One day workshop at Vestjyllands Højskole (methods)

About the workshop which Olga and I led at the school.
My main goal was to get to know a little bit the people, who attended the workshop, and to show some ideas, some exercises to them, so they can get to know a little bit my way of thinking and working. And to awaken some searching for the reason for doing theatre today.

One of the exercises was that I asked them to create scenes, when they are suprising us. They were working in couples.
This execise can open you towards creativity. We are all waiting for a suprise, beacuse we all know that this was the exercise. What can still be suprising in this situation?
Suprise is an important tool of an actor. Breaking the expectations. When one expects something to happen, and this expectation brakes, does not come true, he can get suprised, and his attention rises.

After each exercise I encoureged the participants to give comments on each other's work.
I am asking the group to express with words what they have experienced (and not to judge if it was bad or good). I find it very useful, because on one hand the spectators have to find words for their experiences (and translating an experience into language means that you are shaping it, and it can help you to remember it later), and on the other hand it can be useful feedback for the creators - what did my spectators get out of what I have shown. Maybe they thaught about something completely different, what I wanted to show. Maybe they didn't understand, what I wanted to be understood.
In these converstations I am also just a member of the group, who gives his own comments. Sometimes of course I need to pay attention to speak at last, not to affect other's way of expressing their experiences.

An other exercise was that I asked them to make their partner do something without using language, or explaining him with pointing at things or body language. The task is that you have to create a situation on which your partner reacts naturally with doing, what you want to make him do. This act should come as a reflex on your actions.
These were the tasks:
Make me laugh.
Sing a song.
Do the opposite of what I am doing.
Take something out of the room.
Tell a story.
Suprise them.
Take another person to the other side of the room.
Close your eyes. (for a longer while, not just a wink)
Proove, that you like them.

I did with them the transformation of drawings exercise aswell, which I did with you aswell. When they have to choose one of a series of abstract drawings and transform this picture into a sequence of movments. Others have to guess afterwards, which drawing you have chosen.

I had a list of words with me aswell, which are describing different qualities of theatre, and they had to choose the 3 most important for them.
These were the words (I write in brackets, how many votes did one get): emotions (6), story (6), liveness (4), sincerity (4), attention (4), interaction (3), visuality (2), encounter (2) music (1), dance (1), sentences, suprise, imitation, contrast, newness (those, which do not have number, did not get any vote).
There were 11 people voting: 1 from New Zealand, 3 from Poland, 1 from Hungary and 6 from Danmark - 9 girls and 2 boys, mainly in their twenties, one of them was around 50.

The last one and half hour they spent with making scenes in small groups of 3 or 4. I asked them to find something which is disturbant for them in the smaller or bigger world around them, in the community of which they are a part of. A problem, which they can not solve, but which they would really like to, if they would have the power to do so. And they had to make a scene out of this problem.
At this last part there was a group, which made an amazing scene. They were working with the problem of facing with myself, finding my role, my goals, searching for the answer of the question "who am I". They disappeared, we looked after them for a long time. Time was running, we were getting close to dinertime, we wanted to show the scenes to each other. We have found them finally, they were still not ready, they were in a big discussion. I was afraid, that they haven't got further than just discussing theoretically about the problem. But they did finally a beatiuful-beatiful scene. They found 3 big (higher than a person) mirrors on wheels. They started as something very personal, very everyday like with the mirrors, like looking their bodies in them, combing their hair, etc. After a while all these movments became a dance, they started to climb on the mirrors, to push them around in the room. They attached their bodies to the mirrors, as moving them, and we could see ourselves, and other parts of the room turning around in these big glass surfaces. They took their time. The wheels were squeaking while moving in different rithms. At the end, one of them, the boy suddenly left his mirror, than the girl next to him left her own mirror, and reached the backside of his one, and the boy walked out from the room.

Music

When I stayed at Esther's appartment in Copenhagen, for a I while we shared the hospitality of her with Olga's brother, Mateusz and his friend. One evening we went biking with Mateusz, from Nørreport, all the way down to the statue of the Little Mermaid. In a street near Nyhavn we met with a music band, playing on violin, accordion, saxofon very cheerful music. We decelarated the speed of our bikes, to listen to them. They were walking by a wedding couple, and playing music for them. As I figured out later, just for fun, beacuse they were walking towards a pub, where they were going to play on that evening. As we slowed down by them to their speed, one of them crossed the street, and walked by us, and invited us to this pub. We went in and listened to them. Great music, reminds me a lot klezmer, and the guy told as later, yes, it is mixture of swedish folk music and klezmer. Unfortunatly we couldn't stay there for long, because, Olga was waiting for us (originally we went just for a fifteen minutes ride), and we didn't have any money with us to drink something in the pub (for the same reason). After the first unit of the music, we were leaving. The guy, who invited us, came to our table, and we had a little chat. He was really kind. The name of the band is Räfven, he gave us a call-card. Some weeks ago I checked their website, and I found a part on it, where you can order their CD, I thought I'll try, maybe it is possible from abroad aswell. It says you pay the price for the CD, when it arrives. Well, they have sent me their CD, without any fee, I didn't had to pay for the postman. I guess it is a present from them. I'm very pleased by their kindness.

About my experiences at Odin

Dedicated to Olga aswell

When I finally left the school, heading Odin Theatre in Holstebro, you asked me, to tell about my time there; I have some small remarks, it was really just a few days.
The first thing, which amazed me the most, was the openness of the theatre.
The first time we went there, I was suprised, that there was no cloackroom, there was only a rack for coats at the end of the hallway. If you wished to, you could hang your coat there.
I remember, when we saw Andersen's dream for the first time, after the performance we met with several actors and also with Eugenio on the hallway.
The building includes not just the performing and rehearsing spaces, but the technical rooms, offices, the actors private rooms, the archive and the libary of the theatre, two small kitchens and the rooms for guests. The spaces, which are used by the audience are not strictly seperated from others, as it is usual in most of the theatres, which I have seen before. To get to their rooms, where they can dress and undress, the actors are using the same hallway as the audience.
When I was going from my room to the little videostudio, I also had to go through the corridor where the doors of the actors' rooms are. The whole theatre is an organism, which lives together.
The people, who arrive for a workshop, or to make a research, as I did, are latching on to the life of the theatre.
I was wondering, why do other theatres hide actors? Why is it necessary to let them meet only in the show, and seperate them from each other before and after?
Are they afraid, that the magic effect, that the actors transform to another person on stage, will disappear, that the audience will discover some kind of trick?
Normally we can meet actors only on stage, or at the most, we can read an interview with them in a magazine. We can not great them after a performance, or ask them questions. Is it necessary to disguise the actor, as an ordinary person, in order for us to beleive that he does something special and interesting when he is acting?
At the end our performance in the school, The Homecoming of Odysseus, when you went out of the building and the audience followed you, I was very happy, that there was no possibility for the usual very formal bowings. You were standing around the fire, they applauded, you applauded aswell, cried my name, and than the whole group splited up for small groups having coversations. It was easy there, as it was easy also in summer at Hantos, because we knew each other.
I wanted to find the same meeting between the audience and actors at the end of The Journey of Odysseus, in the Merlin Theatre, which seemed a bigger challange, because it is a much more formal place compared to both - the school, and the village enviroment.
We agreed, that you go out from the performance hall to the foyer, light your candles, and sing Létyé la zozule, and wait for the reaction of the people, wether they come out, or not. We agreed also, that you do not bow, if they come out.
They came, which was a great pleasure to experience, because it is something, which you would like to happen, but it is not happening because you explained people they should do like this, they are doing it, because they understand your aim.
After the song you blew your candles, and came in front of the stairs, very close to the people, this was not planned any more. And it was a risky situation, how to find the bridge from being observed, being in caracter, communicating in a special way, to a normal person - person communication.
There were two reactions: Olga went to one member of the audience, actually it was my mother, and huged her; some other's could not handle so well this unplanned situation, they needed to hold on to something, which was familiar to them, which they knew the mechanism of already. This is how the whole group started to stand up in a line to bow. I understood why it's happening, but I regreted.
In Odin, I never saw actors bowing. The audience applauds, but they never come back on stage after the performance is over. You can meet them on the hallway, if you wish to.

By watching the recordings of performances from different ages of the company, it is visible, they have come a long way.
Barba declares, that he looks upon Grotowski as his master. On one hand this clear statemant is sympathic for me. Today it is not a trend if you are an artist to say about another artist, that he is your master. We mostly say very gently drawn sentences; "I was inspired by some aspects of his work.", "I understood very well his style.", and such others like these.
By seeing some recordings of their early performances and some also of Grotowski's performances, I think you can recognize that there is a connection between the creators.
On the other hand I think, if you have so close artistic connection to one specific person, it makes you very hard to not to take from his artistic solutions, but find your own when you face a similar problem. It is even hard to find your own problems, which you want to work with.
I am not saying this is negativ. I don't think if you have a hard task, it's bad. Fighting with hard things can take you to great results.

First note

I wanted to give you a present for your journey. But I wanted to give you something which does not have really weight, or maybe not material at all. Not to make your package more heavy, and not to make you take care of more and more stuff.

It happens with me a lot of times, when we have a conversation, that I can not tell a thought, which I would like to, sometimes because, we both have to many ideas connected to one topic, so I feel, I need to select from them to be able to tell some of them, and sometimes I am not able to express exactly what I wanted to.

And it also happens, that something happens with me, or I have some thoughts and ideas which I would like to share with you, when you are not there (or at least this was my experience in the period between I departed from the school and you arrived to Kishantos this August).
As you have experienced, I am not good in writting letters.
I still owe Olga and you a little report about my experiences in Odin Theatre.
So these are reasons why I want to start to write you a log-book on internet.
A log-book (according to my dictionary) is a collection of notes what you are writting when you are sailing.
I don't want to write a diary on the net. And I don't want to write a diary for you.
A diary for me is a text, which I write for myself.
And I cannot promise, that I will write here at least a note each day, or each week or anything.
I can only promise I will write here, when I will feel the need to tell you something.
When there is something which is necessary to mention in the log-book.
And it is open, there is no password, so anyone can read it. I am writting to you things, which can be interesting maybe to read for other people aswell. This is also a motivation, I think.