the unreachable perfect state.
In the next rehearsals I tried to bring back the idea of having the little movements sequences inbetween the talking. We already tried that out when I was still working with the walking arround with the camera.
But now they had to put those body expressions in a cumulative way into the storys, sitting on the chair, with a table in front ( which they where allowed to leave as well, if that was for the good of expressing their feeling of failure during talking).
Some of the dancers continued talking while their little movements inbetween, and some stopped and than it seemed more like a tic they had. A tic in sence of a unwilling, averse habit.
I liked both a lot. The tic gave me the expression or better the association that their failure, they talked about is also kind of a tic they have. And the continues talk while moving was more like the body expression of what they talked about.
(The movemnts sequences where all really short, since they where more for the sake of a short expression, maybe 4 movements).
We also cleaned the existing movement sequences we already have.
The next steps will be:
- Fixing the movement sequences at the table " expressions during statements of failure" ( which I´d like to think of themselves, since they tell their own storys, I´d like them to express them also themselves)
- try out the light idea (light on and of while talking)
- organize the "caught up" sequence ( I need each of them to present a different character in when and how they get caught up in the movement sequence with the dogma sentences)
My next rehearsal will not be before the 10th of january so I´ll keep you updated on further thoughts during the rehearsal break.
