COLONIZER WORKSHOP FULL REPORT AND REFLECTION
key memories:
collaboration
shameless
unknown
generous
humility
expansion
meaning
feelings
knowledge
vernacular
common sense
people have their lives
childish
improvisation
repetition
objects
violence
darkness
catalogues of existing people
no props
being and acting
strangeness effect
how to do a report of a report?
we report on stage what we prepare.
we prepare the public to what comes; although it’s just a report of what we prepared and done on the workshop.
we were doing nothing at that moment.
we were sitting on chairs.
we didn’t do then.
we did more.
we did nothing.
what is the script?
what is improvisation?
what is prepared?
what is done?
what can be spoken of?
what can you hear?
what can you bear without being too disturbed?
The aim is to make us think and to make something useful and positive without blaming.
We don’t want to scare or push anyone away.
Role of the theatre to the public:
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escape the lonely life
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relationship
Role of theatre-making:
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the process of theatre-making
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research - process - ready
DISTANCE
(we all need some)
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contact with myself
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contact with the world
DISTANCE
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present
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representation
RELATIONSHIPS:
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theatre maker/executor/watcher
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public/stage
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public/message
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present/representation
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fiction/reality
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ourselves/world
IMAGINE A PLACE WHERE YOU CAN SAY WHATEVER YOU WANT.
BRING SOMETHING USEFUL AND DO IT LIKE NOBODY'S WATCHING.
NO FILTER
NO JUDGEMENT
NO MERCY
JUST FREE ORGANIC IMPROVISATION
When can we say something is ready?
When can we say something has finished?
At the moment we put it on stage, but even then it can result in something different than the plan, then the day before. That’s no problem because our everyday life is also different and different problems lead to different solutions.
There’s no right or wrong just different. If we allow ourselves to fail we can find multiple answers, because we are not controlled by the fear of failure.
People have their lives and are busy finding better-paid jobs or bigger houses.
Caring about something is nothing more than a share, a tag, a post… What about touch?
What about sharing real experiences?
I’m an artist and I do also get distracted by social media and what I think people expect from me instead of using social media for what I really think is useful sharing.
What’s my purpose of sharing?
What can I share that is useful?
What is stopping me from being fulfilled?
Art is not a monologue. It’s a dialogue. A relationship.
Multiple relationships that connected or not, build a situation that is useful to be talked about.
In the art world, things can be talked about but not necessarily documented.
We are safe to recreate and reimagine.
If we are safe we should do it by the ones that are not safe enough to talk.
By imagining these situations we are speaking for the voiceless and not closing the multiple possibilities of solving a problem.
We might don’t know what the solution is because we didn’t live the problem.
But we are willing to set it to the air so solutions can be imagined.
Maybe by doing so, we are not so specific as maybe the public could wish us to be,
which is the opportunity to the public be included in the execution of the script too.
The actors and when on stage, also the public is allowed to think with their solutions to the real-life problems because in the theatre we feel safe to think and say what we want. The public is making meaning of the situation by their experience or memories on the topic instead of just being absorbing someone else’s ideas.
It is the public that builds the meaning of the situation by having repetitions and suggestions of the different actors own perspectives, making possible for the public connect and create their own versions or remind them of their life past experience on that situation.
The stage and the real-life belong all to the same world and it’s our choice to speak up when we feel safe to do it.
WHAT WOULD WE SAY IF WE COULD SAY EVERYTHING?
When we are so involved with technology but mainly consuming in silence instead of sharing, criticizing constructively and building an opinion, we start to think what the algorithms think for us, and meanwhile, the unfollow and the block buttons also put in cause our ability to cohabit a space with more diverse opinions.
Why can’t people be honest with their preferences without being judged has a hater?
Even this that I’m writing is making me feel guilty because I’m not sure if it’s useful for society, or nature and I feel I’m wasting resources: waste of skin, waste of air to breathe, waste of water, waste of belief, waste of space… but I hope at least that it brought you to some clue to what might have felt been working with the director Anna Karasinska, her vision and method.
Can I solve the mystery?
Can I determinate the end?
Will this be my last question?
Why do we always look for more questions without even answering the first one?
Anna told us on the very first day we met at the yard’s creative hub that if she knew the meaning of one idea she immediately put it away because its question is already closed.
I only truly understood this latter on, when we found situations during our sessions that we couldn’t actually tell why those situations matter to us or why should we be talking about them, but we felt like we needed to, we felt like the people living those real situations were voiceless and we felt like we were safe enough to give them our voice.
1 - 19/11 workshop day zero
first contact, brainstorming for the situation, research - process - ready
2 - 11/12 -14/12 workshop and presentation
process, rehearsals, script, ready
3 - presentation of the first draft
4 - talk after the performance
5 - memories / what stays / what is the benefit
These 5 moments maybe are all the process or the research for the next process.
We will never know what is the end, because our lives, nature, feelings and personalities change.
MY ORIGINAL NOTES FROM THE WORKSHOP
19/11/2018
Ewelina Cries
TR theatre company
Bringing in the audience to the real experience
Playing with you expected to be theatre
Strangement Effect - real meeting of presence/ transform or find new ways for this to happen
Analysing everything to build a situation and give meaning to content
Distance between present and representation
Mind fuck
4 actors playing roles of people playing as the actors
Deconstructing the identity of the person on stage
British Theatre Public - Priviledge british message to be told - white over 40 audience
Finding place to sneak yourself in the situation
Fancy private theatre institution
Subject: positivity, political correctness, environtment
Make you question what you believe and not just give the easy to swallow
Everytime patterns and people are different
What can be given to the people?
What will make them take off the mask?
What is the most difficult to swallow?
Fringe/Edge Theatre
Algorithms
Loneliness
Dadabot
Toxic Masculinity - Daughter - play by Adam Lazarus
Cognitive Dissonance - The strangement effect on real life
Disconfort
Distance - we all need contact with our inner selves and the world
Ministry of Loneliness
Without blaming the audience - Everyone is good enough
Escape of the lonely life
Obssessive
Liveness
Lonely being together
Feeling part of the theatre
Feeling part of something
People don’t feel connect with real life so they try to be part of something
Moment/memory
Research -- Process -- Ready
Ask the question to the space
(topics should we talk):
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Space is expensive - who is getting the space
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Loneliness
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National gallery: colonizer country stealing stuff from others and still have it with pride in museums
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Colonization
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Role is there before people get born and people are taught to behave in that role
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Behavior - a role that has to be filled
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Expectations from the different roles of society
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Mistake of attribution: thinking that the guy who is collecting the tickets is the bad guy/ responsible of the price
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Analyzing the caracter and go deeper and talk about the system behind instead of the superficial
SURFACE - newspapers, social media
SYSTEM - roots; finding the real reasons why we act
New colonization - online brainwash - a world without borders to spread fear without us thinking we all valuable and put labels and maybe do what wants to think but things were in those countries were destroyed by bombs or wars
How to behave in this situation?
Change it or forget it but understand it first
Nobody is willing to change if they are blamed
Emotions are good indicators of how we are truly and what we are aware of
Foam (upper surface) created to make us busy with it; entertainment
They are not dehumanized - they see you as a person
Covered/unseen - isolation
Wall is in our hearts and not between us
If you say a lot of unnecessary things it’s because you’re hiding what’s really happening
‘We are fair’ British belief - they say something else instead (covering)
Idea of play - famous actors going to substitute themselves in the play of low budget; expressing ideas that if I was myself I couldn’t tell about
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Felling safe telling a story
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Fulfill the expectation and build from there
WHAT WOULD WE SAY IF WE COULD SAY EVERYTHING
VIRTUAL/real
Identity/general
SUBVERSIVE FREEDOM
LONELINESS FOR ANNA :
Im inside myself
Connection with myself
Feeling good with yourself and be physically and psychological connect with your body
Lack of contact with yourself and others
What was the subject of the meeting?
What stayed with ourselves?
What stuck with me?
Not how to do but if it brings benefit or not... is the biggest question.
If I do something and I knowwhat it is, I throw it away!
Dismissing is revealing
If we are too attached to the things that we value we can’t put ourselves in the scale
This what I understand today and my level of logic and sensitivity.
19/11/2018 workshop with Anna karasinska @hub, the yard
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11/12/2018
ANGER
good work → hired by big corporates → becomes bad work
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we let this to happen to be patronized
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anna is angry about this because we are spending people’s money to supposedly bring them culture
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why is an artist underpaid?
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if you don’t show you’re depending on them, they will respect you and treat you better
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anna: i’m employing you, you’re not employing me.
( - regarding her demands with the uk production because she’s getting paid from the polish culture research programme)
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sometimes is better to just resign
-ABSOLUTENESS ABOUT ART
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fulfilment, cutting across humanity, social relationships
being in too much control outcomes → anger / absurd
on the edge
there’s a lot to be angry about
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don’t tell me to suppress my emotions just because you can’t cope with them
RAGE - about the way this industry works (now i’m more proud with the authenticity of the feeling)
BOWING TO THE DOMINANT CULTURE FILTER - if you’re not in that filter you need to adjust to the gatekeeper
the more successful the more lonely
jealousy and revenge
they don’t have time to talk to me
people are people
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what do we feel we are lacking
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why we are affected
first I felt humiliated with my anger feeling → guilty → then I give myself the right to be angry
suppressing emotions is british
george: my brother harry has not cried since he was 5 years old. he has issues bottled up since his childhood. my mom has victorian values and she apologizes everytime she cries.
anna: i think that is too much.
anna: shame is the feeling in Poland. what about here? what is the subject?
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colonization
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distance
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loneliness
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isolation
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suppression
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guilt of being colonizer (rute: nowadays this don’t have borders anymore)
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corporate power (making us guilty of our actions while they say there’s no climate change)
Poppy on Remembrance Day - angry on the cult, the leader of the opposition was accused to be bad dressed
Attachment to this little things can reveal remote control manifestation. Being obsessed with protocol behaviour instead of thinking and acting to the concerns to the real attention.
REPLACEMENT OF THE REAL ATTENTION
GEORGE: Being english has a lot to do with this expectation, history values, pomp and convention.
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i’m not clever enough to understand it
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i’m not powerful enough to change it
REAL ATTENTION → NATURE ; CLIMATE CHANGE
(guilt, unfairness, no energy to think about on this one thing, getting our attention somewhere, shaping us)
WHAT WE REALLY FEEL IS UNEXPRESSED
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APATHY
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I DON’T CARE
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WE NEVER HAD A REVOLUTION IN BRITAIN
I FEEL ENVY - about the Irish people living in English
the rightness of being in the world
Narrative we tell about ourselves
Myth about your country
Civilization - different values becoming prominent
Polical incorrect
Being fair
British valeus - nostalgia
I don’t trust this system anymore: sense of order - we never questioned things
NO CONTROL
POWERLESS
SHAME
HUMILIATION
What’s the point.
I have to do something physical.
Mix of metaphors - very powerful symbols to construct systems
There’s a underline structure we can’t trust
Why is somebody manipulating? Who are they?
Who’s making the art?
Propaganda?
Where’s the money coming from?
ACTIVISTS invaded and interrupted shakespeare play sponsored by BP
Who are you playing to?
Sheamus: This is not theatre, this is real.
George: England looks like private school, like harry potter.
‘’Love actually’ film shows a futiled fucked version brits
Is the buggy man behind you
There is all the time in world
We are alone. We are lost.
stillness
I was never here before. Give hands. Lay on the floor with a smile
1- Warm up by Jenny
2- Walking using space
3- Looking eye contact 1 sec - 2sec - 10 sec - 2 sec - 1 seconds
4 - Using the space for 10 minutes do anything, just be
5- Write 5 separate phrases.
6- Change papers. Write 5 scores to the first 5 phrases.
7- Change again. Write something again.
Why does 10 minutes feel so long.
connection without reason
london life underground - ignore everybody else
maybe: writing without your ego
About the improvisation:
Everybody believes doing something is better than doing nothing.
Everybody is serious.
Everybody is feeling confused when not doing something.
Everybody is feeling relieved when doing something.
Everybody tries to give a meaning.
If you want to predict the result it makes no sense to improvise.
You never want the answer of the question
Cannot be specific or reasonable
Good or bad it’s not ok to impose your power
Keep preceding on our situation without the shame or the fear control us
We never let ourselves do nothing in the whole situation
Happy with the action
Satisfation
Perform - You just do something
Act - Role/Script
Performance - the public create the meaning
Acting - somebody give the public the meaning
Give yourself time to imagine: What does it make me feel? What makes me imagine the situation? What does the situation make me feel?
About the time of the situation
Reaching out people 100% of the time
Who’s going to be upset? Why? They don’t stay invisible.
Imagine that we do nothing.
I don’t know what you should do, you were observing much.
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ROLE - walk and talk
someone who want to transmite the context of the situation - say it from the point and really describing it
my role description :
I’ve always wanted to change the world.
I’m usually this unreachable character that you don’t know if its a hero or a villain, enemy or ally, sexy or disgusting.
Chaos is always my escape because that’s how I was raised.
But maybe for one day I just to be a person.
Creature or goddess.
What about being a woman? a person? a human?
That’s boring isn’t it?
Why do I push myself to do everything at the same time?
Well, if you don’t hate something about yourself is because you’re perfect
Maybe I have bigger issues behind the hero costume!
Maybe I have bigger issues to solve rather than thinking about my body.
Why do people always worry about little things?
Why do I always worry about everything instead of my own purpose?
Model or bartender than everybody thinks to be a stubborn cold person for being too honest
Play - the role you’re casted
Play - your role
Play - london single mom
3 moments of improvisation
there’s something wrong and unfair about the single mom that’s appealing
one - problematic
together - all the people’s assumptions about people
it’s easier to do/show than to talk about
one thing became organic in something else
take care of the little moment of understanding
role playing
was very interesting what happen to me actually
if you repeat it is not there
meet people
being somewhere
something that must be said
homework:
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describe notting hill gate 5 phrases (associations, pictures, adjectives)
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describe 1 scene you play from classical theatre. rute play a thing, a object.
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tell 5 lies about England
They say you get a good pay here and you don’t.
We all love tea.
It always rain.
We all speak like the queen.
We love a drink.
UK is like London.
Guns is illegal, you can buy them if you don’t have criminal record in haunting special bureaucratic shit
We are not all smart.
Stiff upper lip - emotionally not expressive, brits don’t cry
Nothing Hill
portobello road market
carnaval - big brazilian community
posh
hipster
pretty
gold road
sexist
conservative
House is burning
People being rude / People being kind
CHECK FILM - HIGH FIDELITY
12/12/18
TRAGEDY - ART
If you’re about to say something that really happen, people or your mind try to stop you because people don’t want to be confronted about it. You don’t want to make art after somebody else suffering.
IMMIGRANT - role of another colonizer instead of victim, another way of colonization
Traveling changed me the way I think and it needs to be talked about
Theatre
-inside: inner self
-outside: nobody is talking about
UNFAIR/UNTOLD/VOICELESS
If I’m safe I’ll try my safety for others that are not safe.
Poland and the polish
- Aristocracy Elite Landlords VS Poor People without education
- in the 80s 90s there was a huge middle class and nobody was really poor
- FREE MARKET - some people became really rich and middle class disappeared and became really poor
- WW/Germany - SCRIPT become active - nobody needs to talk about it in school because you’re grandma told you the stories
- Germany destroyed Poland and never paid - Would you like some borrowed money to rebuilt? Who did destroy everything?
NOTTING HILL local pub, waitress have to bow down to serve the clients due to its architecture design
NON TRANSMISSIBLE - throw theatre we can touch it
Political correctness
I don’t know where these people went but they must be somewhere - about Grenfell Tower fire in Notting Hill on the 14th of June 2017.
GRENFELL TOWER SHOWED US THE HUMAN COST OF NOT INVESTING IN SOCIAL HOUSING
ROLE OF SAYING THINGS
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colonial superiority
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colonizers invasion - script by european outsiders
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imposing ideas
natural/ organic chaos improvisation
conquer greenland
conquer africa
conquer brasil
take everything and rape everyone
conquer india
imposing our culture
stealing everything
TEA SCENE - explaining educational thing
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chimpanzee having tea in a TV commercial
WHAT’S THE BENEFIT FOR THE AUDIENCE?
METAPHOR_ we are so concerned about the world
NO, WE ARE TRULY CONCERNED ABOUT THE WORLD
COLONIZER - position to undermind the condition, keep it a secret to ourselves like a mental strategy - we don’t need to say who we are, we just need to do and show what we are doing
grab a present to mother and she asks to give it back
PEOPLE NOT PROFIT
SELF DESTRUCTION
SIMPLE FULFILLING
PRIORITIES
SIMPLE LIVING
DEHUMANIZATION
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use our body
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rewilding (primitive baby movement)
adults are atrophied children
bodies are political
we can choose
we can choose what’s precious
13/12/2018
polish theatre - tag anna karasinska
spider moment
CARA: should we teach him english how much time do we have?
retell instead of acting
object shines like a diamond
they might be ok - notting hill (collection of the catalogue that we all mention):
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trying to talk
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grenfell tower
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fake antiques
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everything idealized
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historical for something
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one lady claiming for saving the house
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I don’t know where this people went
We had this crazy polish director wanting us to talk about WWII and they figured out not, that we couldn’t do the colonization.
Anna’s grandfather survived because they had wooden shoes when he was walking from the concentration camps in the snow for weeks without eating and going to nowhere til they found a empty house they could stay… And was a war so they could get in, and his children were afraid of him because they didn’t recognize him
There’s a risk, if she is Polish, she wants to do that
Chairs
Funny/ Happy/ Brilliant War
Script with tasks and improvisation parts
Do you wanna play a game?
It’s ok to do nothing.
Multiply the ‘Nigerian Single Mother’ part
Education
I need money
Don’t drop it
Throw it back properly
They told me to stay here
He left me
Could we be here for 7 mins and try to be a nigerian single mother and I feel like this and that…
Describing yourself to blind people. Declaring.
Black nigerian woman 30’s
Top + cardigan + leggins
Brightful colors
Fairy Casting
Aware that your not used to her image for this role
I am a bit bigger
I know you were expecting someone like Cara
I’m not allowed usually because Cara can do Shakespeare
Can she do Shakespear like Cara can?
I can be a angry woman in a cue or a maid but I can be a queen or a fairy.
They are glazed over because they give shake hands.
Leave the casting with my children catch the bus
It was cold
I don’t have money to buy my children winter coats
I go to the doll office to get money
And my children aare bored
And I waited 50 minutes
I’m entitled to this money
I have my ticket
Please give me the money.
This money is for my children.
pretext - story about casting - something that justifies - add one level more and this will work
big rule appears - what is this for? what is the benefit?
TALK AFTER PRESENTING THE FIRST DRAFT AT THE YARD 14/12/2018
Anna: Wondering if we should introduce ourselves.
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really useful first 5 mins retold
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introduction (what is the situation)
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3 stages: 1 africa, 2 south america, 3 ireland
1- AFRICA
we don’t make the scenes not to upset you (storytelling PAST)
2- SOUTH AMERICA
rute feels included by acting the colonizer scene but by distance we start to both perform and act
3- IRLAND
sheamus feels included by performing the improvisation scene
bringing strong emotions on him, somehow possible to the scene become alive, and the script would ruin the truth
SINGLE NIGERIAN MOTHER (disconnected scene)
ARTIST
that was there
say that we should stop
I don’t know how it works but it works
somethings can be predicted but they can work
understand the flow of the process
I show you my project:
Diamond
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objectified into a beautiful object and this discomfort it brings this emotions
ENGAGED AND GUILTY
STAY ON THE EDGE
MAKE US SEE THEM
reflection - no danger
5 different approaches of how you see the situation
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IRELAND changed for the person to be colonized
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What is the decision of not having any black people
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Responsibility to the production of not having casted them
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To make more people see it instead of having opinion
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Convention makes us see it
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We had many questions
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Specially about Single Nigerian Mother
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ROLE - in the theatre or in the world is the same role
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About they are being casted
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We started from these roles which are predominant
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Anna lived the past 2 months in South America, and there are still these roles
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colonizer/ colonized
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today these roles are still casted
POLAND
- occupier/ victim
- make this effort to change their lives has to be addressed
- this tool is a genius work because we have freedom to talk about these situations and roles
- not that my vision is a clear position but it is important to use the space to talk about things that matter
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we collected from the things that worked from the material we think worked and become organic because they were aware inside
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i feel it all fits
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maybe should be strengthened but the parallel is there
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i was not finding justification but everyone tried
UNCOMFORTABLENESS
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relationship more construction in the piece
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raw moments of things that happen
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huge chances chopped out relaying in that stories
THIS IS ART, I’M NOT FOCUSED ON BEING CREDIBLE in all stories circumstances, but in making people have contact with the experience (situation) I’m talking about
If makes me primitive, than the completion is working to experience it, then I’m happy
If we knew how to talk about it this would be fixed, and we didn’t have the need to be talking about it.
Everything would be ok and everyone was happy, but it’s not.
We were not criticizing and we felt alive, the chickens just happened, and we are alive.
Anna: Did you felt uncomfortable doing being Irish?
Seamus: It was perfect, was brilliant. I felt alive.
WHAT COULD BEEN AVOID?
Having a pint at the end, to feel less uncomfortable. Im going to work in the pub because that’s my real life this is my real life too, people after the play continue with their lives after we talked about this still very dark matter.
Report
— what we did
— what we prepared
But we won’t do it now
Because we don’t want to shock you
But it happened anyway so you can imagine
Imagine what could have been to you if we really play it
But what it may feel does it.
Really matter now
Since we didn’t had any nigerian single mother because it who it is
what matters is having someone talking about something
because other people have bigger judging system
that tells you what you should talk or not.
what’s the topic? what’s the hype? what’s the hot?
do it as no one was here
what they think doesn’t matter.