physical theatre

Since attending LJMU I have been introduced to many different forms and styles of theatre. One of the ones I enjoyed learning about the most was physical theatre when I chose to take a class in ‘movement’ and found it both challenging and interesting. When starting this module, I had heard of physical theatre, but I didn’t know much about it, or of the prominent companies and practitioners in the genre. Arguably, physical theatre can be defined as a form of theatre that emphasizes movement rather than dialogue; it is any performance that puts the human body at the centre of the storytelling process. As a result, it is often abstract in style, using movement in a stylized and representational way. With the expression of ideas choreographed through movement, performers use very little or no dialogue. 

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Vicenarian

  

My final assessment for my movement module was a devised physical theatre piece that four of my peers and I built. For that piece, we decided to use 'school life' as our inspiration. Employing only our bodies and a table and chairs to show the different relationships that exist in a school environment from; however, the piece did remain open to interpretation. We identified several issues with this first piece, mainly due to inexperience and physical limitations, and decided that we wanted to develop another movement piece, one which would demonstrate our personal and physical development. We got the opportunity to start building this new piece during our third-year festival, where we became a movement company called Hex. Our aim was that the new piece would elaborate on a clear storyline without using naturalism, but still conveying our intentions, titled as 'Vicenarian.'  

Vicenarian is an analysis of the experiences of 20-year olds living in 2020, as seen through the lenses of movement, sound, and relationships. It is an assemblage of physical theatre practices, exploring elements of mime, clowning, and verbatim.

The project is being devised for a group of six performers. It consists of 3 individual sections looking at: i) politics, ii) relationship in the 1920s and now and, iii) the relevance of the numbers 20-29 - a more symbolic and philosophical element.

We are aiming to incorporate verbatim theatre to connect with the audience through relatable material on the realities of being 20 and the experiences one faces; verbatim gives us the ability to amass multiple points of view to display, compare and contrast.

Vicenarian is an on-going process using both pre-existing ideas, improvisation, and new ideas. All 6 of the group members will act as either choreographer or performer within each of the three sections, with each having its own artistic director. 

Several practitioners have influenced this piece, namely Frantic Assembly and DV8.  Their performances are based on physical theatre, verbatim, and clowning, which are the elements we want to combine in the three sections of our piece.

 We aim to incorporate contact improvisation in steps of 20 (the theme is based around the number 20) by employing the Frantic Assembly technique of developing their choreography in stages of three contact points. We will then explore the three universes: the moment before the touch, the moment of touching, and the moment after to create a storyline. We will also be using the Laban technique of The Eight Efforts and Their Four Components, which will aid us as performers in discerning our internal impulses and developing expressive bodies that can make sharp and exact choices. Throughout our pieces, we will be drawing on Jacques Lecoq's teaching methods of the three principal skills: playfulness, togetherness, and openness, along with his mask law. 

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Vicenarian

frantic ASSEMBLY

  

One of the first company’s I was introduced to was Frantic Assembly, founded in 1994 by Scott Graham, Steven Hoggett, and Vicki Middleton. Frantic is known internationally for its distinct highly physical performance framework, it’s staging of devised and writer-based pieces has been heralded as innovative and boundary-pushing. Drawing on a wide variety of influences such as pop-culture, the club scene, and art Frantic has been at the front line of contemporary physical theatre practice. When I was lucky enough to have attended a performance of Frantic’s “I Think We Are Alone’ my expectations for what physical theatre should entail were challenged. It had a far stronger narrative and used the spoken word to a greater extent than I would have predicted. The piece delved into feelings of isolation, connection and the human search for community and need for belonging. Artfully demonstrating how humans can become entangled in toxic relationships because of these needs, ‘I Think We Are Alone’ served as an inspirational introduction to the field, showing the endless possibilities snd themes one can incorporate into a physical theatre piece. 

     

dv8

  

  • In DV8's production, Can We Talk About This? the physical theatre was the genre used to express extraordinarily complicated and delicate political and social issues. The central theme of the production looked at multiculturalism, separatism, and militant Islam. Words and bodywork were combined to express what is often difficult to put into words alone. We will draw from elements of this piece to frame the 'politics' section of Vicenarian.


DV8

 DV8's Artistic Director Lloyd Newson discusses DV8 and the motivation behind the company's most recent production