Royal Holloway University of London and Jasmin Vardimon Company
Postgraduate Certificate in Physical Theatre for Actors and Dancers 2010-11
Physical theatre:
Title: 'Lost In Transition'
Length of the piece: 15"
Music: Hofesh Schechter Company
Abbreviations: L (Linsday), J (Yoohee), A (Joanna/Asia)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=byUiN0vnbgo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wv8u9agG8H8&NR=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_X9TyQvNSIY&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWjoyPgoZAk&NR=1
The current work is an extension (10") of the previous 5 mins piece 'lost in transition'. The intention is to bring on stage the frustration and despair of human being. The main protagonist is a fear of being unable to survive in the society because of different reasons such as addiction to love, drugs and alcohol. The main reason to survive is to not commit the moral crime of suicide. However the moral crime has been almost committed by rejecting of 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. We become insensitive towards our own feelings and thoughts in order to follow the crowd.
This creation of my work is based on injustice which one evokes within it's own unhappiness and frustration of being unable to live in the society. Despite of the fear the main topic is violence, aggression, weakness and total mental and physical devastation.
There are 3 characters representing the society's concept of loneliness and luck of confidence to survive. The frustration is shown through the one's nightmare.
Through the real time projection the images of different faces of desperation are pictured during the performance. The life physical movement and recorded sound are part of the show.
To layer the intention of the piece and state of mind of characters the use of props such as shoes, jacket has been applied. The symbol of hair represents the powerless of action and devotion to live. The closet and toilet paper reflect the addictive nature of human being.
Playing with a real time projection, which flashes in and out on the stage, by changing visually angles of appearing images builds up the intention of frustration which eventually becomes more dynamic and with explosion of movement dies. Leaves an audience with tasteless feeling and uncertainty.
One is in the toilet (L), another one behind the stages door (`J) and one on the stage -wall (A) (real time video projection on stage, two walls and ceiling projected one at the time and then switching on and of between each). Two entering the space are part of the person from the toilet's nightmare. Unison - projection on the wall (J), two others against the walls (A,J). Drunk, frustrated, lost. Set solos of each one on the toilet (3x8) performed in real time, speeded up and very slow motion. Added lyres: sneezing the nose, sniffing the cocaine, cleaning the bum, and flashing the water. Solos into trio (very aggressive and dynamic movement). L ends up on the toilet by the set up sequence until she falls a sleep (black out). Flashy lights in and out with A and J in different space and position (dead).
Developed into…
The beginning (act1)
L starts on the toilet as she is falling a sleep and everything what happens during the performance's time is her dream - nightmare. The projection is on the main front wall on the stage. She does her solo, followed by J and A (located in next to the side walls) - each one separately. Light spots on one person performing. Then comes fusion of their solo in unison, developed later into 2 reps, one normal speed and the second – very fast. Lights on all and then spots in and out on each separately in the second fast repetition (not sure yet where to put it either here or at the end if the piece).
Black out, L shadow - messing hair in front of the audience projected from the toilet (L). A&J coming toward each other in the middle of the stage and imitating a drunken women walking past (hair sequence). Black out. A&J are coming of stage to back door.
Transition into the hair motive (act2)
L is messing up her hair and shadow effect appears on the front wall while A & J are getting into the space from sidewalks walking like drunk, bombing into each other. And starting their contact routine with messed hair all over their faces. A is dragging J to the floor. L is either projected on the wall while she is synchronizing the hair routine with A&J. A£J get of the stage to backdoor to pick up the chairs and come back with a drunk paste caring on the chairs into the stage's space. Followed by trio is in unison and chairs sequence (act 3-the end).
Ending routine (act3)
J comes out first with a chair (later on developed into the blocks, therefore coming into the space without anything just drank paste walk), wearing heels and jacket, unstable paste, followed by L and J. Setting against the pillars - from the left J,L,A. Shoes routine. Each one is doing the same movement but in their own way. Draft: shoes off, jump with hips up, left leg round de jacket on air, come up on the chair (side, front), jacket off, legs out, down to roll back, toilet paper roll, cocaine sniffing, plank, rolling backstage with the paper, floor rolls, monkey walk, start to the left, first plank in canon (J,L,A), second to the right, plank in unison. Facing diagonal, kneeling on left knee, roll over left shoulder, roll on the right shoulder in canon (A,L,J). 4x forward drags, 3x down to elbow to come up, twice jump in the air to die down on the floor. Waking up from the dream.
The initial intention of the solo’s draft:
I've got this image in my mind of a woman who is deprived, frustrated and depressed. She doesn't know where to go and how to carry on with her daily life. She's been in the past physically and psychologically abused, she ended up doing the drugs and loosing herself in alcohol. She doesn't see anymore the way out and gets stacked in her own limited by addictions world. She is not really aware of her body and mind; she's lost and completely unconscious. She lost the track of reality and she is not anymore a part of the society. She's depraved and wrack women who lost her identity.
When I started working on the piece I saw the whole scene at least of half an hour performance. Initially i thought about the nightmare when we are dreaming about something really unpleasant and suddenly we wake up and realize that it was just a bad dream. I also thought of doing solo, as it was duet. And it goes like this. Drank, dragged addicted women coming out of the club walking on the street desperately looking for a toilet. Finally she finds the bathroom and sits down on the closet, all the time facing back to the audience. The props: toilet paper and magazine to read. While she is sitting on the closet she wraps off the toilet paper to sneeze her nose and place the magazine on her laps to sniff in the cocaine. The sound and body language do not indicate that she is doing drugs but reading and sneezing her nose into the magazines paper for instance. After she used a toilet paper she rolls it down across the stage up to the audience. He is coming out of the audience and rolling the toilet paper back to her while she is following the toilet paper towards him by sniffing the cocaine. He is a man who has been in love with her but everything went so far and his frustration of being unhappy is taking his patience over. He tries to help her by taking her away from drugs. She is allowing him to drag her out of the toilet and messed up life until they start fighting against each other. The strong, physical dance performance of couple's fight takes place. She dies and he replaces her by sitting on the closet facing the audience this time and copping exactly the same action of hers from the beginning but this time everything is obvious. He drops the toilette paper roll, which ends up in the audience, or more extremely he throws it at the audience and the whole paper rolls crosses over others heads. Black out....end
Eventually I had to stick to the only one small part of it and I focused on below scenery.
A drank woman enters the space in high heels, short casual dress; make up and hair messed up, wearing a male jacket (which recalls the male presence and his absence in the meantime). She hardly can walk and with her unstable paste she reaches the wall and continues moving laterally across it falling and rising still being supported by the wall. As soon as she's got tired she ends up on the toilet (chair). She hardly can keep her upper body straight up and she continues falling and rising up her upper body. She grabs the toilet paper an throws it towards the audience, sniffing in cocaine (not literally) she wraps her in and desperately wants to free herself from the paper while she is staked to the chair. She moves with the chair, falls down and continues rolling on the floor with the chair and kicking of the toilet paper. She throws away the chair and desperately collapses in agony on the floor...
It's a powerful and destructive scene with strong elements of movement reinforced by vocal sound of voices and noises recorded during the rehearsal.
For the trio I'm working on now I kept the initial intention with more general approach and I developed it into the piece where the main protagonist is the despair and frustration, the characters of performers are none.
