Live Arts for the Everyday – 90 Applicable Thoughts

LIVE ARTS FOR THE EVERYDAY – APPLICABLE THOUGHT #62 – Touring

| María Ferrara

Traditionally, performers would travel from place to place to make a living off their work. Only very few would be permanently employed, for example by a person belonging to the nobility, and would therefore stay in the same place. This implied great adaptability to different performance conditions and audiences and also to living on the road. In general, itinerant performers were viewed with distrust and for a long time actors could not receive a Christian burial in many parts of Europe. Although nowadays performers tend to have a base home from which they travel, mobility is still important and still often conditions lifestyle. Collaborations with hosting teams needs a quick coming together, but are only short-lived and this can be both enriching and depleting. Not all relationships can become significant and connections that seemed intense may turn out to be superficial. Most of us tour around the world by means of social media and strike “friendships” with people we barely know. How can we keep these connections nourishing by being real about their nature?

 

 

María Ferrara

 

LIVE ARTS FOR THE EVERYDAY – APPLICABLE THOUGHT #61 – Authorship

| María Ferrara

The author (composer, choreographer or scriptwriter) is the creator of the piece. However, it can be argued that the performers who interpret the piece can make such substantial contributions that they become also co-creators of a specific version of the piece. We can think that the author is completely free to do what they want. To a certain extent this is true, but of course, not everything is possible. What one can imagine is conditioned by one’s experience and context. Also, sometimes it can be frustratingly impossible to materialize what one has imagined. In our lives we are also conditioned and we also face limitations. That is no reason to give up the possibility of going as far as we can in creating our own path through life.

 

 

María Ferrara

 

LIVE ARTS FOR THE EVERYDAY – APPLICABLE THOUGHT #60 – Poetry

| María Ferrara

Poetry is a literary genre in which the formal and evocative qualities of language are used to contribute to or even replace its prosaic or literal meaning. This can be transposed to live arts. When we say something is poetic, we mean that it is touching us, often in subtle ways that are difficult to describe. We can endeavour to make things poetic or we can simply allow ourselves to find the poetry in things. Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder.

 

 

María Ferrara

 

LIVE ARTS FOR THE EVERYDAY – APPLICABLE THOUGHT #59 – Research

| María Ferrara

Research is an important part of creating a piece. It will give the artist knowledge of the associations and implications of different aspects of the piece and will inform their choices in the creation process. Research is about opening possibilities. Creation is about choosing from these possibilities. At some point there has to be a transition from one stage of the work to the another. What do we need to know to do what we want to do? How much is enough? When are we ready to go into action?

 

 

María Ferrara

 

LIVE ARTS FOR THE EVERYDAY – APPLICABLE THOUGHT #58 – Estrangement Effect

| María Ferrara

This term (Verfremdungseffekt) was introduced by Bertolt Brecht to refer to the aim of preventing the audience from reacting to the characters in a play without being aware of it. The fictional nature of stage action is highlighted and the audience is invited to question their emotional reaction to it. In this way the audience becomes witness not only to what is happening in the play, but also to themselves. We can become very involved in our stories, to the point that we are driven by the role we play in them and lose the bigger picture. Can we look at them as an outside witness to gain greater awareness and freedom?

 

 

María Ferrara

 

LIVE ARTS FOR THE EVERYDAY – APPLICABLE THOUGHT #57 – Site-specific Perfomance

| María Ferrara

A site-specific performance is conceived with the peculiarities of a particular space in mind, so much so that the show would be completely different or even impossible somewhere else. What might be seen as difficulties are seen as opportunities offered by the landscape. Sometimes we apply the same pattern to different situations. This can save us time and energy, but standardization cannot fully address particularities. If we take the conditions as they are, what would be a situation-specific action?

 

 

María Ferrara

 

LIVE ARTS FOR THE EVERYDAY – APPLICABLE THOUGHT #56 – Backstage

| María Ferrara

What happens backstage is not visible for the audience. However, its results or effects are. Some performances purposefully avoid having a backstage, so that all the technique and off times are on show. This tones down the illusion of the performance and also gives importance to the mechanics that support stage action. We can also see our actions in the world as having a backstage, a place where they originate from: motivations, needs, wishes, emotions, inspirations… For each particular action, event and situation, we can choose whether to show what’s happening backstage or not. Which option best serves our intentions?

 

 

María Ferrara

 

LIVE ARTS FOR THE EVERYDAY – APPLICABLE THOUGHT #55 – Prompt

| María Ferrara

In theatre the prompter follows the script and instructs the performers if they forget lines, an action or a position on stage. This role has practically disappeared in modern theatre; if any prompts are needed, they are usually given by the stage manager. We often use prompts in everyday life: reminders from social media, our mobile phones or blogs and the more classical post-it on the fridge door or changing a ring to the other hand. These prompts usually remind us about practical things that we want to do. How could we prompt ourselves when we are wanting to make way for new thoughts, emotions or practices?

 

 

María Ferrara

 

LIVE ARTS FOR THE EVERYDAY – APPLICABLE THOUGHT #54 – Costume

| María Ferrara

Whatever a performer wears is saying something, either about their role in the piece, or about the relationship between the performance and everyday life,or about the aesthetic and/or ideological references that inform the work. Nothing is neutral, whatever we wear is saying something about us, so we might as well be aware of whether our costume is doing what we would like it to do for us. What is important to me today as I get dressed before leaving the house? Simplicity? Functionality? Balancing a mood? Expressing something? Feeling part of something? Making a statement? Having a laugh? If this is quite intuitive for us, it might be interesting to notice what we are wearing to get a glimpse of what is important to us at a moment in time.

 

 

María Ferrara