Valencia Week 3 - Blog

Week 3 in Valencia, Week 2 residency blog. – Fay Beesley

After a weekend of experiencing Spanish theatre, watching football and overall just relaxing it was back to working but this week back to where it all started La Cambra.

Monday 11th of July

Monday was a day of discussions. We discussed everything from the week before and some of the themes that had a risen.

The first theme is communication, mainly the idea of language there are three languages within the group. Majority of the time we speak in English however certain phrases or thoughts have to be translated between the three. Through this consant translation and mixture of languages we are starting to create our own language which is called Spangliguese which is a mixer of phrases as well as a mix of the three languages.

The second theme is invisible humans. This idea came from the interview of Paco a homeless man living in Valencia. This expanded to refugees which then expanded to the idea of stories and untold stories.

After discussing these themes we decided it would be a good idea for us to all create something within these themes and share them with the group later on in the week. And through sharing we would hopefully be able to see a connection in the ideas and link them together etc given us a starting point.

Tuesday 12th of July

Session with Patricia Pardo.

Patricia Pardo is a professor of dramatic writing at the University of Valencia and has her own theatre company based in Valencia.

From the moment we arrived on Tuesday it was clear that Patricia is a clown. She was stood in La Cambra waiting for us to arrive, she kept checking her watch, making noises for us to hurry up, trying to act serious however after a while it was clear this was a character.From this moment on I knew I was going to learn so much from this woman.

Her exercises ranged from movements, memory and emotions. The main goal in each exercise was to exaggerated everything for example showing happiness with our faces would start of small and then build to a level 4 (the highest level) were the smile would be like when a clown smiles at you.

These exercises showcased how she works as an artist. She is interested in the organic moments so for example when doing the exercise exaggerating our emotions some people would end up laughing therefore changing the emotion. She also works with the idea of ridiculing yourself so she said for us our joy, youth and naivety we are able to ridicule in our performance.

At the end of the session we were able to ask her questions and discussed the ideas we have for the performance on the 28th of July. This is when we discussed mini moments. Mini moments can help us to piece of performance together. A mini moment can led to another mini moment and so on. So, eventually we will be able to collect all the mini moments together and this will be our performance.

Overall to be able to work with Patricia Pardo for just one day was an incredible experience. She is an amazing artist and for her to share the way in which she works with us is such a gem. Personal and as a group I feel we have taken so many tools and learnt a great deal. I cannot thank Patricia enough for sharing and working with us.

Wednesday 13th of July

Today consisted of sharing. We had Cristina bring in a text that was written in all three languages but only had one person talk.

Fabio shared stories, a personal one and two that seem personal but were in fact someone else’s.

Bhav expanded on a exercise from last week called chair stop but now added a microphone and stories or monologues. As well as a lifting image which could consist of two people under chairs and the others only helping one person this idea was able to be played with.

Caroline asked 7 people to stand with their eyes closed and too not move. She then was struggling, hugging and pulling us in order to find her mum.

Paula made us use our bodies and manipulate them within the space.

And we ended the day with Rita and an individual performance where she moved and made sounds in front of a blue screen whilst we heard the sound of waves.

We made sure to write down all these ideas and we now had 6 mini moments in which we are able to play or expand on.

Thursday 14th of July

We started today exactly like Wednesday.

Luna started us off by telling us her ideas for the scenography  of the show. One idea as an example was to use bubble wrap either someone wearing it or it being on the chairs of the audience.

Matthew told us about Maria Hessabi and her dance installation called Plastic. He linked this to the story of a 6 year old Syrian refugee who fell of a table and froze for an hour and a half. We did 9 minutes on La Rambelta stairs falling or staying still.

Damon talked about some of his ideas for animation such a rotoscopes and creating faceless figures.

Me (Fay)  inspired from Hetain Patel with help from Fabio said one phrase in Portuguese over and over again in different tones and I was to translate however this was not what he was saying. Almost a bad translation.

We now had 10 mini moments and decided that we should maybe try to expand on some of those mini moments and see what worked and what did not. However, this is when a problem arouse, we started to try one mini moment but after only a couple of minutes we said no it did not work, and began to work on another mini moment. When in fact in saying no, we gave up and did not  actually give time to play or develop, we were simply rushing and throwing ideas away too quickly.

This is when we decided to talk. We seemed to have imposed unnecessary pressure upon ourselves. We have to show something on the 28th of July however it has been stated on a number of occasions that this project is about our process and learning throughout this process. We seem to have forgotten about this and were rushing our process. At this stage is it about listening to each other and about doing. So far we have only discussed and shared we have not really played with these mini moments. We just began rushing everything trying to narrow it down for the 28th. But by doing, images and more ideas will begin to develop and eventually over time things will begin to link and to have a clear narrative.And by rushing this process we are not giving ourselves time to build and develop ideas.

Overall, we decided that we should not worry about the 28th and that we should be more concerned about the process, about sharing, about learning and just enjoying this unique experience.

Friday 15th of July

Because Friday is so close to the weekend we are normally not as productive but after yesterday’s discussion Friday was the most productive day so far.

We stared the session with Noel sharing. He did a story through movement. And we all agreed that he had created a powerful image of him walking..

Pepa also shared her idea of creating a video with all our faces in were we could be telling stories or just making noises or not saying anything.

Luna than suggested an exercise to do. We chose three or four of the mini moments to play or expand in the space. Luna had created a space for us that included white table leg structures. Then we began to play at the begin it was clear that everyone was trying their four individual mini moments but after time it started to develop, and we started to play with other another.  From this some images started to form there was this powerful image were with the white table legs, Cristine had started to make a border to stop Fabio and Paula from passing. She said after that this was completely accidentally.  All she was thinking was I need to somehow stop these two from walking. Eventually other people started to play with this image whether that be with their voices or through movements and another beautiful image of Paula moving through the White table legs (border) was created.

By being able to play with the space, each other and our mini moments. We give ourselves the opportunity to create organic images. Playing is a key element within process and we all agreed that by doing this, pieces of the performance have started to form. We agreed that next week we need to play for even longer and I’m sure that like today some beautiful and powerful images will form. By playing we are building the performance.

Finally, I can honestly say this week has been a rollercoaster. At points I felt like nothing was going to happen and that working with 11 other artists with all different art forms was too difficult a task. I was very frustrated.

But by the end of the week it just seem to click. We understand we need to listen to one another, to share, to use all the art forms and combine them in the best way we can. Our best tool is each other and what we as individuals bring to this project. I am learning so much for everyone and I know that the 28th we only be a snippet of our potential and that if I am able to carry on with all 3 residencies I know that whatever we tour next year will showcase how we have all learnt and worked as 12 unique artists throughout this process.