Warp & Weft Theatre - Central Update

My intentions to write here fortnightly have faded slightly with the end of term at Central, but what a beautiful end of term it's been. 

Meet Warp and Weft Theatre - a company born from the MAATP course at Central who seek to find the shining connections between people in their work. 

With this team of  - performers//directors//writers//dramaturges, we created 'A Presence of Departed Acts', a piece of memories, selective vision and living vicariously through fairytales through choreography and scenography. (Devices were gathered 
ten weeks previous purely for rhyming effect. I am serious) 

This piece was an experiment in devising through group collaboration - and if I'm honest with myself, what I have discovered 
that I've never been more certain that I'm a director. This term I wanted to perform, and our goal as a group was to take risks and I'm very glad I did. Through this process I have discovered that I would love to work within an ensemble where each practitioner offers. That's when magic happens. 

- and this is where my final project comes in. Watch this space. 

The other unit on the course is Performing Research which is not quite finished. We undertake Robin Nelson's Practice as Research theory and conduct our own research in the rehearsal room to draw conclusions. 

My group are looking at: mis- memory or mis-remembering as a tool to as part of the process to generate contemporary theatre. This continues over Easter break - and I'll post again when we have more results. I'm excited about this work particularly because these are exercises I've been part of making that will form part of my practice and process as a theatre maker. 

As part of this research, you are offered the chance to explore a topic on the periphery of your practice - and I have always been interested in the mechanics of memory, specifically false memories and neuro-linguistic programming - which is why Crab Bucket (dir. James Rushbrooke, prod. Absence of Apathy - see previous blog) was so intriguing for me. 

James, with consent, used operant conditioning on members of his cast to explore the capacity of emotion memory within the performer. I was curious to see this being explored as part of a process in contemporary theatre practice, in terms of its limitations and the ethical questions it poses. I have been researching NLP for the performing research module this term, and have become increasingly interested in its potential uses in the theatre and the lines it draws between authenticity and truth, recall and performance. 

This research question, and the potential outcome of a process of making theatre with the FORM of memory, rather than CONTENT of memory is certainly something that I plan to investigate further, but a concept that was nurtured through this project. 

So consider this a Central update - the external excitement still exists... a teaser for next time - my second professional job as an AD, Prague Festival updates and how Indomitable Productions has more than a few things up it's sleeve.

That's all for now. DFTBA.