Performer Training 2019

Full Name: Jane Turner

Annual Conference Theme (if applicable): Exercise - the limits, benefits and future

What were the main points that emerged from your WG this year?
Rebecca Loukes – from the hosting Uni of Exeter – Rebecca appropriately launched the WG sessions with a provocation on exercise as a form of knowledge exchange, which, according to her focus on practitioner Elsa Gindler, is an experiment not about learning but developing concentration – for Gindler the exercise is a form of container. Her provocation resonated with many of the other papers as well as the final workshop exercise delivered by Howard Gayton that brought us back to the simple requirement of his clapping task – to concentrate. Dick McCaw’s provocation (no Laura) focussed on the ways in which exercise – like an algorithm can – and should be hacked – for him it is an empty structure, empty potential with no fixed aim and thus unhackable; however, it does have principles. An exercise is like an instrument – it is an empty structure until it is brought into sound Importance of constraint within an exercise – working with freedom but within one given constraint. Exercises on their own are empty, they are only brought to life through participation The content of an exercise lies in experience.  Practice of an exercise seen as a process of engagement.  Feldenkrais: invitation to move – process to discovery. We make our own path through the act of walking  What can you do with the performance of a given task? Exercises are unknowable. Magdelana Mosteanu – a PhD student from Exeter was selected to deliver an hour long workshop focussing on cultural misunderstandings and ‘positive failures’. The Q&A raised the following: What is the context, individual, ensemble, training? Baggage that exercises carry? Magda – reinvention exists in every iteration. Context, context, context… what is the contract? What is the responsibility? To that exercise? To society? Emptiness of the exercise, not the student… knowledge is not a substance. What are we marking? Training, teaching? The vessel is a material substance, but it has a space within it that can be filled with new meaning. Learning how to learn; allowing one to adjust, react, relate more easily. What the workshop effectively did was provide the group with a shared experience – having engaged in practice together we not only knew tangible things about each other but had undertaken tasks that shifted our sense of each other and the space we were in and this continued to affect our being together over the following days. Paul Edwards’s paper spoke to the hidden hegemonies of exercise in the work of Frantic Assembly – particularly their Ignition project for young men that, Edwards argues, reinforces a particular kind of masculinity. They describe the training as like a military drill – a fitness culture where the primacy of the male body constructs a privileged masculinity based on the physical prowess of the body. The paper raised some interesting debate concerning the issue of offering a very boundaried form of military exercise to attract young men to dance but while this might be initially useful to some young men it makes and then condones a form of ‘Frantic’ masculinity that further reinforces a binary division – notably they have problematically now created Ignition for young women. Aphrodite Evangelatou – focussed on the work of Suzuki who prefers the term ‘discipline’ rather than exercise in his approach to training – here the practice is again physically demanding; however, her argument seeks to offer a positive and non-judgemental learning environment rarely found in the practices of Suzuki and others such as Staniewski of Gardzienice where shouting and belittling actors is normalised as part of the regime. She raises the question as to whether an exercise drawn from Suzuki or Staniewski that is reconceived and delivered with care and generosity can gain the same results/be as effective. Steve Gilroy – talked about attaining a neutral manner/persona – using a very simple exercise he demonstrated with a volunteer how simplicity of manner needs to be learnt, without putting the self in the way. There were some interesting links between performing self and Tom’s paper on masculinity. Other questions raised concern whether performing neutral requires the elimination of idiosyncrasies and whether this is important/useful to a performer – argument is that knowing traits can lead to us being able to control them. Interestingly, he also asked about the efficacy of an exercise when passed on and transformed. He also referred to the ethics of submitting to the will of power – ie the director hence his shift to using the term facilitator to describe his approach. James McLaughlin, offered an insight into Keith Johnstone’s work with spontaneous improvisation – again the exercise here serves as a form of ‘drill’ but the notion of power and control is subverted – he cites Stirling who calls for a resistance to a pedagogy of the oppressed where the body resists being forced into correctness. For Johnstone the work in an exercise should seek ways of being more anarchic: ‘be more obvious, be more boring’ – thus creating a more vibrant world around the performer; calls for exercise to strip away habit through repetition: an unthinking quality can lead to a heightened sensibility. Jonny Bussell (no Nick) talked about finding a discourse for collaboration through interdisciplinary exercise. Using failure as a positive element for learning – aiming to avoid the anxiety of failure in an exercise by enabling participants to take ownership of an exercise and avoid ‘learnt dependence’ – achieved through ‘Active Observation’ during and on reflection. Again, there are ideas here that speak to the other papers – particularly the notion of the drill and the importance of anarchy – taking ownership – that can lead to a greater openness and creative playfulness. Mark Evans presented an intriguing paper that initially appeared to be merely documenting a history of Jacques Lecoq; however, the parallels of his 20 Movements came into a focus when discussed in relation to his life journey. Evans demonstrated that the fixity of movement could lead to a depth and a search for permanence that evolves from the ‘hidden attitudes’ from the memorable moments in Lecoq’s life. The question of transformation is essential here – doing his exercises without having had his life inevitable shows the importance of translating/transforming exercise to/for our own context. Thomas Wilson described how, for him, the exercise is like a lever – drawing very particularly on Barba’s article ‘An Amulet Made of Memory’, he speaks to the 10 characteristics of Barba’s idea of an exercise. Having undertaken a very particular training in bio-mechanics, Thomas speaks to how an exercise can serve the autodidact, can be a lever to transformation – can ‘liberate [a performers] resources through a personal process’ (Lindh). He reminds us that the lever (the exercise) can serve as a way of disrupting a causal relationship – that collisions between inside and outside forms/experiences are important to learning and development. How does the trainee construct their own exercise? Analogies using different tools…. The crowbar –  described as a medium sized persuader.  There are 2 parts of any exercise: the principle and the mechanism. Exercises teach you how to carry out a real action – not realistic  – but real (Barba) Exercises are used to change a performers’ way of being and doing.  They are made up of body memory There was a question here about body-memory – does it exist and should we be cautious of something that can lead to practice as permanence – again a question about the function of doing exercise with military precision, with mind-less repetition, with an inaccuracy that leads to creative freedom and ownership. Also, a query about our use of terms such as improvisation and what it means – such a slippery term. Bryan Brown offered a series of thoughts that he is connecting with – he opened with the question why we argue that experience is important, he took us to a history of the notion of a laboratory and the chemical derivations connected with mixing materials in search of a change to form – he describes how – evocatively – for Barba this was an atomic bomb, and for Grotowski this was a tooth brush. The status and form of exercise shifted with the innovators of the 1960s and this is where, he argues, experience replaces discipline. He then went onto speak about the idea of a ‘recipe’ as a form of trial and error that is refined to a ‘rule’ – ‘a domain of secrets’ that could be shared – a space where women particularly had visibility – although I was reminded of the ways in which women with such knowledge were tortured and killed as ‘witches’. His final musing concerned the idea of wonder as a source of inquiry, where training is a passion – an unadulterated pleasure. Secret knowledge – what is the role of silence in an exercise? Where is wonder in our engagement with an exercise? Exercise can bring enhanced pleasure. Open Panel – Sarah Weston: Exercises in collectivity The ensemble becomes the political crowd. ensemble as an enactment of the crowd The Crowd – Le Bon  Suspiciousness of the crowd – potential of crowd Development of ensemble text towards soundscape of dissensus. Jane Turner and Patrick Campbell: Addicted to exercises! The importance of breaking an exercise and remaking it for one’s own body – much like the art of Kintsugi. Repetition can lead to drudgery but it can lead to discovery – need to know how to enable the scope of an exercise to remain useful – reflection is crucial. Libby Worth – as Libby was unable to attend we used the time to engage the attendees in offering an exercise. Post-its were circulated and the task was excellent and created a very positive buzz in the room – it also indicated that there is certainly more room for developing work around this theme – hence the suggestions regarding Interim event(s) where we focus on scheduling practice. PhD panel x 8 Denis Cryer-Lennon – began by demonstrating faltering speech – in the moment – interestingly is drawing on a semiotic frame to explore the ways in which breath in performing Shakespeare can be critically assessed – as he said Elaine Aston suggested he look rather at phenomenology and he is now working with both lenses – a pedagogy of responsiveness and inclusiveness, with criticality at its core – a semiotics of the voice and body – where the judgements we make on hearing a voice are exposed and assessed. Semane Parsons – focussed on achival materials that provide insights into the ways in which gestures were performative in 18th century British theatre – as archival sources have little documentation she has turned to other sources eg art and is developing a ‘revivial’ schema. Melinda Szuts – looking at 4Plays for Dancers – work by Yeats that draws heavily on his interest in Noh Theatre – here text and corporeality are merged and movement patterns encoded in the composition of space, words and gesture. The search is for a symbiotic relationship between word and gesture/ text and movement. Working with trance-like life world (tantric) to locate a physicality. Helena Botto – offered an extraordinarily technically accomplished work demonstration illustrating the ways in which gestures taken from the everyday movements of a crowd – or individual – can be taken to a grotesque extreme that reveals an inherent ideological position. She is examining the traits of populism and the physicality of the populist and the ways that facial expression and gesture speaks and draws in the populace – but when made grotesque exposes that which is concealed and is considerably more challenging to accept. Anthea Moys – has been making performance art work for a number of years that explores relationships and paradoxes between art (unruly) and sport (rule bound)– notably she showed us examples where – when working with rugby players, she persuaded then to allow herself to be the ball in their game! – an exercise in ‘functional nonsense’ – looking back on her work critically reveals the effect of playing – with space, with rules etc and breaking the rules ie playing with them – an exercise in ‘why not?’. She sees her work as an act of decolonisation and is currently drawing on Foucault to help her frame the projects. Fillipo Romanello – examining and formulating ways of achieving spontaneity for the performer through training – interested in blurring the boundaries between training/repetition and spontaneity – especially when taken into a performance context – as a trainer he is testing defamiliarisation as a strategy – a way of generating surprise for the student. His question was – how might this approach work in performance? Giorgia Ciampi – demonstrated her work with both micro-phenomenology interview technique (2006) and a particular south Asian performance practice – focussing here on work with eyes. Her inquiry engages with the how she can provide an authentic and truthful – and rigorous – account of what she experienced. Howard Gayton – engaged the whole group in an exercise that provided another insight into the notion of exercise that spoke to many of the points raised over the previous sessions. In his clapping exercise drawn from his work as a comedia practitioner. A simple exercise – throwing a clap around a circle but exposes the challenge of playing with nothing but the imagination; it also (like the shoe exercise) operates as a metaphor on other levels eg developing the ensemble; however, it can also be turned into a competitive game. There are also links here to Thomas’s reference to a 2nd nervous system, a body memory, graft – it is also a medicine – a reward.

What was discussed at your business meeting?

Key points to have emerged over the course of the conference sessions was a commitment to the group’s growth in supporting practice research and discovering/thinking through doing.

Specifically we discussed the possibility of an interim event(s) dedicated to practical explorations/exercise – events may take an exercise and explore it from various perspectives/practices -looking at legacy and genealogy OR take a theme and bring different exercises that support or question the theme.
Staying connected as a community of researchers was considered important and hence we have sent out a call to share emails and potentially papers with the WG members – we have received a very positive response.
Members commented that the ways in which knowledge within the group is shared and acquired -both through traditional and practice research and the strength of this combination was very productive and useful
It was also noted that the growth in the PGR community within our WG was vital to the future of the community.

The potential for the PGR practice research community to support each other and use the WG as a forum for exploring methodology and issues around how practice research is examined/understood – further ideas of how we can continue to and better promote collegiality at further events was requested.

Kate Craddock is stepping down! Kate’s work as a co-convener has been invaluable. She has galvanised the group and instituted a caring and supportive way of working. She is also an amazing resource of innovative ways of working and being together and we all hope she will continue to support the group as we move forward.

Types of contributions:
A wide range of 10 minute provocations were scheduled - including 10 from the PhD presenters (some containing practical elements); a practical participatory workshop, traditional 20 minute papers

Number of formal contributors (those listed in book of abstracts) 26

Approx. overall number of delegates who attended your WG Sessions Each session had between a minimum of 25 attending and a maximum of 40 participants, with an average of 30 per session?
Composition of WG (PG, ECR, etc.)
We had a number of ECR as well as colleagues who have sustained a longer academic career; by far the largest group were the PGR members

Did you have any non-UK participants? No

If your WG hosted an Open Panel, do you have any feedback?

The Open Panel was a positive opportunity to share our modes of working as a group with other delegates
– the 3 days are designed for the group to experience consecutively, so by the time of our open panel, a culture had established in the group and a mode of working, which was recognised by those who attended from other groups. We implemented the small group discussions of panels prior to opening up to wider feedback and questions to presenters and, again this year, the strategy worked effectively – although again, the time is always very tight.

As Libby was unable to attend, we used the time to engage the attendees in offering an exercise. Post-its were circulated and the task was excellent and created a very positive buzz in the room – it also indicated that there is certainly more room for developing work around this theme – hence the suggestions regarding Interim event(s) where we can focus on scheduling practice.

People attending the panel commented on the welcoming, relaxed, supportive and engaging atmosphere that they experienced.

Any additional points or feedback not covered above?

We felt very well looked after by the host organisation so BIG thanks to Exeter. The scheduling worked really well and provided good time to get around the sites.

The space for the AGM was rather small and we were stood outside the room.
Some members commented that the timing of the conference was problematic for school/childcare.

Some members asked whether it would be possible for TaPRA to offer online space for WG to upload presentations that can be viewed by other groups – viewed only – not downloaded – and only accessible to members.