Mime - To discover with renewed freshness...

Rehearsals have begun with Theatre of Silence. The premise is simple - a retelling of the Creation Story (創世紀) through mime. From the Big Bang, to dinosaurs, to the rise of civilizations, to the modern world and visions of possible futures...

Aside from the fact that I have to learn sign language on the fly (everyone else in the cast is hearing impaired), this project brings me back to the fundamentals of my theatre training. In the words of Jacques Lecoq:

To mime is to literally embody and therefore understand better. A person who handles bricks all day long reaches a point where he know long knows what he is handling. It has become an automatic part of his physical life. If he is asked to mime the object, he rediscovers the meaning of the object, its weight and volume. This has interesting consequences for our teaching method: miming is a way of rediscovering a thing with renewed freshness…

I can still remember the emphasis they would put in school on observation: "Don't assume you know, really go and observe how water boils." (Or how the cat walks, the florescent light lights up, etc, etc) For a couple of terms, life got rather psychadelic. We'd be sitting in a group in Mauri 7 (the bar/cafe opposite the school), all just watching the sugar dissolve in a glass of water. Everything was potential material for study, from the way the crowds hustled on to the metro, to the way the pigeons pecked down rue Faubourg de Saint Denis.

If the source of theatre is life, and mime is about observing life at its most fundamental, physical level. From there, we ask, what does it then feel like, for example, to embody something as vast as a dinosaur? Not just: "Look, I'm have spikes, I'm a stegosaurus; I'm a T-rex, hear me roar..." but really, what does it mean to take on the rhythm and enter the 'state of mind' of this lumbering creature. What is it like to embody this, and what feelings does that provoke in me?

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"Creation" - Ngau Chi Wan Civic Center Theater

September 26, 2009 (Sat) - 8pm

September 27, 2009 (Sun) - 3pm

Tickets are available via Urbtix.

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Philip Glass. Working music.

I'm listening to Phillip Glass while trying to write a letter. I find that I must get up. Move. Drop the letter; let it clatter on to the table. Break a few windows; go swimming. The undercurrent of this music so strong; it demands release, demands movement.

And yet on my way to the bus stop, I realise how difficult it is to actually dance to Philip Glass' music. What an enigma! Music that compels me to move, and yet is so viscous that it is difficult to move to. If I were to use it on the stage, there are but two obvious choices: either carry the emotion as an actor with stillness or slow movement; or fight the turgid nature of Glass' music -- thrash around in full sprint.

It's always been a curious question for me: What kind of music can I use in my pieces? Certain types of music make easier dance partners than others. Bach's cello suites for example, are easier to use than Beethoven's symphonies.

In the booklet that comes with The Hours' soundtrack, Michael Cunningham discusses how he often has certain albums or songs that are humming in his head while he is writing his books. Obviously, when I construct theatre pieces, I have pieces of music humming through my head. Sometimes the relationship is direct -- the music is intended and actually appears in the work; other times it is more oblique; something I work with.

Actually, Glass' music is perfect for writing, and perfect for breaking through writer's block. There's such imperative in its undercurrent; one cannot help but to write. Something, anything.

How creators use music for work in another medium is a fascinating one. Certainly having a hidden soundtrack can give a scene a rhythmic integrity of its own. Film director John Woo will shoot and edit scenes with a certain type of music in mind. Apparently, when he shoots a scene, he'll be listening to the music in his head as much as his actors' lines. Then, he'll edit the scene with the actual music, and then finally, he'll pull this music out. So in the final product you'll just hear the dialogue (sans soundtrack), or another soundtrack composed for the scene. He thinks of the music's existence "like a ghost... something invisible --- or actually, inaudible -- which gives the scene a life of its own."

The other day I was in Club O doing hands-on-healing; and in the background we'd put on some 'om mandi padme hum' chants. Afterwards, people were raving about how energetic the music was, but the gentleman sitting beside me turned to me and said, "Actually, there's another music, inside us; and what the music we hear is doing is reminding us of our inner music."

Let me chew on that one for a bit.




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• Listen to Phillip Glass' music
  
• An online version of Michael Cunningham's notes for The Hours soundtrack
  
• The interview with John Woo can be found in a wonderful collection of interviews with many film directors called Moviemaker’s Master Class by Laurant Tirar (New York: Faber & Faber, 2002)

I know you from before..

I had an interview the other day with a researcher doing a study on “Significant Personal Change” in people’s lives. I talked about Concrete Jungle Berzerk! and what it was like to direct my first theatre production in my own community. It was curious to revisit that sense of bravado. Has it only been a year? Burnt Mango has done so much since then, it’s odd to think of a time when we weren’t together.



After talking for an hour and half about Berzerk, I noticed that a lot of my learning was hammered home only through my work in subsequent productions. For example, it really didn’t hit home until The Foundling how important it is for the actors to have time to digest lines. I mean, I knew this because the actors were telling me this as I was handing them version 6.2 of the script, it was only until I was actually acting again that it really hit home.
(Conclusion: I think it's really healthy for directors to act, and actors to direct... it gives a better appreciation of the process from both sides.)

On the other hand, the absence of certain core values or expectations in other productions has made me realize how -- in spite our naivety, Dan and I instinctively got some things right. For example, very early on in our devising period Dan introduced the importance of “yes, lets!” in improvising. This basically means, if someone has a proposal, we first run with it, and then we’ll all be able to see if it works or not. Since then, I've been in ensembles where we didn't establish these expectations, and when it comes to crunch time, things become very difficult. Strong ensembles do not guarantee good work -- I personally think that Berzerk! is creatively unremarkable. But one year later (and four productions in the meantime), Burnt Mango is still together, devising and supporting each other in creation.

Theatre is stressful. The burden of directing is a humongous responsibility; and Berzerk! was particulary scary because I had no other reference point at that poitn in time. Now having lived through so much fear, so much exhilaration – when I encounter the same emotions, it’s like meeting an old friend. Hello! I know you... Yeah, I know directing is tough... I know what it is like to be saturated and bright with exhaustion. I know what it’s like to have the ensemble start taking rehearsals for granted.

Curiously, the other day, I also rediscovered what it was like to fall in love again. I was watching some footage of Hallelujah that Haruka had shot for us and I was fascinated -- not only by the parts where we do the piece, but actually, the parts where we are discussing the piece. The camera has this ability to magnify details, and I was overwhelmed by the uniqueness of each person and how we express ourselves. Walter is so Walter! Josh is so Josh. Hofan is so Hofan. And when I think back on Berzerk, that’s a state that I was very much in touch with -- this overwhelming sense of beauty of my actors as individuals.


> Trailer for "Hallelujah"

Actually, throughout Berzerk!, one thing that remained constant was this sheer sense of awe of having somehow found these incredible group of individuals. And, and, and, for whatever bizarre reason, they were willing to work with me. I guess I’ve been inside so much as a performer recently, well, it’s just a different type of relationship. More doing, less observation. But again, it was fun to recognize this sensation. Hey, I know you…

Ah, theatre...

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Heroes can mean a house with chickens (ii)

Something wonderful happened today that gave me a deeper understanding of working with text. Walter was working with me on my first monologue:

I studied nursing when I was young. Everyone had big dreams for me, and so did I. I wanted to go to the United States, and become a nurse and earn dollars, and send them home and be a hero to my family. But I ended up in a country a little closer to home...

The first thing Walter said was, "Why don't you try to identify what colour you text is? So be very specific with the colour – maybe this section is red or bright blue."

Somehow, Walter had intuited that thinking in colour is easy for me. I could, for example, easily tell him, "Well, I was thinking of something warm here in my dialogue with my daughter, like yellow or orange, but I think what Haruka wanted is a bright sky blue."

So we were working on this for a while, but the real revelation for me was when Walter said, "You know, I don't hear the "nursing" in the text. What does it mean to be a "nurse", and how is that different from being a shopkeeper or a banker? Right now they might as well be the same thing. What does "nurse" mean, firstly to you as a human being, and then to Maricel?

I thought about my mum being a nurse; I thought about each of the keywords: United States, dollars (yes, green American dollars, not the Hong Kong dollar), hero…

Yes – I realised that part of the problem with this whole monologue was that everything was kind of generic. In fact, I actually didn't like the text precisely because of clichés like "hero". But now, I realised that what I could do as an actor was to give a precise experience and meaning to each of the words. "Hero" for Maricel might be mean a house with chickens, or to see her child grow up.

Words were no longer words, they became alive and fluid in my mouth. Every time I said it, it was like opening a door in one of those advent calenders. A discovery of something new.

"Hero", instead of blazing clichéd heroic, now became softer. And the incredible thing was, each reference had the ability to change the cadence of the whole phrase. "Nurse" became compressed in sound, which grounded the rest of the sentence.

Wow. Give me a dictionary or telephone book. As an actor, I can reference whole worlds of experience.

Wrapping my tongue around Maricel's text (i)

Here I am, acting again. The last time I did text/character work properly was two years ago, and I am still very young in this area as a performer. (I've sort of been relying on the ability of my actors as a director to bring characters to life...)

In the upcoming play about a feral child, "The Foundling" (dir. Haruka Ashida), I play the role of a Filipino maid-narrator character. Not only am I playing something in character, but I have lines in both Tagalog and English. Plus, I'm trying to acquire an accent.

To wrap my tongue around the Taglish, I asked my grandmother's helper, Lin, to help me record my lines. I listen and mouth the words at any opportunity -- on the bus, on the MTR, at home. It brings back the days of learning to speak French or Polish... learning to listen, trying to imitate, and learning to correct oneself. I do this until my mind gets saturated, and then I take a break.

Hmm. I find that I can catch the "flow" of Taglish and do a fair imitation, but then, when I am in the rehearsal space, I find myself reverting back to my natural voice. It's as if I have two voices – the one with an accent, and the one where I am trying to access my feelings. Add to precise actions (like miming dishwashing)… oof. Not easy at all!

But it all comes down to practice. I realise that not only do I have to devote time to practising the accent, but also to practice the accent in space, and in full-voice. Memory is muscular as well as aural-emotional.

List of things I want to do before I die

1. Write a novel
2. Make a feature film / animation
3. Finish walking the Compostela
4. Marry and have 2 kids
5. Make a theatre piece I am proud of (and fill the Cultural Center Studio Theatre with audience to see it.)
6. Keep up with tai chi practice until the day I die.
7. Figure out what this meditation stuff is all about.
8. Stay in touch with the family.
9. Die well.

Hands-on Healing at Club O

I talk often about how my life is balanced between tai chi, theatre and teaching.
One aspect that I don't really talk about much is the healing work I do regularly at Club O. I think one of the reasons I don't talk about it a lot is because I actually am not completely clear myself as to why I do it.

There are many different types of hands on healing (手療/氣療), and reiki (靈氣) is probably the best known out of those in the West. Club O uses a much simpler form - all you do is basically channel the universe's chi through the hands to the person you wish to send to. Whether it actually "heals" people is a question that I can't quite answer at the moment, and on some level, largely irrelevant to why I practice hands-on healing. I do know that it allows me to connect to people on a fundamental level.

Anyway, here's something I wrote for the healers a few months ago; and I'm digging up again now because dad wants to translate and publish it for the Club O newsletter.

Last Thursday, I went to Club O in a pretty bad state, because my dog, Uncle Jo, was dying. In fact, I was feeling so bad that all I was tempted to just sit in a corner and be still, instead of taking on the responsibility of leading a group. When I talked to Victor my hand my fumbled with the cup.

I'm not sure that I can be a clear channel today, I thought.

But being there, seeing 華姐(婆婆) and the regular faces of people in my group made me soften and smile. Just like every Thursday, I found myself being present for people. Quite quickly, I was able to access that pool of calm inside and connect to the person lying there in front of me.

I came to realize: weeks and months of regular Thursday practice (even those times when I wasn't even sure why I was there) has laid the grounding for me in this time of need.

That's why it's good to come to Club O in health as well as in sickness: so that we can be more ready when our death, our sickness, or the sickness of our loved ones finally arrives. Regular practice wears a well-worn path through the fields of love, making it familiar to the point that we can find our way home in the dark.

Of course, aside from the accumulative support from these years of everyone's practice, I know that we were also being supported intentionally last week by a number of individual healers. From your choice of music, from the way you gently passed on communications from dad, from your gentle words and firm hugs, I know that you were with us. For this, 我們非常感恩. 謝謝各位的關心和支持.

可凡
(08.08.2008)

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