Category: Events

I know it might sound strange, but sometimes … I go outside the studio. Like, I do leave the building occasionally. So on the FIRST SUNNY SUNDAY IN FOREVER, I went to a museum because why going to the park and enjoying the sun. I wanted to go see Steve Mcqueen’s exhibition at Tate Modern. So here’s a short review of it and some cool photos I took (illegally). 

Western Deep 

The film shows a fragment from the life of the minors working in the deepest gold mines in the world – Tautona Mines in the Witwatersrand Reef near Johannesburg, South Africa. Going on the lift, the minors embark on what is seems an endless journey under the ground. The darkness of the tunnel juxtaposed brilliantly with intense noises creates the feeling that this is a journey to hell. The only source of light comes from the lantern of their helmets, so the only thing the audience can see is the sweat on their faces and the hopelessness in their eyes. An image of trapped souls in a black pit, which reminded me of Plato’s allegory of the cave. Back in the real world, we see the minors with thermometers in their mouths, being tested like animals used in an experiment. Repeating the same exercise over and over again, the spectator gets the feeling of a timeless existing, a life deprived of meaning or purpose. In the last shot, as the camera moves back we see that “the experiment” is being monitored through a screen. Someone else is observing the “animals” and writing down their results. I see the monitors as the idea of the “peephole” and objectification – the participants are no longer human, they are reduced to objects of the research, a tool in the mines. 

 I loved the way Mcqueen used colors in different environments. The pale tones of the shots in what it seemed like a hospital and the contrast blue shorts of the minors create the atmosphere of a hostile environment, even the red light is not a source of warmth, but rather a symbol of their helplessness. 

Finally, I was most impressed by the role of sound in the film. The loud, almost unbearable noises in the mines followed by silent pauses, conveyed the message of the struggle to survive in an extreme environment, the helplessness and the fear of an upcoming danger. It reminded me of the Chernobyl series, the moment they knew that we’re unable to stop the catastrophe from spreading. The absence of sound made the scenes seem endless, a feeling of lingering. 

“To say that Steve McQueen’s new film, Western Deep, is a staggering achievement barely does it justice…. It is one of the most physically powerful pieces of film-making I’ve ever experienced.”

– Sukhdev Sandhu, The Daily Telegraph, 15 October 2002.

Ashes

 “Ashes” is a video installation of two short films played simultaneously? The first video is footage from 2002 shot on Super 8 by the Dutch cinematographer Robby Muller. A young man, probably around 18 years old, sitting on the deck of a bright orange boat, carelessly playing with the camera, going through the sea on a hot sunny day. A seemingly idealistic image of the beauty of youth. A man starts talking in the background. A discussion of the unfortunate death of Ashes. Killed by a drug dealer for discovering a stash of drugs. 

On the opposite side of the screen, you see the making of his grave. The engraving of the stone, the memorial plaque for the grave. Shot in 2013 on 16mm film, the video shows the calm, peaceful process of “the departure”. 

A contrast between life and death. The bright, vibrant image of the boy enjoying life next to the old men carefully engraving Ashes name into the cold stone, painting the memorial in white. 

Something I noticed about McQueen’s style is that he starts by showing a small detail and then he reveals the whole picture. In Western Deep, first, he focuses on one of the miners repeating an exercise under the sound of the red light and then he moves back and shows the whole room filled with men doing the same over and over again. In one of the shots in Ashes, he focused on a bee trapped by the sticky white paint on the memorial and slowly reveals the larger picture of the cemetery with tons of new memorials all painted In white. I like this particular approach because it helps in building up with the emotional connection with the audience – people are more likely to sympathize with an individual rather than a group. Because as Joseph Stalin said to Averill Harriman:

“A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic.” 

What is more, this approach guides the audience through the film and places emphasis on what is important and should not be overlooked or ignored. 

In conclusion, I would say that this was probably one of the best exhibitions I have been to in London so far. I hadn’t seen anything from Steve Mcqueen previously, but I loved the use of color and sound in his work. What I found most inspiring is that he addresses serious issues, often neglected by modern society.

Now, to cheer you up after my talk about death and suffering – check out the cute photo of a grandma and her grandson sitting by the window on the last floor

Bread and Butter,

Nicole

The second part of my post about Restless is a conversation with one of the co-founders and head of Marketing of the theatre company – Kristin Bacheva. As found on her Instagram page, she is “a theatre-maker or curious human that loves aesthetics”. Recently, she published her first book – a collection of poems in Bulgarian and English. My role in this project of hers is that I made simple illustrations, based on my initial emotions provoked by the writings. However, this is the theme for another blog post, which I will write as soon as I get my hardcopy and start bragging about it to my family. 

I hope you have some midnight snack with you as you read our lovely conversation.

What is the theme of the play?

• Rest[less] is a movement piece dissecting the phenomenon of burnout through the curious lense of a beehive.

What do you love about physical theatre, and why did you choose it over traditional theatre?

• As I come from a dance background, I found in physical theatre a level of expression that resonates with who I am as a performer, and I kept choosing it over traditional theatre throughout my studies, which led me even into specializing in it deeper.

How do you use movement to express an idea or a feeling?

• Firstly I use imagination to access the movement, which then expresses the idea or feeling that I am trying to tell.

Do you use Stanislavski’s questions when building a character?

• Depending on the type of role I am working on. If it is a movement piece, I use physical acting methodologies (such as Michael Chekhov or Viewpoints), if I am working on building a character for a naturalistic play, I’d probably ask for Stanislavski’s help.

So what methods do you use when portraying an animal?

I’d use Chekhov’s Imaginary body exercise.
I would study the animal first- how it walks, sits, lies, eats, runs, communicates and all those details. After I’ve watched a couple of videos on YouTube as I tend to pick exotic animals that are not around us every day, I’d try to imagine the animal in front of me very precisely. Next, I’d imagine stepping into what I’ve imagined and physically make a step and get into the animal. Then I’d feel around how it is to be this animal and go for a walk around, exploring how it behaves and so on. Once I feel like I have it 100% (and in case I need to tone it down to a human character that behaves like a panther for example) I’d go down to 50% meaning I’d internalize the animal 50% and leave 50% of it to show on the outside, then 20% where physically the animal is not visible at all but I’m still imagining everything on the inside at  a 100%. Here we talk about body versus mind relationship or the psycho-physical.

Actually, the methods I used to build my character from rest[less] are the same. Although as my character is not real but built from my imagination, inspired by bees, I had to do some additional imagination work to create it before I step into it. And I only tuned it down to 60% when performing. I imagined myself in a cacoon being born for the first time (this is another exercise from Jaques Lecoq but slightly altered). I only imagined it, while lying on the floor. Then I saw my character ‘Bubar’, a weird looking bee with very long and a lot of body hair/bee fluff, massive antennas and skinny bones but with very big hands and feet. And after that, I went on doing the exercise from above until I had Bubar in my body.

Chekhov’s Imaginary Body Exercise is a new concept for me. I’ve studied Stanislavski’s System in both theory and practice in my old uni. I will try to combine both methods for my animal study, and hopefully, the others will be able to tell that I am a … well, we will see in a week.

Bread and Butter,

Salt and Peaches,

Weetaibix and Oat Milk (because dairy is bad for your skin duh),

Nikol

On the 12th of November, I had the pleasure to watch the latest version of the show Restless by GOLKK Theatre Company at The Cockpit. GOLKK is a physical theater company, founded by graduate theater students from Canterbury. It all started as a university project for a graduation play. As time passed, however, they realized how much they enjoy working together and how great their collective energy.  Three years later, just as passionate and devoted as in the beginning, they are ready to present the third version of their original play called Restless. 

Even though I know Kristin for about three years now, I never had the chance to see any of her performances. Knowing nothing but the name of the show, I am sitting impatiently in the audience, waiting for my very first physical theater experience. The lights go off, and I find myself in a world where people are just worker bees, caught so tightly in their daily routines that they do not notice anything else. Day by day, they all do the same things over and over again – wake up, get ready, go to work, go home, go to bed. Even though their routines were different, the outcome was the same – they were all part of a vicious cycle, a made-up life deprived of meaning. Suddenly, one of the bees sees a light so bright and beautiful she forgets she has to work. Following this ray of happiness, she allows herself to feel free for the first time and just rest for a minute. Seeing one of their fellow workers happy, the other bees think she is crazy, so they drag her back to her “normal” life. Losing her only moment of joy, she goes back to being part of the soulless machine. 

Watching them play made me think about how our lives are just empty actions devoid of emotion and purpose. We live in a world in which we worship titles and money, completely ignoring our inner “wealth”. We buy objects we do not even need just for validation and to increase our levels of dopamine for a minute, and we pay for them with currency far more valuable than money – our time. 

We waste years on jobs we hate just to satisfy our artificial needs created by society. A society that accuses gambling of being immoral and marking it like a vise, but simultaneously promotes social platforms built on the same principles as the slots in a casino. A society where freedom of choice is just a concept and everyone is a part of a carefully targeted audience of an algorithm.

The play leaves the audience with an open ending: the last bee sees the light … and the curtains fall. So what will happen next? In the end, we are responsible for our happiness. As we know from the butterfly effect: even a small change could have a great impact. Sometimes, one person can spark the fire of a thousand others and break the system. 

But enough with my existential monologue.

From an animator’s point of view, watching the play showed me the power of movement. Even the slightest change in the behavior of the actors brought something new to the performance. Simply, by watching their daily routines, I was able to understand their characters and see their personality traits. Observing the sense of touch, I knew which two bees were a couple and that they have some unresolved issues with each other.

To learn more about physical theatre and how to use it more successfully, as we have to present our animal analysis in a week, I asked Kristin to tell me more about her experience and some practices she uses to prepare for her performances. I will post the short-no-so-much-of-an-interview conversation in the next couple of days. 

Bread & Butter,

Nicole