Valentina arrives, recovering from possible Italian strain of Swine Flu. She had weak legs, but she lightens up the room. Harry joins us, teaches Yoga, gets involved in a long improvisation. I think he enjoyed being with experienced performers for the day...Great to see him move again.
As a way to open things up a bit, we've done several long improvisations which seem to suggest a potential, shambolic way forward for 'housing' of the fragments of material we are creating. The blackboard acting as a set of instructions, duly wiped off as the performers fulfil the tasks they set themselves at the top of the improv. It makes the performance functional. The volume of tasks is a bit overwhelming for Scott, who prefers to work on one thing at a time, but at least the more improvisational nature of this way of working offers him freedom to make choices, that when we are trying to 'set' things doesnt feel right. Lots of discussion around practice and repetition and forgetting and the need to follow a kind of score- however broad as a way to get through stuff and generate new stuff.
I spend much time pondering on how I will have to keep adapting my way of working to suit each individual performer - this is dangerous ground for me - I have to be careful not to get too sidetracked with the enquiry into that, to the detriment of creating useable material for a show that has to actually exist at some point in the near future. Lots of discussion around free will and volition - what one naturally wants to do and what one doesn't really have an appetite for. Os directing dictatorship? So much of that negotiation comes down to the roles we play in a room and so much is down to taste. My worst fear is to make boring work where nothing much happens. How to embody the work we create together?
On Friday we run some stuff for Dramaturg Ruth and it feels pretty weak, nihilistic and difficult. No hope. Very dark and unformed. Not enough light - real or otherwise. Is this shit?
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