Sometimes, like last night, I see theatre that has not really been directed. I feel it is wise to be actually trained and skilled when one accepts the leadership role of the director; a little honesty or self-reflection is important when accepting work outside of one’s area of competence. Here is my running list of the basic ‘amateur’ errors. Why I’m so cross is that only 1 in 10 so called professionals avoids these kind of traps; just because you can crack your own knuckles doesn’t make you a chiropractor! 

Directing involves the creation of coherent rules for the management of time, space and change. It requires one examine alternation (time), differentiation (space) and causality (change). 

Here are the errors:

1. Turning off all the lights at the end of a scene while people bumble around in the dark covered by a recorded sound cue. This loses the audience’s attention and adds unnecessary length to the performance.

2. Allowing performers to enter and exit along the same trajectory. Appearance and disappearance is equal in weight to what gets said or done; trivializing them with a cuckoo-clock in/out movement makes the entire fragment pointless.

3. Actors need to have pauses of different lengths before they speak; one needs to create the illusion that the lines are spontaneous, not recited and a moment of suspension creates an impulse to speak. Sometimes lines need to be spoke over top of one another, likewise creating credible impulses. If there is no temporal and tonal variation in delivery, time both literally and subjectively slows downs as the work becomes more and more predictable.

4. There are often short fragments in a script that do not need to be performed; a character who comes on only once to do a little exposition is best cut and the semantic information transmitted by the text exchanged for visceral information given elsewhere.

5. Failing the identify the principal event of the performance and building towards and away from it creates a ‘dial-tone’ continuity in the performance that subdues rather than captivates the audience.

6. Failing in the details above leads to the performance being literally too long, requiring the insertion of an intermission; if your play needs an intermission for non-aesthetic reasons (i.e. people sitting down for too long, a need to sell drinks) it is very likely too long by at least 1/3. A poorly placed intermission makes the movement towards and away from the principal event even harder to manage. You can do pretty much anything written in 1.5 hours, unless of course you are attempting to stage the Mahabharata, the Iliad or a cycle of linked or history plays.

In any endeavor where you don’t actually know what you are doing, things take a long time. Directing is no exception. 

While there are lots of excellent artistic testimonies out there, there are almost no decent ‘how-to’ books on directing. Katie Mitchell’s is actually the only ‘in general’ directing book I’ve read that does not make matters worse.

While being able to operate a deep-fryer and flip a piece of meat from side to side might make one a professional short-order cook, it does not make one a chef!

Grr…

I was reading the blog of David Chapman, who is a practitioner of Dzogchen, a lesser known aspect of Tibetan Buddhism (http://approachingaro.org/). In one of his essays he linked to Paul Graham’s site. I had no idea who Paul Graham was, but I was fascinated by some of his writings and some of his links:

1. Graham posts the text of Richard Hamming’s apparently famous lecture. While I don’t always agree with the ‘we need more ambitious super-heroes’ tone, there is lots to consider in here: http://www.paulgraham.com/hamming.html

2. In his RAQ section, Graham says some very interesting things about teaching: http://www.paulgraham.com/raq.html

3. There are lots of essays here. I particularly like the one on procrastination, but they are all interesting, even if you are not a computer programmer: http://www.paulgraham.com/articles.htm

Thanks David!

It is a little pointless to collect quotes; they are often prescriptive ideas that we happen to agree with or that match our experience. So, that is exactly what these are; statements I agree with enough of the time to share them…

The only persistent problem for the artist is to express a subject which is always the same and which cannot be changed, by finding a new form of expression each time. Francis Bacon

If your exercises change, you won’t. Richard Fowler

The Chinese character for theatre includes the element ge (axe), the same weapon associated with the fangxiang exorcist [one of the oldest indigenous religious practices] – reinforcing the close relation between exorcist ritual, acting and martial skill. Jo Riley

The artist has a duty to be calm. He has no right to show his emotion, his involvement, to go pouring it all out to the audience. Any excitement over a subject must be sublimated in an Olympian calm of form. That is the only way in which an artist can tell of the things that excite him. Andrei Tarkovsky

The political system of western representative democracies is based on certain rules in which all equal citizens can participate. It is a vulgar appeal against these principles that through art, not through democratic rules, the whole system should or could be altered. Mika Hannula

The notion of theatre has been diminished in the secular world where theatre is equated with entertainment by poor actors who have to win the approval of rich patrons. This attitude blinds itself to the truth; that theatre is older than language, that it is the primal form of human expression, where the body is employed to make and share meaning. Margaret Chan

Power is the ability to not to have to learn. Karl Deutsch

Practice in the morning, late afternoon, and in the evening. Go to bed, get up, and do it all over again. That is the way to succeed. T.T. Liang quoted by Ray Hayward

The risk of a wrong decision is preferable to the terror of indecision. Moses Maimonides

Daoist ritual, Taijiquan and the stage are one system. And you can quote me. Dr. Michael Saso.

Artists don’t wonder, “What is it good for?” They aren’t driven to “create art,” or to “help people,” or to “make money.” They are driven to lessen the burden of the unbearable disparity between their conscious and unconscious minds, and so to achieve peace. When they create art, their nonrational synthesis has the power to bring us peace. The words of the rational mind have no power to bring us peace through art. David Mamet

Your moves have to have emotional content without you becoming emotional. Steve Morris

In later years Grotowski remarked that the best training for an actor might be some form of martial arts. He pointed out that in this type of combat exercise the results are always tangible. If you don’t do the right move, you get kicked. Jim Slowiak

The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity. Yeats

A few items upcoming:

Chen Zhonghua will be teaching Taijiquan in Ottawa at the end of November; get in touch for more information.

I’ll be attending Tim Cartmell’s workshop on Taijiquan in Rochester NY at the end of November as well. It is a great opportunity to meet one of the world’s top martial artists without having to take an airplane!

Before both of these, my colleague Kris Salata and I will be in San Juan Puerto Rico co-convening the working group on Performance as Research. I look forward to meeting this year’s participants in person.

I also hope to get the final version of my book on Chinese martial arts and actor training off to the published this December. I keep thinking of small improvements – hard to lock the document when each day I’m trying new things in the studio…

Finally, Dr. Michael Saso is presently in China, visiting the temples on Wudang Mountain, where he is teaching Daoist meditation to the monks and priests who live there. Great fortune for all concerned, but also so sad that most of the traditions these priests are supposed to safeguard were lost to the mainland due to the follies of the 1960s and 70s.

I’ve been running a training studio since early September; we’ve been meeting for about 9 hours per week, spread over three days. This initial 3 weeks I called the Selection Workshop. My goal was to allow people to experience what it would be like to practice various martial and movement arts in an organized and relatively intensive fashion for a short period of time. Participants got a sense of what the sustained training Fall and Winter Studios would be like and whether or not it fit with them; I also got a sense of people’s current ability, availability and potential.

The main thing I discovered is how ‘little’ compared to my plans we actually got done; this last year I realized just how much material I’ve learned over the years and I spent most of the summer turning it into a curriculum. Once in the room I realized how much time will actually be required to learn it!

Practically, this means that our work sessions, which I’d divided into Day 1 (more body) and Day 2 (more voice) are now divided into two parts. The first part of both days concentrates on learning to move the limbs and on strengthening the legs using cailifo and lama pai movement as well as conditioning through squats, different kinds of push ups and stretching. The second part of each day rotates through partner training, voice training and composition of performance material. 

I hope to add more ‘internal’ kinds of activities that work on the coordination of the transverse abs, the intercostal muscles and the articulation of the spine and hips. I’d also like to look at tumbles, falls and other low acrobatics, but for now, the coordination of gross motor function and singing in tune are our major activities!

Off to the studio…

School begins again next week and I spent the last few weeks packing in the  visits with friends before my schedule changes towards the fuller…

Allen Pittman came to stay for a few days, sharing his somatic approach called The Wisdom of the Body as well as his usual bucket-load of physical training ideas. While Allen was visiting Emily and Nick from !Mi Casa! performed their show Countries Shaped Like Stars in our living room. Laura and I also dragged Allen out to Roller Derby our local highbrow hipster activity…  Allen is relocating from Brittany to California and hopefully we’ll be able to do a training retreat together for a few weeks next summer.

The next week I was surprised and delighted to be back in the studio with my friend and colleague Joël Beddows, helping him to choreograph his new project, a play by Michel Ouallette entitled Frères d’hiver. 

No sooner done than my mother arrived for a weekend visit, followed a few days later by my collaborator and friend Marc Tellez. Marc and I, with Laura’s help, spent a few days practicing Remote Viewing; which I’m very surprised to say, we did very well at. There is lots of literature out there; I recommend Stephan Schwartz’ work.

This has been a great summer: China with Chen Zhonghua, Colorado and Ken Cohen, performing at NaCl in upstate New York, visiting Dr. Saso in Los Angeles and spending time with Allen and Marc here at home.

Classes at the university start next week and Les Ateliers will begin on September 14th. I’m looking forward to a full and interesting schedule. Apart from getting back into the studio with Les Ateliers, I’m looking forward to a theatre conference in Puerto Rico and getting the final draft of my book The Dancing Word to the publisher. 

Finally, Master Chen Zhonghua will be teaching here in Ottawa on the 18th, 19th and 20th of September. Contact James Chan to participate: jchantaiji@gmail.com

Vale!

From late June to mid-July, taijiquan player Adriaan Blaauw and I spent about six hours a day training together. I wanted to consolidate the things I’d learned from Master Chen Zhonhua and Ken Cohen and my current research project allowed me to give Adriaan a modest stipend on which to live, plus I could put him up at my place.

We worked six days a week from 7:30am-10:30am, 4:00pm-6:00pm and 7:30pm-8:30pm. Mornings were for qigong, basics, forms and conditioning, afternoons for partner practices and evenings for qigong meditations. Adriaan practices Hunyuan Taijiquan and Xinyi Liuhe, so a good deal of his material overlapped with mine; we would sometimes work together and sometimes train our own material separately. 

Perhaps the most fun part of our work together was the sticky-sword training Adriaan introduced me to; we found we could do it for hours (literally) and had to put ourselves on a round timer so as not to miss dinner!

I’m really glad we did it; our work together allowed me to experiment with my curriculum for this fall’s Ateliers. It was also great to spend that much time outdoors, rain or shine, working on material I love.

A warm thanks to Adriaan for being up for it.

This week I had the great honour of visiting with Dr. Michael Saso, professor emeritus from the University of Hawai’i and expert on the practice of Daoism and Tantric Buddhism.

During one of our conversations I asked Dr. Saso if he felt that it was fair to suggest that Xiqu (Chinese Theatre), Gongfu (Chinese martial arts) and Daojiao (Daoist ritual and meditation) all take place ‘within the same mandala‘, meaning that they use the same kind of physical shapes and behaviour to structure experience in space and time. Dr. Saso’s decisive response was this:

“Daoist ritual, Taijiquan and the stage are one system. And you can quote me.”

Many thanks to this pioneering and generous researcher.

Chers amis et collègues,

Je suis à la recherche de comédiens et de danseurs qui souhaitent prendre part à un atelier

de sélection que j’offrirai dans la région d’Ottawa/Gatineau et qui constituera la première

étape de mon projet de recherche et de création intitulé Les Ateliers du corps.

L’objectif général du projet est de créer et de présenter des oeuvres originales à partir

d’une pratique régulière de La Parole qui danse, mon approche personnelle à

l’interprétation. Le travail que nous ferons ensemble sera axé sur des arts martiaux et des

styles de mouvement chinois traditionnels (wushu et qigong), le chant a cappella, l’étude

de textes en anglais et en français et la création de vocabulaire d’interprétation original.

La première année des Ateliers du corps sera divisée en quatre étapes.

Atelier d’automne (2009)

L’atelier s’étalera sur trois semaines, du 14 septembre au 3 octobre 2009, et sera divisé en

trois classes de trois heures chacune, chaque semaine, pour un total de 27 heures en

studio. Les séances auront lieu les lundis et mercredis, de 18 h à 21 h, et les samedis de

13 h 30 à 16 h 30. Je peux accueillir un maximum de seize participants à cet atelier. À la

suite de l’atelier, un maximum de huit personnes seront invitées à participer à l’atelier

d’hiver, en préparation à l’atelier intensif du printemps et au spectacle devant public,

prévu pour le début de l’été.

L’objectif de l’atelier d’automne est d’exposer les participants au travail que je propose et

de me donner l’occasion d’évaluer l’aptitude de chaque personne à une collaboration à

long terme. Les participants n’auront pas de frais à débourser pour cet atelier, la seule

exigence étant que tous les participants soient disponibles pour l’ensemble des séances de

travail.

Atelier d’hiver (2009-2010)

Un maximum de huit participants seront invités à poursuivre la formation amorcée durant

l’atelier d’automne et procéderont à la création d’une oeuvre originale. L’atelier d’hiver

suivra le même horaire que celui d’automne et se tiendra du 5 octobre 2009 à la fin

d’avril 2010. Nous prendrons une pause durant le temps des fêtes d’hiver et à l’occasion

de quelques longues fins de semaine ici et là. Les participants n’auront pas de frais à

débourser pour cet atelier, mais encore, ils doivent s’engager à participer à toutes les

séances de travail.

Atelier intensif du printemps (2010)

En mai 2010, les participants à l’atelier seront conviés à quatre semaines de répétitions à

temps plein, en préparation pour le spectacle prévu pour l’été. Les participants recevront

un cachet généreux en raison de l’engagement à temps plein qui sera exigé.

Spectacle d’été (2010)

L’oeuvre résultant de l’année de travail sera présentée dans un contexte professionnel en

juin 2010. L’oeuvre a pour titre provisoire Circe. Il s’agira d’une nouvelle interprétation,

fondée sur différentes perspectives, du chapitre du même nom de L’Odyssée d’Homer. La

pièce sera créée en collaboration avec le dramaturge Michael Geither. Elle alliera des

passages chorégraphiés et répétés avec des jeux, des casses-têtes et des improvisations

structurées.

Prochaines années du projet

Les plans pour la deuxième et la troisième année des Ateliers du corps comprennent une

résidence avec le maître professeur Mario Biagini du Workcenter of Jerzy Grotowski and

Thomas Richards à Pontedera, en Italie, et une présentation dans le cadre du festival

Zones Théâtrales.

La Parole qui danse: la pratique en détail

Le travail se divise en trois parties : l’entraînement en mouvement martial, l’entraînement

de la voix et la création en vue de l’interprétation. Ces activités révèlent toutes la

présence des interprètes grâce à l’étude des impulsions et de la causalité dans leurs

formes corporelles et vocales.

En plus d’accroître des capacités fondamentales telles que la coordination, la mobilité, la

force et l’endurance, la formation en mouvement martial vise à rendre chaque interprète

aussi réceptif aux autres interprètes lorsqu’il est loin d’eux, que lorsqu’il est en contact

direct avec eux. Des chorégraphies solos d’arts martiaux (taolu), des formes de travail en

partenaires (duilian taolu), des exercices de réceptivité entre partenaires (tui shou et san

shou) et des exercices de coordination méditative (qigong) seront pratiqués à cette fin.

L’objectif général de l’entraînement vocal est de transférer l’efficacité, la projection, la

résonance et l’émotion du chant à la voix parlée. À cette fin, l’entraînement vocal

comprendra des exercices de respirations méditatives et de coordination vocale (qi fa

gong), du travail axé sur la résonance fondamentale de la voix, des chants sacrés et

profanes provenant de différentes traditions de musique du monde, l’intégration de

l’expression vocale avec l’action physique et l’étude de textes parlés en anglais et en

français.

Les participants de l’atelier apprendront aussi comment créer du vocabulaire

d’interprétation original en réalisant et en combinant des tâches concrêtes physiques et

vocales. Les études individuelles, en duo et en groupe, serviront des fondements

principaux de la production de Circe.

Ce que je cherche; comment poser sa candidature

Je suis à la recherche de personnes qui aiment apprendre et qui adorent le défi de la

technique, du métier et de la précision. Je souhaite travailler avec des gens pour qui

travail rime avec engagement, coeur et fiabilité; des gens qui ont de la discipline, qui

aiment rire, qui sont gentils et patients. Si une expérience antérieure et un large éventail

de capacités sont, bien sûr, des atouts, je suis d’avis que la maturité, la fiabilité et

l’auto-discipline priment la virtuosité.

Si vous souhaitez poser votre candidature pour l’atelier d’automne, veuillez me faire

parvenir une courte lettre de présentation expliquant votre intérêt pour le projet à

l’adresse de courriel : dmroz@uottawa.ca. Je demanderais aux personnes à qui j’ai déjà

eu l’occasion de parler du projet de m’envoyer une lettre également, pour confirmer leur

intérêt et leur disponibilité. Veuillez m’envoyer vos lettres d’ici le 17 août. Vous recevrez

une réponse le 21 août.

Étant donné que ce projet de recherche et de création est financé par le Conseil de

recherches en sciences humaines, les étudiants canadiens de premier ou de deuxième

cycle universitaire qui participent à l’atelier d’hiver seront admissibles à recevoir un

modeste cachet.

En résumé

Qui : Acteurs et danseurs de niveau préprofessionel, en émergence et d’expérience qui

souhaitent participer à l’atelier d’automne

Quoi : Atelier d’interprétation contemporaine intensif de trois semaines à

Ottawa/Gatineau

Quand : Du 14 septembre au 3 octobre 2009

Quand, plus précisément : Les lundis et les mercredis, de 18 h à 21 h, les samedis de

13 h 30 à 16 h 30

Date limite pour poser sa candidature : Le 17 août 2009

Directeur du projet : Daniel Mroz, dmroz@uottawa.ca

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

I am looking for actors and dancers to participate in the selection workshop I am offering in the Ottawa/Gatineau area as the first stage of my research/creation project Les Ateliers du corps.

The overall goal of this project is to create and present the original works that emerge

from the regular practice of The Dancing Word, my specific approach to contemporary

performance. Our work together will include training in traditional Chinese martial and

movement arts (wushu and qigong), the practice of a capella group singing, work on

spoken text in both English and French and the devising and composition of original

performance material. The first year of les Ateliers du corps will be divided into four

phases:

Fall Workshop (2009)

This workshop will run for three weeks, from September 14th to October 3rd. The

workshop will consist of three, three-hour long classes per week for a total of 27 hours of instruction. Work sessions are Mondays and Wednesdays from 6:00pm-9:00pm and

Saturdays from 1:30pm-4:30pm. There is space in the workshop for a maximum of 16

participants. Following the workshop, a maximum of 8 participants will be invited to join the Winter Studio, in preparation for the Spring Intensive and the final public

performance in the early summer.

The purpose of the Fall Workshop is to allow participants to experience the work I’m

proposing and to allow me the opportunity to assess each person’s aptitude for long-term collaboration. There is no charge for the Fall Workshop. The only requirement is that selected participants attend all the work sessions.

Winter Studio (2009-2010)

A maximum of 8 invited participants will continue the training begun in the Fall

Workshop and will progress to the devising of a full original performance. The Winter

Studio will run on the same schedule as the Fall Workshop from October 5th 2009 to the end of April 2010, with a break for winter holidays and a few long weekends here and there. There is no charge for participation in the winter studio and attendance at every meeting remains mandatory.

Spring Intensive (2010)

In May 2010 Studio participants will be convened for 4 weeks of full-time rehearsals

leading up to the Summer Performance. Participants will be paid a generous honorarium due to the full-time nature of the work required.

Summer Performance (2010)

The outcome of the year’s work will be presented professionally in June 2010. The

working title of the performance is Circe. It is a retelling from different perspectives of

the chapter of the same name from Homer’s Odyssey, created in collaboration with

playwright Michael Geither. The form of the performance will combine choreographed

and rehearsed precision with games, puzzles and rule-based improvisations.

Subsequent Years

Plans for the second and third years of les Ateliers du corps include a residency with

master teacher Mario Biagini at the Workcenter of Jerzy Grotowski and Thomas Richards in Pontedera, Italy and a performance in the festival Zones Théâtrales.

The Dancing Word Curriculum in Detail

Our work can be divided into three parts: martial movement training, vocal training and performance composition. All of these activities reveal the performers’ presence through the study of impulse and causality in their physical and vocal forms.

In addition to cultivating such fundamental attributes as coordination, mobility, strength and endurance, the goal of martial movement training is to make the individual performer as responsive to his or her fellow players at distance as he or she can be when in direct contact with them. Martial arts solo choreographies (taolu), partner forms (duilian taolu), partner responsive exercises (tui shou and san shou) and meditative coordination exercises (qigong) are practiced for this purpose.

The overall objective of vocal training is to transfer the efficiency, projection, resonance

and emotion of singing to the speaking voice. To this end, vocal training includes

meditative breath and vocal coordination exercises (qi fa gong), work on the fundamental resonance of the voice, liturgical and secular singing from various world traditions, the integration of vocal expression with physical action and the study of spoken text in English and French.

Studio participants will also learn how to compose original performance material through the accomplishment and combination of concrete physical and vocal tasks. The

individual, duet and ensemble studies created will serve as the fundamental building

blocks of the eventual production of Circe.

Who I’m Looking For, How to Apply

I am looking for people who love to learn, who love the puzzles of technique, craft and

precision, who bring committment, heart and reliability to their work and who combine

real discipline with good humour, kindness and patience. While previous performance

experience and a wide ranging skill-set are certainly assets, I am far more interested in

maturity, reliability and self-discipline than in virtuosity.

If you would like to be considered for the Fall Workshop, please send me a brief letter of

application detailing the reasons for your interest at dmroz@uottawa.ca. Those of you

with whom I have discussed the project in person, please also send me a letter confirming

your interest and availability. Please send your letter before August 17th; I will inform

participants of their acceptance on August 21st.

As this research/creation is funded by the Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities

Research Council, Canadian undergraduate and graduate students who participate in the

Winter Studio are eligible for a modest honorarium.

Executive Summary

Who: interested actors and dancers; pre-professional, emerging and experienced.

What: 3-week intensive contemporary performance workshop in Ottawa/Gatineau

When: September 14th to October 3rd,

When again: Mondays and Wednesdays 6:00pm-9:00pm, Saturdays 1:30pm-4:30pm

Applications Due By August 17th, 2009

Contact Daniel Mroz, dmroz@uottawa.ca