Royal Holloway University of London and Jasmin Vardimon Company
Postgraduate Certificate in Physical Theatre for Actors and Dancers 2010-11
The creation of my work is based on fear which one evokes within it's own unhappiness and frustration of being unable to live in the society. Despite of it the main topic is violence, aggression, weakness and total mental and physical devastation. The main protagonist is a fear, addressed by 3 performers representing the society's concept of loneliness and luck of confidence to survive. The frustration is shown by one's nightmare. Through the real time projection the images of different faces of desperation are pictured during the performance. Alive physical movement and recorded noises are part of the show.
My original inspiration for the piece came from the book entitled ‘The road of lost innocence’ by Somaly Mam [1]. Quoting from the book: ‘When I close my eyes I see the physical tortures again. I prefer them to the psychological ones, like those inflicted when I was told my family or my collaborators would be killed. But even so, my eyes close and blows and kicks are there. Remembering makes you want to die, but you’re not allowed to die. You want to disappear, but you can’t disappear.’
It was also influenced by my traveling experiences around South East Asia, where I visited the orphanages of sexually abused children, who ended up with mental illness issues.
Following these ideas, the initial intention of the piece was to highlight depravation of women who grew up in Cambodia, and the life stages they had to face in order to survive after some of them are sold to brothels as children.
When I was working on the first task of the course, which was the solo composition, I realized that areas of mental and physical abuse are as disturbing as sexual abuse. It led me to believe that there must be a bigger problem of desperation and fear originating from different psychosocial aspects such as family’s pathology, social background, drugs and alcohol addictions. During additional reading on the subject (e.g. [5]) it became clear that psyche can be influenced negatively even in the modern society which is highly demanding and driven by ambitious goals. For example, it is believed that when the desire to success and expectation arise not everybody can keep up with the pressure, which results in an increase of drug and alcohol consumption, and even enlargers suicide rate.
The whole “package of unhappiness” caused by whatever circumstances can make the society under valuated and affect the self-esteem of many, and thus lead to social and mental disaster.
I came with the idea of the piece a quite long time ago when I was working on the previous task (solo) and I managed to develop it from 5 to 15mins with desire of taking it much further up to at least 1 hour piece (will be carried on under my dance company name: Jawaf Dance Theatre).
During the creative process of ‘Lost in Transition’ I had got very clear vision of tools I am going to use to make it flow. I set up few tasks to begin with in order to create the solo movement, developed later on into the trio. I played with the unison, cannon, dynamics and spacing. I didn’t want to create separated characters; I wanted to have one main character of fear, despair, illusion, frustration, depression, mental and physical distortion due to the abuse. I addressed in the choreography the emotions of hypothetical women who are mirroring the lost soul of a human being. The performers don’t have their own identity but represent the global one, which calls the fear.
The rehearsals were developing smoothly with the common interest of performers and director to embody the theme and make it comfortable to perform. The collaboration and relationships between director and dancers were very tight and personal; it speeded up the process of chorographical development. The use of props such a rolling toilet paper (sniffing the imaginative cocaine on top of it), throwing heels shoes across the stage, putting on and taking off jackets, served to highline the cruel reality of the theme: violence, aggression and addiction.
The music was also a result of the conscious choice, the first track I edited myself by using an acoustic sound of electronic music fused with people’s noises recorded earlier. It worked pretty well with a scene from the toilet, as due to technical reasons we couldn’t get any life sound coming out of there. The second choice of the Hofesh Schecter’s music came only recently when I saw at The Place Hofesh Shechter Dance Company’s dancers choreographed by different choreographers. This was the time to apply his music, as I needed something strong to emphasize the pain and sufferance.
Initially I wanted to use the counts to make clarity of movement to the music, but finally I gave it up as I found it much more challenging to create a completely new piece each time it was rehearsed or performed. It reminded me of the Cunningham’s collaboration with John Cage where he applied the chance procedures where dancers weren’t dancing to the music but with the music.
I was trying to set up the unison, cannon, different dynamics in the finale but it didn’t work out and I was relived when decided to let performers feel each other, in order to follow the emotions, derived from the intended theme.
The use of the real time projection from the toilet was to put an impact on the audience by something disgusting, which was also emphasized by other two performers on the stage, who were seated on the imaginative closet, ’sniffing the cocaine’ and cleaning their bottoms with toilet paper. I wasn’t ashamed of being disgusting. I wish we all could have been even more as the result of being completely lost.
In the first act I made a conscious decision of spacing, even if I was aware of fact that to show unison was almost impossible, considering a big distance between performers. I mean the initial scene where on the front wall appeared the projection from the toilette with one performer and on the sidewalls were two other performers seated quite far away from each other. I considered spacing them in the middle of the stage but I made the final decision of using the spotlights to underline their solos followed by trio on the opposite walls sides. It didn’t bother me that the audience will not be able to see the unison as the performers are so distanced from each other. It wasn’t the case; I didn’t want to set it up either, as my main aim was not to put any restrictions on the way dancers move. I decided to set up choreographically the dance phrases in such a way that they will not be over rehearsed to not loose the spontaneity and character of performers movement. As performers didn’t have any characters, though I wanted to keep their individual and personal way of expression on stage.
I am glad of the chorographical process and performance, however this is the only draft of the whole production I would like to develop. I’d like to fuse the physical/dance theatre with martial arts. This concept is for at least 1-hour piece with additional involvement of multimedia such as life music, narratives, real time and recorded projection. The intention will be extended by different forms of human being aspects followed by various life stages and it will touch the aging context of reaching the full maturity of one’s personal and intellectual development within today’s society. For the initial scene of the new production I plan to use the underwater footage to link the other criteria of the intended script’s layers. The rest will be reveled on the performance’s launch in February 2012.
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
1) Mam, Somaly. The road of lost innocence
2) http://nashville.momslikeme.com/members/JournalActions.aspx?g=247022&m=5458866&grpcat=
3) http://www.theplace.org.uk/?lid=8669
4) http://www.urbantulsa.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=26519
5) Rogers, Carl (1961). On becoming a person: A therapist's view of psychotherapy. London: Constable
FLYER:
FEAR DESPAIR FRUSTRATION DEPRAVATION ADDICTION LOST BODY AND MIND PAIN ILUSION SUFFERANCE PHYSICAL THEATRE
'LOST IN TRANSITION;
www.jawafdancetheatre.com
choreography Joanna Puchala
performers Lindsey Jayane Covell, Yoohee Yang, Joanna Puchala
music Hofesh Schechter Company
The main reason to survive is to not commit the moral crime of suicide. However the moral crime has been almost committed by rejecting the faith for rights to live. The shadow of unknown and illusion instead of bringing a hope goes in the opposite direction and brings the threat instead. The threat of loneliness and outsider's approach devastates one's psyche and provokes despair. Living in the world of having a lot of choices and possibilities of each one identity, a human being gets lost. One becomes insensitive towards feelings and thoughts in order to follow the crowd
PERFORMANCE FRIDAY 24TH JUNE 2011
ROYAL HOLLOWAY UNIVERSITY OF LONDON EGHAM HILL EGHAM TW20 0EX BOILER HOUSE
