Work session, 8/26/09

present: Jeff B, Brady, Dale, Summer

Brady and Summer had their second readthrough of Jeff’s adaptation of Chekhov’s “The Bear.” This is a very very funny script.

While they were working, Dale produced “Two-Hander #1,” a Neo-Futurist script for Jeff and himself. No nudity was involved.

Afterwards, Dale went over the kinds of things we’ve been working on and laid out the long-term plan for the group.

Finally, everyone played a noise-making. Dale had brought the staffs from Coriolanus, some heavy cardboard tubes, some PVC piping, and some 2-inch-thick corrugated cardboard. Everyone banged and thumped and blew, experimenting with sounds. We wound up doing a 2 against 3 kind of beat, with three people whooshing the PVC pipes in 3 and one person thumping the cardboard in 2.

NEXT: SEP 2, 6:30, NSOD

  • TEXTS: Old Man Wind (doc), “The Bear”
  • PATHS: Vocal Sequence; Contact Improv; Story Theatre; other
  • HOMEWORK: write a Neo-Futurist piece

Work session, 8/12/09

present: Marc, Jeff B., Barbara, Dale

Our first meeting since April, and in the Newnan School of Dance’s new studios!

We have been asked to consider working with NSOD dancers to put together a performance for the next downtown Art Walk. We talked about material we could possibly put together in the five weeks before September 18. This included some Neo-Futurist pieces, a revival of “Milky Way” and/or “Two Sunflowers,” and two of our bear works, “Bear & Rabbit” and “Old Man Wind.”

At the moment, we’re focusing on developing “Old Man Wind.” We took five minutes to read over the text again and propose ways to integrate dancers into the work.

Some ideas:

  • cluster/machine, from which characters detach; music/sound created by the dancers
  • indication of the “four corners” in some way
  • use of turtle shell rattles, gourds, drums to create sound
  • use of specific colors
  • progression from noise and color to the stasis of the “young men” in the water and on to their rebirth
  • objects spoken of but embodied only by dancers in some way
  • the Old Man Wind embodied by a performer, but other characters indicated by movement
  • the use of fabric, poles, lights (LED flashlights?)

We will probably need to meet more than once a week in order to get this pulled together.

In addition to this performance piece, we are also considering an evening of pieces to be performed this fall down at NCTC in the black box: Jeff’s version of Chekhov’s “The Bear”; Turff directing Ionesco’s “The Lesson”; and a collection of Neo-Futurist works.

NEXT: AUG 19, 6:30, NSOD

  • TEXTS: Old Man Wind (doc)
  • PATHS: Vocal Sequence; Contact Improv; Story Theatre; other
  • HOMEWORK: be prepared to work the first 30 minutes on nothing but sound: vocalizations, body sounds, rattles, drums, etc.