Text-based experiments at J Studios
I met up with Ben Ardley on Friday 21st to try out something text based improvisations that he had been experimenting with. I forget where he had come across the techniques he wanted to show me, but I think they must have come out of a workshop or two that he attended at Cecil Street Studios (I will update this later, perhaps in a comment).

Follow up:

The work was really interesting, I am still excited by the way that we were able to break down the rigid structures of text and language, which i have always considered an obstacle or an enemy. We were able to loosen 'text' into being a tool for accessing that imaginal creative flow that we are both familiar with entering into with our dance/movement based practices.

Following on from a series of general warm-ups for our bodies, we began with the various performance scores for text. The idea was quite daunting and difficult to get into i think because i had all of these pre-conceived ideas about how text 'works' and what effect it has on performance. I tend to think that text becomes overbearingly important and can stymy an otherwise playful headspace.

Metronome nonsense words - you have to say any word that enters your head and don't worry about what it is. No judgements, just a loosening. Any word, an exercise for broadening your imaginal space. All done to a metronymic rhythm or handclaps. We did this individually, but after taking turns we did it again together which made it easier and more exciting.

Continuous Talking, no full stops - you have to remember to breathe with this one. Taking in sips of air in the middle of sentences. 'For craziness sake' i went first with this, as ben suggested, which worked out well for me because i didn't have a precedent as to how it would 'work'. This was good for opening the door to possibility.

Continuous Talking, with pauses - you can stop to think and change directions in the middle of sentences, but likewise not at a full stop. It was at about this point that i realised how brutal a 'full stop' can be to the way we think. Without full-stops the language just flows ad-infinitum and this is such a liberating feeling from the whole fear of writer's/performer's block.

Continuous Talking, no conjunctions (and, which, who, that, because etc) - your sentences will be much simpler and this is interesting because you are free from making any kind of clauses. Each sentence, as simple and dumb as it is, becomes like a comment on the previous sentence. It was a fantastic feeling, quite powerful.

Imaginal landscape - you have to speak continuously about an imaginal landscape. You decide beforehand if it is in a pedestrian, surreal, fantastic etc mode. You can do it with your eyes open or closed.

I'm looking forward to the next session, next week. Ben Dynan should be joining us too.