At the start of the lesson we were informed of the four
topics we will know about by the end of the lesson: Neutrality, Ephemerality,
The Truth in Performance and Exhaustion. I was excited to get started yet
apprehensive about the exhaustion part.
Neutrality
I learned that neutrality was being in tune with your body
and being able to have your body in an aligned, ready state so that we have
full control of what it then does, I found it interesting to find out more
about what my body can and can’t do. I found out that my arms can’t hold the
rest of me up for very long but also that I can actually balance a stick on my
finger and still move around the room.
Ephemerality
Is basically that something is created, developed, shown
then dies and we all move on, I found this to be enlightening in that if I make
a mistake on stage, in a few days/week/months everyone will have moved on.
However I also found it sad that everything we will ever put effort in to
create, whether it was amazing or shit will be over and forgotten about, but I
guess that’s life.
The Truth in Performance
It’s a big fat lie!!! I discovered that no one can ever become their character or live their
characters life or show real emotion, we can get close, extremely close but we
will still be ourselves on stage and playing
a character. We lie to an audience to get them to believe in a fantasy world
with a storyline or whatever we are showing them.
Exhaustion
The crazy German woman or Pina Bausch was a performing arts
visionary who sort of took the idea that all performing is a lie and tried to
make it real. She caused all her performer to genuinely experience the emotions
they needed (i.e. exhaustion, she made them do a long exercise to tier her
performers out, happy, she gave them drugs) as a class we were pushed to
exhaustion and then immediately wrote what we felt, I wrote “sweaty”,
“thirsty”, “weak” and “damp” but my arms were weak so the words were big and
messy but I understand how it will genuinely portray the feeling of worn out
and how the crazy woman’s idea has some truth to it and will create a stronger
performance. At the time I felt dry inside yet soaked outside my body and
incredibly weak.
Pina Bausch (extra info)
Philippina "Pina" Bausch (27 July 1940 – 30 June
2009) was a German performer of modern dance, choreographer, dance teacher and
ballet director. With her unique style, a blend of movement, sound, and
prominent stage sets, and with her elaborate collaboration with performers
during the development of a piece (a style now known as Tanztheater), she
became a leading influence in the field of modern dance from the 1970s on.[2]
She created the company Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch (de) which performs
internationally.
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