Cariad: The travelling twins [first draft]

Cariad proposed an experiment to investigate the role of the gaze when dealing with a duplicated body, made from the combination of performer and puppet-object.

Everyone had to pick among a number of given puppets, puppet parts and materials, and then attach (or tie) it to their bodies.

Cariad: “It has to have some sort of form (a figure)”.

Everybody would position themselves at the end of the room where the Viewpoints exercise began and, with the start of the music, travel through the straight imaginary line ahead seeking to portray separate consciousness and agency to both parts of the composite body. This would be done while doing the task of travelling down the imaginary line.

There´s a relationship between the thing and the player, who is supposed to investigate where does the gaze go when such relationship is acquired.

COMMENT: Something must be pointed out about the structure of the command, for it suggests the search for a performing insight before the understanding of the gaze´s role. It comes from the acknowledgement that there are some complex and semiconscious strategies a performer would use to achieve a certain goal, whose efficiency would be best triggered by simply stating a goal which stimulates more imagination than technical awareness (“first try to tell the story of these two beings, and only then try to understand the gaze´s role”). This command also tries to divert the focus a bit away from the study of gaze, trying not to lay excessive emphasis which would lead the participants wrongly.

The complexity of the task, though, made it very difficult for the participants to bring to conscience these two stages of the investigation. The search for the relation-manipulation with the object seemed an intense enough task. Guess this exercise should be accompanied by careful observation, the use of video footage, or even a sense of development through more than one session. But it came out as an intense and useful resource to discuss and understand the use of gaze in modern puppetry.

After the first minutes of experiment, Cariad suggested that there should be no disagreement between the two counterparts, stating that “both want to get to the same place”. This command came from the fact that many players used the resource of raising disagreement to show difference. It not only revealed itself as an “easy way”, but also engaged some participants into scenic routines that diverted from the main purpose of the experiment, which was to explore the double agency rather than look for comic situations.

So, the participants should still be travelling towards the same destination, but split into two different consciences (“when you reach the end of the room, go back and start over”).

The first round of observation of the experiment raised a couple of questions that shall be preliminary posed. It must be noted that due to the positioning of the camera it was only possible to record the experiments conducted by Mario and Marie. Both Chusi and Valeria were out of the camera range. Cariad was engaged in observing and conducting the experiment.

a)      It seems to be easier to understand the dissociation between performer and object the easier it is to distinguish and recognize the puppet´s SHAPE. Although it may not to be mandatory, I guess it is fair to say that shape may be the primary feature for distinguishing between the two stances. A human (or animal)-like puppet is said to provoke this dissociation feeling faster and easier than other types of playing materials. It must be pointed out that we are dealing with a matter for which SHAPE and MATERIALITY are of essence;

b)     As we move further from the figurative portrayals of human and animal, the observer tends to cling to the role played by the FOCAL SOURCE of the object. The more functional this focal source is, more likely we are to perceive an anthropomorphic quality of the being, or to recognize its agency. Anyway, the mere shape of a possible focal point (eyes, head, a head-like part, an upper edge) can be enough to suggest a potential consciousness;

c)      It does not mean that it can´t be done with abstract forms or raw material, but it becomes quite harder for the player to suggest it, for it is needed to imbue the object with a determined quality of MOVEMENT. A movement able to portray agency must have three qualities: TENSION, a certain degree of tonus and resistance; INTENT, which is the belonging to a given context and a display of perception-reaction; and ORIGIN, the impression that it is originated from within the material, and not by the performer-manipulator;

d)     BUT WHAT ABOUT GAZE? The hypothesis is that the gaze follows the structure of visual perception, in a way it is both dynamic and builds up images from fragments of visual information. It has different approaches on three different elements of the performance, which are: the object-puppet, the performance artist and the audience. It “fills the gaps” of the information on stage. Much more about it must be discussed.

FINAL DESCRIPTIONS AND CONSIDERATIONS TO BE POSTED

Chusi: The Viewpoints

The dynamics proposed by Chusi was directly taken from Bogart and Landau´s Viewpoints. The fact that the sequence of experiments were already taken from a previous work system, it created a sense of continuity and also allowed the group to relate its flow and objectives for puppetry in a rather clear way.

It is a sequence of experiments quite familiar to anyone who had ever been in touch with the VPs, as briefly as it could be. Here follow the exercises, combines with some comments:

PART 1: The walks

      a)     It was asked the group to walk around the room, with a brief stop to adjust spinal positioning (erect, though relaxed), direction of the eye (straight). NOTE: The whole group (Cariad, Marie, Mario and Valeria) was engaged on the exercise, with Chusi orienting from outside.

       b)     While walking in the room, anyone could stop and resume the walk when and as they want;

     c)     Next, the group was told to explore different walk speeds by themselves (without being influenced by anyone else);

     d)     The exploratory walk could incorporate both change of continuity and speed, as before, but now everyone should be aware of the negative space, or: the matter of the surrounding space and the way the room is filled;

      e)     Now everyone should try, as they walk, to be aware of everything happening in the room: how far one is from a wall, who is passing behind you, where is everybody and what are they doing;

     f)      Now, as everybody walks, they should try from time to time to follow someone, by either copying or reacting to the other´s walk;

      g)     Whenever anyone crosses my way I must change the intention or the way I walk;

      h)     Now try to walk as if you were in a bubble; if no one could affect or be affected by the actions of the other.

The exercise deals with the effect caused by other people´s actions and reactions. Deals with the permeability of actions and the way people respond to the environment. At first is created a walking repertoire (a, b & c) and then, through stages d & e, an awareness of the surroundings is gradually brought to conscience, until it is assumed in stages f & g. Stage h (in a bubble) is a display of how difficult it is to go back – or to merely leave – to a stage of unawareness of the surroundings – to a non-responsive stage.

In a brief talk after this experience the group agreed that it is hard to simply “be in a bubble”, but also that something happened differently than when reacting to the group was mandatory.

ABOUT GAZE: It became quite clear that we tend to be responsive to the environment, even when we do not engage our eyes on this perceptive task. This responsiveness is something we can´t help, and it is also a perceptive hint of something´s independent life. More about it will be addressed below.

PART 2: Walking the line

The group was put side by side at one end of the room. From a certain moment, anyone could do the following movements: move ahead, move back, jump, lie down.

     a)     The group perform the movements by their own, without any guidance from any member of the group. Anyone can begin the exercise when want, and may combine his movement in a desired fashion;

      b)     All movement must be made in relation to another person. “Someone else” would decide when to start and all changes and decisions on movements must be done as a “response” to someone else.

The first difference noticed between parts a and b of the exercises concerned timing. There were more pauses. The movements took longer to start and there were moments when nobody moved followed by blasts of movement. But I guess that the main alteration concerned tension and tonus. The pauses were filled with anticipation and the movement relationship tended to portray some kind of a dramatic tonus.

This brief experiment, though it only “scratches the surface” of possible collaborations between Viewpoints and Composition for puppetry training (as most organized training systems can), it seems to deal with a main subject, which is the one concerning the ability for perception-reaction as a fundamental index to independent life.

The training for perception and reaction from environmental stimuli, that is also present in other training systems, such as the neutral mask, approaches the matter of gaze in at least two different directions:

a) from the puppet: the gaze is close to the perceptive-reactive apparatus that moves in both ways of perceiving the outside world and portraying the impression of inner existence to the audience.

b) from the puppeteer: awareness as specific understanding of gaze (Bogart uses the sense of hearing instead of sight, as she presents the “Extraodinary Listening”), talks about an overresponsive state, in which matters of space, material and time shapes the reactions and meanings to the performing actions.

This must be addressed in more depth.

An interesting discussion to be conducted should be the fact that through gaze it is possible to perceive autonomous life, at the same time that gaze is one of the main perceptive bonds an entity stablishes with its surroundings. The impression of autonomy is, in a way, related to the responsiveness to the surroundings that determine the actions one may produce. The more a character is bound to what it reacts to, the more it displays autonomy.

Chatting about gaze and definitions

IMPORTANT: None of the quotelike parts in this post are literal. They are condensations and interpretations of the actual lines, which can be found in the link to the footage of the meeting, previously posted.

After these two first experiments, the group gathered for a brief discussion.

Mario mentioned the importance of the game because it demonstrates and practices the principle of focus of the puppet.

Cariad said that the experience has a more metaphoric meaning to her, once it is somehow related to the space between the performer and the material, and about building inseparable bonds between them at the point one could never exist without the other.

Then she addressed more specifically the matter of gaze, asked: 1) how could we have a focus difused gaze? Some kind of environmental gaze, which is more difused, but capable of drawing attention at the same time (could it have anything to do with the VP´s soft focus?); 2) When does the internal gaze becomes the external gaze?

About it could be argued that an internal gaze concerns to the attentions and feelings towards the acting-manipulating jog, and the external gaze is the result of portraying a lifelike performance that arises from this commitment.

Chusi asked if for this exercise (the rope) the created puppet had to portray a recognizable body structure. A resposta é não, mas Cariad adiciona:

You can explore materials to the end of the world, and the audience might find it really boring, and the you go like this (picks up the rope in way it portrays a body and a head), and the audience clicks. The audience wants to make sense out of it. But it´s kind of a challenge because it limits us, because coming up with this kind of form is something of a “quick solution”.

Marie argues that sometimes it could be harder to make the audience believe in the “life” of the puppet according to its shapes and ways of blending with the performers body. Cariad says it´s ok, and that this belief may not be mandatory. She mentioned the work of a dancer called [Mikkel Bastelot] (Note: I haven´t found any reference of him, or his precise name), who mixes his performance with materials without the need to suggest independent life.

But then: how do we define puppetry?

Mario: whenever I exercise over this question I end up thinking what is the point of trying to do so.

Cariad: We are coming to a point in which puppetry is belief. It may have something to do with ritualistic behavior of religious images and statues.

Marie mentioned a show she saw in which the actors didn´t relate to the puppet-object characters in way to insert them in the action of more than a kind of demonstrative way. Mario mentioned a show he saw in which the puppet characters that shared the stage with the one actor were treated by him in such an intense way their presence could be felt by the audience, although there was no illusion of independent life shown through their looks or their movement.

Maybe it has something to do with gaze…