Exploring movement through the body using imagery and imagination.
In early December, I asked myself a question. Can I use abstract movement to tell a story through the medium of film that is compelling and clear to the watcher?Ā
Movement work has been a medium that has resonated with me most over my three years of training at ALRA North, especially working with Michael Chekhov's techniques of using the imagination and imagery to create sensations and provoke movement in the body. I felt that because this work resonated with me so much, I would be best suited to taking up the role of movement director for my piece as my personal experiences with this work would help me communicate with my actors and also help me to understand their own perusal experiences when exploring imagery in rehearsal. This helped form a solid foundation for communication within rehearsal.Ā
Firstly, I want to explain why I chose to use Michael Chekhovās methods instead of practitioners such as Rudolph Laban whoās work is well known and taught at most, if not all Drama Schools. As I mentioned before, my own personal experiences with Chekhov's methods have lead me to have a greater understanding of working with imagery and imagination. As an actor, I can allow my body to be free and connect to imagery in my mind and allow that to be truthful to me and as a director, I can see this work in other people, identify when the work isĀ not truthful and understand how to collaborate effectively with actors to achieve the best results.Ā
I find that Chekhovās work allows actors to be free and unbound by logical explanation, which is something that I struggle to find when iām working with Laban technique. Labanās definition of the exact qualities that make up an effort, such as wring, as can be seen in Jean Newloveās Laban for actors and dancers, provides me with goals that I need to achieve instead of explore which is something that I personally find very limiting as an actor. With Chekhov's work, I can take the way the word wring feels and sounds and find an image that resonates with me. To me, wring brings to mind the image of myself being bound by silver, rusty chains in a small black box. I would then be able to take this image and allow this to move my body with freedom, safe in the knowledge that I donāt have to achieve any goals that Laban sets out for his efforts. Michael Chekhovās work also provides my actors with a safe space to work in. In rehearsal, I would warm my actors up by engaging the body, the connection with the rest of the ensemble but also engaging the mind. We would find an image that grounded up to reality and made us feel safe and begin to explore that in the abstract. I would ask them to find the image of the sun and see the golden brightness radiating from it. I would then ask them to feel that golden brightness and the heat radiating through their bodies from the soles of their feet to the top of their head. Iād ask them to let it affect their breath and the bodies and move around the space. This would be an image that weād come back to when we needed to shed a particularly uncomfortable image or emotion and also when we came to the end of rehearsal. This also helped me in my own practice to develop a routine for warming up my cast.Ā
Because Chekhovās work is so free and open for actors to play and explore, I wanted to make sure that this was reflected in the piece. This is why I decided to keep a lot of the sections from the piece un-blocked so that my actors didnāt feel restricted. Obviously within the piece there is some blocking such as in the first section where the actors have to cross the space and also in certain sections where Agamemnon and Clytemnestra face each other but even within these sections, I didnāt provide a target or goal that my actors had to reach in terms of making a specific movement or getting to the destination in a desired time limit. I wanted the actors to focus purely on the imagery and the movement, this would allow them to beĀ āin the momentā.
The text that I have explored is Steven Berkoff's adaption of AeschylusāĀ Agamemnon. I chose this version of the story specifically because of Berkoffās writing style which is brutal and sharp. When working with text, I donāt want to try and conjure up imagery myself, I want to read the words and have my mind filled with images which are a genuine response to the words in the text. After reading many different versions of the story, this version resonated most with me because of the way the words informed my mind and body. I would read text out loud and find myself seeing an image or feeling the impulse to move. From this pre-rehearsal script-work, I knew that this was the piece of text that I had to explore with a cast.Ā I have also chosen this story because of the specifics of Greek theatre which uses chorus/ensemble work. Jacques Lecoq states in his book āThe Moving Bodyā that āThe chorus is the one essential element in clearing a genuine space for tragedy, A chorus is not geometric but orgnanic. In just the same way as a collective body, it has a centre of gravity. It is a kind of living cellā.Ā This is something which I have tried to reflect in my cast sizing and staging of the piece. When we see an ensemble working in unison on stage, the energy between them is electric, as if they are able to read each others minds. The size of the cast meant that some of the images that I wanted to present and explore, such as the army dying in the battlefields or the people of Greece celebrating the armies return, could be presented effectively by having them all present and involved on stage. I also chose this text because of the tone that it carries which is tragedy. I wanted to explore the grand emotions and imagery that the text demands from the actors and use them as colour to paint the blank canvas that was my piece.Ā
āSomething begins to smell in this vile house/ is it the stew/ vomit-heaved that lies drying on the cracked streets/ or in the dark cellar forgotten and growing mushrooms from the slime/ under the lid/ life stirs from the death...āĀ
From this short sample of text, I get clear images of white, whispy vapours rising from cobbled streets, rough stone surfaces, black, wet soil and dirt. Different colours also spring to mind like a swampy green and black. In rehearsal, IĀ often combine images to add more detail to images. An example of this would be when I worked on exploring the murder of Agamemnon with the cast. This is done by Clytemnestra when Agamemnon is in the bath. I wanted to explore the feeling of the water changing from a calm blue to a red whilst also conveying the image of murder and death. To do this, I asked my actors to explore the image of red water which was thick and ice cold. I also wanted them to imagine that the water was on the outside of the body which would mean that they were being controlled by the water instead of feeling like they were in control of the water if it was on the inside of their body.Ā
From the beginning I knew I that wanted the piece to be filmed although the idea of a single shot came later on in the rehearsal process. The proās and cons of recorded media and live performance were equal with each other in the concept stage of this piece. Live performance provides the actors with a sense of connection between them and the audience, the atmosphere is electric and the sense of engagement is strong but the final performance could be affected by nerves which would stain the quality of the movement and the focus of the actors. With recorded media, my actors donāt have a sense of connection with their audience but are under less pressure to perform and in turn, a greater sense of connection between the ensemble appears. With recorded media, I could also show the audience what I wanted to see which was key for a piece that, on stage, could have the capacity to look like a group of actors moving in the space but without a clarified journey.
I took some inspiration from the theatre company Gecko and their recorded work. Mainly their performance of The Time Of Your Life which was shot in a single take. Unfortunately, the camera in this recording doesnāt venture very close to the face of the actors so weāre not able to see much in to the inner life of the performer. In the Rite Of Spring by Pina Bausch, we get to see the face of the actors up close and see the subtleties of their performance which is something I wanted to make sure I included in my work. The idea of a single shot came later in the process after a test filming that Iād done with the cast. After reviewing the footage, I found that the piece continued to live even when the camera wasnāt focused on the actors in the space. Actors would move in and out of frame and continue to perform and this provided me, as a watcher, with the sense of the world continuing around the camera. This had the effect of watching the performance as if it was on stage but, with the use of the camera, I was able to choose what I wanted the audience to focus on. This included getting close to the actors in the space and allowing the watcher to see the nuances on the movement. By getting close I could allow the watcher to see the gaze of the actors in more detail. I believe that the gaze of the actor is incredibly important for allowing the watcher to see what is going on internally within the character. If the image inside of the actor is strong and radiating out of the body and through the eyes, it can be incredibly powerful to watch. There were a few shots which were cemented in from the start such as the over the shoulder shot where Agamemnon is facing Clytemnestra. Shots like this gave me a chance to allow viewers to see the perspective of the characters, for instance in this shot just described where I wanted the viewer to understand that Clytemnestra was in Agamemnonās thoughts even though there was distance between them.Ā
The use of a single shot would also allow my actors time to prepare themselves for the next image that they were exploring. This can be seen multiple times in the piece but especially at the end of the recording when the camera pans away from the ensemble after a member of the group is places on the floor. The camera moves towards clytemnestra and then when the camera pans back to the ensemble, they are in a different formation exploring the image of the python. This was one of the main reasons why I wanted to use a single shot as my actors would have the freedom to step out of one image and in to another without that affecting the pace and visuals of the piece.Ā
I originally wanted to record the piece in a black box theatre with lighting but after taking inspiration from Pina BauschāĀ āThe Rite Of Springā, I decided that the piece could be performed anywhere as long as we acknowledged the space that we were in as is done in The Rite Of Spring. The performance begins with stage-hands tipping soil into the space and then cuts between the med raking the soil out. They are clearly in a theatrical space which, apart from the soil, has not been designed to give the watcher the impression that theyāre in a different world. But as soon as the lights do down and the women appear in the space, we are clear that we are in a different world, even though we have just seen the space that the piece is being performed in. This is something that I wanted to replicate in my piece as I wanted to create an atmosphere that I knew couldnāt possibly be fully realised in the world of the rehearsal studio at ALRA. This is why I chose to have the performers come in, drop their bags, close the curtains and turn off the lights before coming in to the space. This is also seen at the end of the piece when the lights come back on, the performers put on their clothes and exit the space. This provided a sense of closure to the separate world we were just in.
In terms of atmosphere, I wanted to bring a sense of the tragedy of the piece in to the space. In rehearsal, most of the music we would move to would be somber or heavy music that would get the actors used to living in that weighted space of tragedy. I ended up using one of these pieces as the song for the whole piece as I felt that it encapsulated the atmosphere perfectly. The song was calledĀ āVIIIā by Machinefabriek. The softness and beauty of the female vocal, contrasted with the harsh tones of the droning sounds beneath provided a dark and distorted atmosphere that the piece could live in. I also experimented with fading out the music at key moments to highlight key moments. There is a specific section where the music isnāt present but the atmosphere of the music lingers as the tension is held across the space between Clytemnestra and Agamemnon.Ā I also wanted to visually mould the atmosphere by using a single light to illuminate the space. This light separated us from the world of the rehearsal room and the fluorescent lights that it has, but also creates a dim, harsh atmosphere. The light created shadows on the walls and would shine harshly in to the camera when it was directly facing towards it. Finally, I was keen to allow the breath and voice to be heard from the actors as these sounds would fuel the atmosphere. If they were exploring a particularly dark image such as the image of being trapped in a box thatās filling with hot, black tar, the breath and voice would be haunting and give the watcher an understanding of the pain and weight that the ensemble are feeling. If the actor is truly connecting with the image that they are working with, the breath and voice will naturally shift and fuel their connection. During rehearsal, I wanted to hear all the sounds that were produced as I felt that hearing noise from the actors would spark ideas in my mind for the piece. Chekhov states thatĀ āatmosphere deepens the perception of the spectatorā. To truly engage the watcher, we would need to create an atmosphere so powerful that it would extend through the screen and pull them in so this was a key thing that I always strived for in rehearsal.Ā
I knew that I wanted the costumes to be minimal and not distracting or a symbol of any defined characters. I also wanted the watcher to be able to see the curves and shape of the performers body as that is the vessel that of which I am telling the story through. I decided that I wanted the women to wear nightdresses to represent the innocence of the women that were affected by the war between the Greeks and the Trojans. I wanted the men to be topless and wear shorts so that we could see the muscularity of the body and imagine them as soldiers in battle. Although these clothes provide us with stereotypes of the roles of men and women at the time, I was keen to ensure that the movement was not effected or defined by this and so I never clearly defined these interpretations to the cast in rehearsal as to not subconsciously influence their movements.Ā
In reflection, iām very happy with the final product that iāve achieved. I had a great experience working as a movement director with a cast of incredibly talented individuals who allowed me to explore my own practice whilst they explore their own. Iāve learnt a lot on how to develop myself as a movement director going forward such as how to effectively warm up my cast and how to collaborate and discuss ideas with them. I donāt know what will be next for me in terms of my career as a movement director but iām very excited for whatever the next step may be.
REFERENCE LIST
-Newlove, J. (2010). Laban for actors and dancers. New York: Routledge.
-Lecoq, J. (2000). The moving body. United Kingdom: Bloomsbury Publishing Inc., p.139.
-Berkoff, S. (1990). Agamemnon. Amber Lane Press.
-Gecko (2016). Time Of Your Life. [video] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PQpxi7h_rc [Accessed 10 Apr. 2019].
-Chekhov, M. (1953). On the technique of acting. New York, NY: Harper and Row, p.48.
-Pina Bausch (2017). Pina Bausch - Extract from the Rite of Spring. [video] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0VqaGkKQRCU [Accessed 10 Apr. 2019].
Rutger Zuydervelt, R. (2019). VIII. [Online] Western Vinyl. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLWisQmIF-g [Accessed 10 Apr. 2019].















