Just some updates

There has been a deluge of new and exciting posts on Open Pit this past week. So much so, that I don't wan't to pry your attention away from posts by our new contributers. I'm just going to highlight some recent additions to this website right here.

Workshops

Nakai Theatre in association with Open Pit is hosting two workshops this summer. I've added a Workshops page with all the information. I'm hoping we can offer more workshops in the future, so it made sense to have a place with the information for them!

Images

There has been some sneaky photo capturing going on while we work on the Devised Yukon Project. That's why we have a new gallery section where you can see awesome shots like this:

Archive/Search

I've also added a couple tools to make finding a specific post easier. First, is the archive where all posts are listed in chronological order. Secondly, is the search page where you can easily find something based on its' title or its' content.

List of Authors

The final addition to the site is the list of authors on the right-side navigation. By clicking on a name, you can easily navigate to all the posts by a single author. So, if you only like what Jessica writes (and who doesn't) you can click on her name and not be distracted by my posts anymore.

Funders

Not a new addition, but I thought I would point out all of our awesome funding partners at the bottom of every page. We have been very lucky to receive funding from three (four if you include the workshops!) different granting bodies on two levels of government. Now, there is a formal way I'm supposed to thank them, but I don't have that in front of me so I'll just do my best:

Open Pit gratefully acknowledges the support of the Canada Council For the Arts, the Yukon Arts Fund (department of Tourism and Culture), and Culture Quest for the Devised Yukon Project

We also want to acknowledge the Cultural Industries Training Fund for supporting our summer workshop opportunities.

Physical Theatre and Dance

I was asked to briefly describe the difference between phyiscal theatre (see the workshops we are hosting) and dance. That is a tough question; I'm not entirely sure what the difference is, so I've hit the google pretty hard. Here's what I've come up with.

Dance:

  1. A series of movements that match the speed and rhythm of a piece of music
  2. A particular sequence of steps and movements constituting a particular form of dancing
  3. an artistic form of nonverbal communication
  4. Dance (from French danser, perhaps from Frankish) is an art form that generally refers to movement of the body, usually rhythmic and to music, used as a form of expression, social interaction or presented in a spiritual or performance setting.

Physical Theatre:

is the craft of building theatre through physical actions, characterization and stage composition. Physical Theatre uses as its primary means of expression movement, dynamic immobility, gesture and a variety of acting techniques. ..

Physical theatre is used to describe any mode of performance that pursues storytelling or drama through primarily and secondarily physical and mental means. ...

First of all, there are a lot more definitions surrounding dance than there are physical theatre. These don't help to differetiate dance from physical theatre, but it is beginning to look like dance could be a part of physical theatre. Physical theatre is dance and text and gesture and a whole slew of other potential things. Physical Theatre is a blanket defition for theatre that uses the body as much as the voice to tell a story.

I ran across an article from the New York Times that seems to argue in the opposite direction (physical theatre is just a type of dance). The whole of the article, written by John Rockwell, is focused on British physical theatre, but the first and last paragraphs seem relevant:

ALL dance, even the most abstract, includes theatrical elements, and all theater involves physicality. What, then, does the term "physical theater" mean? Is there any difference between physical theater and plain, old-fashioned dance?

And in the final paragraph he answers his questions:

The barriers between the different performing arts are fluid: dance flows into theater, which flows into music and song and stage pictures. The emphasis among the various elements of performance shift, from piece to piece, from creator to creator, from decade to decade. In the end, all dance is physical theater, even the most sternly abstract, and no country has a monopoly on it. It's just that the British seem particularly good at it these days.

The whole article is worth a read in order to fully understand Rockwell's argument, but I can understand that physical theatre is dance with a shifted emphasis, or, conversely, dance is physical theatre with a different emphasis.

This probably doesn't make the answer any more clearer. Oh well, I did my best. Feel free to weigh in with a comment. Here are some other opinions:

Anna Efthymiou - Porto Physical Theatre

I have learnt that physical theatre can act on impulse, you can move when you feel the moment is right, this is another clear difference between the physical theatre and the timing needed in dance theatre.

Lloyd Newson - DV8 Physical Theatre

However when we made Strange Fish (1992), the risk was not so much about physical danger, but whether dance can deal with complex emotional narrative, and whether tragi-comic theatre can in fact be created through dance alone. You can take risks without always being physical.

Flying the Coop

Behind every beautiful thing there s been some kind of pain, Bob Dylan

The Devised Yukon Project completed our first week of exploration in the Studio Space at the Yukon Arts Centre. We have been developing a vocabulary through various forms of improvisation and slowly tilling the earth to find our story that we need to tell. In doing so, we have been presenting ideas for experiments and working them without judgment, pushing each other for clarity and chaos.

With the first week compete and as we start to find our collective rhythm I would like to comment on my hope(s) for the next seven weeks of discovery.

Our point of concentration for the project is Outside, which is obviously a very broad theme, there are so many micro themes that can be extracted from the term itself. My hope is that this theme will push the collective to not only examine what it means to be outside, be it yourself, the outdoors, etc, but also to explore the opposite element of inside.

Through our improvisations and experiments I have noticed a collective discovery, the hint of an apex of interpretation of the under current theme of Outside, and that is of breaking free. Some of the physical images that have begun to recur with only four days of studio time under our belt are of escape and the force to which we escape from. Sometimes we are bound to floor and need to fight against the unseen force grasping our movements; sometimes en mass the collective will signal out one and the rest will move as a monstrous menace threatening any variable of safety, be it physical, or mental or emotional. To truly examine this idea of breaking free or escape we must now delve into the ugliness that we must break away from, to find freedom we must know why or what was/is keeping us bound; how vicious is it? Where does it come from? What does this prison look like and who or what is controlling the entrapment that we must free ourselves from? And ultimately what is the call to adventure that inspires the great escape?

I hope that as our explorations continue that we can really mine what in our story is the force of "inside" and how much we can cage our hearts before we find the beauty of losing the pain.

Re-Visiting Gems

Thursday was our last day of our first work week, and we compiled a list of gems that we would like to re-visit.  A “gem” is literally defined as:

A precious or semiprecious stone that may be used as a jewel when cut and polished. 

Our definition:

A precious or semiprecious moment (or series of moments) that may be used again when cut and polished (or explored further).

The use of this word was introduced to me during my participation in the One Yellow Rabbit Summer Lab Intensive.  My memory may have altered the original description but I remember Dennis Clarke stating, “When you look at a photograph, there is always one thing that catches your eye, whether it is a young child’s undone shoelace, or an open window in the background.  This detail that moved you, and made you feel something, is the gem of the photograph.   Here is our list of gems from week one:

1. Shapeshifting Against Wall

2. Sniffy Creature

3. Female being bounced around

4. Tunneling

5. Hangs Mimicking Feet

6. Conquering Chicken

7. Animal Sequence: snake and birds

8. Death Ritual

Now what?  We have eight gems that we would like to explore further, but how do we do this?  This is uncharted territory for the group.  Up until now, we have been exploring what I like to call the “barfing phase” (feel free to steal and incorporate into other collective projects) where we improvise freely to gather usable material.   Re-visiting a gem was new.  We went around the circle each stating which gem we would like to re-visit first and Shapeshifting Against Wall won.  This gem consisted of bodies stuck to the wall with a mastermind-ish person moving them as puppets and shaping them.   Shaun suggested that we start the improv at the other side of the room and explore the journey to our gem so that we reach that moment having been informed by an experience vs just launching into the gem cold.  Sam also placed a limitation on the improv by suggesting that we can only move when assisted by another (either physically or subconsciously). 

Thus we began!  

After each improv we always try to discuss what worked, what didn’t, and what we would like to re-visit.  One person writes these observances down into our Master Notebook for future reference.  This post is already getting long so I won’t go into detail about what happened but I will share what we learned:

  • When re-visiting we must always have one person who is an outside eye.  We need to establish together what role this person plays.  Director? Feedbacker? Documentor? Scribe?
  • That our initial gem might not work again, but may lead us to other discoveries (see new list below)
  • That it is equally important to state what didn’t work in the inprov as what worked so that we can get closer to finding our group aesthetic.  
  • To not be concerned about offending someone by stating, “That didn’t  work”.  There is no need to navigate the politics of the group.  Be honest.

New gem list:

1. Shapeshifting Against Wall

2. Sniffy Creature

3. Female being bounced around

4. Tunneling

5. Hangs Mimicking Feet

6. Conquering Chicken

7. Animal Sequence: snake and birds

8. Death Ritual

9. Journey Home: Sleeping Giant

un nouveau voyage, un autre langage

(Je tiens a m'excuser d'emblee pour l'absence d'accents dans mon texte, clavier inconnu oblige. Il n'en sera pas de meme pour mes prochaines entrees sur le site!) 

D'arriver dans un nouveau projet artistique me donne toujours l'impression de mettre les pieds dans un pays inconnu, avec tout l'enthousiasme et l'inconfort que cela peut amener. De nouveaux visages, differentes manieres de faire, et un nouveau langage.

Depuis quelques jours, les six membres de Open Pit se decouvrent et s'aprivoisent. J'aprecie beaucoup le temps que l'on prend pour etablir un langage commun. Je trouve que trop souvent en theatre on utilise des termes valises (emotion, triste, heureux, realiste, symbolique ...etc) que l'on agremente d'adjectifs sperflus plutot que d'etablir un vocabulaire precis et simple comme denominateur commun. Venant de differents horizons artistiques, ayant de differents bagages academiques et experiences professionnelles, nous unissons nos connaissances et nos aspirations pour pouvoir communiquer de maniere saine, simple et precise avant, pendant et apres nos explorations. En tant que francophone, j'aprecie particulierement ce desir commun de tous s'accorder au meme diapason sur ce que nous voulons faire, et comment nous voulons le faire. 

 Puisque le projet s'interesse au theatre physique, il s'impose donc aussi pour Open Pit de trouver un vocabulaire gestuel sur lequel nous pouvons nous baser pour nos huit semaines de travail a venir. Je trouve que de l'exploration physique peut vite se perdre en brouhaha corporel denue de sens. Avec le Devised Yukon Project, nous joignons nos efforts pour developper des techniques physiques precises, et des themes porteurs de sens. Ce vocabulaire corporel nous permet ainsi d'orienter nos improvisations et de garder une communication riche sur scene, malgre l'absence de paroles pour le moment.

Dans une creation collective, ou il n'y a par definition ni metteur en scene, ni texte, nous sommes entierement libres et livres a nous-memes. Bien que cette liberte soit merveilleuse et precieuse, elle peut facilement devenir l'ennemi d'un projet comme celui-ci. C'est pour quoi je suis heureuse de travailler avec des gens qui, comme moi, croient en la contrainte creatrice. C'est en travaillant avec rigueur et dans la meme direction que l'on aboutit a la reelle liberte, celle de creer un seul et meme langage theatral pour parler tous ensemble du monde dans lequel on vit. 

 

my new friend, contact improv

I think this is the first non-Sam Bergmann-Good voice to infiltrate this site. Tuesday is my day to write.

What I want to talk about is my new friend, contact improvisation.

In case you're new to the concept like me, my basic explanation would be:

In contact improv, bodies come into contact and improvise movement.

There are many, many, oh-so-many people who can explain and show this evolved and complex practice far better than me. Like how about these folks at Edam in Vancouver:

Until yesterday I was familiar with contact improv in the academic sense, but not in the carnal sense. Truth be told, I have always been afraid of it. From what I understood, it involved a lot of touching people, making up complicated/difficult movement on the spot, and being lifted a lot. These elements might be okay in isolation, but taken together they're a whole other beast.

Cut to today - In the past 48 hours my contact improv cherry was popped. And I'm feeling pretty good about it.

Jessica is leading us through a gradual evolution to more involved contact work. She's helping us down that road by offering some common physical vocabulary. For example, today we learned how to 'body surf' - basically rolling over someone as they roll on the floor. Building our physical vocabulary is creating a tool box for us to scrounge around in when we're practicing.

We started with a circle of trust exercise yesterday (you know it, you did it at camp - one person stands in the middle of a tight circle and is moves around, supported by the hands of the people in the circle) and moved into our first 'contact improv jam' today. We began sitting back to back with a partner, and when Jessica turned on the music we just started moving.

In retrospect, I'm not really sure how I did it. All I can say is that it felt natural. At one point, Geneviève  lifted me up onto her back and held me there. She took all of my weight, and I felt it, a complete release. She held me for a long moment before I realized we were the only people moving and everyone else was watching our progress. This is one of the really valuable end results of this practice, especially for our purposes; the images, moods, and relationships created between people moving in space. Everything we are creating and exploring is fodder for future exploration and use. 

I think contact improv is my new friend.

Welcome to the collective

Day One.

Jessica and I started talking about the Devised Yukon Project last August. We started writing the grants last September and continued to evolve the idea and apply for funding. In May we selected our project participants and today was our first full day of studio work. The Devised Yukon Project has begun!

From left to right: Sam Bergmann–Good, Adele Gigantes, Geneviève Doyon, Sarah Moore, Jessica Hickman, Shaun McComb.

We spent much of the day aligning our vocabulary. Shaun suggested we talk about a show we've seen, something we've done and a training experience. While having this discussion we focused on what specifically jazzed us about what we did or saw. I came out wondering if there is a way to define theatre magic.

The word magic was used multiple times throughout the discussion. I think magic is one of the fundamentals to great theatre. A good production has a balance of science, psychology and magic. Magic is hard to define though. Maybe, it needs to be negotiated on a show-by-show basis, but I, being the great definer that I am, would like to find a general definition to what that magic is.

Maybe magic is related to the feeling of recognition an audience member has when they connect to what the actor is going through. Maybe the magic is about connecting to the universal truth that, as human beings, we just know. I'm not sure, but I plan to continue asking for a definition.

At the end of the discussion I felt I understood better where everyone was coming from in terms of theatre creation. It felt like we were an octopus, we each brought tendrils of different skills, but our core belief in what theatre is was the same.

So, the project has begun. You will start to hear many other voices on this site. All collective members will be posting something at least once a week. We are treating this as a kind of public process journal. You will hopefully read, and possibly see and hear, about successes, challenges and inspirations. It's my hope that these posts spark conversations and interest.

Links For June 15, 2011

I've been posting daily links and videos over on our facebook page. They are all related to physical theatre which, in turn, is related to these awesome workshops we are doing with Nakai Theatre. I hope you enjoy the links:

 Canadian Theatre Encyclopedia - Primus Theatre

Primus Theatre was a well known physical theatre company in Canada. This is some brief information about them.

This is a video about Buto(h). I don't know much about Buto(h), but it is a highly physical style of movement which, to my mind, is not quite dance and not quite theatre, but a mixture of the two worlds.

This video is by a physical theatre company called PUSH. I just wanted to start sharing examples of other companies who are creating in non-traditional ways. I've never seen their show, but they are very inspiring.

 PUSH - Philosophy

PUSH also has a great breakdown of their physical theatre beliefs. This is a must read. Some of my favorite parts are:

"Why a certain tilt of the head is comic or another with a subtle change is tragic. Why the same seemingly impossible gymnastic stunt can be profound or a mere affectation. The dramatic tension expressed through a specific twist of the torso or the hang of a wrist is far more important than any contrived position of classical training."

"Profound moments take place in front of us everyday, yet we fail to notice them in the surrounding clutter of life. On the stage we have the opportunity to isolate the details of these moments. To re-present them in a new, profoundly economical way so that they reach out and shake off our comfortable preconceptions… leaving us sensitive again."

the final video is from a UK based company DV8. In this show, To Be Straight With You, they tackle homosexuality and how it is viewed around the world. I had the opportunity to see this show and I must say how stunning and moving it was. DV8 is a company worth investigating further.

Alright, I hope you enjoy the links and videos. I'll continue posting on our Facebook almost daily, so be sure to like us! I'll also do these weekly roundups for the facebook illiterate.

For more information about the workshops, or to register contact Jessica at jessica@openp.it.

What I am

I like to spend a bit of time in the evenings doing some mental processing. I try to clear my mind and allow any thoughts or questions or ideas to bubble to the surface. Sometimes I write these things down, sometimes I accept them and move on and sometimes I file the thought away for a time when I can use more brain power. Last night, I was doing my processing and my mind landed on this phrase:

Why aren't I ... ?

I realised that through this past year of theatre training I've begun to ask myself this less and less. Theatre is a job where the learning and training never stops. As soon as you stop learning as an actor you might as well leave the profession. This is what I love about my work, but it has also been my major obstacle.

I'm the type of person who is always raising my personal bar. I always expect more from myself. This makes me unable to celebrate victories as I am always asking "what's next?". Now, it is great to have goals and to push yourself, but there comes a time when this behaviour is more destructive than productive. I was spending all this time, unhappy, asking why aren't I this, or why aren't I that. I was spending no time being what I was.

This has larger ramifications than just my profession. This shift of thinking affects my life in a huge way. However, I have always said, and believe, that theatre is not about therapy, so I will stick with the impact this shift has had on my work.

The change from "why aren't I" to "I am" reminds me of something written early in Anne Bogart's and Tina Landau's Viewpoints book. In the book, they write that creators of theatre are sometimes so busy defining "what it is" that they don't take anytime to ask "what is it?". If one tries to define what a play is before even starting work on it there is no room for accident, surprise and discovery. There is an amazing amount of space when one asks: what is it?

By shifting to an "I am" statement I'm allowing room for growth in my craft. If I keep asking "why aren't I" the growth is too defined; it is rushed, forced and won't result in balanced training. By stating "I am" I do not shut down the possibility for growth, but I remove my prescribed definition. This lets me develop at a natural, productive pace.

I suppose the overarching discovery is that change happens no matter what. I don't need to stress over the change; I don't need to be in a constant state of distress about myself and my work. Pam Johnson, my movement teacher, told me I needed to allow people to come to instead of trying to hook and reel them in. This also applies to myself. I need to allow the training and the skill and the creativity in me without trying too hard to harness, define and change it.

Acting is learning for life, but the learning doesn't make you better right away. Sometimes the "more" I'm looking for is years away and I just need to allow that more to happen. Sometimes I'm looking for the wrong "more" and I miss all the growth I have done.

So, to put it simply:

When I stopped asking "why aren't I...?". I started being What I Am.

 

Reflections on our call for applicants

The process of selecting members for the Devised Yukon Project is over. It came with many lessons learned on my side. This was my first chance to go through a process of selection where I wasn't the one being selected. Being on the other side has been exciting and terrifying. From first worrying about the number of people we might get to rescheduling to accommodate more applications; it has been a ride. We will be announcing very soon the collective for DYP, but for now I'll run through our process and what I felt worked and of course didn't work.

The call

In my mind our call was fairly straight forward. The main tactic was to provide enough information, so that the people who got it would apply right away and the people who didn't had a clear way of asking questions. We received many phone calls and emails asking us to clarify what it was we were doing exactly. It is hard to describe a project that is as open as DYP. It is a project which requires the participants to shape. In a collective, without a defined hierarchy, the decisions need to be made as a group. We were trying to hire the group to make the decisions, so it was difficult to provide detailed information. Still, we answered what we could and our commitment to honesty and openness helped guide us.

We decided that in order to really consider an applicant we had to see them. That is why we made the application simple. Everyone who applied would be given an opportunity to take part in a workshop audition or video audition. We called the auditions interviews because, besides there being an interview component, we thought the word audition might scare some people off.

ArtsNet: the bugle of the north

ArtsNet was our primary method of distribution for our call. We looked at doing newspaper ads, but the costs didn't seem to match the benefits. We weren't trying to advertise to the general public; we wanted to get the attention of artists. The internet, to my mind, has replaced the newspaper when it comes to classified ad information types. Craigslist and Kijiji along with local email groups have replaced the community and individual newspaper advertisement. In the Yukon, ArtsNet has become the easiest and most effective method of distributing arts-related information.

My friend Ruth at Nakai posted that the best time to post information was at 10:00 am. At 10, people have settled into their work, have a coffee and are ready to be briefly distracted. This is the point where they might check their hotmail account, or visit facebook. The other busy time period, according to my traffic statistics, is after 5:00 pm, or after people have finished their work day. That being said, we released our call to ArtsNet at 12:22 pm on Monday, May 9.

In addition to ArtsNet, we created a facebook event and sent out some personal emails to people we thought might be interested. Most of the people saw it on ArtsNet. There is no statistics regarding how many people read the call via ArtsNet, but traffic to this site increased tremendously immediately after an ArtsNet post. We decided to release more ArtsNet posts in the following week. The continued posting was meant to keep the project in people's minds, drive more traffic to the website and provide answers to common questions we were receiving.

The other interesting thing about the ArtsNet listing is that it travelled. People would read it and forward it on to someone they though might be interested. Because ArtsNet acts the same as an email it is very easy to pass along. Mothers would read the post and encourage their sons to apply. Husbands told wives and people from inside the territory told people on the Outside.

The call was a great success. I was hoping 10 people would apply and we received nearly 25 applications.

Scheduling

The job of scheduling the workshop and interviews fell onto me. This was where a lot of learning happened for me. Scheduling was the behind-the-scenes work I hadn't experienced while on the other side of the selection process. I made a lot of great mistakes and would like to share them.

I needed to take my time. Our call was put out two weeks before our interviews. This was done mainly because we had some scheduling conflicts (Jessica was leaving town) and wanted to do the process and selection while we were in the same place. Unfortunately, this gave little time for people to submit applications, receive the appropriate information and be prepared. The deadline for applicants was only two days before the interviews. In retrospect, it would have been better to give a greater buffer between all these events. There should be three weeks for someone to apply and a week of buffer before the interviews.

I needed to collect and then organise. Once we knew our interview date (May 28) and had our space secured I started scheduling people for the group workshop and interviews. This became a problem later when we had more people apply than expected. It would have been better to collect all the applications and then schedule interview and group workshop times. The bulk of applications came closer to the deadline, which makes sense considering human nature, and we had to do a bit of rescheduling. In the end we only had to move two interviews, but we also had no defined break and were doing two group workshops instead of one. This mismanagement of time didn't affect the workshop and interviews tremendously, but now I know for next time.

Mentors and questions

This community is awesome. Growing up, they supported my development as an actor and they continue to support my development as a creator. There are people within the theatre community who act as my formal, or informal mentors. Open Pit believes in asking for help; this belongs within our core belief of openness and honesty in our work. Jessica and I have no qualms about asking questions when we are uncertain and the theatre community has been very willing to provide guidance, support and answers. I would like to thank Brian Fidler, David Skelton, and Eric Epstein for their help and guidance during the application process. Some helpful advice they provided:

  • Be "double jazzed". You're jazzed about them and they're jazzed about you.
  • Respect our own vision of the project.
  • Look at individual relationship to the group.
  • You will make decisions very quickly in the workshop.
  • Place people into specific groups to see how they work together.
  • In a large group only 1 leader emerges when there might be 2 or 3.
  • Who do you enjoy hanging out with?

The workshop

I was most nervous about delivering the group workshop. I was afraid that people of higher calibre than I was would be attending. I was afraid that people would think the exercises we decided to do were stupid. These fears were generally lifted after we had played our first game. By the second workshop round I felt I could be myself more. The pressure I had felt to deliver was lifting. There was a feeling of individual control, but also group control. To emulate a collective we did a lot of exercises as a group. I could feel myself moving between the individual who had to select people for a job and the group mind. It was, I think, the balance you look for in a collective. When working, I want to be able to intuitively and immediately react to my collaborators. I also want that intuition to come from the unique perspective that is my individuality. Developing these two perspectives takes time and a lot of collective work, but I saw glimpses of it during the workshops. For those interested in what we specifically did during the workshop there is a basic breakdown below. It is our original document with notes; some of the material we couldn't cover as the time period was so short.

Group Workshop Plan

Introduction (20 min)

  • Who are you? What is your medium (field of practice)?
  • Who are we?
  • What is the Devised Yukon Project?
    • 6 weeks of exploration
    • 2 week workshop with Ker Wells
    • Public presentations
    • Future development
  • What are we doing today?
  • Editing the work in case of injury/disability
  • Questions?

Group Warmup (5 min)

  • Energetic

Game #1 (Sam) (5 min)

  • Take it

Game #2 (Jessica) (5 min)

  • Name Game (should maybe be the first game to be played as it will allow us all to learn each others names)

Song Exercise (10 min)

  • Everybody in a circle
  • Learn the the song: “Well well well night is a-fallin. Well well well hold my hand. Well well well night is a-callin. The spirit is moving all over this land”
  • Improvise with the song as a group changes in
    • pitch
    • tempo
    • rhythm
    • intention
  • One person improvises a solo in the centre while the outside people adjust based on what they are doing
    • parallel adjustment
    • opposite adjustment

Movement w/ text (15-20 min)

  • Introduce a line of text
  • Isolate words that we can create still images for
  • Teach the movements that I have chosen for the text - we all learn it together

Physical Theatre action sequence (15 min)

  • Take the night story and create a physical action sequence.
  • Embody the story don’t explain it.
  • Don’t think of mime.
  • Actions vs. Dance
  • Think About: rhythm, tempo, flow, atmosphere, pauses.
  • Sequence should be no longer than 1 minute.

Show & Clean (15 min)

  • Watch and give feedback for each sequence.
  • Ask group for feedback as well.

Final presentation (20 min)

  • Combining the previous three exercises the group will come up with a short presentation.
  • There are no limits in terms of structure as long as the elements are used.
  • Additional material can be created if necessary.

Debrief

  • How was the presentation successful?
  • How was it unsuccessful?
  • What was it like navigating a group of people you don’t really know?
  • Anything else?

If you have any questions about our workshop process leave a comment below. The workshops were very fast, another result of poor scheduling, but also very fun. A lot of really cool work was done.

The interviews

We decided to keep the interviews short and sweet. While giving out information about the workshop, we also provided applicants with a list of questions we would be asking:

  • If you were given studio space for a day, to explore whatever you wanted, what would you explore and how you would explore it?
  • How do you feel about sharing aspects of your process with the public?
  • Where do you see yourself within a group? What role do you play?
  • What do you think your artistic aesthetic is?

In addition to this we asked them to bring in a schedule of availability. We were using the interview to generally gauge how we could relate to the applicant. There are no real right answers to questions above; I personally wanted to hear clear specific answers that inspired me creatively. I then had to view the answer in the context of the project and see if it jived with our original intentions. I know these questions can be hard to answer, especially if you don't know what the interviewer wants, but I was hoping some people could jump outside of the box.

We also got better at asking the questions as we went. The final question, for example, grew from a general question about artistic aesthetic to a more specific question about creative scale (inspired by Twyla Tharp's The Creative Habit). I wanted to not only give some guidelines for the questions, but I also wanted to see if people could take their original answer and apply it to the new information I had given them.

There were many good answers to the questions. Again, they were looked at in regards to energy, specificity, creativity and the project vision.

The selection process

It didn't take long for us to come to our decision. We knew that certain factors would rule some people out right away. We looked at applicant availability, what they wanted to bring to the project and experience level in order to make a decision. It was still a difficult process. Some people I had been looking forward to working with weren't selected simply because of scheduling issues. It was tough trying to decide between people I considered friends and colleagues.

Once we had our short list, Jessica and I had conversations about each applicant. Jessica and I work well together because we tend to agree on most everything (or at least she always seems to agree with me and I always seem to agree with her). Having Jessica as a partner in this process made it easier and more fun.

Conclusion

Wow! What a massive posting. I hope sections of it will be of interest to people. I hope it gives a clear outline on how we selected the collective for the Devised Yukon Project and what criteria we used to make our selections. If you have questions, or comments please leave them below (as a comment), or contact me via email.

There will be a lot more posts coming, so bookmark our site and send the link to your freinds. Thanks for the support!

No more applications

The Call for Applicants is officially closed!

Just so you know, our call for applicants was incredibly successful. More people applied than I had thought and it was nice to see people come out of the woodwork for this creative, yet ambiguous project. We will be doing all of our interviews in the next week and should be able to reveal our Devised Yukon Project team in early June.

Meanwhile look forward to posts about how we went about the applicant call and a very belated post about audience engagement.

That's what we call a teaser in the bizz.

Why we dropped the "Theatre"

You may have noticed that Open Pit Theatre has simply become Open Pit. Much like Apple Computer's transition to Apple Inc. we have shed a limiter in our title. This came about for two reasons; one being tactical, and the other being personal.

If we call ourselves Theatre it sort of sets a singular image in a person's head. People who don't have access to, or don't actively see a lot of theatre just have an idea of what theatre is. I find myself always explaning that Open Pit is working on theatre in non-traditional ways that contradict a lot of people's idea of theatre. By removing "Theatre" from our moniker, I think we remove that initial image which must be erased in someone's head before explaining what we do.

This also opens up an opportunity to do more than theatre. Jessica is a bona-fide dancer, so movement is not out of our vocabulary. I have worked on sound and radio which is another form of expression that could be used under the Open Pit banner.

The second more personal reason has more to do with following in the footsteps of our predeccesors. I think I read somewhere that when Daniel MacIvor was forming da da kamera he refused to have the word theatre or company anywhere near the title. Robert Lepage's Ex Machina also has no theatre, company, or productions associated with it. So, this is us trying to follow in the footsteps of some of the greats in Canadian theatre.

I hope this all sounds resonable and that you will forgive the lack of clarity in us removing the word "Theatre" from our title. If you are missing the word "Theatre" I suggest you look to other Yukon companies:

Nakai Theatre

Gwaandak Theatre

Ramshackle Theatre

Sour Brides Theatre

All are fantastic companies that happen to have the word "Theatre" in their name.

Call for Applicants: Deadline and Questions

Are you considering applying for the Devised Yukon Project?  If so, it is important to note that our deadline for applications is Wednesday, May 25th.   Please see the full Call for Applicants here.  

To apply you need to send us your resume and a letter answering the questions stated in the call.  Upon receiving your application we will then send you more detailed information about the group workshop and individual interview that will take place on Saturday, May 28th.  

We have received quite a few questions so I would like to address some of them now just in case you are wondering the same thing:

How do I know if I am I suitable for this project?
If you consider yourself a creative person then YES you are definitely suitable for this project.  We are encouraging absolutely everyone to apply and then attend the group workshop because only then will you really be able to see if this project is suitable for you.  It’s a free workshop!  Why not attend and see what this is all about?

I can’t make it to the group workshop/interview on May 28th, can I still apply?
YES. We are accepting video submissions. First you need to apply by sending your resume and letter, and then we will send you the video requirements.  The deadline to receive videos is Friday, May 27th!  That doesn’t leave you very much time to make a video, so send us your application right away and get started on that video.

I have already committed to another job this summer, should I apply?
We are going to be paying Equity rates for this project with the hope that the participants won’t need to have another job.  That being said, our schedule during the project is going to depend entirely on the chosen participants.  If you have a job but we think you would be fabulous in the project then we will work around your other commitments to a certain degree.  So yes, APPLY.

 

 What are we going to do each day?  How is the project structured?

This project is all about experimentation and using one another to try out new ideas. Right now Sam and I are in a leadership role but once the participants are selected this will be a collective, not a hierarchy.  We want important decisions to be made together. The structure of each day will depend on what we, as a group, want to accomplish.  Don’t worry, we aren’t going to just show up and see what happens every day.  Clear goals and schedules will be created together and group deadlines will be established each week. 

 

If you have any other questions just leave a comment and we will adress them. Please do not hesitate to contact either Sam Bergmann-Good at sam@openp.it or Jessica Hickman at jessica@openp.it  If you would prefer to speak to someone on the phone you can call Jessica at 867.335.9245.



Call for applicants

Open Pit Theatre is calling for applicants to participate in this summer’s Devised Yukon Project. The Devised Yukon Project is the first development stage in the creation of a new work of theatre. Non-traditional theatre creation methods will be used to create the first stages of a play. This is an opportunity for a group of artists to come together and create something without a lot of restrictions.

Applicants will

  • Be employed from late June to late August. Daily and weekly schedules will be flexible within reason. Do not let another job stop you from applying.
  • Be payed a professional level rate for the duration of the Devised Yukon Project.
  • Be given the opportunity to create, explore and experiment in a safe environment with other like-minded artists.

Applicants should

  • Be an emerging or established artist in any artistic medium. Open Pit Theatre welcomes musicians, visual artists, writers and dancers to apply.

NOTE: Although project participants will use whatever skill-set they bring, this is a theatre creation project and participants will be required to act as theatre artists. Being comfortable onstage in front of people is essential.

  • Be comfortable working in a physical way, with other people.
  • Be open and willing to try the new creative ideas of others; provide their own ideas and work to execute them.
  • Be able to have some serious fun!

To apply

Please send a resume with relevant work experience and a brief letter answering the following:

1. Why are you interested in participating in this project?
2. Describe a successful creative moment you’ve had. What made it successful?

Applications can be emailed to: sam@openp.it

Applicants from all backgrounds and from all parts of Yukon are encouraged to apply.


Interviews will include a physical component and will take place May 27th and 28th. Those who cannot attend an in-person interview can provide a video audition in combination with an interview over the phone.

Questions? Need more information?

Please email Sam Bergmann-Good: sam@openp.it
or call Jessica Hickman at: 867-335-9245

Who is Open Pit Theatre?

http://openp.it/about-us/

Thanks, we look forward to hearing from you!

Sam Bergmann–Good & Jessica Hickman
Open Pit Theatre

Moving on up! (OPT updates)

Hey folks,

Just wanted to quickly let you know that I will be returning to Yukon on Wednesday, May 4th. Once I get up north the planning will begin on what is going to be a very active summer for Open Pit Theatre. Jessica and I will start the pre-planning for the Devised Yukon Project right away. The first order of business is to get our audition information together. Yes, we will (hopefully if everything comes up Milhouse) be holding auditions in Whitehorse to find other northern artists for collaboration on DYP. I've had some thoughts about what I'd like to see in the audition.

Working as a group is probably one of the most important aspects of collective creation. Everyone needs to get into the same rhythm and have the same end-goals. I think this will be the main aspect of our auditions, making sure people can work within a group while still providing their unique point of view. And ideas of course, ideas are gold.

I asked Sarah Stanley about what to look for while auditioning people and she said one of the most important things is making sure you hire people that you can have serious fun with. I'm going to take that to heart and try and make an audition environment that will bring out the best serious fun in everyone. There will be games! singing! movement! and perhaps a creation exercise!

Anyways, I'll keep everyone who visits the site posted, of course. We don't have a mandate yet, but when we do it will include a commitment to openness in every aspect of our process. We want our audience and our collaborators to know how, why, and what we are making. I want you to be as invested as I am.

Creative Auto Update:

My Grandpa (hi Grandpa!) mentioned the enormity of the task I set out for myself in answering Twyla Tharp's Creative Autobiography questions. There are a lot of questions and I see myself getting quite busy for the next little while. So, I am making a soft commitment to get through the list by the end of the summer. I also might dish some of these questions over to Jessica, or our other collaborators, or artists in the community. We will see what happens as I am sure there will be much else to write about in the coming months.

See you soon Yukoners and I will miss you Torontonians. Oh, and if you need to contact me, or have any quesitons about OPT just email: sam@openp.it (I have no fear of spam!).

Visual language

Reading my tweeterings I followed a link to this awesome interview with the Artistic Director of The Civilians, Steve Cosson. I especially like this segment:

 

No matter which role I’m in, it’s the one thing that’s common to the process for me -- I really enjoy the research aspect of making theatre, whether it’s a new play or an older play. Going from the text out into a place or period, or something much more abstract, to ask “What is the visual language of this play?” And on something that might not have a set in any traditional way, but you’re still using whatever visual language still comes into the play, and you’re still working with references and metaphors. Every choice and every color will make the audience feel something, or create an association, whether they’re aware of that or not. And I think that very much feeds how I’m thinking or reading things. I think in design work, the practical challenge of whatever your circumstance is can also be a springboard to creativity.

 

I'd never heard the term visual language before. It's kind of neat to think of what you see in the design of a play as visual language. I guess it is helpful to translate the different auditory and visual aspects of a show into whatever your best mechanism is. A visual artist might view a script as word pictures (it is an inelegant example, but I couldn't think of a better one).

If I were to choose a style of viewing work it would have to relate to the best style in which I learn. I remember discovering that people learn in different ways when I was in elementary school, and it has facinated me since. I know I like real world problems instead of straight equation questions. I think I am an auditory learner and I am excited to try and find out which way I view theatrical aspects. Some testing is required.

I popped over to facebook and asked how people think they view things. Shawn and Scott had some interesting things to say while Katiee was just pissed that she left her phone charger in her locker. Here is a segment of the conversations I had:

Shawn

 Me
how do you view things? literary, auditory, or visually?
Shawn
visually
 Me
why?
or rather, how do you know?
 Shawn
hmm. good question. i guess because i always tend to notice images. I'll often forget what things say, but I'll remember the colour of the words, etc. and i often will remember more how someone's face looked or what images were brought to my mind when they speak, rather than every word they said
when i recall things, it's always a series of moving images. but that might be what happens to everyone.
so i guess i don't know. just a gut feeling i suppose

Scott

Me
how do you view things? literary, auditory, or visually?
Scott
depends i guess
Me
how do you best learn?
Scott
auditory
a combo of listening and speaking
Me
so when you are reading a script do you "hear" the text?
Scott
as an actor reading modern text I think about characters intentions thise could be images in my head. for me it depends on if I am an audience member, performer, director or reader
Me
so it's always changing dependent on role?
Scott
for me yeah. as an audience member I am free to think about the larger metaphors that the piece is presenting. Metaphor is hard to act so when I am acting I think more focused
as a director you are guiding metaphors and building scenes
reading a play mostly plot stuff the first read... who's who etc
Me
that makes a lot of sense. As a sound designer I'm viewing the work with my ears whereas as an actor I'm trying to use my whole body... or something like that
(On a geeky side note, facebook copies over a bunch of yucky css when you paste a chat converation. It's messing with my formatting.)

Know your audience

This popped into my head while watching the leaders debate tonight. It may have been from the debate, but I think it had more to do with the high-school audience I performed for in a matinee this afternoon. I've been in the run of a show for the past few days and we have face three distinctly different audiences.

Or, it might have to do with the interview I did with James Long of Theatre Replacement in which I asked him what his audience was (his response was focused on music taste). I'll try and see if I can get that interview up.

At any rate it got me thinking about how I could define a specific group of people as my audience. I wrote down some things on a notepad I had nearby.

What am I missing?

I did some more research (googling) and came across a Toronto audience survey by Creative Trust that I had responded to and read earlier. It is quite deep, but has some interesting stats on avverage age and reasons for attendance.

3. What is the best idea you've ever had?

The third question in the Creative Autobiography series.

I think good ideas happen by accident. I was interviewing James Long of Theatre Replacement and I asked him this very question. James said that his best idea was in the creation of Clark and I, Somewhere in Connecticut (a show that people should look into). While rehearsing he came up with a physical gesture to accompany the names of the people in the story. When he was taken to court and was no longer allowed to say the names of the people (you really should check this show out) the gestures remained and became one of the most commented parts of the show. Good ideas are accidents.

My best idea would probably be the bike trip I took in the summer of 2008. I biked from San Francisco to Whitehorse all by myself with only a few bucks and a cheap beater bicycle. It was a good idea for the following:

1. I needed to do something big. I was stuck in Montreal and in my life. Education wasn't working out as I had expected and I wasn't creating anything.

2. I never questioned why. I didn't need to ask why I was doing this, I just did it.

3. It was out of character. I had never done anything like this before, it was so out of character for me that some of my friends honestly thought I would die.

It turned out to be a great idea in which I learned about myself, what I liked and didn't like. I also proved to myself that I could complete a project if I really set down to do so. The trip also resulted in a radio show that ran on CBC North over Thanksgiving (I think, it was some sort of holiday) and again on New Years Eve. I've put up the show below:

Bike Trip Special Part 1

Bike Trip Special Part 2

So, not only did my great idea teach me a lot about myself, but it also resulted in some creation. Great ideas are accidental movements forward.

Open Pit Theatre is based in Whitehorse, Yukon on the traditional territories of the Kwanlin Dün First Nation, and the Ta'an Kwäch'än Council. We are honoured to devise, rehearse, and perform on these lands.