BIZARRE ACTS
Two performances about the non-discursive
Bizarre
Acts
2 Table of contents
3-4 Introduction
5-10 Terminology
5-6 The
New Musicality
6-9 Experimentation,
Machination and Stage-Fright
10 Ritualisation
10 Linguistic Regimentation
11 Musical Regimentation
Bizarre
acts 1
12-13 Programme
Experimentation and Machination
14 Brief Description
Bizarre
acts 2
15 Programme
Machination and Stage-Fright
16 Brief Description
17-21 Bizarre acts 1
Detailed description of each work in the concert.
22-28 Bizarre acts 2
Detailed description of each work in the concert.
29 contact information
introduction
Bizarre Acts
Experimentation,
Machination and Stage-Fright
This
is a collection of short theatrical and musical pieces forming part of a two
concert programme. These two
performances explore some of the major themes behind radical avant-garde
performance art in
The
basic underlying theme of these concerts, in all its contrasting methods of
realisation, involves artistic creation and human musical expression as dynamic
processes which function as tools of human comprehension or 'machines' for
making sense of the world. The purpose
of this document is to explain the theoretical and practical realisations of
these short cabaret-style performances, such as Dadaist 'simultaneism' and short Beckettian mimes.
Two
performances result from a combination of the forms of artistic stimuli
introduced on the previous page:
[1] Bizarre Acts 1: Experimentation and Machination
[2] Bizarre
Acts 2: Machination and
Stage-Fright
The
major theme of both of these concerts is the exploration of avant-garde
artistic behaviour, although other factors also unite the concerts. Many of the works include the exploration of
musicality in a theatrical context and the adoption of narcissistic narrative
(a meta-theatrical device which involves the discourse pointing to its own
existence, allowing the audience to see the borders of its frame). Concert [1] directs the audience towards
specific movements in contemporary European performance, including Futurism
and Dada. It functions to
highlight the repressive cultural environment which forced these radical forms
of artistic expression into existence.
Concert [2], in contrast, deliberately transgresses the territory of
some of the major contemporary forms of avant-garde theatre including the Theatre
of the Absurd. The major themes in
many of the works are rethought in a contemporary context and there is no
strict division separating the concerts.
Both Bizarre Acts are involved with what I refer to as regimented
musicality, musical texts which function to restrict the way we
behave. All of these themes will be
discussed in more detail in the following pages.
Terminology
To
begin the following terms will be discussed: [I] The New Musicality,
[II] Experimentation, Machination and Stage-Fright, [III] Ritualisation, [IV] Linguistic
Regimentation, and [V] The Regimented Musical Text. Term [I] is important because the whole
notion of musicality rethought as a dynamic cultural process (rather than a
static object) to be analysed which effects the way we respond to our
world. It is the author's opinion that
musicality-interpreted as a way of thinking or a type of behaviour rather than
an object-effects the way we behave both as artists and in everyday life. The terms in [II] refer to the three major
forms of impetus that have influenced twentieth century avant-garde performance
art. The last two terms refer
specifically to the tools used by society to influence the way we think, act
and communicate with one another. After
this definition, a basic outline of the concerts is included and then a
description of each of the individual works.
The
New Musicality
Behind
almost all of the compositions of the Australian/Belgian composer Zachar Laskewicz is the notion
that musicality is process rather than product-based. I have entitled this the 'new musicality'
because it deliberately demonstrates a contrast to the view of musicality which
is perpetuated in certain divisions of our culture. Product-based realisations of
musicality involve a belief that music can be analysed in a static form, i.e.
as a score or on another permanent medium such as a CD. This stands opposed to a process-based
approach to musicality because the 'end product' (a musical act) is considered more
important than the action of music-making which leads to its production. On a practical level, however, this term has
more applications. It assumes that the complex
cognitive processes that lead to our reception, comprehension and appreciation
of music involve more than solely our hearing: we are indeed multimedial beings with five senses, and when
appreciating music we use more than just our ears. In summing up, the new musicality considers
'music'
to be far more than simply the
sound it makes: it is a tool we use with our body and minds to comprehend the
sensuous universe which surrounds us.
This is significant with relation to these concerts because many of the
compositions presented explore human behaviour in terms of musical systems,
often playing on the border separating music from theatre, using multimedial elements to create musical compositions. The new musicality basically considers the
social and communal act of music-making, i.e. what goes on in a complete sociocultural context, as equally if not more important
than the result: music is therefore 'more than the sound it makes'. Further, the new musicality allows (or even
demands) a multimedial approach to the realisation of
music. The sociocultural
process that goes into music-making involves more than just sound: the
environment, movement, smells and sometimes even taste can play an important
role in musical signification. In
relation to these concerts, 'musicality' is seen as a tool which restricts or
regiments our behaviour on the one hand, and on the
other as a dynamic tool which we use to subvert such systems of
regimentation. The way it makes use of
musicality to achieve these political goals is certainly an important aspect of
this document.
Experimentation,
Machination and Stage-Fright
In
the following paragraphs we define three terms which relate to the Bizarre
Acts: Experimentation, Machination and Stage-Fright. They refer to three contrasting types of
stimuli which result in artistic creation forming part of a process of negative
interaction. The intention of using
these terms is to demonstrate that art doesn't 'echo' life, providing some kind
of static response or commentary on what is occurring in the stimulation or
oppression of a people at a given place or time, rather that art provides a
head-on confrontation with society, forcing us to face those things we have
developed no other way to cope with. In
other words, avant-garde artistic behaviour can be a dynamic tool used by
individuals to help them understand their reality.
With
the term 'society' I am referring to the complex array of interlocking systems
formed from a combination of cognitive processes and practical
necessities. Being able to communicate
with one another through the use of signs, we are given the tools to perform
social functions and interact with one another as well as being provided with
the basic material with which we can form an image of ourselves in relation to
those around us. Society is responsible
for imposing many of these systems, resulting in certain ways of thinking or
viewing the world. Whether we like it or
not, this is a natural part of being the member of a culture. This is important to understanding the first
two of the three terms: Experimentation and Machination.
Before
we begin with the definitions of these two areas, however, I would like to
further define the bracketed adjectives preceding the
three terms in the title. These
adjectives signify the general way in which those artistic movements which took
place around the turn of the century (and which are used as source material)
have tended to receive active expression.
In other words, in terms of avant-garde art, when 'experimentation'
takes place it is often of an extreme nature.
Movements such as Futurism, Dada and Surrealism
demonstrate this. This is represented
particularly in Bizarre Acts Concert 1, including many of the short
pieces of Italian Futurist theatre and the aleatoric
compositions simulating Dadaist 'simultaneism'.
[radical] Experimentation
In the past
I have referred to 'Top-Down' and 'Bottom-Up' sources for the understanding of
artistic behaviour. If an existing
societal or ideological structure is seen as rigid or conservative, groups of
artists often begin to come together to create a code of signifiers which is
intended to provide some sort antidote to this conservatism. These artists, unsupported by society, work
from 'Bottom-Up', without the assistance of a societal ideology: they often
create their own and are seen as 'radical' experimenters. In Bizarre Acts I, experimentations of
this kind are used as a basis for the performance. This sort of artistic behaviour leads to
'Top-Down' enforcement from society, often resulting in some sort of oppression. On the same token, radical experimentation
can result in its own restriction, seeing that the means of communication
become limited when one has no boundaries to hold one back (it is an anomaly:
restriction providing freedom in its own way).
In this concert works are included which were influenced by [radical]
Experimentation, and some represent actual examples taken from experimental
literature from the turn of the century.
This includes the comic and kitsch aspect of Dada improvisation
or Italian Futurist performance.
[enforced] Machination
This
term is used in the title of both concerts.
It is used to demonstrate the thin line connecting the different forms
of artistic stimuli. In Bizarre Acts
I this element is used to demonstrate the conservative ideological forces
which result in 'Bottom-Up' experimentation.
Society applies forms of dogma-religious, natural or political-to stifle
and/or oppress artists
This is what I refer to as 'Top-Down' artistic influence. This type of oppression often results in mechanisation
or machination of the human form, often restricting artists and their
media in some way. This is justified in
terms of what should be 'natural' for the body to do or what should be good
(politically) for the society in question. Unfortunately, but inevitably, this machination
is most often 'enforced', sometimes via subtle indoctrination, sometimes via
less subtle physical methods (from imprisonment to torture). Machination, however, can result from other
cultural stimuli. Stepping outside the
codes imposed by society leaves a given artist with any number of choices about
how to control the way he or she interacts with the world. Imitating the mechanisation
of others, or realising that one's actions are not independent but rather societally imposed, can be seen as another major stimuli of
avant-garde art. I refer to this
process as Stage-Fright, and it will be explored below. The new composition DaDaDa!
(in Bizarre Acts I) comments directly upon societally imposed restriction, represented particularly in
the work of Charms who was stifled by communism. The senseless chaos of free improvisation
offered by the Dada movement in
In
Bizarre Acts II machination is used to demonstrate metaphorically the
restrictive codes imposed by society which result in the more complex
phenomenon of Stage-Fright. Here
machination is used to demonstrate how on achieving Stage-Fright (defined
in detail later on) we are led to see how controlled our lives are-the
meaningless series of rules and restrictions we follow
unquestionably-demonstrating the constant patterning of life as it passes us
by.
[involuntary] Stage-Fright
This
third source of artistic stimuli has defied, and for many still defies, clear
explanation. It has expressed itself in
many different artistic forms, including the Theatre of the Absurd and
the New Music-Theatre. The term Stage-Fright
itself is actually taken from Geertz's
interpretation of the Balinese culture, specifically the fear the Balinese have
of their 'masks' being removed showing ultimately who they really are rather
than who they have created themselves to be.
In terms of our own model, the third corner of the triangle refers to
the moment the artist, otherwise embedded in one or both of the artistic
environments described above, out of the corner of his or her eye notices that
the structures imposed either from 'Bottom-Up' or 'Top-Down' are only that, a
system of empty signifiers in the Saussurian sense, a
structure without ultimate purpose. This
brings about what I refer to as [involuntary] Stage-Fright where the intention of
the artist becomes the questioning of the very apparatus in which that
structure is created. Beckett, perhaps
the most ideal exponent of this approach to artistic expression (and whose work
is used in both Bizarre Acts) creates worlds filled with characters who
cannot communicate, or who attempt to define their reality with very limited
means. Here the theatre becomes a
frightening metaphor, expressing the fear of what would happen if we woke up
without any means to comprehend our world, facing reality without a
discourse. It should be added that the
very process of Stage-Fright demonstrates a ridiculous world with inane
rules individuals are forced to follow, and hence the coupling of Machination
and Stage-Fright. For our
concerns, then, Stage-Fright involves the fear of being faced with what lies
behind the [enforced] Machination: the menacing unknown of the Other. The
new composition by Laskewicz called [dreadful] Metronomy deals with this theme: 5 characters are stuck
in a world restricted by the beat of a metronome, every new count resulting in
a new set of restrictions to the bodies of the performers.
The
following three terms actually refer to different kinds of 'machination' of
human behaviour. Ritualisation
involves voluntary 'musical' behaviour which is an important part of interaction
with one's living environment in which we achieve some sort of communion with
our environment providing us with important significance or highlighting
certain periods, helping to represent and regiment the life we lead (which is
basically controlled by cultural factors).
Ritualisation
Of
all human behaviour, ritualisation is perhaps the
most complicated and least understood, at least in terms of psychological and
social purpose. We do understand that ritualisation provides us with structures we can use to
better understand our world, enhancing the codes which surround us, helping us
to better understand it. As mentioned
above, ritual provides us with a unique 'musical' insight: thanks to ritual,
our unconscious is also stimulated to comprehend a kind of structure which
simply cannot be translated into words.
This approach to musicality is better explained under the New
Musicality heading where music is defined in terms of what it does
rather than what it is. (process rather
than product). Ritualisation is best expressed in Bizarre Acts II, particularly
in Beckett's Come and Go which has three characters desperately
searching for ritual states, and Laskewicz's [cyclical]
Vociphony which uses the ritual structures of a
card-game to create a musical composition.
Linguistic
Regimentation
Many
of the works in this concert also involve to some degree what I refer to as lingual
regimentation. Regimentation
of course refers to the machination of human behaviour; this is
metaphorically referred to in most of the pieces in Bizarre Acts II, and
some of them in Bizarre Acts I.
We as human beings are restricted by our (lingual) boundaries. In other words we can only comprehend
completely the things we can find the words to describe. Society functions to regiment the languages
we speak through adjusting the education system, at least theoretically, and
thus lingual regimentation has been a form present in contemporary literature,
an expression of a bleak metaphor. I
refer to this as linguistic mechanisation. It is based on the understanding that we are,
at least to a degree, what we say; man is largely a by-product of language,
eternally ruled by the parameters of his or her discourse. Language is taught in the home and contemporary
psycholinguistics has demonstrated that language acquisition is involved with
dynamic interaction with the world.
Society, however, does have some say over how language is perpetuated
within culture through control over educational institutions, in addition the
control it has over forms in which literature is perpetuated, especially in
literate cultures such as our own. In
this well-known novel 1984 George Orwell presents a frightening vision
of linguistic mechanisation. It
is set in a future world where language is gradually reduced restricting the
forms of discursive expression (in the form of a language from which words are
continually erased: newspeak). In
both concerts this type of regimentation is referred to directly in a number of
works, particularly ZAUM-1 (by Zachar Laskewicz) in Bizarre Acts I and Beckett's What
Where in Bizarre Acts II.
Musical
Regimentation
These
concerts involve particularly this form of machination, a form of mechanisation
of the human form which is brought about by 'musicality' (in the new sense). As humans our environments provide us with a
constant array of contrasting forms of musicality, whether we create them
ourselves by applying musicality to our environment or they are forced upon us
by our environment (a strong example being the much loathed musical text
referred to as muzak. We are not forced to assume these forms of
musicality which function to regiment our lives in some way, but often they are
so loudly expressed that we cannot ignore their pulse, such as the rhythmic
monotony of much contemporary disco music.
Our environment creates environments where the humdrum of musicality
becomes the one and only pervasive element.
Although it isn't always the case, musical regimentation is often evoked
by society to enforce or assist the reinforcement of particular ways of
thinking and behaviour, designed for specific cultural purposes, perpetuating a
particular belief system to such an extreme that the experiencer
of the musical text is forced to move with and to learn from the text, or to
reject it. The musical restriction set
up by the perpetuation of marching texts played for the military (or even the
Salvation Army) has a very particular significance involved with its
regimentation and it is not necessarily a bad thing: feeling part of a community,
as one within a collection of people with similar intentions and goals, can be
uplifting and help us to comprehend our own role within our cultural
restraints. This explains the popularity
of a lot of regimented music such as disco music with a continuous commanding
power over its audience. In a dynamic
sense, 'musicality' is often adopted in the expression of a cultural text to
assist the communication. Here the musical
regimentation becomes a tool to help express the message, one that could be
inherent in the music or embedded in the text.
A great deal of rock music, as mentioned, is highly regimented, and a
great deal of it is uninteresting because it perpetuates continuously the same
type of message. At the same time, a lot
of pop music can communicate a message which represents a break with the
regimentation inherent in society or musical systems already in existence. Thanks to these cultural texts change can
take place. In terms of this concert,
musical representation is expressed by demonstrating the restriction placed on
one's movements by rhythmic patterns found in more traditional 'musical'
texts. This can be seen both as a
restriction and a liberation: thanks to musical
regimentation we have a frame in which our movements make sense. Many people who may very well love expressing
themselves musically in dance are unable because of the 'restriction' placed on
them by having a free choice as to which movements they would produce (such as
in free disco-dancing). Forms of folk
dance can be liberating even though the movements are very restricted. These aspects are explored in both
concerts. Laskewicz's
Zaum-2 (in Bizarre Acts I) and Meanwhile on the Tower... (in Bizarre Acts II) explores regimentation,
the latter work particularly the way we search for regimentation in our
environment any way we can. Beckett's Mime
for Two Performers in Bizarre Acts II also involves to a degree
musical regimentation or ritualisation.
Bizarre
Acts 1:
Experimentation
and Machination
Act Without
Words 1
(mime for one
performer)
by
Samuel Beckett
2. The Body That Ascends
(for five
performers)
by
Umberto Boccioni
3. ZAUM-2
(for five
performers and tape)
by Zachar Laskewicz
4. [repetitive]
Fabrication
(for five
actors)
by Zachar Laskewicz
5. Red +Violet +
(for five
actors)
by
Bruno Corra and Emilio Settimelli
6. Aria
(for one
performer)
by
John Cage
7. Weariness
(for one
performer and sounds)
by
Angelo Rognoni
8. DaDaDa!
(for 5
performers, tape and slides)
by Zachar Laskewicz
Bizarre
Acts 1:
Experimentation
and Machination
Aleatoric Expressions of Musical
Theatricality
In
this concert, the first of a series of two, radical avant-garde theatre and
music forms the basis. The term avant-garde
refers to the fact that the theatrical expressions are deliberately standing
against 'top-down' enforcement as described earlier in this document (see pages
6-8). As far as Dadaist and Futurist
artists are concerned, it was thanks to the driving force of art that
progress could be made against the distant and aloof conservatism behind the
existing systems. The Italian Futurists
confessed to glorify the future through worshipping its technology and war
machines. The Dadaists rejected
not only existing forms of art, but art itself, professing only to respect aleatory (chance processes) in its extreme form, enjoying
what came to be known as 'simultaneism' (mixed media
free improvisation). Their 'freedom',
however, formed its own restrictions: as discussed, being free to adopt all
possible human behaviour makes artistic communication, of the comprehensible
kind, highly difficult. Any meaning to
be found in the performance had to be found there by the audience. Avant-garde art typifying
this period didn't stop with this, however.
The Russian Futurists, often confused incorrectly with the
Italians, dreamed of a form of primeval communication that would transcend
traditional language resulting in the formation of musical compositions out of
words (referred to today as sound poetry). In addition other forms of linguistic
experimentation included children's language, primeval calls and other forms of
onomatopoeia. All in all, however, no
matter how varied these avant-garde reactions were, they each expressed a
similar reaction against conservative forces.
It is this basic underlying theme which is explored in this concert,
some of the works becoming infiltrated with elements of conservative
'machination' or violent reactions against it.
This means spanning the space between complete control (linguistic and
musical regimentation, typified by the new machine-like technology glorified by
the Italians) and complete chaos (aleatory, typified
by the Dada movement). The performance
style is cabaret-like in that a number of separate and short pieces are
presented which each express a different aspect of experimentation and
machination in early avant-garde art, often in a comic fashion. The concerts combines
futurist and cabaret-style aesthetics.
Avant-garde art explored in this concert explore both ends of the
artistic psyche.
Bizarre
Acts 2:
Machination
and Stage-Fright
1. Act Without
Words 2
(mime for two
performers)
by
Samuel Beckett
2. Meanwhile on the Tower. . .
(for performer,
tape and two slide projectors)
by Zachar Laskewicz
3. What Where
(for four
actors and tape)
by
Samuel Beckett
4. Pas de Cinq
(for a group
of performers)
by Mauricio Kagel
5. Come and Go. . .
(a dramaticule for three performers)
by
Samuel Beckett
6. [cyclical] Vociphony
(card-game for
8 players)
by Zachar Laskewicz
7. Quad. . .
(for four
players, light and percussion)
by
Samuel Beckett
8. [dreadful] Metronomy
(for five
performers and tape)
by Zachar Laskewicz
Bizarre
Acts 2:
Machination
and Stage-Fright
Avant-Garde Theatre and the New
Musicality
In
this second concert the primary theme involves the metaphorical expression of
both linguistic and musical regimentation.
Social life presents us with a complex array of codes and signifiers
which we are free to apply to our lives with the purpose of making our possible
behaviour and the behaviour of others comprehensible. We are not forced to use these
systems, but we (and most others in our predicament) have the tendency to
apply similar roles to doctor their behaviour as it relates to their
interaction with the outside world. This
is a natural part of human culture. One
of the unfortunate aspects is that even such a vast series of habits,
behavioural roles and other systems cannot cater to every individual, and very
often individuals feel trapped within the restrictions of such systems, not
able to find a form of expression that suits their needs. In concert one, we demonstrated how
individuals can react against this conformity-[radical] experimentation. The themes explored in this concert, however,
are not involved with experimentation.
Through interacting with the complex matrices around which we trace our
lives, some artists achieve a state I refer to as Stage-Fright. This is, as discussed on page 9, a condition
aroused when a given individual, trapped in one of the complexes of [enforced]
Machination observes that this system is but that, an empty series of
signifiers, and that beyond that awaits only the desperateness of the utter
terror of nothingness, total incomprehensibility in which one can become
lost. States of Stage Fright
often leads artists to use the stage as a horrifying metaphor of the emptiness
or loss one must face under the influence of this condition, or use it as a way
to demonstrate our own entrapment by presenting one even more restricted
reality on the stage (a highly enforced form of machination around which its
victims cannot escape). Beckett's
writing, in particular, expresses this theme, observable in the strict almost
robotic regimentation of What Where.
Other compositions covering this area include Laskewicz's
[dreadful] Metronomy and Beckett's Quad
which has performers stepping out the shape of a square on stage (being unable
to step beyond it or interact with their environment in any other way). Parody
is often used as a tool to play with our long accepted realities we create
around us with a great deal of help from our societal and social
environments. Laskewicz's
Meanwhile on the Tower. is a
particularly good example of parody used in this way: the audience is tricked
into searching for signification in an otherwise absurd setting. Another theme presented in this concert
involves the exploration of ritualised behaviour. In [cyclical] Vociphony
a card-game-a means of social intercourse and a communal ritual-is
presented and becomes the basis for a vocal composition: we are after all
players of some absurd game for which we know only the rules and not the
ultimate purpose. Avant-Garde
theatre invoking Stage-Fright, however, shouldn't only be seen as something
negative. It is thanks to linguistic and
musical regimentation that we are provided with a sense of freedom: without
them we'd lose touch with any type of reality.
This is the humanist face to Stage-Fright, something also
explored in this concert (present particularly in the Laskewicz's
Meanwhile on the Tower. and Kagel's Pas de Cinq.
Bizarre
Acts 1: Experimentation
and Machination
Description
of Individual Works
Act
Without Words 1
(mime for one performer)
by Samuel
Beckett
In this composition
Beckett creates a world consisting only of the stage, inhabited by a single
character who remains trapped in this restricted
environment. An absurd reality is
presented which constantly plays with its single character, tempting him with
various objects that he can never quite catch hold of or attain. Even if the player attempts to leave the
stage, he is only thrown back onto it.
Every gesture is an effort to realise an ultimately impossible goal,
becoming a rather unpleasant metaphor for the world which restricts our
behaviour, functioning
to question the whole purpose and ultimate futility of human
existence.
2. The Body That Ascends
(for five performers)
by Umberto Boccioni
This short and
highly absurd piece of theatre was composed by Boccioni,
a member of the Italian Futurist movement. As part of their glorification of a future
which involved increased speed and productivity, they envisaged a new and
dynamic form of theatre which involved short and powerful pieces each
communicating concise and forceful messages.
The basic functions of this dynamic and new form of theatre included
radical fragmentation of large-scale western dramatic forms, an almost utopic romanticism (especially of the image of the 'artist'
in society and the power of romantic passion), and finally the celebration of
speed and other products of new technology at the beginning of the industrial
age. This composition corresponds to
both the romantic and technological aspects of Italian Futurist theatre. In this particular work, a group of tenants
in a building wonder at a body which is witnessed ascending outside their
windows. An absurd physical phenomenon
is explained in an even more absurd context: a woman sucks him from the ground
through her glance, this becoming an expression of the futurist ethic of
extreme passion. In the context of this
concert, this composition is presented primarily as a means to demonstrate the kitsch
aspect of such over-expressive romanticism, played for laughs rather than
sincerity.
3. ZAUM-2
(for five performers and tape)
by Zachar Laskewicz
This composition is
the second part of a three part composition about a particular type of Russian Futurist
poetry based on and around 'non-discursive' language which they entitled zaumni yazik or 'zaum' in its shortened form. Russian Futurism contrasted
considerably to avant-garde art movements occurring around the same time in
different parts of
[repetitive]
Fabrication: a musical production line
(for five performers and tape)
by Zachar Laskewicz
In glorifying the
dynamics of the new technology the Italian futurists attempted to make an art
form which emulated the relatively new production-line factories which were
ushered in by the industrial revolution in the early twentieth century. Some of their theatre
works, similar in some ways to the artwork glorifying the mechanical figure in
the Bauhaus theatre, attempted to use the human body as a tool to
represent their fascination with machines. This composition, combining electronic sound
with the voice of live and prerecorded voices,
attempts to imitate some of the aesthetics aimed at by the Italians who
produced plays which emulated machinery such as the printing press. A group of five players become a construction
and a constructor as part of the same theatrical motion. Some of the performers become parts of the assembly line,
some parts of the construction itself and others the people that operate the
machinery. These roles change as the
composition develops on stage. An aural
environment combining nonsense Italian word fragments, machine noises, voices
and electronics surrounds the audience.
5. Red +Violet +
(for five actors)
by Bruno Corra and Emilio Settimelli
This is another
typical Italian futurist short and absurd theatre piece which tries to present
an aesthetically realistic form of communication in the theatre. This particular play is described as being 'a
net of sensations'. A patient complains
to his mother of terrible pain in his limbs, begging for his life. Typical of the Theatre of the Absurd and
the Italian Futurist movement, the audience becomes involved in the
performance as the actor playing the patient accuses one of the audience
members as the performance falls into chaos and the Stage Director rushes on
stage to calm the excited happening. A
final message towards the audience involves the patient pointing to the fact
that he was incorrect and that the murderer of his brother 'had one eye
less'. This short composition plays with
the frames set up in traditional theatrical discourse.
6. Aria
(for one performer)
by John
Cage
Cage, a landmark American
composer, introduced many innovations into the world of music, often crossing
the border to other art forms such as theatre.
Similar to the Dada movement, however, Cage is perhaps best
remembered for his contribution to the development of aleatory
in music (based on random or chance processes).
Reacting against the conservative systems for determining what should be
considered as the 'correct' type of musical behaviour, Cage brought theatrical
elements, 'found' instruments, graphic scores and free improvisation into an
otherwise strictly confined and regimented area of human understanding. This composition stands against all these
conservative ideals: by taking a form usually embedded
in an almost
mechanised social system (an opera aria), Cage experiments 'radically' with
graphic notation and adoption of language.
The singer of this 'aria' discovers the musical text anew at each
performance, and the audience has to attempt to find signification there
according to his or her own devices.
7. Wear
iness
(for one performer and sounds)
by Angelo Rognoni
Described as a
physical state written as a script, this short work involves a single actor on
stage and various background sounds as increasingly absurd actions begin to be
realised on stage, counterpointing the figure of an
old man on stage as he slowly falls to sleep.
This is undoubtedly intended to represent the rapid thought processes
going through the man's mind as his 'weariness' sends him off to sleep. It is a very typical piece of Italian
futurist theatre which attempts to grasp the dynamic of a moment in a
theatrical instance.
8. DaDaDa!
(for 5 performers, tape and slides)
by Zachar Laskewicz
This performance
involves primarily the work of Russian radical experimenter Daniil
Kharms. Kharms and his school helped to change the face of Russian
literature after the radical cubo-futurist phase had
had its heyday, and it is against many of the radical ideas from this movement
that Kharms and colleagues reacted against. This doesn't mean, however, that their work
was not equally if not more radical in the sense that they presented valid
alternatives to existing literary models, based on contrasting and diverse
concepts of reality and/or forms of communication. Kharms and his
school, unfortunately, came after the upheavals had led to communist
machination, and it is repression brought about by the censoring of his works
that brought about his downfall. In this
composition two discourses-forms of theatrical representation in a
temporal/spatial sense-occur simultaneously on stage. One of the two discourses represents Kharms and his irreverent but all the same unique and
important school of writing. Various
texts are performed on stage in various languages by different actors each
playing a contrasting aspect of Kharms'
character. On the other hand, communist
ideology and its accompanying machination is
represented by a 'communication' lesson which teaches the audience the correct
way to hold various forms of social intercourse. Through contact between the two contrasting
discourses, Kharms becomes entrapped like a puppet in
the almost game-like discourse representing linguistic and musical
regimentation. Bizarre Acts 1
leads the audience towards this composition which concludes the concert.
Bizarre
Acts 2:
Machination and Stage-Fright
1. Act Without Words
2
(mime for two performers)
by Samuel
Beckett
Similar to Act Without Words 1, this mime for two performers uses
conventions of avant-garde theatre to represent the restrictions life puts upon
us as we relate to our world and interact with other people. In this mime two contrasting characters exist
in a limited world, crawling in and out of sacks on a small strip of the stage
sunken in radiant light. People become
tools of expression of a 'mechanised' external reality, which they manage to
adapt to in contrasting ways (one efficiently and the other laboriously). Action on stage is stimulated by an external agent
flitting across the stage. It has been suggested
that the two characters actually play two parts of the same human entity, being
the inner and outer selves of a single being in the Jungian sense. The whole mime represents the emptiness of a
life which consists of an alternation between the two split persons of a single
character. On a small piece of stage
which the characters are restricted two contrasting characters attempt to deal
with this reality as best they can, one of the two appearing more efficient
than the other. Undoubtedly the whole
ritualised process of dressing and undressing is a metaphor for the continuous
series of tasks daily life requires of us.
2. Meanwhile on the Tower. . .
(for performer, tape and two slide projectors)
by Zachar Laskewicz
Meanwhile on the
Tower. is a composition in which the text itself becomes the musical
material. The performer, using a
selection of various communication systems including sign language, text, sound
effect and the use of images, attempts to tell a story which becomes
increasingly hard to follow as the text fragments are repeated and the story
begins to make less and less sense. The
disintegration of the text questions the purpose of the language, and the
controlling function of the musical form suggests the existence of 'musical' structures
that we are not even aware of when approaching discourse. Its primary function, however, is to
demonstrate the complex rules supporting such discoursal
structures and the way we are taught to seek signification even with the
smallest amount of significative material: we are
trained to recognise in nonsense a type of sense even though the systems used
to achieve this goal are entirely arbitrary.
3. What Where
(for four actors and tape)
by
Samuel Beckett
In this short play by Samuel
Beckett the four characters are indeed trapped in an enforced form of
machination which affects everything from their clothing to the limits of their
verbal and musical discourse. These
characters move on an off stage in a frightening regularity and according to
specified time structures. This is an
exploration of that moment of Stage-Fright one encounters on discovering
how limited one's own resources actually are as tools to interact with a world
we barely understand. This work also
poses some of the questions plaguing the existential school of philosophy
what is true human
experience? When do we actually
experience emotions? Are such emotions
only chemical states in the brain or do they contain a greater level of human
significance? This short and brutal play
doesn't relate so much to the past or the future, but relates better to a
nightmare world of constant regularity and presence. The performers,
dressed minimally and almost indistinguishably, create a Kafkaesque world in
which the same pattern repeats and an inhuman loudspeaker becomes an omnipotent
director of the stage action.
4. Pas de Cinq
(for
performers with walking sticks)
by Mauricio
Kagel
Stage-Fright also presents
itself as a strong artistic stimuli in the new
music-theatre genre, observable particularly in the work of Ligeti
and Kagel. In Kagel's important early theatre work called Sur Scène (1959-1960) essentially
'meaningless' text is framed in the context of a positively 'meaningful'
environment, that of a lecture on the state of new music. The audience, in other words, are led to
believe that they will hear something significant, but by gradually decomposing
the textual aspect musically the composer forces one to see it as an empty
institution. His work Pas de Cinq, however, involves a contrasting stage
dynamic. A 'musical' composition is
created on stage by the creation of rhythms which are tapped out by players
with walking sticks as they move between the corners of a pentagon. Comparable to Beckett's Quad
compositions (see further), these performers are trapped within the boundaries
of the pentagon, destined only to experience what is possible within that
realm. This is another clear expression
of Stage-Fright. Kagel's work represents on the one hand imprisonment within
musical discourse, and on the other the celebration of the new musicality.
5. [cyclical] Vociphony
(card-game for 8 players)
by Zachar Laskewicz
The most fitting
description would be to say that this is a performance composition involving an
exploration of the ritual function of 'games'. When we play games, we allow a
ritualised series of movements, events and words to take place, involving the
use and manipulation of certain objects and based on a strict set of rules
which affects how the performers interact with one another and treat the
concerned objects. The fact that these 'social performances' are cyclical and
repetitive, structured by socially determined rules, makes the system
comparable to that of a ritual. When players allow themselves to be involved in
such a social performance, they are already aware of the sorts of interactions
that will be taking place as well as the system of rules which will be shaping
the performance. Without this awareness, they simply wouldn't be equipped to
take part. Although each 'performance'
of a game produces alternative results, the events within the whole occur at a
predetermined pace and involve a predetermined amount of interaction. Although
the path through the game event is not strictly determined, the general shape of
the path most certainly is, and although the final result of such a game
performance (the winner of a single performer or group), the essential
structural function of game events remains the same: the performers become
involved in a social ritual which allows them to enjoy contact with one
another, to fill up time in a social manner and (perhaps most importantly) to
compete. The results of this composition are also ultimately the same. Those
involved are dealt cards, must follow strict rules of play and get the chance
both to 'fill up time' and to compete with one another. The primary result,
however, is the creation of a vocal composition created by the same stochastic
rules that result in a game event. Although every 'game'-performance is
different in its own right, the general structure remains the same, and is
expressed as the basic underlying feature of this game/composition.
6. Come and Go. . .
(a dramaticule for three
performers)
by Samuel
Beckett
Like in Beckett's What
Where this second composition for the theatre involves a similar
metaphorical expression of a world lost in its habits and rules, so much so
that characters are almost indistinguishable from one another. The one syllable names of each of the three
characters emphasises this impersonal expression of a horrific case of Stage-Fright. In this play, however, there is a more humane
aspect that comes to the fore: the individuals, although caught in strict sets
of ritual behaviour, do try to maintain some sort of contact with their world, and
the play itself climaxes in the three characters attaining some type of
togetherness, expression and a small celebration of each other's presence (no
matter how deep the play seems seeped in formalised behaviour). The character's discuss at the conclusion the
possible joy of discussing the 'old days' (an almost unknown time) by realising
a physical ritual in the present tense: holding hands in the old way. In this work, shades of the past become
present, rituals become terribly and desolately stale, almost robotic. There seems to be a past which they have some
vague connection to, but staid tradition and the habit forcing lethargy which
enforces individuals into certain practices leaves the individuals with only a
memory of what the past may have been like; stale objects with only placid
meaning. Shared feeling of grotesqueness
exaggerates this ritual expression.
7. Quad. . .
(for four players, light and percussion)
by Samuel
Beckett
In many of his
plays Beckett demonstrates the limitations Stage-Fright places on us by
having the boundaries of the stage as the boundaries of the existing world for
the characters involved in the discourse.
I refer to this type of restriction as enforced spatiality. A prime example is his short play Act Without Words 1 introduced in Bizarre Acts I: if
the character attempts to leave the stage, he finds himself only thrown back on
again, suggesting that any form of transcendence is impossible. Another unique
example of this expression of Stage-fright is his short play Quad
in which no words are spoken. Paths have only been mapped out for a number
of characters. Four hooded figures move
in a series of triangles around two sides of a square and diagonally across the
centre. Movement to the edge of the
square seems to send the players into the middle of the square, just as an
approach to the middle seems to push the players back out again to the
edge. Like comets they are drawn
repeatedly into the gravitational pull of the square, only to be flung off into
outer darkness at the end of their courses.
This is an extreme expression of the metaphor of a world filled with
rules which we ultimately can't transcend, the edges of the square forming the
boundaries for the existence of the players beyond which they will never transgress. Also possible expression of
the new musicality.
8. [dreadful] Metronomy
(for five performers and tape)
by Zachar Laskewicz
As the conclusive
work for the concert series, this composition constantly skirts on the
frightening boundary of chronic Stage-Fright. Five actors on stage are entrapped in a form
of musical regimentation from which they seem never to be able to escape. A continuous metronomic tone dictates their
every movement, and every movement becomes an expression of this deadening
rhythm. At various times possibilities
are explored of means to escape from this regimented enforcement, but the
result is always the same: the performers are drawn continuously back into they rhythmic pulse which led ultimately to their creation
within that discourse. This is also used
as an opportunity to express the new musicality in vital forms of movement and
expression as the performers attempt to make the best of their limited
environment. The following text taken
from the composition describes the metaphoric universe created within this
dreadful monotony:
"They
have always said the same,
Play
up, play up and play the game"
"Opgesloten in een cel,
Speel op, speel op en speel het
spel"
NIGHT SHADES
Music-Theatre-Language
NACHTSCHIMMEN
This
document was produced by Zachar Laskewicz
as part of a NIGHT SHADES New Music-Theatre Collective programme.
The author
can be contacted at the following addresses to enquire about
performance
details, budgeting, requirements and other aspects related to
these concerts:
NACHTSCHIMMEN
Muziek-Theater-Taal
© Zachar Laskewicz, March 2001, Australia
