The Stadsschouwberg (City Theatre) in Bruges, Belgium. 150 years old. Comfortable, acoustically outstanding and rich with life. Technically challenging in terms rigging and the factor of acrobatics on a raked stage, but these things fade into the background when you are in the show.
The Stadsschouwburg in Bruges. Click to enlarge.
To perform at places like this, well… you get the idea.
It shouldn’t be brushed aside, but absorbed. When you’ve got a few hours in a place like this to do your job (tech, warmup/training, then get ready for the show) you can easily lose sight of how magical the places are, the heritage they contain and the ghosts they possess. I stood on the stage after everyone was gone, consciously etching the image into my eyes and feeling into my skin.
Photographers out there, This is taken handheld with my Canon 6d and 17-40mmf4L. iso5000, f5.6. This camera is almost 2 years old and I can shoot crazy high iso handheld and get useable photos. I can only imagine what the next generation will give us in terms of sensors. Click the photo to enlarge.
This man owned this bar for 40 years. He welcomed everyone in there like an old friend, and I guess they were.
Dog walks in the rain at night.
It’s not too cold at the moment, but it’s fairly wet. The homeless people are looking a little more desperate, the streets stink less of piss and dogshit thanks to the rain, and people are finding their way under cover and inside. Sometimes the air is cold and crisp, with not a breath of wind, and sometimes it’s almost warm and wet, the european winter tropics. When it’s more than 7 or 8 degrees outside, it feels warm. This, for an Australian, is a little strange. Melbourne cold, at 10 degrees, cuts through your clothing sideways and pushes you over into a dirty puddle. I don’t know, maybe I just don’t dress appropriately in Melbourne during winter.
In Brussels a few weeks ago, and -3 felt nice and calm. My ears were cold but that was the extent of it.
Here are some photos I took last week in Paris over a few days. All of them except two were taken with the amazingly fantastic, sharp, light and snappy Canon 40mm f2.8 and all were on the Canon 6d body. I forget about this lens, but then when I put it on I’m reminded why I love it. I have much more expensive toys, but when this combination works so well, why bother with the others, especially to keep under a jacket while travelling? 40mm seems like such a good focal length too, for many different situations. Not that it can be seen in these photos, but the out of focus areas are pretty smooth too when you bring it in close to something. The other two photos were taken with the 85mm 1.8, also a lovely lens.
We got into Venice after dark, and left just after midday the following day. With two days to travel just over a thousand K’s from Zagreb, Croatia to Montbrison, France, Venice was jumping off the map at us as a place to stop overnight. So that’s what happened: with a van full of circus gear and a hotel reservation, we made our way to Venice. Beautiful. I bought a very expensive pair of cashmere-lined leather gloves and ate pizza for every meal. Both were very good choices.
Click the photos to enlarge and enjoy.
The 2:1 format I chose for these photos reflected the wide-angle lens I shot some of them with, but also the horizontal orientation of the vistas of Venice. There seemed to be dead space in every frame, so why not crop it out?
This was a live cross to Croatian National Television from the theatre that we are currently in residence in Zagreb.
So. Colour, or black and white? Using colour for punctuation is my current frame of mind. The colour images in this series stand out, and perhaps overpower the subtlety of black and white. it’s nice to see a few colour images alongside black and white, but even that action can detract from the monochrome images. I found while processing these that a few images deserved to be, or were more appropriate, in colour. Monochrome can be cheap too, an easy way to bring nostalgia into an otherwise boring image. Each style has to be tastefully used.
What do you think?
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These photos are much more of John than Emma. I’m currently sifting through a thousand or so photos from the past month and getting some semblance of order so I’ll have photo sets up of Liverpool, London, Brighton, Paris, Istres, and a few other places. Well, that’s the plan. I have a few evenings off here and there at the moment, but I’m more interested in cooking (finally have an apartment with a kitchenette, fresh vegetables on the stove etc) or walking around new places. Paris now, for a few more days, then on the road again. Croatia soon.
Away from brash entertainment. Away from overt caricatures and cliches, away from hunting for laughs or applause. Toward… Art?
It seemed the next logical step.
Emma Serjeant and myself. Photo by Luke Jefferey.
I mean, It’s not as if I’ve mastered every area I’ve made a foray into, but I feel I performed a lot of them well enough to get a feel for what they are. Some I loved, some I didn’t. But I seem to be increasingly driven toward intellectualising shows, picking them apart and putting back together simply out of curiosity. I know I understand act construction in the traditional sense, for the traditional acts that could be loosely categorised as entertainment. But the mysteries and methods of the more artistic creations I loved to watch onstage were still purely philosophical in nature, and quite frightening.
Brief backstory: I’ve been in Brisbane with Casus these past 4 weeks, making a show called Finding The Silence. Simple premise for a show. It’s in the title. Thankfully there’s more to it than that, as I’d hoped there would be.
Here’s the promo the amazing Hamish McCormick put together from the season.
Talking to Idris Stanton (Circus Firemen, Pants Down Circus etc.) one night, he told me that when he fills out an immigration card he writes “Entertainer” in the occupation section. He does that on purpose, and for him that’s entirely accurate. He’s a brilliant entertainer. For me, I sit somewhere in between the two currently. I went through customs a few hours ago and I wrote “Artist”, but that’s this moment, on this tour, with this company.
Casus has shown me some creative mechanisms that until now have remained a mystery. I now attempt to summarise this new working method purely for my own sanity, and it seems to be something like this: Casus’s method is largely about accessing emotion through physicality, rather than physicality through emotion. In short, it’s the exact opposite of what I’ve learned to do. This fascinating process was made even more interesting for me due to having never done much physical improv before, and also having no prior instructions as to how to approach such things.
These two polar opposite approaches will take time to reconcile. They still occupy a somewhat uneasy relationship in my mind, and will probably continue to do so for some time. Here they are in more detail:
APPROACH 1.
The obvious approach to making theatrical work (for me anyway) was to identify the narrative in a scene, allocate some sort of rational progression of emotions to it, work on the physicality of those emotions and weave that into the story. Then, blend it all together and make it airtight. Circus in a traditional sense can make things difficult in that respect because of the necessity to perform physical feats, but it’s still a workable method. It’s the straightforward approach, especially when speaking of physical comedy routines or something with an obvious narrative. Character base, starting point, intended outcome, predicaments, overcome obstacles, resolution… or something like that. It was a good basis for me, grounded in logic and readable action-reaction stimuli which meant that if something didn’t make sense, it was easy to identify. A summary: justification of actions through narrative and character. Not always, but often, I employed this method of act construction. It’s rewarding and detailed, and allows for areas of spontaneity when the material is understood.
APPROACH 2
The other approach, the approach of companies like Casus, seems to be more grounded in finding physicality first. This is done through a variety of methods, with group and solo improvisation being vital to the feel and connection of performers’ bodies and minds. It’s a common approach in the dance and theatre world, I’m assuming. It feels like yoga, the way the the performance expands each time it is run. Details and nuances are discovered, energy ebbs and flows, internal narratives are written. This seems on the surface like a recipe for messy, uncontrolled creation and performance, but of course there are rules and boundaries put in place to give everyone a roughly similar trajectory. It’s not all improvisation. Especially in circus, you have to eventually do some tricks and they have to be planned.
Seeing these two different approaches begs the question, is the emotion the catalyst for physical expression, or is physical expression the catalyst for emotional portrayal? Are the two concepts so intertwined that any attempt to try break them apart simply becomes semantics? From what I understand, they are just separate tools that can be used where one sees fit. One is essentially method acting, and the other is… well, it’s something I’m now attempting to define. The role that acting plays in both is something that I’m also attempting to work through, and still needs to be addressed. How much acting can you inject into the second approach before it becomes overpowering? Isn’t the entire thing just acting anyway?
The emotional impact of each creative process on the performers themselves is quite different, too. I’m still getting my head around what the difference is and what it might mean.
Improvisation is something I’m now intensely curious about. I’m currently not physically educated enough to be as free as I want, and that frustrates me. There are moments of freedom, little flickers of that transcendent awareness I can imagine getting lost in, and that excites me. The connection with an organic, flowing performance is something beautiful. The parallel awareness of audience perspective and internal perspective also grows in this environment, if you foster it. By extracting individual moments and placing them in a choreographed piece or simply using the overall mood and body language of the improvisation, there is a rich sea of material which can be harvested in any way a director or choreographer sees fit.
It seems, actually, you can foster and stimulate anything you want in an improv session. It’s incredibly liberating. It becomes creativity purely for the sake of it, purely for the moment. There are much more eloquent and in-depth articles about improvisation on the web, I’m just trying to break apart my preliminary experiences of it in the past 4 weeks.
Here’s a wonderful article by Sebastian Kann about how and why circus performers are being drawn to the contemporary dance.
Discussions… Photo by Luke Jefferey.
So as week one turned into week 2, the methods of creation for Finding The Silence became curiouser and curiouser. I was told by Jesse to be myself. Yeah, great advice, I thought. That little nugget almost sent me crazy. Up until this point, every one of my characters of performances has been myself, in one form or another, but with guidance from dramaturgical narrative at least. Now I felt I was left with no ground beneath my feet to stand on. What does that even mean, be yourself? The reason I had trouble getting my head around it was because the show we were creating seemingly had no narrative or characters! It wasn’t a matter of knowing myself, it was a matter of being myself. Wait, what?
Hmm. From the outset, it looked like an arcane concept I would struggle with, being myself onstage with no guidance.
But the more I looked, the more I picked at it, the more the hidden methodology came to light. You don’t have to plot the actions and reactions before you perform and then hope to embody them with feeling, you simply… you simply do them and are present while you do them. I realised that the polarity of these two creation and performance styles actually made the product of them similar in many ways. The outcome, although often stylistically different, still hoped to embody movement and emotion, narrative and performance, awareness of actions and reactions and an internal and external perspective on the performance.
The vagaries of the rehearsal room became more familiar and welcoming. I found connection in Emma’s beautiful vision of our handstand act and Lachie and Jesse’s love for each other. Everyone was under the pump; a roughly written but so-far unmade show, injuries within the company (hence my presence), Jesse fulfilling roles of both director and performer… and here’s me, badgering them all about the minutia of being yourself.
The differences, I see now, between the two styles of approaching the creation of work, are something like this:
With the first approach, you have a very direct idea and intention for the audience to receive. If that doesn’t happen, the success of the piece can be called into question. With the second approach, the intention of the piece is discovered by performer and audience alike, often in the same moment. Early on in the process, maybe in the first 50 shows or so, the intention of both styles are equally different: the first seeks to refine it’s intention, and the second seeks to discover and rediscover it’s meaning.
Something that has constantly driven me from job to job, style to style in terms of performance and circus, is curiosity. I don’t know how I’ve been lucky enough to actually get work in areas I’ve been curious about, but it’s happened consistently. This Side Up, street shows, corporate entertainment, cabaret shows, Circus Oz, fringe shows and now… the ‘artistic’ side of things. And there’s no condescension intended by the inverted commas, I assure you. For reasons that are currently unclear to me, I am emotionally effected by strange and wonderfully nebulous things onstage. And I very much want to learn how to have that effect on other people.
After the dress rehearsal 2 weeks ago, I was lost. Utterly lost. My preconceptions of everything went out the window in the first few days of rehearsal, and I was comfortable with that. But then on the night of the dress run, whatever ideas I had built up in my head of what the show was meant to be came crashing down. It was a dress run, and it was clunky, I know that. But where I would normally be able to confidently apply my knowledge of how to put a show together, suddenly I felt helpless. My tools and experience didn’t apply here. Oh dear, how unnerving.
As I made my coffee the following morning, I made a resolution: trust the show, because right now that’s my best chance at succeeding at anything. By the 5th and 6th nights, the audience were on their feet at the end. To trust a process while being relatively ignorant of it’s mechanisms was the dangerous commitment I had to make for my own sanity. And it worked.
What I do know is this: what I’m doing at this very moment is exactly what I want to be doing. That’s a nice one to go to bed at night with.
Jesse Scott on the tightwire. Photo by me and the new wide angle lens.
I just realised something: I wonder how many other completely unique and effective methods of creativity there are in the world? How many complete theatrical, movement, dance, and performance methodologies there must be floating around the world, changing people’s lives. What a thought! On that note, I think I’ve gotta do some more improvisation and more research…
Thanks for reading 🙂 I just arrived in Sweden, and it’s glorious. I’ve been slack on the blog front for a while, but I’m motivated again so prepare for me to hassle you to read more uneducated speculative ramblings. And, Please PLEASE, I love opinions so let me know what you think about anything from the content to the writing style. This is an open forum.
But Wait There’s More is Circus Oz’s brand spanking new show. And I’m here to spew my thoughts all over the place.
I saw the show twice: once after the opening night and then again a week later. The difference was noticeable, but mostly irrelevant to this blog.
But Wait There’s More is the Circus Oz I remembered from when I was a child. The same Circus Oz which revealed Jeff Kennet (then premier of Victoria) in his underwear, inside a public transport ticket machine. They had an opinion and wore it on their sleeves.
It’s a confident show in message and stance. It’s funny, because one could argue that it’s message is a bipartisan one. The battle against consumerism and obsession with celebrity are more closely linked to leftist stances, but only insofar as a general rule. It’s a presumably logical point of view that only people with vested interests would oppose such a message, left or right. Maybe there just happens to be more people on the right with vested interests in celebrity and consumerism. I don’t, however, think they are mutually exclusive considerations. The right-wingers can agree that we consume too much, can’t they?
The potential problem lies more in the delivery of the message than the message itself, I believe. The use of satire and humour are often far more effective than the sincere and heartfelt angle, especially to an Australian audience. Circus Oz’s stance on social ethics and world issues is well documented, and incorporated in to many aspects of it’s existence. Gender balance in employees is monitored, along with publicly supporting and fostering a connection with the first people of Australia. Aboriginal performers are sought, and the Blackrobats program is designed to bring racial and social unity through circus. All these things are laudable, no questions about it. I don’t need to cite examples of the pay gap between sexes or infant mortality rates in Indigenous communities to make this point clear. So, that much is known. So why the resistance to such a message? Why would people get their knickers in a twist about such a universally agreed-upon message?
Generally speaking, you could say comedy and satire are effective delivery services, especially in the context of a family friendly circus show. The danger lies when a performer becomes too genuine, too serious, or too frank. Feathers get ruffled because people might suddenly feel they are being personally spoken to, told what to do and are the subject of some sort of inquisition. Suddenly, the audience is on the back foot. Instead of looking at the act and thinking “Oh that’s clever, funny and it has a message”, the audience is now thinking “Wait, I’m not the guilty one here. And don’t talk to me like I don’t know these things either!”
What I really appreciated about this show, despite it’s infancy, is its angle of delivery in regards to its message and ethics. It’s consumable. It doesn’t make parents feel strange and kids lose interest, it’s just cheekily proving a point. The cleverness extends to acts which might not at first seem to contain strong or linked messages: hoop diving through a television screen into an alternate reality, a static trapeze teasing and prodding its tired and worn out performer… it’s nice to see. The transitions were still a little clunky, and this is sometimes where the message of the show lacked polish and punch. But it’s not like these things aren’t known by cast and crew. That’s part of putting a show together, of course.
So where does my bias in this whole thing sit? I guess I’m naturally positive toward the show and company in general, having grown up watching the company and having toured as a performer with them last year. I’m enthusiastic about the promise of new beginnings and a new cast, combined with fresh and vibrant packaging on a necessary and relevant social stance. I’m forgiving of the teething problems and injury woes that have threatened to derail rehearsals and creation, due to the aforementioned reasons. In other years, with other Circus Oz’s shows, I haven’t been as unquestioning in my attitude. I know this in myself. So why the change of heart? I may get to that later.
Matt Wilson and Lilikoi Kaos. (c) 2014
I think the question, the issue, is simply: What Is Circus Oz?
One can’t even answer that before other questions immediately arise. Even though Circus Oz are so vocal about their own identity, there still seems to be a void of notable size between some people’s expectations and the product that is a Circus Oz show. It would be a shame if people got exactly what they expected but, well, what do people want to see? something perceived as better or just something different? Are those two things just a matter of taste, and therefore irrelevant? Maybe, and maybe not, depending on your opinion of what you think is good.
So, does one need to know the Circus Oz ethos prior to witnessing the show, or is that not necessary? This question could be asked of any form of art, but it shouldn’t affect the quality of the product. It shouldn’t be an excuse as to why something isn’t right. So when a Circus Oz show isn’t up to par, people might start pointing the finger at their ethics or some other reason as a limitation to putting on a great show. For me, however, I don’t see the context of something like a company’s internal ethics as a limitation but rather just another piece of the canvas that is their art. Of course it’s relevant. Of course it’s important. But it can’t be used as an excuse.
Context of art is vitally important. Duchamp’s ‘Fountain’ is nothing without context, as an extreme example. Nirvana, if they were to produce music today, would be just another decent grunge band. This is only my opinion, mind you. It’s a priority of mine to put someone’s art into the context of their life, their beliefs and their values. Also, into the context of the value they place on the art they are creating and what their perceived audience is. This notion, understandably, isn’t every audience member’s priority. All they did was buy some tickets to the circus and they just want to be entertained, not have some leftist bullshit shoved down their socks. Well, horses for courses in that instance. If it makes some kid think twice before asking his mum for that third iPod or not be afraid of black people then I’d say it’s worth it.
For me, as I have gradually become aware of the necessity for artists to make politically and socially relevant art, I now see that as valuable. Whether or not the message is projected in the correct way is another thing, but the fact that a company like Circus Oz can still stand for the things they stood for when they were formed 36 years ago is admirable, throughout all the corporate and government funding which would (and potentially does) get in the way of a truly unconstrained artistic vision. It’s a beautiful thing, really. They’re still talking about equality, anti-corporate and anti-consumerist values which are even more pertinent to today’s world than when I heard them as a child in Circus Oz’s Melbourne Town Hall show. The ammunition is all around us for politically relevant, satirical and acerbic artistic statements.
So, we could say their message is still relevant. We could also agree that every show and cast produces it’s challenges, and that some shows have been better than others. Have they lost their way? Far from it, this year’s show has proven to many that they have in fact revived what they were perceived to be missing in recent years. The satire, the sass, the solid grounding of a great show that can entertain young and old. It’s still a bit bitsy and loose here and there but hey, it’s opening week.
Spenser Inwood before the show. (c) 2014
Another question, and probably the overarching one of this blog, is an eternal one: Can art and artist ever be separated? This is answerable in myriad ways, and everyone’s got their own viewpoint on this one. The answer though, much like the “What Is Art” question, is an opinion. Something is art because someone says it is art. Consequently, an artist is intrinsically connected to his art if the viewer says so. Nothing else. I happen to place importance on the relationship between art and artist because I feel it completes the picture. This becomes more important for me when the artist has a message to put forward.
I want to know where a band comes from, how old they are, what record label they are on, who produced the record. I want to know when and where a painting was painted, to try to put the pieces together. It gives relevance to an artist or takes it away. It’s the difference between an imitator or an innovator.
But the art should still stand on its own. A show should still be amazing, regardless (or in spite) of the director, performers or company. The art should not be just produced for art critics and artists, but the public too. This is where Circus Oz stands: producing art, with a message, for the public. Social justice, and a good time for all. These things are important, to Oz anyway. But are they important to the viewer?
I catch myself making excuses for shows occasionally, when I feel their principles get in the way of a good product. It’s because they stand for something, and that limits their choices or resources, I say to myself. Circus Oz is an easy target for somebody to say: “They have everything! They have all the money and resources, They have no excuses to not make an amazing show!” and there’s some truth in that. The other truths in this situation are related to creativity, boldness and execution, perhaps. Basically, you can have all the resources at hand and still make something a little floppy. Or you could make something that is right on the money.
This year, Circus Oz are onto something. My only criticism would be, for a show called But Wait There’s More, I was left wanting more. I wanted more of the content for which Circus Oz is known. For example, Tony Abbott was mentioned. Hooray, they’ll say something relevant now, I thought. But no. They made fun of him wearing speedos. What had so much potential for a meaningful statement in this political climate became simply an irrelevant objectification instead of a cutting criticism. Just say it! Get it out there! Let it be publicly known what we all know you feel. And do it in the comically disrespectful way we know you can.
Having said that, the positives in this area were many. What worked was the beautifully satirical nature of Matt Wilson’s character, albeit a little repetitious in places. What was also brilliant was Candy Bowers’ talent show contestant piece, a surreal parody that could have easily appeared more throughout the show. Not much was out of place in regards to individual acts, either. I don’t want to review every individual act, but I’ll say that everything contained common threads relevant to the show’s theme and message. Trick content was arguably an issue at times, but nothing that can’t be remedied with a season of incrementally upskilling while the show runs itself in.
The standout act for me was Kyle Raftery and April Dawson’s unicycle adagio. It truly was an etherial, ephemeral moment and I felt myself getting a little teary. Matt Wilson says “once you can fake authenticity you can fake anything.” but this was real.
Kyle Raftery And April Dawson. (c) 2014
So where does this leave us? It leaves us here:
Art and artists are as linked as you want them to be. What is art? Whatever you want it to be. It is an artist’s duty to put into words and onto stages what deserves to be said, for the sake of humanity. This all may seem like lofty and esoteric statements, but they’re also true. Circus Oz has always held that mantle, and they need to keep it up. But Wait There’s More is on track to being an absolutely killer show, and Circus Oz have repositioned themselves yet again as relevant and contemporary. Let’s hope the cycle continues for another 36 years.
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These were taken in theatres at the tail end of the tour, on the east coast of Australia from Cairns to Brisbane. Everyone’s pre-show rituals are different; body and mind requirements differ from show to show, and person to person. Some days you feel great. You spring into action and blast right through to the show. Other days you feel like a bruised slug, unable to get the motivation to do a single thing except stare blankly at the ceiling with wobbly eyes. Either way, you’ve got a show in 2 hours and it’s gotta be good. I attempted to capture different moods of my colleagues as they prepared for shows.
This set was taken with the Canon 6D & EF85mm f1.8.
Christian Schooneveldt-Reid and James Brown. This Side Up. 2014.
Christian Schooneveldt-Reid. This Side Up. 2014.
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A couple of days ago, as we drove from Geraldton to Carnarvon in the central coast of Western Australia, the idea of visiting Shark Bay appeared to push itself onto us. The signs appeared, then the conversation started. Slowly at first. “Don’t we have tomorrow morning off work?” was followed by “It’s only a few hours out of the way…”. It seems the decision made itself.
As we drove from Geraldton to Carnarvon in the central coast of Western Australia, the idea of visiting Shark Bay appeared to push itself onto us. The signs appeared, then the conversation started. Slowly, at first. “Don’t we have tomorrow morning off work?” was followed by “It’s only a few hours out of the way…”. It seems the decision made itself. We turned off the highway with the eventual goal of getting to Monkey Mia, a famous beach where you can feed wild dolphins at dawn. On the way to Monkey Mia was a beach which we didn’t expect and hadn’t heard of: Shell Beach.
The name really says it all. More than a hundred kilometres of tiny cockle shells, over ten metres deep, form an amazing super-salinated beach that is completely unique. With no natural predators due to it’s tolerance of the salty water, the cockle shell thrives in numbers which are unreplicated elsewhere in the world.
Crystal clear water, fish throwing themselves at your feet and just the perfect amount of warmth and sunshine.
That afternoon we ended up at Monkey Mia, where dolphins were fed and other things happened. But for now let’s just focus on the shells. We’re in Port Headland now, and it’s basically a big fucking hole in the ground surrounded by men in high-vis clothing all yelling about coal or iron or something, I don’t know. Kind of like some ground-level version of the trading floor of Wall Street. It’s all completely unintelligible anyway because of the flies buzzing around my ears and the constant barrage of trucks heading down the highway behind the 70’s motel we’re holed up in. GOD, I LOVE REGIONAL TOURING! Even in a place like this there seems to be some sort of magic. How the hell that happens, I don’t know. It’s just like watching a cartoon or something I guess. Anyway, let’s end it here.
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Kali and I checking the microphones before our first Task Force Three show in Darling Harbour.
What happens when being funny simply falls short?
Where do you go as a performer when you feel the funny leaving the room?
I’ll get to that in a moment. First, a little backstory on why I’m writing this. It’s three quarters of the way through Hoopla Festival in Darling Harbour performing a show called Task Force Three, but I’m feeling rather flat. It might just be my sore body, but more likely it’s something to do with my lousy Circus Throwdown performance last night. The Circus Throwdown was a fun circus-based cabaret competition put on as part of the Hoopla festival, and I performed a handstand act but failed to progress to the final round. I guess that’s the thing about improvising a performance, at least for me at this point in my life… I didn’t have a particularly funny or witty night, and these days that’s still a potentially hit and miss thing for me. I didn’t read the crowd well enough to make it work, so I just have to take that as a learning experience which I’m very happy to do.
The best performers can almost always make something out of nothing, but the more I associate myself with good performers the more I realise that a lot of the perceived improvisation is actually bits and pieces of known material stitched together spontaneously. That in itself is improvisation, and a learned skill, but it is also very different from truly spontaneous performance. Suffice to say that I’m still both building my arsenal of material and also building my improvisational techniques, both of which were tested and both of which failed at the Circus Throwdown.
It’s lovely to do a show like Task Force Three, which is basically a family-friendly fun piece of street theatre where three secret agents work their way through various acrobatic tasks before the final idiotic moment of unity. The show is tight enough now to have our little moments of play and then fall back on the script. These moments may be planned though; before the show, ideas might be discussed and then we throw them out there to see if they work. If they do, we have material to refine. If they don’t, we might still persist with a variant of something or maybe it’s scrapped entirely. This is obviously not groundbreaking news to anyone, but it nonetheless it’s a nice position because it gives me the leeway to work on moments of improvisation with the safety of a show’s structure to fall back on.
Last night, however, I was running a comedy act that hadn’t yet been rehearsed. It had some gags in it that I knew would work, but to create the overall mood and make it really hit home, well, that failed. I forgot some crucial small sections that would have made a big difference. It was interesting though, seeing what really worked well in the 3 minute format of a competition. It seemed to be mainly high-energy acts with spinning or loud noises and loud music. Of course, the winning performers were all brilliant. A great whip cracking act, aerial ring act and cyr wheel act were the winning three.
So just a bit of food for thought while we’re heading down this road: if I were to abandon the comedy angle, what kind of handstand act could I do which would really work in this format, given my skill level? That’s always been a strange one for me. I’m no contemporary dancer so a lot of that cool movement-based stuff is not a current possibility. I’m working on being funny, which I feel I’m getting better at. I could do a completely serious masculine act but I mostly find them boring to watch unless the skills are off the chart, so I wouldn’t really want to do that. Maybe the material was there last night, but I didn’t piece it together properly. The act didn’t really have an ending, it just sort of petered out. Maybe that was the problem.
A wise clown once told me a theory about rhythm, and about the waves of funny that happen with clowning. If something isn’t funny, that’s okay. You can break the audience’s held breath at any moment and get the funny back, you just have to persist through the not-funny for long enough. In fact, the audience is actually waiting to laugh. That’s why they are holding their breath, and as a performer you can feel that tension. And that tension is intimidating if you don’t know what it is.
This is what mostly happens when you try to be funny onstage and it doesn’t work: at that precise moment, the moment when you tried something funny and failed, you have actually just primed them perfectly for a laugh. So now’s your real chance to be funny! It’s kind of ironic, isn’t it? The point where you instinctively want to back off is the moment you should persist.
It’s easy to curl up onstage or introvert if a joke fails, but these days I’m not so affected by it. I just want to know how to get the funny back every time. So what happens when I try to be funny, but it doesn’t quite happen? It’s not the end of the world. Anyway, after writing this I don’t feel so flat anymore.
Now then, I just gotta find my funny.
A bit of afternoon shade in Darling Harbour.
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