centercenterShayden Saberi
HL THEatre Approx. 1,989 words SOLO PErformance
8820090900Shayden Saberi
HL THEatre Approx. 1,989 words SOLO PErformance
TABLE OF CONTENT
Theorist, theory and contexts ……………………….……………………………………………………………………………..1-3
Practical explorations and development of the solo theatre piece ………………………………………………..3-4
Evaluation of the solo theatre piece and personal reflection……………………….…………………………………….5
THE THEORIST, THE THEORY AND THE CONTEXTS
Etienne Decroux was born in Paris, France in 1898. He enjoyed watching old style Pantomime, visiting circuses and sport. Finally he attended a theatrical play that struck a chord in him; he described it as art that “Walked on its feet while looking up at the sky”.
Consequently in 1923 Decroux entered theatre school at the Theatre du Vieux-Colombier and recalled throughout his life one learning experience: students had to perform without costumes or scenery, sometimes without words or solid scripts, sometimes their faces were covered with veils or their backs facing the audience. There was one main objective to all of this: “to represent the creator’s personages’ feelings and thoughts”. The body of the actor was an instrument that had to be well-tuned.
At the end of the school year there was a performance that excluded dialogue and only relied on miming and sounds which radically changed Decroux’s life. The art of theatre seemed suddenly open to him; actors without fancy costumes or makeup, basic lighting, scenery without scenography or props. From this play he came to one conclusion: all actors’ movements onstage should be precisely analysed, studied and completed.
The first performances based on his developed “Dramatic Corporeal Mime” were performed in 1930. His first notable article about the art of theatre was published in 1931 and titled “My definition of Theatre”. Within a few years, The “Dramatic Corporeal Mime” significantly attracted interest. “Etienne Decroux’s Dramatic Corporeal Mime School” was officially opened in 1941 and became very popular in the international theatre community.
THEORY RESEARCH
Dramatic Corporal Mime
DYNAMORHYTHMS
(The principle gives the actor the mastery of shaping rhythm)
Etienne Decroux was conscience of how important rhythm was for theatre both in allowing the actor to convey their inner being; thoughts, feelings or state of mind as well as being the main focus.
One way we can define rhythm is through Eugenio Barba’s definition: in movement, rhythm becomes visible by:
The creation of a pattern of bodily tensions
The dynamic use of Bodily tensions
These tensions for Laban manifest effort through combining four elements: Weight, Time, Space and Flow. Decroux developed the principle of dynamorhythm in order to locate the tensions within the body and be able to work on the mechanisms that generate them. The actor becomes aware of the motion of the body establishing a generating rhythm in the process.
COUNTERWEIGHTS
(This principle allows the actor to portray the dramatic actions in a way that is believable to the audience)
Decroux was able to understand that a performance is convincing if the actor is physically engaged in movement. Miming excludes the material elements from performance, and the main concern is to keep the realism of the movement without objects present. In order to address this, Decroux applied the method of using the opposition of the body weight.
Decroux simply inverted the point of balance in the body while doing the action to compensate the body mass.
In miming, the actor’s action is carried out using two different layers of effort
One is the effort that is suggested by the actor
The other is the real effort being fulfilled by the actor
Even though the actor is not pushing anything, the effort of controlling the body is real and is what the audience will see. He was able to make the invisible visible, the dramatic action suggested but the effort real. Decroux’s technique does not aim to imitate but rather restore concrete conditions of effort to the performer’s body.
BODY SEGMENTATION
(Allows the performer to move one part of the body at a time)
When developing this technique Decroux looked at three bodily aspects.
Three planes of body motion
Physical capacity of body motion
Anatomical structure of the body and its appearance
Three planes of Motion
The body moves in three different planes – Sagittal, Coronal and transverse. In everyday life these plane motions are conducted simultaneously. To train the body, Decroux limited movement to only a single plane at a time.
Physical Capacity
Decroux split up the body into different parts (Blocks) so they could be better focused on and isolated during mime:
HEAD
HEAD + neck = HAMMER
HAMMER + chest = BUST
BUST + waist = TORSO
TORSO + hips = TRUNK
The entire body = EIFFEL TOWER
Anatomical Bodily Structure and Appearance
The neutral position (Starting point) consists of the alignment of all the blocks. In Dramatic Corporeal mime the exercise of body segmentation is called scales.
Decroux thought of the body as an instrument: similarity between Scales and music is not a coincidence; musical scales go from lower notes to higher notes and scales can be performed in a similar order.
From the smallest block to the largest block (HEAD to the EIFFEL TOWER – PROGRESSIVE SCALE and vice versa – The DIGRESSIVE SCALE
Once these basics are established, the possibilities are endless. By repetition the body will be seen as a whole. Scales require both physical and mental effort and are exercises that are basic practise in understanding movement analysis.
PRACTICAL EXPLORATIONS AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE SOLO THEATRE PIECE
I understand The Dramatic corporeal Mime Technique develops awareness of the body – a very important skill, whilst doing physical theatre as movement orchestrates a performance. His theory has many practical uses in performance.
Body segmentation is interesting in practise – the actor can isolate the different “blocks” that the body has and has the chance to move different body parts one at a time e.g. I would sit in a chair and be able to align my body so that the different blocks would be working separately yet in union to hold me up and make me seem like I am sitting upright.
I am especially drawn to the technique of using counterweights as this can be used in many ways and can manipulate how the audience perceives objects, for example if I am pushing a wardrobe that is not really there, instead of using my back leg to push like one would normally do, using counterweights you are able to push on your front leg and move your centre of gravity giving off the illusion that you are really pushing a wardrobe making the audience see what you want them to see.
I feel like Dynamorhythm is a must for any mime performer to take into account as speed/tempo/rhythm can change the entire mood of the performance, for example a walking scene verses a running scene has to do with the rhythm of movement – where dynamorhythm comes into play.
PIECE DEVELOPMENT
Following Decroux’s Dramatic Corporeal Mime, I decided to do a piece based on mime, a challenge as I haven’t done mime before. I researched Etienne Decroux’s Life and Theory and formed an understanding of his techniques. I then chose a theme to work with.
I chose to do a piece based around “Power corruption” as people I know have become corrupt due to the power they’ve been given. I started to form a story line and watched a performance that Decroux did called ‘le Statue’ to get a sense of the movements that he used, and noticed that the sound used was orchestra like and was catered to the movement. I then decided that I would use these type of sound effects to support my performance, but instead of creating my own track which may have taken some time I was going to find a piece that I liked and cater my performance to it.
I decided to use the legend of the Sword in the Stone as whoever was able to out of the sword out of the stone would immediately become king and I would be able to show the corruption that would come with the power received.
In applying Decroux’s Theory I looked mainly at counterweights and how I could use that instead of props. I practised this technique just to see the difference of using actual objects compared to counterweights and tried pushing the wardrobe in my room verses pushing the air and trying to make it seem like an object by using my front leg to push rather than my back leg. I used this technique on a rock in my performance, I would try to push and move the stone out of my path by using counterweights.
I tried to use body segmentation in my demeanour and how I walked; the beginning when my character hasn’t received power yet, he is slouched a little and the blocks aren’t all lined up together but when the power is bestowed upon him his demeanour changes and all the blocks align causing me to extend my body horizontally .
I used dynamorhythm quite a lot in the performance as I tried to concentrate on the weight and space of the objects around me. Getting the audience to recognise props may be challenging as I often forget how big certain things may have been. I also tried to speed up the rhythm in a fight scene that happens in the end to show the mood change of my character.
My theatre mentor told me I shouldn’t build my performance around the sound but rather find or cut music to support the performance which would give my performance a little more freedom, but after discussing this with my Theatre teacher she showed me a mime performer called Tyson Eberly whose performance didn’t use sound and conveyed his message across, thus I decided not to use sound and emphasise on movement by wearing neutral colours. The mime artist’s performance also showed me the importance of action and reaction to visualize the scene and props. This benefited me as I was having difficulty getting audience recognition.
EVALUATION OF SOLO THEATRE PIECE AND PERSONAL REFLECTION
The performance itself was more nerve racking then I originally anticipated – doing a solo piece in an area of theatre I wasn’t familiar with was scary but I managed to pull through. I was able to do my mime performance successfully; most of my audience recognized what was happening and the theme that I was trying to convey.
Whilst setting up I debated whether I should use a stool to sit on as a throne but I didn’t think it would look good so I scrapped that idea and just used the wall and body segmentation to create the throne – I got a lot of positive feedback for that.
The feedback I received was constructive and some of it I hadn’t noticed myself; I was told my clothes blended into the background, taking away from my movement instead of fully enhancing it like I originally planned, which didn’t occur to me at all and that I wasn’t able to keep the size of props constant but still fulfilled the intention that I had for it.
If I were to change anything in my performance it would most likely be: the colour of the clothes I was wearing, slowing down some of my actions for emphasis and trying to keep my props constant. Mime is definitely a hard branch of physical theatre as there is so much to think about whilst performing: you don’t have physical props and scenery, you have to keep in mind what you’re going to do next, be aware of your body movements, be conscious of your location and your props – but it is very fulfilling if properly executed.
Personally I think this wasn’t my best performance but still good considering I’m not too familiar with this type of physical theatre and practitioner. Obviously now I am quite familiar with Dramatic corporeal Mime and viewed performances that surround it but I have a little doubt about whether I did it right; being reassured calmed my nerves and I am looking forward to trying more physical theatre in the future.
BIBLIOGRAPHYECOLE INTERNATIONALE DE MIME CORPOREL DRAMATIQUE – PARIS. (2017). Etienne Decroux and Corporeal Mime. Online Available at: https://mimecorporel.com/etienne-decroux-and-corporeal-mime/ Accessed 25 Aug. 2017.
YouTube. (2017). Etienne Decroux – La Statue. Online Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6x6YSt6mlw Accessed 23 Aug. 2017.
Dcmtstudio.blogspot.com. (2017). ETIENNE DECROUX. Online Available at: http://dcmtstudio.blogspot.com/2012/08/etienne-decroux.html Accessed 28 Aug. 2017.
Dcmtstudio.blogspot.com. (2017). Dramatic Corporeal Mime Technique Studio. Online Available at: http://dcmtstudio.blogspot.com/ Accessed 30 Aug. 2017.
YouTube. (2017). Cool Mime! Tyson Eberly Mime Performance Part 2. Online Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7ULR-yfNnk Accessed 26 Aug. 2017.
YouTube. (2017). Cool Mime! Tyson Eberly Mime Performance Part 1. Online Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmUZgoqrIYA Accessed 29 Aug. 2017.
Rogers, B. (2017). “TECHNIQUE ARMS THE IMAGINATION” DEVELOPING AN ACTING THEORY BEST SUITED FOR MOTION CAPTURE PERFORMANCE AND THE CREATION OF A VIRTUAL CHARACTER. Online Fcla.edu. Available at: http://etd.fcla.edu/CF/CFE0003975/Rogers_Brendan_J_201108_MFA.pdf Accessed 23 Aug. 2017.
