Workshop with ‘The bridge of winds’ at Teatro Koreja (Lecce, Italy)
I attend a workshop with 'The bridge of winds' group founded by Iben Nagel Rasmussen. The workshop took place between the 8th and 13th of June.
The 6-days workshop was built as such: 10:00-12:30 physical work & voice work; 12:30-14:00 break; 14:00-17:00 witnessing ‘The bridge of winds’ rehearsals and later working with Iben Nagel Rasmussen on scores; 18:30 film. Most of the days were built as such but on the second day we attended a talk with Nicola Savarese (writer) and Silvia Ricciardelli (artistic director of Teatro Koreja). On the last day the participants of the workshop showed the group the work they have done so far, and the scores created with Iben; they also attended the concert performed by the group and the performance of ‘Ur-Nat’.
The wind dance: I have learned the wind dance from Adriana La Selva who taught me it when I did a university placement at Nordisk Teaterlaboratorium in February 2023. This helped me build a foundation for the exercise that I further built on during the workshop. The exercise is developed on a waltz, the count is 3. Starting on the right foot, sole fully on the ground, with knees slightly bent a slight jump on the tip of the left foot followed immediately by the tip of the right foot and finally landing on the sole of the left foot. This is repeated all over again, following the rhythm and not rushing. Legs should never cross, and feet should never be on the floor at the same time. The action comes from the center, from the pelvis region. I interpret it as the legs being simple instruments to catch the fall where the center dictates the direction and intention of moving through space. When reaching a certain familiarity with the exercise I realized that the direction of the movement can be changed easily. To the base of the wind dance different actions can be integrated: opening, closing, stopping, pulling, pushing, destroying, creating, kicking, defending, attacking. These qualities can be performed with different parts of the body besides arms or feet (for kicking) like eyes, head, spine, pelvis, shoulders, and feet (applied to the other actions described above). This exercise helps me gain fluidity in my actions and not focus mentally on what I will do next. It allows me to create relationships with the space and those around me, if present. It is a soliciting exercise that unleashes an energy that permits the body to think for itself and strips the mental barrier that in other cases would make me stop to catch my breath.
Green: This is an exercise that I familiarized myself with since the beginning of my master’s degree pathway. Patrick Campbell introduced the laboratory theatre group to the exercise and during the workshop I was able to embody it better. In pairs one person holds a ribbon around the partner’s pelvis, chest or head applying tension. Then they move through space slowly while being aware of the pressure point/s as well as facilitating the partner in the case of the person holding the ribbon. Later the ribbon is removed, and the actress should focus on the pressure points while moving. It is essential that this exercise is performed with the knees slightly bent, pelvis tucked slightly in and the stomach sucked in. This exercise allowed me to create a powerful yet slow energy. The gaze is fixed, and my focus is on not having any tension in my body. The energetic quality of the exercise can be applied over scores.
The exercise is not as physically exerting as the wind dance, there might have been a good reason why they were introduced to us in this order during the workshop. Reflecting on the workshop, I’m realizing that the energy from the wind dance flowed into the green exercise offering an awareness over my body and presence when performing it.
Voice work: The voice work started by creating a score. In pairs we alternated between finding ways of pushing and pulling creating 6 actions, then we found two ways of embracing. Moving away from our partners we embodied the score and interweaved the embracing. This score was to be memorised and used throughout the workshop when working with voice. Another part was finding our chest voice while making an ‘a’ sound. We then moved through different resonators, belly source, chest source and head source. To these resonators we were encouraged to add text, reaching a point where we were adding the vocal qualities in a cold way, striping the text from my own interpretation. During this we also worked with different speeds: fast, slow, and irregular. We played with the text applying spontaneously different speeds and resonators. One cliché that most of the participants did was associating a certain speed to a certain resonator (belly resonator with speaking slow, and head resonator with speaking fast). The general advice was to be as random as possible and make changes quickly. The text was applied to the score created and we were told to play with the text freely. We also learned several songs and did an exercise where all the participants were making different rhythmic sounds.
Working with Iben: In pairs we developed a score consisting of different actions, 3 ways of pulling, 3 ways of pushing and 3 ways of embracing (in this order). We were then able to reduce the score to our liking (100%, 50%, 20%, 1%). In the same pair we were asked to work with an object and pass it between us 3 times. Over this we added our own piece of text, reciting it whispering and as a dialogue. Then 3 pairs were asked to form a group and pass the object to their original partner. At first, we practiced this standing, but we reduced the score to being sat down. We were split in 4 groups. The first and last group did their entrance with the green energy while the 2nd and 3rd group did their entrance with the wind dance. Everybody was asked to carry a chair, after doing the entrance put it down in sync with your own group, sit down and start performing the score with your partner sitting opposite you. Another layer Iben requested us to add was saying a phrase about what we would miss the most if we were the last remaining people in the world after robots took over. This phrase was to be said while getting up on the chair, say it very loud while performing one sequence of the score then freezing. After every member of each group said the phrase, we slowly got down off the chair and made our exit with the green energy. This was the small piece created that, on the last day of the workshop, was shown to the ‘bridge of winds’ members and the Teatro Koreja staff.
Reflecting on the workshop experience: It gave me a sense of what I can introduce in my practice. Have a training session in the morning and in the afternoon allocate time to creating scenic material. The way Iben worked with us made me see it as a cold way of creating material. Pushing, pulling, embracing are simple actions that can be secluded to creating a score which can later be altered and reduced to the performers liking. It is not focusing solely on reciting text and brining one’s own interpretation on how that should be performed, but rather create a score that by example can be contrasting to the text. This is very helpful in removing certain performative clichés I might be inclined to commit. I believe this way of devising a performance it is helpful because it allows spontaneity, and it strips away the rationality of the brain allowing for impactful and sometimes contrasting ways of overlaying text to scores.
Difficulties: The majority of the participants were Italian so I didn't have a chance on networking fully. This is a difficulty I faced as I don't speak the language. Another impediment I faced is sustaining a foot injury toward the end of the workshop that slowed down my training for the following weeks.
