Week Two: Gifts

Week two of the workshop is always one of the most fun. The work done in week one begins bearing fruit as the participants gain confidence. They start layering in previously explored skills and incorporating multiple concepts into the games we play. The sense of ensemble becomes stronger, and the added confidence of the group as a whole leads individuals to make bolder choices. I especially love this phase of the workshop because most of the self-consciousness and worry that can inhibit the work is gone. Once the ensemble reaches this level of confidence everything they do is not only good for their personal growth but for the group as they learn and discover what they are capable of together. During this time, each participants’ work becomes a gift to everyone else in the group. The generosity of this ensemble as they share their creativity and bravery with each other has been a joy to experience and has resulted in some very exciting work.

Every workshop has those magic moments when something new is discovered and things just really work. This year’s group is no exception. Here are a couple such moments that come to mind when I think back over the last week’s work:

At one session they improvised the soundscape of a crowded beach and boardwalk. It was truly transporting. I could practically smell the ocean air as they created the sounds of waves, seagulls, hot dog vendors, a carnival, lost children and sunbathers, and the wind in the beachgrass on the dunes.

At another session, we played one of our favorite games: Word Jazz. Usually, we play this sitting or standing in neutral. One of the skills it builds is being able to separate your manner of speech from your body language. Being able to isolate different forms of expression is a great skill to have for experimental performance. But since we are in the virtual medium this year, we asked each group to make a single screen image and hold that image for the duration of their performance. Each group created an image inspired by the text they were given. One group stood in a classic pose of recitation as they played with the words “The rest is poetry. Who has the better teeth the blood or the stone.” Their prim and proper pose in contrast to their speaking of blood and teeth was very striking. One group had the lines: “Life is a dull as an old tooth. A gold tooth. No, and old tooth.” They made the bold decision to perform so all the viewers could see were their lips and teeth as they spoke into their cameras. Watching this was a visceral experience, the realness of their mouths working in all their anatomical and fluidy glory was inescapable. The last group had the line “Meat makes the memory, or so we butchers always say.” This group’s image seemed at first to be rather innocuous as they each held their entwined fingers up towards the camera so that they filled the screen. However, as they continued to speak using the words meat and butchers, the image became more unnerving as the viewer became aware of the digits in the screen as, well, meat. All three performances were interesting and effective for the audience and everyone was excited afterward by the discovery of yet more things we could accomplish in this virtual medium.

There were, of course, many other magic moments in the work. Countless heady gifts that the performers gave each other, but I want to turn my attention to another gift: that of the virtual medium. In this year’s workshop, we are going to great lengths to make sure that we are incorporating the many gifts the virtual medium has to offer in our work: using the edge of the screen, the relative perspective of objects in the screen created by distance from the camera, lighting tricks that happen as the light is filtered and transmitted digitally, the way in which sound coming from a single source (speakers) gives the viewer no information about what or where the sound is coming from if it is not visible, the intricacies and benefits of performing with the camera as it moves, ways we can alter the space in front of the camera to make it feel completely different, and the list goes on. We asked each participant to play around with aspects of digital video making and share the results with the group. Watching the videos everyone made has taught us a great deal about this new medium in a very short time. Every video shared was truly a gift, yielding surprising discoveries at every turn. I can’t wait to see how all the knowledge we gained affects the performances they will create.

The last set of gifts I want to tell you about was the result of these individual video explorations. One of the prompts was to explore using puppets on the screen. EXPERIMENTAL PUPPET SHOWS, Y’ALL! I don’t think it occurred to any of us on the teaching team exactly what we were unleashing with this prompt. We had muscles and squid speaking dada poetry, exceedingly dramatic honey bear jars, fishnet clad sock puppets that couldn’t stop making out, gherkins on sticks dancing, and even puppets on fire dancing to a jaunty tune about their fiery demise. One of the lessons we learned from these puppet shows was how much soundtrack can influence the audience experience of the work. This year’s workshop has had a wonderful soundtrack so far: The Eurythmics, Stevie Wonder, The Star Wars Theme, haunting flute, catastrophic hurdy-gurdy, Abba, John Lee Hooker, and impromptu vocal looping created and mixed before our very eyes.

For me, every workshop I get to be involved in is a gift. Every group of collaborators willing to be strange and inquisitive together creates a unique experience. This summer is no different in regards to the amazing generosity of the participants to each other with their time, energy, efforts, and creativity. But this summer has a whole new set of gifts to explore as we learn how we can use the digital medium. I can already tell that their myriad explorations will result in the creation of wonderful gifts to give to our audiences this summer. Stay tuned MXTW fans! This is gonna be a banner year, I can feel it.

Gwethalyn Williams, Director