"Isn't This Counter-Productive?"

Last Wednesday, I had my first rehearsal with the cast where I starting teaching them weapon basics, and it was…. Interesting. Challenging, but enlightening. I knew that it would be hard, and did feel like I was in over my head at times, but overall, the reaction was positive.

               It broke down like this. First, I had put together an outline to go off of, and submitted it to both Dusten, my stage combat teacher, and Adam, the Chair of the Department and my capstone advisor. That outline looked something like this:

History of the Weapon

Parts of the Weapon

On-Guard

·             Stance

·             How to Hold Weapons

Defenses

·             Rapier Parries – 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 5a, 7

·             Dagger Parries

·             Blade Paths

Offenses

·             Cuts – 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

·              Thrusts

Safety Speech

·             Distance

·             Eye Contact

·             Targeting

·             Casting the Energy

·             CDA or CRAP

Partnering

·             Pairing Up

·             Rapier Parries

·             Dagger Parries

·             Same Side Parries

·             Cross Body Parries

Footwork

·             Pass Forward/Back

·             Advance/Retreat

·             Cross/Slip

·             Thwart – Diagonal/90

·              Lunge

Choreography

·             1 5 2 3 5 2

*Additional Time

·             Parallel, Cross, Reinforced Parries

·             Pris de fer – Croise, Bind, Envelopment

·             Slashes

·             Punto reverse/mandriti

Now, half of this outline only makes sense to me, and trust me, my personal notes were even worse. Now, thought this may look well-rounded and well thought out… only made it through a little over half of it. Why? Multiple reasons.

               First off, I was very limited on time, which I understand given that there’s so little time for this piece to be pulled together. What I thought would be a three-hour block ended up being an hour and a half. Secondly, I had sixteen people in one room, which is a lot whenever there’s only one of me. I had difficulty seeing everyone, and couldn’t give as many corrections because of this and the time limit. There were some focusing problems, which required me to eventually raise my voice. I guess I’d taken for granted the automatic seriousness that most of my colleagues in this field have towards the art form, and will need to emphasis when I do this again that yes, this is all very fun, but there has to be focus and seriousness because we are dealing with a dangerous medium here. Additionally, I was asked some very interesting questions that I’d never heard of or thought of before, many of which I had no answer. I had to boil it down to having them just trust me because this is the way I’ve learned. If I was more experienced and further down the line in my training, I may have been able to deal with these questions, but alas, I am not and this is all a part of the process.

               At the end of the night, I was a little bit worried, and took my concerns to Anjanette. She gave me some basic teaching advice which I will try to take to heart, and assured me that I was doing fine. They had to move on to continue their run of the piece, so I left and began to form a plan for the next time. As of earlier this week, I’ve been given five fighters, so automatically, that makes the rest of the process easier. I was worried because of the challenge of teaching the weapon that I would maybe have to abandon some of my earlier plans, but I think that I can salvage it now that I know who I’m dealing with. I plan to finish the rest of the training, which isn’t much when it gets down to it, then have them play with a stock choreography phrase that was loaned to me by Dusten. Next, I would like to have them do a shavasana exercise that I had originally planned to help them get into the mindset of the fight, and then continue on to start devising the choreography together.

I’m available more next week, so I’m hoping to finally get this thing on its feet. It’s been difficult because of my jobs outside of school, which limit me to coming to only one rehearsal a week. And I feel like I’ve been getting a little disconnected with the project itself, while still focusing on my role within it. I know everyone is stressed and overwhelmed, especially with R&J opening soon, but I’m having my worries that I’m trying to quench by just continually revising my plan. Fingers crossed. Until next time, fight on J

What is Honor?

I had my first discussion with the cast of Performance Ensemble tonight, and I have to say that I am so lucky to be working with such intelligent, active-thinking people as a part of this project. They’ve already put together so many ideas in such few rehearsals, and this is already shaping up to be an incredible piece. But I had no doubts based on my impressions of the piece last year, and my admiration for Anjanette and her way of working. I came in with my basic agenda, and she let me take it on, participating in the discussion herself as we discussed one of the most interesting themes that I believe is present in Romeo & Juliet… honor.

               As I stated in my last post, I found two amazing books on the subject of honor and dueling in sixteenth-century Italy, and have spent the past few days dissecting and pulling quotes from these very dense texts to help give the cast an impression of the cultural idea of honor. First, we handed out copies of the “bite your thumb” scene from Act I of R&J (Anjanette’s idea, not mine, to give credit where credit is due.) We assigned parts, and had people read it out loud twice. It helped put me back into the mindset of the play, and give the cast a sense of what we were dealing with. I then asked the very simple question “What is honor?” I got a few slow answers of integrity, virtue, and what others think of you? I used these as a jumping off point to go into my findings from the books. In my own words, I boiled these ideas, which were based on Aristotle and various writers and thinkers of the Italian Renaissance, to this:

               “Honor is the perception of virtue from others, endowed by humanity, and not nature. A truly virtuous man does not have honor. He is a hardcore altruist, as opposed to the honorable man’s softcore altruism. Good reputation vs. doing the right thing.”

The discussion began to liven up. Ideas where thrown back in forth, including a reference to the movie Mulan. I then asked another question “What does honor look like today?” From here, the discussion was taken from me, as the cast began to equate honor with everything from rape to terrorism to going to church as a child. My ideas of honor were challenged as I began to think about how I am constantly worried about how I am perceived by others, and I fear someone having the wrong impression of me and being seen as “dishonorable.” I recorded the entire conversation, and may try to post it on here if I can figure it out.

               I wanted to get these ideas of honor in their heads as I went into the next part, which was sharing information on the culture of dueling. In the second of Bryson’s books, which deals specifically with the elements of a duel, he details out an order to things. The basic “order” of things goes as such: an insult, the mentita (or giving of the lie), the challenge, the preparation (including the choosing of the weapons), and then the eventual combat. Now this is a gross over simplification of things, but it gives you the basic gist of how a quote “legal” duel took place during this time period. I say that because the duels fought in R&J go through very little of the process, which would typically include paperwork and legalities, and I believe that raises the stakes of these duels even more.

               As I had been reading through these steps, I remembered that I had heard a similar order of things before as it pertained to dueling, and that came from Dusten, our combat teacher’s, comedy sword fighting duo the Dueling Fools. Having seen them perform once before, and having watched some of their videos I realized I had watched a few before that consisted of the two characters going through the order of things before their duel. So, I pulled the cast into the computer lab and played them the following two videos, so that they could put get some more historical background and, of course, laugh.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMceFwQAyZM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0ph6qBPgOQ

               And that’s where I ended my time at rehearsal. I had originally planned to discuss another topic after I showed them the video, but I ran out of time, so that will have to be saved for another rehearsal. Anjanette is giving me more of a shape of what she wants, and we discussed how to include some of the ideas spawned from today into the piece. In the meantime, the plan is to start teaching them weapon basics next Wednesday, and continue on in the process. It’s time for me to now not think about dueling for the first time in a few days. Fight on J

Do You Bite Your Thumb at Me, Sir?

The semester is in full swing, and Kleist is constantly buzzing at night as all three fall shows rehearse simultaneously. It’s an exhilarating feeling to be a part of the action, and everyone is working so hard already. Rehearsals started for Performance Ensemble Wednesday before last, and since then I’ve been trying to put together a game plan for how to assemble the fights within the show. Since the first rehearsal, I’ve only been able to pop back in a few times to talk to Anjanette and Les about my ideas, but from what I’ve seen and heard, it’s a great group of people that have proven themselves already to be able to jump up and create beautiful work on the spot. I’m hoping this will help me later on in the process.

               From the first rehearsal, ideas having been pouring from my head. Before we started, Les had us read an article called “After Postdramatic Theatre” by Bernd Stegemann which commented and analyzed the ideas behind post-dramatic theatre. Already, my head was buzzing. I had to sit down and deeply dissect the article before I fully understood it, and what it gave me was a better understanding of what we’re going for as we create devised theatre. Post-dramatic theatre challenges the conventional ways of portraying drama, and deconstructs concepts of character, plot, and story. Pioneers of post-dramatic theatre felt that traditional drama had outgrown the complexity of reality, and that the best way to then “mimic” or imitate reality was to go against expectation. I consider myself to be one who thrives off story; that’s why my favorite aspect of fighting is portraying the story. What this caused me to ask the cast of Performance Ensemble was how CAN you do theatre without story, if our purpose is to imitate and/or educate on the human condition?  Do you really need characters, plot, etc. to truly educate, or can you just hit the audience with seemingly nonsensical symbols and expect them to be wowed? I recall having similar discussions during my Improv and Choreography class last May Term in terms of how to create dance choreography. What was even more interesting was that when we viewed a piece of post-dramatic theatre, a piece called No Dice put on by the Nature Theatre of Chicago, we were all intrigued and frustrated at the same time at the nonsensical, conflicting images and sounds we were taking in. It was seemingly random and haphazard, yet I couldn’t look away. I think the intrigue of post-dramatic theatre, and outwardly nonsensical works of art is that we as humans have an inner need to figure things out, to give what we’re seeing a justification, or reason, or… a plot. And that no matter what we end up putting on stage, the audience will end up taking something away based on the formation of this “plot” in their brain.

               Now, how does all this information fit into my role as Fight Director for this piece? Good question. I’m not positive exactly how this relates to how my ideas began form, but suddenly a process started to take form in my head. To preface everything here, I’m approaching this project as one who has never fight choreographed. I’ve put together small bits of dance choreography, but most of my fight experience up to this point has been created by another and executed by me. So, how does one create work when you’ve only been trained in how to do?

               Sidenote: Anjanette has asked me to focus on the opening fight as opposed to the Mercutio/Tybalt/Romeo duel later because the way the piece is shaping up, that scene is going in the direction of tap shoes. I loved devised work J

               First off, research. Currently, I’ve been trying to find more information of the culture of dueling within sixteenth-century Italy. Luckily, I’ve come across two books written by Frederick R. Bryson: The Point of Honor in Sixteenth-Century Italy:  An Aspect of the Life of the Gentlemen, and The Sixteethn-Century Italian Duel: A Study in Italian Renaissance Social History. This is helping me give context to the time period in terms of how violence played a role in the day to day life. Additionally, one of the most important aspects of a fight to me is not just technique and accurate use of the weapon, but that there is an accurate story being portrayed. For this, and other help in the realm of fight choreography, I’m obtaining a copy of Fight Directing for Theatre by J Allen Suddeth, a recognized Fight Master in the SAFD.

               Fun fact: so far, I've found that there's no real historical record of the biting of the thumb gesture. From what I can tell, it's origin is Shakespeare. That makes putting the gesture into context a bit more challenging, and as it is the impetus of the fight of the fight, we may have to get creative.

               My research will continue throughout the process of course, but next my plan is to have a discussion, or series of discussions with the cast of Performance Ensemble. I plan on giving them a background on dueling and the weapons, and then pose questions to them on concepts of honor and violence. I’m also trying to put together an exercise where I have them visualize a fight from start to finish with a fictional partner, and then see what develops from there. Anjanette leads them through similar exercises during most rehearsals, so I’m going to ask her for some assistance in putting this together. Overall, I just want them to realize that a fight is not just a series of moves. It is a conflict that becomes physical based on many psychological variables. A fight does not just happen.

               The next, and sort of the most daunting/crazy aspect of my plan right now, is that I want the actors to try to generate choreography. After all, this is what is referred to as an actor-generated piece.  But what’s that you say? How can a group of untrained actor combatants create choreography when they’ve most likely never picked up a weapon? Well, my first step to proving this question wrong is to drill them on the weapons themselves. We don’t have huge amounts of time, but I plan on spending at least one rehearsal, or however much time Anjantette can spare me, drilling basics with the cast. I’ve put together an outline for a basic Rapier and Dagger class that I’ve already had Dusten review, and hope that I can impart to them enough knowledge of the weapon to make the next step possible. I plan on then giving pairs of partners a starting position or move (or an ending or middle position position/move). Then, having them use the concepts of targeting, martial force, and storytelling, I want them to start piecing together choreography. I may give them actual characters, or I may just let them go until they decide who wins. I may do something like assign on character to be a fighter, and the other to be a nonfighter, and see what happens. It could go anywhere.

               Or it could be a complete disaster. And it very well might be. And if it turns out that way, at least I’ll have a place to start. As I learned from May Term last year, video everything. I could use what went right or didn’t go right as a jumping off point to solidify my own choreography, or maybe they will actually come up with something brilliant and my job will be cleaning up and making things safe. That’s my major purpose, though, to make things safe. The second I see something go wrong during this process, I will scratch it and change tactics because no one’s life or career is worth losing over my ambitious brain. This project excites me and scares me every time I think about, but dreams aren’t worth following if they don’t terrify you in the process. So this is where I’m at so far. Time to get to work, and start fighting the good fight. So fight on! J