Rochelle Whytes Dramaturgical Notes
Thinking about the aesthetic of the performance space - what this world might be - how to simultaneously create an environment that is tangible and yet not 'there'.
I'm thinking very David Lynch. Mitnik is caged, or boxed in some way (a medium sized box - not one that can just fit her alone and not so big that it could just be interpreted as the room we are performing in), but there should be a sence of the domestic/ familiar and yet odd or displaced. This 'box' I'm seeing more like a frame of a box where the definition between the interior and exterior worlds is agreed upon through communal imagination (includig the audience's). Some adjustment as to scale or position or expectation of things that we recognise but don't look quite right - slightly out of context. I am dreaming of excessive red plush, an armchair or several out side the 'box/cage' looking in at it.
Is this a soundless or music-less world? Is it a dead sound or a constant echo or is there some other sound unfamiliar but symbolic of the outside environment we never quite see. A sound of a machine (the life support) etc...what kind of orchestration...just Olivia's voice but fed through samplers and the like to create whole symphonies at times?
It feels appropriate, given Olivia's history with performance, that the grotesque should be embraced and played with in some way.. don't exactly know what that is yet..but does Mitnik have a tin that she can relieve herself in in front of the audience etc - does her body do things in a different rhythm to the memories being articulated - such as her body needs to eat or sleep,is it performing it's function in the factory, which is a separate world to the disembodied voices channelling through it....
Opportunities for dealing with movement - distrupted as it were...
I'm thinking the audience can move around the space and are not limited to sitting in a conventional seating bank..
Be great to have interactive live video and use a 'screen' as another performance space - another stage- one dream is to have one of those mini cameras that maybe can be down Liv's 'jumper' which she can go into ie pull the sweater over her head and use the camera then as the stage so in front of us hse is hidden but we can access her through the technology instead..
This is all in response to everything as has beeen put out there above as well as my own thoughts - except for Olivia's thoughts on the performance becasue I couldn't access them for some strange reason - so Liv if this is a direct clash to what you already wrote I do apologise..:)lets hope there are some unusual and happy/ effective similarities. It is a strange way around to be creating thoughts - ie when the text has not been developed yet - but I kinda see part of my job as bringing the images to bare.
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Lighting Ideas
Yesterday I had a meeting with Bronwyn Pringle regarding the lighting. Some of the ideas match your comments. For example she suggested that we use a traverse stage setting and have projector screens on either end (blocking the poles). This would actually create a box setting as you mention.
The projector screens would be our main source of lighting. The way we will do this is that Alex will create an image response from/for each of the scripts and we will project these onto both screens simultaneously. As well as this, we will have to use semi-domestic/sci-fi lamps on the sides, to better light the performer. The lights will be attached to dimmers and so we can play with the levels, on stage and in rehearsals. As well as that the lamps have movable necks, so to speak, and can obviously be moved around the space.
This is difficult to explain without a drawing but I will endeavour to get one soon.
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Sound Ideas
Was actually just thinking about getting in contact with Rina re: sound. I'm confident he can produce the sort of mechanic/drone sounds you were explaining. I'll let you know if he's on...
The Grotesque
(Un)Fortunately, I don't think I can produce a piece of art which doesn't refer to or incorporate the grotesque!
Staging
Your ideas on staging made me think of how one would go about representing the different dimensions referred to through this project, i.e. the real world where Mitniks body is and the 'floating' celebral world, i think the use of small hidden cameras would be a fantastic way of drawing the audience into private mental spaces. I also feel there could be several things happening at once, or glimpses/sugestions of Mitnik engaged in other activities, perhaps trapped in a personal hell/heaven, existing as just a brain in the real worls as well as in Mitniks body. Its late and i'm not sure if im making sense, but in my minds eye i see a stage with corners set aside for freezes of Mitnik engaged in other activities, be they dummies in her clothes or other actors, or pictures, or soundscapes, or projections.
Images
I see you're talking about projections here. I've been thinking it could be interesting to work with projections as in layering images that represent characters onto Mitnik's body, or the body that is in the space, and create a sort of visual representation of the body as a channel, or the "floating celebral world".
This idea is probably perfectly compatible with the use of cameras, that sounds great btw.
Projections, sounds and narrative structure
Projections:
I have been playing with some video programming and I have created a couple that make live video images that have the same quality as the promotional images. That is the image colour is inverted and layered with lines. I am working on other effects that will be trialed during the rehearsals next week.
Sounds:
Roger Alsop has put Olivia and I onto a great program called Audiomulch 1.0. It is amazing and can create live and recorded sound that has some great effects, filters and mixing options. We will develop disjointed, tense and digital sounds to add weight and feel to the show.
Narrative Structure:
This isn't my field but I had a thought about bringing the story together. I guess the meta-narrative of all these monologues is something we needs to develop. I understand that the idea is that Mitnicks body is being remotely controlled to perform to the audience as a kind of under-ground event. If this is the case there needs to be some way in for the audience about that. Some potential ways in could be that Mitnick addresses the audience and says something about how she is a shell that will be possessed by the other characters, or she could imply that by haveing mini-seizures between characters. The aspects of possession, multiple personality and/or dramatic representation need to be decided on, and I am interested in how that decision is formed.
the narrative structure
Hello good peoples,
Just to keep you posted on how Olivia and I are travelling in our wrestle with the material and format...we had an interesting discussion the week before last which lead us to a decision which we are working on: that being - who are the audience and why are they there? Well we talked ourselves around to the idea that Miknik is consciously activating the 'possessions' through her computer programme and therefore also reliquishing control of her body to let these other voices have access to expression. It is an underground to the extent that we are to make the audience aware that their presence is noted and that they are there at their own risk (which has been written into Mitnik's script). We want to up the survelliance factor so that the audience are always feeling like they are watching being watched. - kinda thing. Hope that helps all. Cheera and will report more again at end of week.
re narrative structure
hi guys,
this is my first public appearance on the senseless forum...
been reading it all for a while now and looking for my entry point into it
this note is in response to alex's point about the structure or jorney given to the audience in the showing
maybe olivia can expand a bit on this issue so I can better model my contribution to what the script needs at the moment.
what is the overall offer to the audience?
what do we want them to take away with them when they leave the room?
not in a traditional narrative sense, but I feel like if you take narrative structure away, in a sense you need to replace it with a rhythm, a mood,a continuity or 'tangiabality' the audience can make meaning through
so i guess my question is- what is the overall intention of this full script? what are you working towards in the sense of mitnik's world?
how much is given to the audience in this showing?
cheers,
sivan
Welcome to the site
Hey Sivan, great to see you in the text. I love the idea of 'whats the offer'. I guess there is a whole bunch of things on offer, and it will depend on the individual audience member/writer as to what buys their time.
For me I get off on the idea of this being about 'giving a voice to the voiceless'. In this way I guess I want to walk away from this thing with a sense of having witnessed the empowerment of a group of characters that have otherwise been dispossed of their political, social and physical strengths. That through this ritual performance we somehow evoke the need to distribute power more equally. I guess the challenge then becomes how not to be didactic about it, so it isn't some kind of cheesy moral tale.
Making Sense of Senseless
I think the difficulty in what we are doing comes from the fact that not only rhythm and meaning, but more importantly form and structure can in no way be layed down before the showing. I guess that's why you experimwnt with these ideas and have a showing. Not knowing if it will work. But of coarse, you try and make it work. I think one of the narrative suggestions for you Sivan would be to link your character, how ever subtly, to the others. That way the program from which the audience chooses the stories can be linked like a rhyzome/network and the audience have ot work to make the connections between the characters.
I also think Alex's point about giving voice to the voiceless somes it all up. These stroies have never been told, struggle to come out etc. All the pieces which go with this work well.
Also, the fact that some transmissions come from the screen, others through sound etc. highlights the virtual nature of Senseless. Characters who have made up conversations with others, who loose transmission part way through etc.
For the audience this means working to piece the puzzle together, to get an true idea of this distopic future and to contemplate about where we are heading. There are plenty of moments of contemplation which come when the perfomer is still and listens to the sounc etc.
And then there's Mitnick - someone who wants to 'let go of control' but is so controlled in doing so, someone who wants to 'hand over control' but needs to be controlled by others to do so etc. She is the central point - constantly channeling ad asking the audience to help her do this. Giving them control.
I hope that helps - but either way you've given me things to think of - so thanks : )
a girl on a bus
cheers alex that's great help.
it's an interesting thing to think about the politically/socially dispossesed voices of the future, when in our present time our freedom of thought/speech is shrinking by the day.
what will it be like for us in 2027?
will we remember this time with nostalgia to a period when we were relatively free?
anyway...just some midnight thoughts...got this story about a girl on a bus i wanna post...two hours to the game...pleny o time...
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