11.3.2014

Antonin Artaud

Today, we were introduced to Antonin Artaud and several acting techniques and exercises that followed his methods and theories. Artaud was the creator of 'Theatre of Cruelty'. He lived a short life of drug abuse and spent a lot of in and out of hospital. For a brief two years he was part of the Surrealist movement, but was then kicked due his views being different and even further absurd. Theatre of Cruelty especially, which demands the actor to get in touvh with their 'double', or inner core and subconscious thoughts and taboos. Artaud believed that society and our cultural structures have shaped us to the way we are, perhaps hiding our most inner wants and needs, which is the 'double'. By driving themselves to their physical and emotional breaking points, the actor could "lance the abscess" and release the constrictions the society has set upon us human.



Starter exercise
   As we walked into the room, I quickly noticed, that all the curtains were drawn and lights were down, it was dark. Only some trace of the sun light could be seen from the slits between curtain. Also, in the middle of the room there were some instruments, bells and wooden sticks, and we were told to put down our coats and bags silently and sit behind an instrument. If there wasn't an instrument, we were told to use our hands as one. As everyone had settled on the floor, Andy picked up the instrument in front of him and motioned us to follow his lead. He began to create a rhythm and everyone followed, trying to get all the instruments play at the same time. Then we got up on our feet and started walking around the room, following Andy. The rhythm and tempo of the tune changed and with it we slowed down or picked up our own pace, lifting our hands up. This whole exercise felt very ritual-like, even though I loved the fact that everyone's energy and concentration was up, higher than most Tuesday mornings, I still felt a certain uneasiness in myself. When we were told to stop, go back into the circle and give out the instruments, we were also told to think of a word to describe how we felt about this experience. My word was 'rauhaton', which is a Finnish word meaning uneasiness  or restlessness, especially of the soul. I am not entirely sure, why I chose this word or why I felt this way, but for some reason this 'starter ritual' made me feel trapped inside, like I needed to let something out.

Grid exercise
   Next we were placed in for rows in a square, forming a grid. We were told to start to walk within this grip, only moving along the imaginary lines. Our motivation and the force that drove us forward was told to be love. This exercise was really to demonstrate Artaud's theory of being 'cruel to yourself'. It was important that we stayed determined and held a certain amount of self-discipline during this exercise, since we had o start walking faster and eventually start to run in the grid trying to get love. After awhile, it certainly started to emotionally and physically feel like torture, as my leg started cramping and the idea of love seemed impossible to obtain. People we pushing and bumping into each other, but for me, I was too focused to even consider how everyone else were feeling, so I just kept moving forwards. After sometime, Andy kindly told us to slow down and eventually stop. Now I could see the faces of my peers, puffy red cheeks and watery eyes. A certain desperation was in almost all of our faces, and some seemed to be overwhelmed with emotions. I had a mess of thoughts and doubts in me, but since I am not used to expressing my personal feelings in such public situation, I found it too hard to actually let go of my barriers and let my emotions take the best of me.
   During this exercise I found it hard to imagine love, which probably made me feel so desperate at the end. I started thinking about my life at the moment and all people I have. I couldn't give focus to one person in particular, because I didn't feel I have a lot of love in my life at the moment. Everyone I know who loves me, and I love back, live in Finland, the land that I left to do what I feel was the only right thing for me. I was struck by this coldness and loneliness that I have realized is surrounding me. The worst part of this was the thought, that I felt powerless to do anything about it, even though it is supposed to be us who have the control over our own lives. Coat of despair and hopelessness fell over me as we were told to stop running. If I would have had to keep running and focusing on the love a bit longer, I think I would have had a break down. This is just to show, how much I still need to push myself to get to my limit, to get to that point of no inhibition from constructed by us or the society, to show those cruel and raw emotions that hide within us all.

Slowmotion & Emotion Scale
   The next two performances were to do with the size of performance, since Artaud preferred to use large spaces or out doors for performances, so the importance of the size of your performance was great. This enables the audience to feel those huge amounts of emotions better, to get the audience to their limits as well. We started this of by going into pairs. We were told to improvise a slow motion boxing match, a tennis match and a wrestling match, going as slow as possible and using elaborate movements. This turned out to be a bit more difficult than it seemed, since it was physically hard to do some of the movements extremely slowly, and at the same time see and predict what your partner was doing.
   The emotions scale was difficult as well, for me at least, We were divided into to groups of around 8 people. The first group started by standing in a line and then start from the other, everyone portraying the state of panic, the size of the emotion growing as they went up the scale. It was interesting to see how everyone in this group used breath as one of their main ways to show panic. When it came my group turn, our emotion was set to be love. I was right at the start of the scale, so I would be trying to convey love in two completely different sizes. I found showing the extreme of love more difficult, since love is such an abstract idea for me, so I am not very happy with my performance at that moment. These exercises really showed how we as a group need to create a environment of trust and focus, so that everyone will be able to let go and show their emotions 110%, and not only half way. 

Ritual
   Since one of Artaud biggest point in his acting methods were, that theatre should be able to show emotions and stories without words, 'rituals' are a very good way to try to learn this. They communicate directly in the most primal ways their intentions. My groups ritual dance was supposed to be a rain dance and we did this by thinking about water as an element and how it could look and sound like.

   So far, I think studying Artaud's methods further will be an interesting journey, since it will definitely push us all to our limits. I am expecting to have quite emotionally and physically exhausting days ahead of us, but it will just be big help, to let us release those most inner emotions we have hidden inside. To be honest, I guess I am a bit afraid for the upcoming days, for I know how hard I will have to work and have discipline on myself to keep going, even at the point of utter pain.