Preparing our meeting on gaze

For the practical meeting, it was asked to each group participant to propose a game, experiment or dynamics concerning the discussion about the importance of the gaze in puppetry dramaturgy and training.

As an attempt to help the group to come up with the propositions, here follows some questions that could be of some use. The propositons doesn´t need to be related to the questions; these are mere provocations.


1. How can we draw attention away from us by using our own gaze? And how do we take it back? What does it say about the audience´s attention?

2. How could we tell a story with objects and other materials without touching them? How do we make gaze to be of more, or at least same, importance as speech?

3. How can we give and take the impression of life from an object (puppet) with (both puppet´s and puppeteer´s) gaze?

4. What does the absence of eye contact between puppet and puppeteer may tell us?

5. How can we be at different times and spaces by using gaze?

The Post Office, by Rabindranath Tagore (2012). UFU Theater Course

Focus as a storytelling technique

I think we should proceed discussing the gaze as a dramaturgic device, since last post touched the subject in its final lines. Maybe a fine way to start could be quoting (in its entirety) Patrice Pavis´ Dictionary of Theatre definition of Focalization:

                                                                                                                                                              

Stress placed by the author on an action according to a particular point of view, in order to underscore its relevance. This essentially epic device (GENETTE 19722; BERGEZ, GÉRARD and ROBRIEUX 1994) also applies to theatre, as the playwright, theoretically absent from the dramatic universe, actually intervenes in the development of the conflicts and individualization of the main characters, subordinating the rest to the focalized elements. Focalization influences the character´s point of view and thus, indirectly, those of the playwright and spectators.

On stage, focalization is often achieved by directing a spot-light on a character or place to draw attention to them “in close-up”. The close-up, a technique borrowed from film, is not necessarily done with lightning. It may be produced through the way the actors look at another actor or an element of the stage, or through a foregrouding effect. The enunciation of the staging is what brings out (or “frames”) a particular moment or space in the performance.

PAVIS, Patrice. Dictionary of the Theatre. Terms, concepts and analysis.

Toronto: Toronto Press, 1998.

As a fact, there is a great number of ways to organize and select the sequence of subjects displayed to build a play's narrative. Since the theatrical arts do not share the accurate techniques of framing and composition seen on photography or video, for it develops in a far more simultaneous environment, such resources are not only useful, but fundamental.

But I guess there are two specific moments in Pavis´ definition that are particularly dear for our discussion, being the first one the mention of focalization as an “essentially epic device” and, quite obviously, the mention of the actor´s look as a resource to produce what he calls “close-up effect”.

Dramaturgy in puppetry is mostly epic (and I write mostly not being able to remember any non-epic example), for the very nature of the puppet performance suggests the existence of a leading counterpart, even if it´s hidden. No matter how well hiddden it is.

When the performer is at the sight of the audience, his look can work as an instance that organizes the narrative, in at least two main ways: to give emphasis to certain subjects on the simultaneous theatrical scene – as well as to suggest a temporal (epic) progression to the shifting of the emphasis, as the focus changes over time; and to perform combinations between different levels of time, space and reality, as the puppeteer can with the control of his gaze, be at the same fictional level as the puppet-character, be at a space and time completely different from the character´s, and also portray that the puppet is other or same to he or she.

Here follows some visual examples for this rather quick explanation:

Cia Truk´s - Vovô (Grandpa). Focus on the puppet as stress on the scene subject.

PeQuod Theater - Sangue Bom (Nice Blood!) and Catibrum Puppet Teater - Homem voa?.
Both puppet and puppeteer share the character´s reaction.

PeQuod Theater - Peer  Gynt (rehearsal). Puppet and puppeteer share the aim of the focus.

El Chón Chón - Juan Romeo & Julieta Maria. Puppeteer acts along with the puppets.

The main point of this post is to emphasize the fact that gaze isn´t just a matter of manipulation technique, but that it´s also a dramaturgic resource, a writing technique.

First thoughts on focus and gaze in puppetry

The issue of directing the eye, or placing focus through gazing, is a major subject on puppetry training, but its debate and practice seems to be mostly placed on the puppet´s gaze, rather than in the puppeteer´s (at least from where I´m looking at it). As a fact, sometimes it´s somehow hard to discuss these two focus sources separately, and the use of this separation remains to be proven.

I would like to start mentioning the gaze as a technique for displaying signs of the puppet´s independent life:

Puppetry uses an understanding of the word focus related to a technical principle spread through rehearsal spaces that means, in general terms, the ability that the puppeteer has to make the puppet show perception and sensibility. Beltrame explains this notion when stating that “the notion of focus can be exemplified in moments which the puppet projects its look towards the object or character it acts with” (Beltrame, 2009, p.292). This is an important quality to the perceptive dynamics of the puppet, once being able to address properly to whom one interacts, or to react properly to whatever calls one´s attention, helps building the imagination of autonomy of the puppet, what allows it to develop onstage interactions (Piragibe, 2011, p. 154. My translation).

The ability to look and pay attention shows in fact more about the existential independence of the puppet than just stating the it can see. There´s far more to be noticed about the object as subject through its focusing ability, as states Paul Piris:

'[...] The eyes give the sensation of the puppet´s subjectivity and visual agency, as opposed to being a subject of visual gaze' (Mrázek, 2005: 35). The puppet is more than a thing that can be seen; it is also an apparent subject that can see. The gaze of the puppet reinforces the separateness from the puppeteer by stressing the dramaturgical presence of the latter. The visible presence of puppeteers on stage does not imply that they have a dramaturgical presence. However, if the puppet looks at tis manipulator and the latter responds to his gaze, the human performer appears as part of the actuality of the puppet (Piris, 2014, p. 37).

Thinking of the puppet as something you can´t simply look at, but something that may be looking back at you comes as the result of a deceiving technique that may redefine its perception dynamics. Not simply an object to be perceived and interpreted, but something that lays between semantic keys.

Sight control, as applied to the puppetry performing artist, can be a tool used to stress the ambiguity between him and the puppet he operates on sight, but can be also a device for a far wider form of manipulation.

Maybe we should be looking at sight (or focus aiming) as a force that gives and shifts meanings on stage. As something that can organize the performance narrative through manipulating emphasis; that can join or separate things in different fictional layers; that can suggest movement or existential independence. The eye is a string-maker (a weaver).

O princípio do Espanto (The principle of awe). Morpheus Tetatro, São Paulo, Brasil.

Meeting 2

Our second meeting took place on the 12th of june, 2017, at the RCSSD´s Puppetry Studio, with the following presents:

Cariad Astles
Chusi Amoros
Marie Klimis
Mario Piragibe
Valéria Gianechini

First, it was discussed topics about objective arrangements, like the booking of a larger workroom for practical studies and the use of a CSSD camera for recording the meetings. It was also agreed that our next presencial meeting would happen on the first week of July, in date and time yet to be confirmed through email exchange.

It was also decided that our next meeting would be a pratical study on the topic (chosen from three provided) of the focalization of the eye (glance, look) as a technique for the puppeteer. In the meantime, the group will conduct a discussion on the matter from the blog, also inviting the eventual reader to participate in the comment session.

As a first attempt to begin the discussion, it was appointed some initial supporting articles, that  are also meant to take part in a larger list of referential works for the studygroup. Group members and readers are invited to appoint any other material that could be of use.



PIRIS, Paul. The co-presence and onthological ambiguity of the puppet. in: BELL, J.; ORENSTEIN, C.; POSNER, D. The Routledge companion to Puppetry and material perfomance. New York: Routledge, 2014. pp. 30-42.

BASS, Eric. Visual Dramaturgy. Some thoughts for puppet theatre-makers. In: BELL, J.; ORENSTEIN, C.; POSNER, D. The Routledge companion to Puppetry and material perfomance . New York: Routledge, 2014. pp. 54-60.

OPHRAT, Hadass. The visual narrative: stage design for puppet theatre. e pur si muove: UNIMA magazine, year 1, no.1. Charleville-Mézières: Institut International de la Marionnette, 2002. pp. 31-3.

BALARDIM, Paulo. Relações de vida e morte no teatro de animação. Porto Alegre: Edição do autor, 2004. BARBA, Eugenio & SAVARESE.

PAVIS, Patrice. Dictionary of the Theatre. Terms, concepts and analysis. Toronto: Toronto Press, 1998.

Meeting 1

30, may, 2017

RCSSD Puppetry Studio

Present

Chusi Amoros

Cariad Astles

Marie Klimis

Mario Piragibe

Discussion:

In our first meeting, we discussed the creation of the Studygroup, pointing out that it should be a place to welcome different approaches and desires concerning the work of the performer in the context of contemporary puppetry and related arts. It should also be a place for both conceptual discussion and practical work.

A couple of statements and questions that rose from the conversation were:

Cariad:

Being mostly interested in puppeteers; how they work and how they retain and transmit their professional knowledge

Chusi:

Mainly interested in movement;

What is the perfect formula to have a “mover”/ performer with all the skills they need to make explorations with no limits and obstacles?

But also, not only to have a skilled performer but a maker/creator that can improvise and devise.

Learning techniques and creating your authentic expression as an artist.

Mario:

Thinks of Puppetry as a kind of crossroads for mixed performing arts, for it seems that the performer ends up showing a kind of a puppeteer´s approach to materials and space when in a context of mixed performing arts (dance, theatre, performance, material performance)

Understands that there could be a somehow similar approach to puppetry when a performer (in aerials, for instance) is faced with dealing with his own body in sets and dispositions that are different than the usual display of the human body in regular physical conditions (gravity, balance, impulse).

Mentioned some experiments on modern shadow theatre where the possibility of creating body images detached from the gravitational bind to the ground allows to invest in other ways of composition, scale relations and deformations.

Artists and companies mentioned:
Cie. Phillipe Genty

Ilka Schonbein

video: Paysages  Intérieurs (teaser), by Cie. Philippe Genty