I would like to capture one moment and make it music. Fill the whole space and transform it as music does.
As deep as music goes and as far.
And yet it seems impossible to do music without music.
Music as a state of mind, as an impulse for extreme sensations.
May be poetry is the art that goes closest... may be... the usage of poetry...

Some weeks passed as if a long time, longer than just a few weeks, had separated the begining of this group project from its outcome. Some weeks which were marked in the begining by getting to know each other, being careful of words and actions, lots of thinking and discussing of many and different ideas, and by the end were lived through to the point of long hours of group work, building sets, videos, costumes and most of the time joyful conversations and laughter.
All of this summed up to 30 minutes on stage. 30 minutes of what seemed like an interested crowd being led through the theatre to see our piece on Roland Barthes. After 30 minutes, after exhibiting the work it was all destroyed and trashed.... seems like a good therapy. Zen work.
The process was the most important, more important than the short 30 minutes. Not due to the time it took but due to the learning and the exchange of ideas. It is true that we, as a group, did not cross the line of intimacy needed for someone to stand up and claim for order, or simply make decisions fast. We were usually too careful of each other (but I do not think in such a short time things could have happened differently). The learning through the exchange of ideas as well as the building of the space were the most important things (and by the building of the space I mean everything within it: puppets, costumes, sound and videos).
As for the performance I could not see much. Most of the time we were backstage or had our backs to the audience. At one point, however, as I turned around for the puppet handling I saw things had not gone exactly as we had planned. There were people every where. They were not in the back as we had imagined. Was that a problem? I thought it would be, for I wandered how much they could see, where would they look at with so many things going on. Talking to pelople afterwards though it did not seem to have bothered them and most people seemed to have enjoyed it. Through my enquiring I could not find out if they had actually understood the narrative!

Now it will be strange to go back to our own personal project. To our spaces within the studios and to the way time had passed before.

Group work
Today the whole group was working very hard.
Today was a day of accomplishments since everything seemed to be moving on the same pace and everyone was doing it together. In groups, smaller groups, but today it felt like something was happening groupwise in a new and very good wavelength. It was a tiring but very, extremely fulfilling day!

WAVES
The waves is an incredible performance!!! Two hours and a half of thrill.
Wonderful use of text:
The way the text is read directly from the book makes its presence stronger. The presence of the words as they were written as Virginia Woolf intended for it to be read and one almost forgets the editing done for the play. The way it is read is dynamic, with one narrator speaking in a very propper English and actors reading for each different character a different voice.
Details:
The fragmentation which happens in space makes every detail, and the perception of details by each of our senses (hearing and seeing especially) very vivid. It is impressive the care given to detail. Once all these fragmented elements are brought together on the screen, through live filming which magnifies actions on the stage almost taking them out of context, it is as if one was watching a movie, and it is all so subtle that no words can describe it. It is perfect.
The end:
Once one leaves the theatre with such good impressions, with a mixture of feelings for the words, for the characters, for the recently lived experience and has to go to the tube on the way home, one has a very negative shock. You go in and hear once again "if you forget to touch in and out your oyster card you will pay the maximum cash fair" and once again and once again and one wishes to be back in the theatre seating and looking down at the empty black box which will soon be in use again for inspiring a new set of audiences, with new expectations, who might come out longing for the same words again.

The lions
Friday was a big day and I survived!!! Only one week later do I find time to write about this and there is already so much more to speak of! The pictures from my last post are the pictures of my experimentation.

Impressions and a few important comments:
It was not a good idea to show only the recording of the installation, the changing of media, as it was well observed by one person present at the crits, is negative for the presentation of the work in many senses. One because it is hard to understand from the video what was actually done in space. Second because it loses in proportion and therefore, inevitably, loses meaning. Third because the viewers are sepparated from the work in a way that the impressions drawn from it are actually being drawn from an entirely new video work which was not meant to be.
What I could see from the various reaction I had is a need to focus on one aspect of the various ideas I have been looking at. I have to define a theme. This experiment was important for seeing some of what works, some of what I would like to work with differently, but I did throw many things in there at the same time and those need to be refined. The purpose, the idea, and the elements need to be refined. It is words, it is image, it is space. It is what is between the lines and how it expands into air. This is the first choice, then I need to choose what words, what lines and how they come out and conquer, modify and inhabit space.
Last but not least: who am I speaking to? Who do I actually want to speak to and why?

The pictures are stills of the space created through the use of many texts. There was a speaker as well. There was the reading of a text which could not be published in the blog.