DEVISING WITH MUSIC

Workshop with David Brett and Jon Oram

This full day workshop devising with music and sounds, inspired movement and improvised scenes. 
A group of eighteen explored what images and sounds they could make with 10 feet poles. They first stood in a circle with the poles angled down to the centre and slowly raised them till they created the same shape reversed, poles ends meeting at the highest point in the centre of the circle, reminding us of ancient round huts. We played with the sounds of poles clicking together. The circle led to devising part of the  “ceremony of dousing and the birthing of the stone children” One could imagine a mother in the centre of the circle digging for her child. The group then passed poles round in a circle hand- to- hand in a rhythm finding a synchronised moment to beat  the sticks on the ground; and another moment to change direction from clockwise to anti clockwise. In the next exercise we found choreographed rhythms

The group then progressed further an idea from last Tuesday's devising workshop, finding out how the stones speak to each other. We found different pitched voices using combinations of large, medium and small stones and discovered stones can chatter, laugh, argue, get angry, flirt. It became natural for people to take the feelings the stones gave down into their bodies. Jon then led pairs in discovering scenes using the idea that the dialogue of the stones could either impelled you towards your partner, repel you away, or compel you stand still. They created funny and moving scenes, arguments and status exchanges. One exercise involved four people communicating with stone tapping and instructed to make friends with two other people, It was touching and moving to see and hear them jostle for positions as they realised that one person would be ousted from the group.  We were encouraged that we could tell stories an show complex relationships  in a language the audience could understand.

We took Sonia Lawrence's poem Digging is Obligatory (See comments 5th May Blog) and read it as a group one word at a time, then in pairs with the same exercise tried making it sound like natural speech. It proved impossible but gave each word equal weight. We read as a group again, two lines at a time. In smaller groups of five we composed a performance of 5 lines each exploring rhythms, expanded gestures, seeing what could heightened what sung, whether lines we spoken in unison or repeated, Each groups five lines contributed to a performance of the whole poem.  

We sang African, Inuit and Sioux songs and created a musical soundscape to accompany some potential movement states of tension - molding (moving like clay); floating, flying  (a state of fear or flight) and radiating energy ( strength, spirituality, reflecting the oracle

Thanks to Michael Lawrence for this picture of some of the group creating a soundscape. We want to encourage all of you to draw and send pictures of moments in workshops, or from stories in the blogs along with a title so that we can create a storyboard. The pictures will be an aide memoir of the highlights of the devising - it will guide is in deciding scenes and their order when we come to composition workshops.

Send your drawings, pictures or photo's by E.Mail to
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DEVISING WITH MUSIC

These notes on are based on those I sent David Brett our Music Director. They are some early thoughts on how music might benefit the devising process and be employed in performance

I'd like the music to be an essential influence not just in creating songs and a *soundtrack for the show, but using it to devise the play. We need to brainstorm ideas together but here are a few ideas and thoughts to start us of. I see the music it as a tool for setting up the right rehearsal environment, inspiring theatrical scenarios, offering inspiration through lyrics and compositional content, providing structure for improvisation sessions.

*I'm using the  term "soundtrack" because I think for some scenes we will be aligning the music with the action and in some  cases direct choreography. 

I think the music could influence the structure of the show especially running time scenes. I estimate most  scene will last approximately 3 1/2 minutes, about the same as an average pop song. This seems a very watchable rate. It's pretty much what we've done with promenade community plays in the past and in a TV centric world that's about the average attention span. Maybe that is why pop songs are pretty much the same length. Anyway it's no bad objective when devising material to think in terms of 3 1/2 minute scenes. Of course we can always break the rule and have a splendid Bohemian Rhapsody, midway through the play.
 
I’ve had a thought that the stone children learn move by manipulation, I saw a mother the other day holding her child's hands to support it's walking it looked puppetry. Perhaps the stone elders play manipulation games with their children. We are already discovering the way stones communicate in sound  by tapping pebbles.. I feel this will inevitably lead to percussive music., choruses translating stone language with with words either spoken or sung in the same rhythmic pattern of the pebbles. Now we need to the equivalent in movement and gesture; music can inspire that.
 
We should pull out some film sound tracks - not to use in performance necessarily- but if we listened to music together we might get ideas, not least we will find a vocabulary. It's not a bad idea to start with recorded music to inspires a scene or accompany something we are already doing.  We can create a live alternative later. We can use Improvised music too of course, even in the show.
 
I think I mentioned the idea of an overture, something that happens in the space before the play begins. Sound coming from the cave or above or behind or among the rocks but unseen. Maybe something physical happens momentarily - like a trailer of things to come. We could pick out characters involved in moments from the play - dramatic highlights.
 
At the moment I'm mostly seeing the scope for instrumental music; but we need songs too. For me the song has to be integral to the story - we don’t stop for a song - The song should add to the narrative, or the argument. Work songs are a good example. I like what you said, David about singing comes when there are no more words to be said, It is a an outpouring though, bringing something felt to the surface; the lyrics have to be specific. When dialogue starts emerging from the devising workshops some might become lyrics.. I like the idea of using songs from popular culture and the suggestion of Tom Waites 'Underground' If we can replicate that gravel sound it could be wonderful. The words too are spot on, it brings a menace we've not thought about. Rocks can feel threatening.

Words will start to emerging in the coming stages of devising, including potential lyrics; people are already sending poems. I'll start recording improvisations and reusing the dialogue, and in some instances we could try singing it like opera - then we will discover rhythms that might allow the spoken words to be turned into a song. We should go back and forth with music, words and movement with people who are happy to do that so any one medium can inspire something in the others. 

There’s potential for music and sound in the spaces in dialogue (textual space) and the space between players. The Textual space is more than the gaps in speech it's those moments where there is a sense of absence, something being unsaid that might best be filled with another language. (this is where you might put in a song)

​But It’s also about the moment when the audience might lean forward to engage in what is really going on.  Song is great for bringing inner feelings and thoughts to the surface, Dance and Physical theatre works best illustrating the subtext rather than the content​.  usually a very intimate moment but we have a big outdoor space to fill; we can only create the subtleties of relationships by expanding on the moment; songs do that, but so does dance and physical theatre. I would like to try elements of song, dialogue, soundtrack, dance, physical theatre, heightened and natural gesture in different combinations., It's a great devising ploy in any event and forces discovery. 

There's a video link below that might explain a part of what I mean, It's from Can we Talk About This? by the physical theatre company DV8. They use a combination of dance, expanded and natural gestures that flows together. I think is remarkable. It displays extraordinary physical skill, strength and dexterity we wouldn't be able to emulate but the underlying theory is applicable. There is an essential language between gesture and dance that I’m interested in that might become the language of the Stone People.. Groups, families and cultures share the same language and pick up common accents, and they also have shared gestures. This might take us theatrically into chorus work and Corp du Mime but also its also says something about finding commonality which I think is becoming an important theme in the play. This to me is all about listening to each other. Look how these two performers are engaged in listening to each other physically whilst communicating something else out to the audience.  In devising and rehearsing the movement we find will come directly from the performer, so by definition will be in the physical range of whoever produces, it may need to be less dance more expanded gestures, with rhythms and repetitions, but who knows what we will discover. However big or small the movements it is  all connected to music.