ACTR 2015 - Practical Artistic Research Workshop - Call for Participants

[Yana Meerzon]

Workshop with Daniel Mroz, University of Ottawa:

Warmth is Memory, History is Imagination, Performance is a Palimpsest.


Call For Participants

This is a practical workshop for practitioners and theorists interested in exploring a specific approach to the role of memory in performer preparation and performance composition. No previous experience is required. Participants are asked to wear clothing suitable for movement. A maximum of 18 people may participate in this 3-hour long workshop. A few places remain, please apply quickly by contacting Daniel Mroz: dmroz at uottawa.ca<mailto:dmroz at uottawa.ca>

Abstract:

This practical workshop will problematize the role of memory in the context of the two principle preparatory activities undertaken by performers, psycho-physical training and physio-vocal training. Participants will be introduced to two different practices one codified, traditional and relatively ancient and another that is personal, original and contemporary.

The traditional practice that will be shared is a choreographed set of restorative movements and visualizations named Peng Qi Guan Ding Fa, literally “the method of lifting qi up and pouring qi down”. It serves to open up and ‘dredge’ the channels of the subtle body as it is conceived of in the Chinese somatic practice of Qigong.

The contemporary practice will be the composition of a physical score. Participants will learn physical positions, build transitions between them and create a flow of movements. They will learn to modulate that flow with impulses and deepen the associations created by the pathway from impulse to action.

Following the practical work, these two experiences can be productively compared, contrasted and reflected upon.

Detailed Description:

 ‘Warmth is Memory’ is an expression drawn from embryology in pre-Communist Chinese medicine. When we are functioning ‘normally’‚we experience our embodiment as warm, able to receive nourishment and able to nourish others. The warmth of our embodiment is a manifestation of our ancestral energy or ancestral ‘qi’, a memory of the preferences and behaviours that produced us that is open to change and development even as it provides the determining source or yuan of our being.

 ‘History is Imagination’ here refers to the findings recent research with respect to memory. From what we currently understand, memories are not retrieved so much as they are imagined afresh with each instance of recall. Thus our personal histories, so often decisive in our work as artists, are far more imagined, sculpted and potentially free than we think and thus can express possibilities other than those our fatalism usually applies to them.

Ian Watson insightfully describes the activities undertaken by performers in training and preparing performances in terms of psycho-physical and physio-vocal work. Psycho-physical work relates to the creation of credible acting impulses, those subtle patterns of pre-movements and breathing in which the bodily action of the performer is embedded. Physio-vocal work refers to the development of performance specific skills with the body and voice, particular aesthetics of movement, of song and of vocalization.

I correlate Watson’s categories to two related but distinct sources. Psycho-physical work often refers to memories derived from the performer’s personal life on the one hand and to their memory of art-works on the other. Physio-Vocal work usually derives from a more pedagogical set of memories that are focussed on apprenticeship. The activities of physio-vocal training are more often codified and come with an overt lineage and clear external requirements of practice.

In the evaluation of the artistic proposals of both actors and directors, both in general and within the particular lineage of European modernism that I was trained in, the relationship between a credible acting impulse and an authentic personal memory is considered to be decisive. In almost every lineage that descends from Stanislavsky (Grotowski’s, Vassliev’s, the various American approaches that bear Stanislavsky’s name if not his imprimatur) accessing primordial and definitive memories is presented as the royal road to credible, compelling performance.

However, we have before us both a contemporary and a traditional view that suggest that memory might behave quite differently from how our forbearers imagined. For pre-Communist Chinese medicine, memory is not the contents of one’s recalled past but the actual fact of embodiment itself. For contemporary research, memory seems to be a highly suggestible invention of the imagination and in no way the resuscitation of an Ur-experience.

Thus I’d like to propose that performance, from the pragmatic perspective of the artist, is a palimpsest of ‘memories’ combining invented and reinvented ideas, events and sensations.

In order to examine these ideas from a practical standpoint in our workshop we’ll look at activities both psycho-physical and personal and ones that are physio-vocal, coming from specific traditions of physical training.

The first exercise we are going to do is an introductory qigong practice. Qigong, which means ‘energy work’, is a discipline from China that is derived from the intersection of spiritual, health and martial arts practices. It is a very recent term for a very old activity. At the same time, like contemporary Hatha Yoga which is usually presented as a venerable form, much of what is described today as ‘ancient’ Qigong is quite recent and dates from the late 19th century.

The practice we are going to do today is part of a very developed system called Zhi Neng Qigong, or Wisdom Qigong, which was brought to Montréal in the 1990s by my grand-teacher, Liu Yan Ming. The set we are going to do together is called Peng Qi Guan Ding Fa, literally: the method of lifting ‘qi’ up and pouring ‘qi’ down. It serves to open up and ‘dredge’ our energetic channels.

The next activity is the composition of what is called a physical score. This is usually based on some sort of concrete task. In this case, we’ll be learning particular positions, building transitions between them, creating a flow of movements, modulating that flow with impulses and deepening the associations created by the pathway from impulse to action. This way of working was developed by the performers of Eugenio Barba’s Odin Teatret and I learned it from Richard Fowler and the actors of Primus Theatre.

I hope this phenomenological investigation has been fruitful for you. As you can tell from my interests (Qigong, The Great Reform of European Art Theatre) I am quite convinced that some pathways are more fruitful than others, or more accurately, that many pathways are seriously misnamed! But I’d rather not impose my conceptual framework on you. I’m interested in your reflections, no matter how preliminary, on this experience.

Biographical Note

Daniel Mroz is a theatre director and acting teacher. Devoted to the creation of contemporary performance he currently leads Les Ateliers du corps, a theatre training and performance studio in Ottawa, Canada. His work has been presented by the Évènement Zones Théâtrales (Ottawa), the Canada Dance Festival (Ottawa), the Rhubarb Festival (Toronto), the Summerworks Festival (Toronto) and the Catskill International Festival of New Theater (New York). He has directed and taught professional actors, dancers, directors and choreographers in Canada, the United States, Great Britain, France, Turkey and China. His creative work can be seen at www.dancingword.org.

Daniel apprenticed as a performer under Canadian director and acting teacher Richard Fowler and his company Primus Theatre from 1993 to 1997. A student of the Chinese martial arts since 1993, Daniel is a 20th generation lineage holding disciple of Chen Taijiquan under Chen Zhonghua. He also holds an instructor’s diploma in Qigong under Kenneth S. Cohen with whom he has trained for over a decade.

Daniel earned his PhD in the practice of interdisciplinary arts from the Doctorat en études et pratiques des arts of l'Université du Québec à Montréal. He is presently an Associate Professor in the Department of Theatre of the University of Ottawa. His book The Dancing Word : An Embodied Approach to the Preparation of Performers and the Compositions of Performances (2011) is published by Rodopi Press in the series Consciousness, Literature and the Arts.



Daniel Mroz, Ph.D.
Directeur des études de deuxième cycle en théâtre
Director of Graduate Studies in Theatre

Professeur agrégé
Département de théâtre
Université d’Ottawa

Associate Professor
Department of Theatre
University of Ottawa

道教藝術
www.dancingword.org



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