SPACE PROJECT MEETING
Thursday February 18, 2010
1. WHAT IS THE SHOW ABOUT, HOW DOES IT LOOK/FEEL
JULIE:
what it's about: twitter/chickens -- obsession with how weird it is that people are returning to past movements, really focused on old ideas, but using new ways to disseminate that information. homesteading, canning, weaving, seeking solace in old things. Internet necessary: superconnector. Article about couple: built a yurt in Alaska with outhouse, no fridge, hole in ground -- but they have high speed internet. disconnect that makes perfect sense -- remote & isolated but part of things that are going on. or you could be in NYC and walk everywhere and never read the newspaper -- cut off in some ways, superconnected in others.
isolation/anxiety. solar retreats vs. being alone. neuroscience, plasticity of brain, cool performance implications. working with an outside source that gives authority to what we're doing.
real things on stage: chickens, shearing sheep, canning, making jam & serving scones, "space churned".
what does the role of place have to do with this? being very home-centered, so much sci fi is about leaving, escaping to stars, here we are using stuff that makes us more bound to where we are.
look & feel: super stark landscape that is somehow friendly. magical, beautiful thing to be isolated in place, so small in a vast landscape, filled up with wonder and don't feel lonely at all. when are bright lights sterile & scientific, when are they cozy. Things are excessively ornate like old sci fi movies -- rooms full of computers, knobs, flashing lights, like victorian boudoir. Feel like an adventure -- anticipation from audience is huge from moment they buy ticket -- choose your own adventure. content for show exists outside of show, follow it before/after the show -- THE SHOW IS ALWAYS HAPPENING. Takes place at all levels through theater space. All connected to piece but not necessarily linnearly. Lots of text not written by us. Mix of practical/fantastical, lyrical poetry, odes (manuals?)
ERIN:
the world is either really like earth but.... (dot dot dot) OR there's an expansive space set up by light, nobody ever knows exactly where they are, where show is taking place.
Fascinated by pregnancy -- the most natural things in the world have become most technologically complex -- from having baby, vaccinations -- natural world and technology butting up against each other. Our bodies can be such a strange mystery, but we know Word on the computer back & forth.
How our modern day anxieties manifest themselves, how we could use those anxieties to create interesting characters, movement, realities -- stylized world. like - if it's physical, or we can't pay attention to each other, or we gnaw on fingers or puke -- create strange world through movement, physicality.
Huge chorus of backup singers.
Stirbridge (?) village -- travel "back in time" to experience life as a rural colonial person. something creepy and strange about that. we are in a place/time where we really don't know who we can trust -- important decisions to make and don't know who to trust, don't know if our food is safe. can't trust anyone aside from your partner, people you really know.
MAESIE:
Most interesting thing about sci fi is discovery of new worlds -- cool way to frame show. Italo Calvino book, Invisble Cities -- marco polo telling kubla khan about cities he's been to. Star Trek -- every episode you see a crazy new world with a sexy alien. Using that to explore theme of anxiety -- of life transitions, options, decisions.
Mythical lands: shangri la etc. Lost lands/continents/islands -- atlantis. Scientific writing & research about these LOST continents. Hollow earth theory: there are people living in the middle of the earth. Little house on the prairie: migration from place to place that Pa forces on family, always having to make new start.
Not interested in: they get to it and it's PARADISE (OR: DYSTOPIA)! Obviously post-apolocalyptic, people have destroyed themselves, etc.
Wildness, tribal, tarot cards as inspiration & device -- CASTLE OF CROSSED DESTINIES, Italo Calvino -- constructing stories via tarot cards.
Natural disasters, like volcanoes & meteors -- people preserved -- discovering a world that's been destroyed/perserved.
What it looks like: song cycle by Dirty Projectors about Don Henley -- intense ultra challenging singing -- take on something that's going to challenge us technically as performers. Electro opera about Darwin (by The Knife), create world thru lazers & lights. Create otherworldly landscapes thru lights & video. Episodic, stories that are linked somehow, people experience different landscapes and worlds we create. CRYSTAL HEALING & HEAVY METAL.
FAITH:
Not so interested in going to other planets, rather speculative fiction. Idea that there's something scary, supernatural and scary playing out in regular life. Disconnect between using internet and living in a yurt. Alternate realities gets at that seemingly normal life is revealed to be something else.
Lathe of Heaven - makes you feel weirder about your own life
Lost - a world that keeps revealing different surprises. Works on 3 levels
1. Fun and adventure
2. Mind trip puzzle
3. Gut punch when something connects to you and makes you reconsider your own life
How can we get at all of these theatrically
Make use of live event and mess with what people are experiencing. Creating something purely fictional, we are characters on a journey as part of a contained universe. Historical event or story being referenced and then revealed as something different.
Badass sound and lights, original music, creating environment that surrounds the audience. Go another step with physical training and physicality, shake up what we're doing.
MARC:
Immensity of space...new telescope taking much more detailed photos of galexies we've never seen. Hubble photos where colored in, but now we have the real thing. Idea that what we have isn't good enough, we're always imagining the next step. There's a need to keep it exciting and keep pushing our limitations.
Sagan...little blue dot...taking the metaphor further. How significant you feel plugging into the internet, but it's just mountains of meaningless data. But feels so meaningful to use. We're reaching a point when people have stopped imagining how technology works and why it's necessary. Now our only knowledge is how to use our personal portal. It's more magical if you don't know how it works. What does it mean to power and control when people don't want to know.
Space...similarity of the coldness of the desert and the emptiness of space. Bringing in the right scientist or getting a lot of contributors - scientists, sci fi and fantasy authors. Get snippets of materials from people...get them to condense the most exciting information and research at the cutting edge and we use it. Juxtaposition between fake science that seems real and real science that we don't believe. What's in that emotional response that makes us believe or not.
Interaction with technology as a theme and a tool. People onstage are interacting with technology. Uncanniness of alternate worlds that are so much like ours but something slight tips you off to the fact that it isn't normal. Using technology to reveal that. Just when you though you knew how that tool or world works, it turns on you.
Gian warehouse space with a tiny womb inside. Playing with epic space. Disjointed and episodic - disconnected stories and styles that gradually make sense and become a beautifully epic opera.
The show should be in 4D. Tricking natural perceptive abilities live, tapping into people's senses better than a movie. How to blow people's minds sensorally and fantastically.
Crazy journey for the audience...starts as kitchen sink play and 8 hrs later we take them on such a journey that they can't believe they started there.
JERRY:
Sense of destiny thrust upon main characters in sci fi...the regular person becomes the hero/savior of the universe. Common theme.
Dune - resources are at pinnacle of the epic battle. The spice is a drug that everyone lives off of and makes their lives possible. Built their world around it. Monarchy rule in sci fi.
Special powers, people discovering their magical powers.
Time travel and epic headiness of altering the past or future. Tiniest changes make huge mistakes when you change the past.
Epic good and evil...is ridiculous, but always present.
We don't ever really know what's happening on our planet...so much propaganda out there, all we know is who we are. Conspiracy theories challenging the most basic things. Our entire reality is constantly manipulated by benevolent or malicious forces.
Hive culture is unstoppable! The Borg or the people that are connected by a mind. They're always evil
We celebrate the preciousness of humanity by imagining how aliens mock us - emotions.
Smart technology making choices for us - ads on facebook based on your profile. The grocery store will know what you want and highlight it. Precogs.
D&D stereotypes of medieval fantasy.
Episodic nature of it - you can't stop reading because of the cliff hangers.
Exploring loneliness and anxiety of people trying to connect to something outside of ourselves. Need for something outside of ourselves to gve us purpose and forward movement.
Desire to give up control of our lives and have someone give the future to us - Obama waves the magic wand.
Unreal mashup fantasy world, rocketing through time and space, shows us that what we need is right here on earth.
Two audiences that switch places in the middle of the show - one side cold impersonal high tech and one side indigenous ancient culture.
JONATHAN:
what it's about: NOT interested in an homage to the art form of science fiction -- using references that you would have to know about in order to get. Ironic spoof, lampooning, making fun of excesses of art form, or attempting to make the theatre version of a film or book.
Want to make something more complex than that. If we're going to tackle the "known" we should give it a surprising take -- like with EWLLY, everyone thinks they know about family -- what is it in this case? Or we're using something people DON'T know, like with RAM.
Little Prince -- book that seems to take place on another planet, but each one described is so pure and simple that you can remember each one -- so evocative and pure that each chapter is distinctive, part of a whole. Each one pops, crystal clear.
Sci fi as a means to talk about ourselves clearly (like mocking a human to talk about what's great) -- something transgressive, like with District 9 talking about racism, allows you to enter into it more clearly. What is the theme we want to address? Key: finding personal connection, whatever material brought in is not necessarily intellectual interest, but ability to transform it into something with personal resonance. Some of these ideas sound intellectual -- take that and drop bottom out in the middle, make it hyper emotive and humane and raw too, take people by surprise.
Surprise is in what light is shed -- provocation is in the surprise, you thought we were going one place and at the last minute we switch and we're saying something else. Narrative, true wow factor: can we create a world onstage that's truly other to the point where people's eyes deceive them, people are actually scared, or they're crying over beauty of image. Last time we really tried to do that was City of Gold -- thinking about it a lot as inspiration. Any choice: what light does it shed now? Some film class: Custer story as told in the 50s & 70s -- in 50s he's a hero, in 70s he's a creepy psycho -- use this art form to talk about all the things we want to talk about in 2010.
Look & feel: hyper real items that are fake -- snow, trees, vivarium studio-esque -- big ideas, not expensive or complicated, you just have to go for it. Can we create several series of hyper real alternate worlds. You can see everything we're doing, we actually pull off a series of alternate worlds, 100%. Radiohole: painting eyes on eyelids -- showing trick, going in and staying in for so long that it truly trips you out -- can they go further? Can we take an idea for an alternate world, lay it out, make it clear, then go further, coup de grace -- keep one upping it?
Obsessively slow & mundane -- lots of that. Force people to buy into this. Scenes that are drop dead outrageously awesome -- 100% better because of the slowness that led up to them. Respect the audience to go there. Hyper physically trained & alive so that really small & active moments are fascinating.
Episodic: each one should be so fucking great, fully realized. Don't have to have that many. Each one is so OTHER. Each of them visually & sonically whole. Where they didn't do that: Kill Bill -- six chapters, each with a clear bold idea (kung fu, anime) -- but they didn't pull it off in each case equally. How do we achieve ALL the elements to make it truly kick ass?
Super-live -- it's all live, you see everyone, it's all happening. Take it further -- we're taking you to 7 different planets. BUT IT'S STILL ALL LIVE. Truly getting people into an altered state, visually. Transgressive and trance-like (one two combo).
You can tell a lot about the history of people by their relationship to vampires.
LIZ:
Why I love science fiction: the escapism, escaping the anxiety of your own mind into a different reality. When you have a panic attack: you are the only person in that world. How do you get out of it? What is the world that will lead to peace?
Wrinkle in Time series: each book is a different world you enter. What's great about sci fi is you enter a world and you don't want to leave, it consumes you. Vivarium studio takes you to an entirely different place -- wonder & joy. Still into dark matter -- you can't prove it but 90% of space is made of it -- you can't see it, you can't prove it but you know it's there. If you were in it, you would need to find a place to escape to -- a beautiful pink world, a snowy world.
Complete opposites: complete darkness, complete light. Complete anxiety and loudness, complete quiet. Different states of being. Weightlessness & extreme heaviness, in space & time. Creating that through movement & story. To travel from dark, heavy, stressful place to complete peace, joy, lightness. A journey: the Oregon Trail -- a journey with a set of people.
Two different planes. Fullness of life, finding life, emptiness, what it feels like to have life -- what does this feel like, full, empty? ultra imposed opposites. A silent opera -- how could we do this? Other points a full opera comes in.
Total escapism. Escaping yourself, reality. But finding reality at the same time.
Looks & feels: two different planes. There's a bottom & a top: two platforms, nobody even knows there's a top platform, a surprise reveal. Different levels.
Spoon River Anthology: they're all dead but they come back and talk, they all reference one thing that the person before talked about, though they are all different stories. One thing to connect everythng, one simple subtle thread.
Moment of complete simplicity, followed by complete chaos.
Ideas that came up 3-4 times:
CONTENT
- Anxiety & loneliness
- Escapism
- Creating specific new worlds -- multiple realities
- Primitive/everyday/simple vs. Technological/supertech/complicated
- Fundamental humanity, human-ness -- focusing on this, not on the aliens
- Little Prince
- Pregnancy
FORM
- Episodic structure: what links the worlds is slowly / surprisingly revealed
- Throughline, elements or journey that links stories
- Creating specific new worlds -- multiple realities
- Sensuality, hyper visual, trippy
- Pushing to a level of intensity, proficiency (physically, performatively)
- Extremes of quiet, extremes of loud -- dychotomies between different extremes
- Bending reality -- bread skitters across table
- Surprising audience: sudden reveals, cliffhangers, messing with expectations
- Grand opera
2. HOW WE WANT TO WORK (OR, START TO WORK)
** Hand2Mouth: springing towards the unknown **
Liz: Project X-like in the beginning, don't want to listen to lots of things to start, etudes, tackle one of the common themes and bring it in (make it your own), pairing off & create something in rehearsal.
Jonathan:
Didn't enjoy -- Project X hadn't decided what the show was going to be; not interested in lessons on the theme, want to make performative ideas in rehearsal, dramaturgy can come later/outside; how to get source material in room clearly & quickly.
1. etudes, can be bigger and more developed
2. long form improvs
3. solos: very intensive interesting
4. assignments in rehearsals
5. create source material as a group -- tackle some one thing as a group
Jerry:
bad -- reading out loud, film watching, "this interests me"
okay -- lecture/synopsis, links in email
good -- etudes, specific homework assignments, on-feet creation in small groups, feeding things into improvs that would be difficult to get in otherwise
Marc:
Though experiments can be important, it's bad when things are tried when they are incomplete/unprepared -- lay down idea for etude in advance, pitch it in advance presentation of sources is only good if the presenter really knows the goods.
Long form improvisations towards finding worlds, rather than playing with technology in improvs (technology is for etudes), decide what we want first.
Faith:
not worked: open ended research that is unfocused and is simply presented
does work: group research (a la RAM), worked because we were all on the same page
1. play w/ rules in long form improvs to create and explore worlds, trajectories, extreme states, being trippy/weird
2. establish physical training system
3. longer etude assignments
4. time separate for sharing sources, direct sources, not general and directly useful for the show
Maesie:
bad: lecture, information, sources without context; improv without restrictions; being unprepared
good: etudes that are prepared, fuller, longer crazier
1. outdoor trip to a crazy landscape
2. training -- physical training experiments, playing with energy
3. vocal -- learn more things
4. blog
5. creating in rehearsals
6. quickly moving through material “stations” to make
Julie:
Good: advance assignments on a common topic for day 1
Common clip brought in for improv inspiration/creation assignment
Learning something all together: dance/choreography/super precise something
Make basic decisions about form early
Not too much talking in rehearsals, but have a time to air those ideas (once a week)
New Ideas in common:
- Stations idea
- Creating in small groups during rehearsal
- Blog for the show
- Larger etudes
- Learning complex, difficult songs and physicality that unite us
- Specific physical regimen as training
- Experiments in physicality and physical states
- Taking ideas from our common ideas list and using them as etude assignments in the beginning
- Finding dramatically useful material early
- Find different ways to share new source material, so that we can talk less in rehearsals
- Don't feel forced to bullshit an etude
Limiters – things to decide early on:
- Venue
- Level of interactivity with audience
- Sound - original music or ?
- Scope of design of May showing
- Source material - how to decide, how many
- Physical style, physical training
- Outside collaborators
- Technology we want to use in rehearsals and adequate training and support
First Assignment: content: New World, form: players choice
3. LOGISTICS
Space:
- MAESIE will help Jonathan with looking for spaces
- JONATHAN will email Milagro
- LIZ will email Shaking the Tree
- JONATHAN will email potential collaborators
Dramaturg:
- Yes!
- Give them our system for tracking material with stage manager
- They can bring in new material, but filter through Jonathan
- They can filter the blog stuff
