Centres & Edges

The initial motivation in writing my book on street theatre was to share, with members of my company, knowledge that I had accumulated over many years, both from my own practice and also from watching the work of other companies during the recent emergence of this area of work (1969-89). I was encouraged by the publishers to go beyond documentation and to outline the artistic basis of the work. The result, of course, was that interested parties could shortcut the learning process through reading, rather than discovering for themselves. What had been a jumble of strange behaviour was now ordered and codified. Liminal (experimental) activity had acquired norms.  In effect, the book centralised the interpretation (or at least the classification) of an area of work and over the last twenty has been unchallenged in the English speaking world. As the book became used on BA courses this ‘street theatre centre’ became connected with the larger  ‘Theatre Studies centre’ of academia. I am proud of the fact that the book and its subject was not an easy fit into the narratives of 20^th Century theatre as taught at universities.  The same process of centralising can be seen in the development of contemporary circus. A wide diversity  of experimentation across the world, that occurred during the 1970s and 80s, has become centralised in Cirque De Soleil, so that the vast majority of traditional and non-traditional circus work is viewed in terms of the simple criteria that company uses.

Similarly many of the key exercises that I use have been discovered by myself or radically developed from those of others (Lecoq, Gaullier, Wright) who similarly developed them from practical experimentation with what they had been taught.  Physical theatre academics harvest the results of this practical research, collating diverse practices, selecting, prioritising, codifying and establishing a centralising language.  This centralising process is a natural one and is fine as long as the norms and centres are seen as fluid and temporary and not, as some academics would have it, set in stone as part of the ‘canon’ of ‘accepted’ practices. Culture doesn’t develop from its centres because their orthodoxy doesn’t allow for variation; culture develops from its liminal edges because activity at the edges has less to defend and so is less restricted.  For this reason,  I am keen that Circomedia, although a strong centre in itself, remains relatively disconnected to larger centres, such as those of academia or mainstream contemporary circus so that we can continue to develop from our own experimentation rather than adopting a model that is not ours and that is fixed by its own established practices and perspectives.

The trouble with Christmas

As is well known, Christmas is the peak time for divorce and family break-up. Most of the people I meet regard it as a stressful chore or something to be endured rather than enjoyed.  So why, I wondered,  is this major cultural phenomenon so loathed? There is the commercialism, of course, but I don't see that as a major factor in family break-up. Much of the angst seems to revolve around, seemingly trivial, details; there seems to be more to this dissatisfaction than 'bah-humbug' grumpiness with festivity and self-indulgence.  Those that seem happiest with Christmas proceedings seem to be those people who set the agenda and those who derive satisfaction from being close to, validated by, the agenda-setter who is the centre of that group. Problems occur when agenda-setters come up against other agenda-setters, in which case, the rest of us are caught in between, trying to satisfy competing 'needs'. Typically this will occur when one family group visits another.

One of the conflicts seems to be around the tension between the communal  and the self-centre. If self-centering is dominant, everything is seen in terms of gain or loss for that individual. As is well known, the infant sees themselves as the centre of the universe and seeks to command and control events in the environment to maximise opportunities and minimise threats and therefore quickly develops strategies to bully or curry favour with parents by means of screams or cuteness. For the self-centred adult-infant a threat can be as trivial as the wrong vegetable at the dinner, because this is seen as threat to being in control. Teenagers sometimes truthfully acknowledge opportunities when they admit that 'it's all about what presents you get'. This is not merely a matter of acquisitive desires but a 'measure of how much one is loved' so, as is well known, presents becomes a matter of competition for children and an unspoken signifier for adults. Being 'loved', in this sense, signifies how much one is a centre, or close to a centre. In our youth-centred society children and teenagers get showered with presents whereas the elders, honoured in other societies, get little.

 The communal idea is central to Christmas, it is a gathering together of the group. Contributions to the whole are recognised and honoured thereby binding individuals to the centre of the group and providing identity as being a part of the group.  The danger with this sort of arrangement is that, the more hierarchical the group is, the more passive the followers have to be; they defer responsibility for their actions to the centre. Given this dynamic, it is not surprising the conservatism of Christmas proceedings. This is not only an echo of the Victorian model of Christmas (the decorated tree etc) but also a dinner menu that has only been 'traditional'  since the 60s or later (c.f. 'traditional' music such as Noddy Holder's song from the 70's). Those at the centre, usually the older, economically powerful, revert to trying to relive their childhood experiences, re-creating the Christmas from their memories. These memories will be very individual and impossible to recreate in their entirety, but this would also explain the tenacity with which seemingly trivial detail is adhered to. To be lead present-giver either in terms of size, amount, price, thought or originality, is one way to become the centre of the group. (The traditionally female role of food-provider is obviously the other way, which is possibly why men find pre-Christmas so stressful.) At one Christmas I attended many years ago, the present-giving lasted hours because each unwrapping had to be done one at a time with the rest of the large group watching. This process was obviously torture to the present-receiver because they became very self-conscious under such scrutiny, attempting to 'perform' their 'spontaneous' wonder and gratitude. There was clearly points being scored, not only for the performance of the receiver but also for the status of the giver. Usually there is one clear winner to the present-giving competition which means that most feel a sense of inadequacy. To give no presents is such a situation is obviously shameful, officially signifying selfishness but, more critically, refusing to passively accept the points game set up by the central lead present-giver. Attempts to put a halt to the competitive escalation of present-giving with pacts such as 'We'll only give each other cheap/small presents this year”  usually fail, with one party unable to resist giving bigger items, thereby breaking trust. I suffered years of jocular humiliation after giving my brother a (rather beautiful) pebble one Christmas.

Unsurprisingly commerce taps into all these fears and desires, promoting conservativism with its constant re-iteration of traditional images and promoting the notion of the (parental male) lead present-giver in the image of Father Christmas. Images of delighted (or disappointed) children's faces reinforce expected norms and duties around tangible demonstrations of 'how much they are loved'. This year the youth market was targeted with a particular focus on male and female perfumes; nothing to do with smell, of course, but all about associating with a particular form of glamour and a way to score present-giving points by means of price.

So, with all its pitfalls and stresses, no wonder Christmas is such a trial and leads to break-ups. Good to be back at work?

Cultural mining

One of the features of entering a state of uncertainty with others is the sense of belonging (called ‘communitas’ by Victor Turner). After a whole term of risk-taking by the 2^nd year group of Physical Theatre students they performed increasingly extreme acts of outrageousness in front of each other in which observers were both shocked and awestruck at the audacity of the actor (for these were not 'performances', representations of something else, but 'actions' that were real, visceral). Taking risks in front of others exposing, acknowledging and thereby accepting our desires and fears, can make people feel vulnerable but if treated with due respect, care and affection is an act of trust that increases the sense of belonging with those who share it.

This augmentation of audacity could have strayed into a competition for extremity, the sort of self-promoting freedom displayed as an act of prowess by the likes of Frankie Boyle and recently by J. Clarkson. However these acts were done with greater integrity, not the stress-inducing raising of stakes to prove to others but to challenge the limitations that are imposed by our culture, in effect lowering the bar of stress, by dispelling fear, laughing at the demons we carry in our heads and turning them into comic, halloween monsters (Bakhtin). This lowering of the bar enabled an incredible feeling of playful, creative freedom in the choral work that we use as a parallel process to the outrageous acts. In choral work, the group can improvise movements, sounds and words in a continuous illogical flow; it can split into trios, duos and solos and re-form organically. The one rule is that everyone remains aware of what everyone else is doing and follows a line of development in relationship to others so that, rather than a self-indulgent self-expression, the 'self' begins to disappear and the actors experience a state of 'flow' (Csikszentmihayli) in which they are so tightly focussed into the present moment with non-conflictual decision-making that they lose their sense of time passing (typically a quarter/third of actual duration) and despite continuous physical exertion are invigorated rather than exhausted. What emerges is an intuitive unfolding of the unconscious; indeed, it looks like a dream with one scene morphing into another, unrelated, scene. This effect is enhanced by the lowering of the bar, allowing a whole range of actions to emerge that would otherwise be 'off limits'. On top of this cultural freedom there is the extraordinary physical freedom of acrobatic capability so that, in a moment, there can be a cascade of handstands and rolls. As a privileged witness of these proceedings I was deeply moved by the purity, simplicity and trust in this level of play which, although it can reach peaks of mayhem and violence, can also quieten into the most subtle and sublime moments of spontaneous, unrepeatable harmony.

 At the risk of using a pretentious cliché, this does not seem like teaching (in its top-down instruction sense) but more like mining. One can sense that although we may be fumbling in the dark, we are digging into a rich seam and bringing to light all kinds of precious gems whose value is not immediately clear. The beauty of the process is that students have ownership of their own mine and can continue to tap into vast hidden resources that provides more than enough to plough back into further exploration.

Bim Mason

A glimpse of the extraordinary

At the beginning of the second year of the Foundation Degree students explore a range of genres that can be used with circus skills. One of these is that of the grotesque, which includes elements of parody and carnivalesque. This exploration culminated in a presentation last week which is hard to describe but I shall try.

Unlike the case in the other genres this style is presented with the entire group performing in one piece; this year, appropriately, there were thirteen of them. They work as a collective of eccentrics, with very individual costumes and personas, some deformed, some animalesque, some degraded, some deviant, some extravagant. One roamed around, kicking a ball or bouncing off the walls seemingly oblivious to the action. While solo or trio sections are performed front-stage, the rest echo the action with strange personalised gestures so that there is an excess of images. Out of this nightmarish carnival there are parodies of consumer advertisements, charity appeals, and a play with themes that include health, dieting and fashion, so there is much scatology and bare flesh; all the rules, theatrical conventions and logic are abandoned. The purpose is not so much to create a piece for public consumption but more to allow an opportunity for students to explore and expand their own limitations.

As each outrageous act occurred, jaws dropped, bodies recoiled or broke into laughter. While the stakes got higher we were rivetted as to what might happen next, but as well as a hellish bedlam there are glimpses of heaven, of beauty; as well as horror there is laughter at them and at ourselves. This is not just a matter of pulling apart and pulling down with mockery but it is also celebratory; there are episodes of strange, wild and joyful 'dancing'. At one brief moment, even though I had seen a rehearsal, I had a sensation of 'being somewhere else', something happening in the room that was so overwhelming that it was no longer located in real-world time and place; a sensation of frightening chaos, of all hell breaking loose, a breaking wave that was beginning to engulf all of those watching, a sensation of being scared and, in that rollercoaster way, of being exhilarated. It was a very rare theatrical moment.

Bim Mason

Ibid

If you have been inducted into the strange rules of academic writing you will know about ibid.; a reference used from the same source should not repeat the reference but use ‘ibid’. I understand that, if the reference was long, for the sake of brevity, it might be more practical to use ‘ibid’ but why is it a requirement? The previous reference might be distant on some previous page so that it might be more efficient for the reader if the reference is repeated. Who sets these rules? By what rituals do they become hallowed? Could it be that, rather than a matter of efficiency, the knowledge of 'ibid' is one the many secret signifiers, a Masonic handshake, by which members of the academic club can recognise each other? Is membership of the club a matter of cleverness and deep thinking, as most people assume, or is it simply a matter of knowing the language, terms and forms, a way to distinguish between outsiders and insiders, a marketing tool to give writing a more authoritative appearance?

Bim Mason

On The Edge of Europe

Last week a team of recent graduates returned from the Cercle showcase, held at Auch, in France. This event gives the opportunity for the FEDEC circus schools, (mainly from Europe but also including Montreal) the opportunity to compare their work. Despite a long-standing desire to raise our profile in Europe, this is the first time we have participated in this event. The reason it has been so difficult to do so is lack of resources; money, of course, but also finding a member of staff who is available to accompany them. Hardly any of us can detach themselves from the their teaching programme for a week at this important and intense time of year and those that could had parental responsibilities during the school half-term break. Fortunately, this time circus director Annabelle Holland, kindly offered to drive and supervise.

 At the debrief session they appeared to have had a great time; their shining faces, laughing as the pack of intense recent memories tumbled out, revealed what a demanding but rewarding experience it had been.  As they were the last presentation on the day's programme, they had become increasingly nervous as each presentation outdid each other in terms of technical skill. As we do not share the same aims and methods as the circus schools, we presented a student-devised grotesque ensemble piece that only used juggling skills occasionally but focussed, instead, on eccentric characterisation, collaged visuals, text and movement, some of it darkly suggestive. The reaction, it seems, was as you would expect, some loved it because it was so very different, others felt there was not enough high skill. I was glad that we could, more or less, fit in with their game but that we could also shift the parameters just a little.

Bim Mason

Buffoonish Morality

In the carnivalesque course the interesting question of morality arose. Did the bouffons (rejects, outsiders) just make fun of the usual targets – religion, government, military, education etc - with the moral purpose of exposing hypocrisy for the betterment of society or do they make fun of everything, including themselves and including moral purpose itself? 

When I was first introduced to the subject the argument ran that the bouffons were amoral because every suppression, pogrom and persecution had been in the name of moral purpose; that individuals had to suffer for the greater good. An assertion of global ideals, incomprehensible in a local context, would inevitably lead to unfortunate local consequences. Bouffons suffered from an excess of moral zeal. However, in these times, when the free-market, American model of capitalism operates with mathematical indifference to public benefit, like a computer programme that has survival-of- the-fittest and profit maximisation as its primary factors and that takes no account of social effects, bouffons reflect this amorality back. We can observe this in the August rioters lack of morality. Taught to aspire to the heaven of fame and fortune (as a replacement for a belief system) by the all-pervasive advertising bombardment but , at the same time, living in the hell of denied access to fame & fortune, they simply replicated the amorality of the market. How morally different is the robbing of an injured foreigner to the asset stripping of Cadbury's by Kraft?  

The 'amorality' of bouffons is based on survival at any cost. Back in the 1970's Colin Turnbull's grim account of the starving African tribe, The Ik, was turned into a theatrical production by Peter Brook. The account described how the frail and old were ridiculed for their weakness as they were stoned to death so that the stronger could use their food ration. This week, Channel 4's Unreported World focussed on Christian preachers in Nigeria who promote the idea of personal wealth as being a sign of spiritual righteousness, offering their own ostentatious displays of wealth as examples of worthiness. Their crude exploitation of the gullible seems not so far from the self-righteous justification of wealth from the defenders of disproportionate salary increases paid to chief executives this week. They claim that they are paid what they are worth even though they set the rates for each other through salary review boards.

Post-modernism, as I understand it, sees any morality as the construct of a particular perspective, neither better nor worse than any other form of self-justification. Like the free-marketeers, the advocates of Post -Modernism would dispute ideas of 'right' and 'wrong' as having no objective meaning. For example, that the deaths of millions of human beings through starvation has no relevance to those people whose sense of well-being is centred on their own standard of living. This is the world we live in. The morality of our affluent, educated middle-class (who are the prime producers and consumers of theatre) may seem like a self-serving luxury to those rejects and outsiders who are beyond the reach of good intentions, so it is not surprising if they make fun of it.

Bim Mason

Closed teaching, open teaching

The first year acrobatic presentation was a joy to see because of its simplicity. Some inventive choreography made stronger because we working through the Neutral phase – no characters, stories, attitudes. There was a simple play with space, shape, timing, neatly done, stripped back to basics.

On the one hand it is great to keep returning to these fundamentals, so that it is possible to repeat more or less the same class I was teaching 30 years ago and know, from the effect on the students, that it still provides a very valuable learning experience; they can sense the confidence in the delivery and they like the top-down instruction. On the other hand I’m aware that this confidence and reliance on tried and tested methods can sometimes lead to a kind of arrogance that is unresponsive to different personalities or shifts in cultural attitudes so that it can result in a negative antipathy with students. So I am enjoying the 2^nd year Physical Theatre classes where the work is so complex and paradoxical (grotesque/carnivalesque/bouffon) and so close to my thesis on provocateurs that the sessions are more like an exploratory voyage with the students. Rather than seeming worried that I don’t know what I am doing they seem excited by going into an area that is unknown, risky and personally challenging.

Bim Mason

Faith Restored. Hallelujah!

Watching the Marcello Magni-Kathryn Hunter show last week restored my enjoyment of theatre. Why was this different? First of all, the 'real' came through in the spirit of the performers - you got to know them as people, as they skipped easily between playing different characters, at their real pleasure in the stories and  in communicating them to the public. Then there were the 'here and now' moments of contact with the audience; although only brief, these helped to foster a sense of creating the event with the spectators rather performing at them. The 'poor theatre' techniques of using everyday objects , of people playing as animals, of vertical poles to convey different environments, clearly declared this as a game of 'let's pretend'. It is honest about its artificiality. The other aspect that shone through was the life-affirming vitality, a celebration of human behaviour at its best and a lament for its folly.

This show, along with the excellent White Caps by Champloo, shown the previous week, provides a significant benchmark for the quality of work that we are proud to present to Bristol audiences, with both shows benefitting from the uniquely special feel of the Portland square venue.

Bim Mason

Theatre apostate

I was shocked last week in my reaction to watching a play. It was not that the play was shocking. I realised that because it is some time since I have seen a play written by one person, directed and acted by others. Although it was well written, directed, performed and with an innovative arrangement of spectators, good lighting etc, this format seemed conservative and old-fashioned and contrived. After seeing so much work that had a strong element of ‘the real’, either provocative work that responds to circumstances or work that is based on the performers physicality/identity, this type of work seemed inauthentic, predictable and thus uninteresting. How strange it seemed that the actors are in someone else’s story, speaking someone else’s words, (that are the same every performance, despite the different make-up of the audience); how strange that the actors cannot look directly at us and pretend that we are not in the same space. I know, I know this is just the nature of theatre, but I experienced its unfamiliarity again but this time without being intimidated by it, as most non-theatre goers are. Hopefully I’ll be re-converted back to the old faith in traditional theatre but for the moment I seem to be a non-believer.

Bim Mason