As a director, how do you explain what it is you're interested in and what are the techniques you adopt to find these things?
Well for me its um... I don't particularly trust my imagination. I enjoy it I have a lot of fun with it but I don't make work or use it consciously when I'm making work because I don't trust it ultimately. I have enough trouble with reality - so 'the lure and blur of the real' is a line from a book by David Sheilds called 'Reality Hunger', where he articulates a kind of a manifesto um... that responds to contemporary society and what he calls our thirst for all things real. In the last 15 or so years we have been increasingly obsessed with 'reality ', via information pathways , the way the media operates now, reality tv shows and our culture has become , he says, obsessed with real events because in our lives we experience hardly any.
And I'm just interested in how that manifests itself in performance. It opens up a whole lot of questions... What is real? What's fiction? What's non-fiction? That if something is perceived to be real it has a tantalising hook for us to the point that we actually blur what's real. The line between what's real and what's not is utterly blurred.
I'm interested in the world I live in, the world outside and how we live our lives. I'm interested in personal stories. How we feel about ourselves. I'm interested in relationships that people have to the worlds that they live in, how connected or unconnected we feel and for me that's enough to explore as an artist. I'm not interested in the history of theatre. In one sense I'm not really interested in theatre - I'm interested in using theatre as a way to express aspects of how we live in the world. I'm interested in the everyday, I'm interested in the ordinary. I like to be surprised. I like imperfection.
Our main technique or method would be using the participants as the primary source for the work - so we look at our own lives, we look at how we experience the world.Its a very personal vision that we hope people can identify with. I like to take time when creating a piece of work - I think, for me, slowing it down, slowing down the process of creating work is really important. We start out with and idea and see where it takes us. We search hard with the participating artists to find personal connections to a concept to the point where we start using the performer's own lives (literally) as the written text.
Adriano Cortese, Artistic Director Ranters Theatre
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Monday, November 28, 2011
Day one at the Restless Studio
How was the first day of The Lure and Blur of the Real?
Matt
We had such a small group - that was good coz we did such kind of up close and personal work today, but at the same time, the walking around thing at the beginning of the day would've been good to have different people to interact with. But if we had a larger group we couldn't have done that 'stare off' exercise with each other.
Jesse
We went beyond the physical a bit more and into emotional and personalities, which was draining to stand opposite someone and stare intensely at someone and establish a connection with them. Its exciting to be doing something that's not really dance - its theatre but its feeling like it's a different approach.
Matt
Yeah I feel it will help with duets more when we get to dance again.
Sue
It was kind of thrilling because I joined at the last minute and I found myself in a very deep experience straight away and feeling comfortable with people I've never met before who didn't know anything about me either. I felt comfortable as soon as I walked into the studio. But I'm really curious to see what happens next.
Caroline
It was good. It was a bit nerve wracking having different people who I haven't worked with before in the same room. I will hopefully get to work with Paul and Adriano tomorrow. I liked the singing. We had to look at people in the eyes and say what we could see - it was actually quite close, but I just watched people.
Paul
Its so weird because I've been doing this work for so long that I always feel really humble when I work with a group of people this way - and I wish I could stay that way but I cant. Its just a funny thing - you do it for so long but you don't really master it. So I feel really grateful to be working with people this way in this environment. It reminds me of all the good times I've had and how powerful it is.
Sally
It was really great to be on the floor again and connecting with my body physically and working with new people. It was intimidating and fantastic to stare at Jesse.
Adriano
It was great to get into it at the beginning to understand and communicate the things that have preoccupied me for a awhile and to see and share the responses between the ensemble. There's an instinctive thing here with the Restless performers where they don't tend to perform - they commit to the act in a way that's fresh and I find that its a great quality to work with so I'm really looking forward to seeing where we go these next two weeks. There's a real willingness so its going to be great to get to know each other and engage with the people here.
Matt
We had such a small group - that was good coz we did such kind of up close and personal work today, but at the same time, the walking around thing at the beginning of the day would've been good to have different people to interact with. But if we had a larger group we couldn't have done that 'stare off' exercise with each other.
Jesse
We went beyond the physical a bit more and into emotional and personalities, which was draining to stand opposite someone and stare intensely at someone and establish a connection with them. Its exciting to be doing something that's not really dance - its theatre but its feeling like it's a different approach.
Matt
Yeah I feel it will help with duets more when we get to dance again.
Sue
It was kind of thrilling because I joined at the last minute and I found myself in a very deep experience straight away and feeling comfortable with people I've never met before who didn't know anything about me either. I felt comfortable as soon as I walked into the studio. But I'm really curious to see what happens next.
Caroline
It was good. It was a bit nerve wracking having different people who I haven't worked with before in the same room. I will hopefully get to work with Paul and Adriano tomorrow. I liked the singing. We had to look at people in the eyes and say what we could see - it was actually quite close, but I just watched people.
Paul
Its so weird because I've been doing this work for so long that I always feel really humble when I work with a group of people this way - and I wish I could stay that way but I cant. Its just a funny thing - you do it for so long but you don't really master it. So I feel really grateful to be working with people this way in this environment. It reminds me of all the good times I've had and how powerful it is.
Sally
It was really great to be on the floor again and connecting with my body physically and working with new people. It was intimidating and fantastic to stare at Jesse.
Adriano
It was great to get into it at the beginning to understand and communicate the things that have preoccupied me for a awhile and to see and share the responses between the ensemble. There's an instinctive thing here with the Restless performers where they don't tend to perform - they commit to the act in a way that's fresh and I find that its a great quality to work with so I'm really looking forward to seeing where we go these next two weeks. There's a real willingness so its going to be great to get to know each other and engage with the people here.
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