Procedure

Part I

Relaxation of the body

• Walking around to arrive in the space
• Transforming the walking into bouncing/dropping on the legs to relax the body
• Finding the center (perfromers follow the leader)
• Any movements are welcome as long as they keep the body loose

Part II

Activating the feet

• Playing with the feet, creating different steps with them
• Exploring all the surface of the feet
• Any movements are welcome as long as the focus is on activating the feet and really being aware of what they are doing

Part III

Activating the hands

• Playing with the hands
• Exploring all the surface of the hands
• Starting up and then going down to the ground
• Pushing away, pulling yourself, sliding, putting weight, creating sound
• Any movements are welcome as long as the focus is on activating the hands and being aware of what they are doing

Part IV

No Eyes Dance

• Free exploration for the performers with closed eyes
• They get the choice to either use what has been done in the warm up or they can do whatever they want, that is, they move in a way that feels good, they do whatever their body needs at the moment

Requirements for parts I, II and III:

• Following the intuition, the movements are not planned beforehand, they emerge on the spot
• Playing with the rhythm

Music:

• Train Sound (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0obEffDUGc) for parts I, II and III
• “Paul” by Volker Bertelman for part IV (4-5 times)

No Eyes Dance

Finishing the warm up with own dance with the eyes closed. The perfromers can either do what has been done in the warm up or they can do whatever they want, that is whatever feels good, however they feel like moving or whatever their body needs at this moment.

 Restricitng myself in movements is something I do a lot. As I want my perfromance to be with the eyes closed, I wanted to explore how it would be to stand in one spot and the main thing that is moving are the arms and hands. They become my eyes. They are looking for something. They are sensing what is around me. They inform me where I am. At the same time I am communicating back how I feel not seeing anything. On the video below you can watch a snippet of my research with this concept.

Movement on text

Step 1

I wanted the movement that I would to put on the text I wrote to really be coming from the text. I wanted to capture the natural reaction one has when hearing it. Due to that I told my performer to stand in the space and just listen to the text (with her eyes closed). While she was listening I wrote down movements I saw her doing, which you can find on the photos on the right. After that I let her listen to the text again but this time she was allowed to move yet still following the natural response. I wanted the movements to be honest and coming from what she is feeling while listening to it. I forgot to ask her beforehand if it is ok with her that I film it so I filmed myself copying her movements. Then we switched, so I was responding to the text and she was watching and copying. This turned out to be a great tool as that way we both got to explore how our body responds to such text and we got to see and embody the other one. On the vidoes below you can see a snippet from that exploration. 

Step 2

The next step was watching back the videos and picking out specific gestures and movemetns. I wrote down movements from both mine and my performer's reactions to the text. Once I had a selection, I went to a studio and started to play around with them, I was researching which movements can go from one to another. I was listening to my body, I did not write a try out structure and then followed it, instead I had the different movements in my head and I was testing with my body what feels natural to do, how would my body put theses in order. On the video on the right you can watch one of my try outs.

Step 3

Afterwards I was trying the order with my performer on different types of music to see if the order works. I did not want to do it immediately on the text because I wanted to focus first on the movement, to get it in her body and also because the text is heavy and I did not want to go there as the goal was to find the structure and not to already go into emotions and feelings. Some adjustments took place, some things were taken out and when it was ready then we did it on the text. I told my performer to just do as she feels, to listen to her body so that again I can see how she can naturally repspond to the text but now with a more organized movement. This was a great thing to do because already in there I could see some great moments that worked really well together. I did not have to make the cues but the cues were created for me.  

Step 4

When trying the movemetns with the text I of course filmed everything to later look back at it. That was when setting cues in the text came. On the photo below you can see the first ecounter with it and on the left you can see the whole text with the movement broken down.

Compass 

Requirements

• Feet always on the ground - can be whole feet, toes or heals but there has to be contact with the ground
• Jumps and switches are allowed but other than that both feet are on the ground so that the weight of the body is always distributed on both legs
• The compass never closes, it stays open as if it is a broken compass that can only make circles of one size diamater 
• The circle drawn by the compass does not travel, the center stays at the same spot the whole time - that is to stay safe and to know where you are in the space (because the eyes are closed)
• Any movements is allowed, levels can change etc. as long as the two feet stay on the ground in the open compass position

--> Videos on the right - exploration of the compass concept

Pin Hand

Requirements 

• One hand in one spot on the floor, it stays there the whole time, the hand is pinned to that spot
• The surface of the hand that is touching the floor can change, it can be the outer or inner surface, it can invert, twist and roatte but it has to stay on the same spot
• Any movement is allowed as long as the hand stays at the same spot

Tangerine

One evening, when I was home, I was about to dance but I was a bit hungry. I still had a tangerine that I did not eat at school so I decided to eat it. Before I did, the idea came - what if I eat it with my eyes closed? I implemented the tangerine in my dance, I peeled it and ate it with my eyes closed. That was when I realized that using objects can be a great tool to portray my idea that I cannot see and that I have to rely on other senses to orientate myself in space. It espeically stroke me when I had to collect all the skin from the tangerine and I had to really use my hands and swipe the floor to feel where I have dropped it. When you can see the skin, your hands directly go there to pick it up whereas where you do not see, your hands are searching and doing less direct movements because they do not know where the skin is. It is a totally different quality.

Recenlty I found my fascination in writing more poetically. On the images below you can find examples of what I have written:

My other idea for the music was to record daily sounds. I thought of borrowing a zoom microphone and recording the things I do every day. I imagined me going to the kitchen, putting the microphone on the table, turning it on and making my breakfast. I would have all kinds of sounds on it - opening the fridge, putting the cheese on the table, taking out the milk, closing the fridge, putting the knife on the plate, pouring water into the kettle, putting the kettle on, putting sugar into a cup etc. I thought of staritng with this kind of sounds and that would later transform into music or my text.

Touch

In the theatre there are these tapes on the floor which you can very clearly feel when you touch them. For that reason my performer will be barefoot and will use those topes as guidelines. She knows that if she goes along the tape she will eventually feel the curtain and the towers and if she goes from one tape to the other to the front there will be a momemt in which she will feel the wooden floor (which starts from the first row of the seats). This is a sign that she cannot go more forward anymore. She will sense the tapes both with her feet and hands.

Title Ideas

The ideas of the title always came spontaneously, which never happened to me before. Uusally I had to sit down and think about it, play with the words, puzzle them aournd, but this time it came to me. There were a few variations:

1. "This Is Not a Performance"

2. "Socks & Oranges" (from Sara Wiktorowicz, the coach)

3. "How Is Life? It Hurts."

4. "Smell & Smile"

At the end I was in between "This Is Not a Performance", "Socks & Oranges" and "Smell & Smile". To decide which one I will go for, I recorded a voice recording where I was talking to myself explaining the titles, why they would work and why not, what are their aspects, what kind of feeling they give etc. Below you can find some thoughts I had about the various titles:

"This Is Not a Performance"

• It is very real, it is a very personal story, probably something that will never go away
• The way I show my concept is quite literal - for example using daily sounds, using ordinary actions and movements such as peeling an orange, eating an organge, doing dialy movements and gestures
• Text that I have written is about my thoughts and which I recorded in a way which makes it sound as if I am in the movement going through a breakdown. It was not that I wanted the text to be like this or that, I wanted to be in a way in which it comes in the moment 
• Yet it is still done in a theatre, I will still use the lights which already makes it more performative
• I would have to call my performer a person in the prorgam booklet instead of a performer and I do not feel right about this. On one hand she is really in the moment and she really feels the movement but on the other hand she is still performing, for example, there is a score she has to follow
• It is still a performance, I do not want to make it a perfromance necessary, I think it is more of an experience however there are still some aspects that make it a performance
• I feel like if I call it this then it has to fully not be a performance 
• I feel like it would be disrespectful if I would call my performer not a performer 
• I do not think I will use it

Sound Editing

This inspired me to write a text for this perfromance and use it as the music. The text would be my thoughts, the ones that come to me when I am having a breakdown regarding the health condition of my eye. For making the text hearable, I had two ideas - either prerecord it and play it through the speakers or say it live on stage. In the second case my perfromer would be the mian focus and I would be there on stage with them but not so visible. I imagine myself somewhere in the corner holding tight to the microphone where I would only start to be visible after some time. I would have only a little bit of light on me to show that I am there but to not take away the attention from my perfomer. I thought that having the two of us on stage would stand for different representation of the pain I am going through - my perfomer would be the physical representation, showing how it feels and also how my movement is restricted so that I do not risk my eyes and I would be the representation of my thoughts. I want to the audience to enter my world, to enter my room in Tilburg and experience what I go through.

Light

Even when the eyes are closed you can sense where it is brighter and where it is darker in a space. When you are close to the wall it is darker than when you face the window. It is the same when you cover your eyes with your hands - when you cover them it is dark and when you let og of the hands it is brighter. For that reason the lights for this piece are not so much about creating a certain atmosphere or mood, they are there to direct my perform. I am thinking of using light that comes from the front (eihter the lights from the top or low lights) so that my performer will know where the front is. That way she will know that when she senses a lot of brightness, that is where the front is and when it feels more dark she is facing the back.

How did it start?

I wrote the text while I was having a breakdown. One day, when I was thinking about this, I thought "I need to write while I have a breakdwon" because then the thoughts are there and what I will write will be from the actual experience, they will be the real thoughts that are in my mind. The other day, when I had a breakdown, I thought "write now!". I did. At first it was heavy, it was painful to see what my mind is producing but with time, as I kept on writing, it helped me to calm down because I was taking these thoughts outside of my head. The text was in big part inspired by spots that I have seen sometimes. They are not a good sign and thus they terrify me. On the right you can see part of the text I wrote

Recording

Once I had the text I decided to give it a shot and see how it sounds. The first time I recorded it it was very plain as I was simply reading it. When listening back to it, it did not give me much, it did not give me the effect that I hoped for. It did not feel real. With more and more tries and me playing and experimenting with different things I realized what is the issue. I cannot just read the text, I need to make it sound as if I am actually talking to someone about this, as if I am sharing with someone what I am struggling with. That was when stuttering came, me not knowing what to say, searching for words, allowing the tears to come and having pauses in speaking as well as breathing. That felt really real. The text is a base, it is my pillar but there is space in it for other things to come up (that are felt in the moment).

Features of the text

I would desribe it as a mix of poetic writing blended together with my actual thoughts. Some phrases are more poetic while others inform straight to the point what I am thinking or feeling.

Socks - anchors outside of the body

I decided for my perfromer to leave the spot in which she begins. Initially I imagined the whole piece being done in one spot but that did not fully satisfy of how I want to communicate my concept and thus I decided that my performer will move through the space. Socks are her anchor - she leaves them in her original spot and explores the space and once it is enough she searches for them becasue she knows that where the socks are she is safe. I played with the idea of an anchor by keeping one hand on the ground and seeing what are the possibilities within this restriction, it was an anchor withing the body. Now the anchor is an external object that indicates a safe spot in the huge empty space.

Cues Final

"Umm it's" - first "f*cking pants" outburst 

"Hitting the floor quite, quite hard and loud" - second "f*cking pants" outburst

"Stomping on me" - last "f*cking pants" outburst 

"The the" - the pulling pants and going up sequence starts

"I am not well" - hold the posiiton

"The rain outside" - drop the pants

"So that it covers the sound of my fear" - hands inside the shirt

"Under my duvet" - first hand punching inside the shirt

"There are so many thoughts running in my mind" - hand punching intnsifies

"and I won't see" - hold the shirt

clean nose sound, clean nose sound, crying, breath - movement with the shirt

"I just keep on curling" - hold the shirt

"and my stuffed animal is keeping me company" - let go of the shirt

stuttering - shiering

"I can't say those words" - the neck part (following the rhythm of the text)

"I just want to see, I just want to see" - hold the neck

"I just want to have my eyes and see" - let the arms go

"I can't tell" - "whatever hands" which later follows the rhythm of the text

"Only the spots" - hold the movement, freeze

"They around on my cup, on my pillow, on my cnaldes, photos, clothes, carpet, chair, bed" - "whatever arms" on the words and on "bed" hands in the air

"I am back in my bed" - hands on the head (after the sentence is finished)

"they are out of my control" - punching

"I just hope they won't come again" - stop the movement 

"They might be a sign" - hug yourself

I had an idea of putting tape on the floor. I thought of creating a circle with it or litterally recreating the shape and dimensions of my room. This was inspired from my physical rsearch in Suzan Tunca's class where I danced with my eyes closed and I used the lines on the floor to inform me where I am in the space. I would slide my hands and feet to find them and once I did I knew how much range of motion I can have. It allowed me to know where I am in the space, it worked as my anchor, like the one from the warm up but this time the anchor is something outside of my body, something that I can physically touch. The tape would be the lines on the floor. The tape would be my anchor. I can be inside the tape or outside of it but as long as I am in touch with it I am safe.

1. The piece starts in darkness with my text playing over - the audience only hears my voice, they get an insight into my head.
2. Spotlight in the center slolwy fades in (30 second - 1 minute) as the text is still going - now the audience sees the performer.
3. The text (which will be max.5 minutes) will slowly transition into music, specifically "Escape Into The Bushes" by F Ingers. The performer stays within the spotlight.
4. The song will transition maybe into the daily sounds (or some other music) and the perfromer will find with their hands the tape on the floor and will use it to travel sideways.
5. The perfromer ends up going into one direction. The spotlgiht is still on so as the performer goes away from it we see them less clear.
6. As the performer is more less in front of the stairs, the spotlight will dissappear. It will be pure darkness accompanied by the daily sounds or music - the audience will get to experience my experience.
7. The performer leaves the stage in the darkness and after 20-30 seconds the spotlight comes back but this time there is no one in it.

Voice directions

There is a moment in the piece where my performer is looking for her socks that she left in the begginign of the performance. It happened a few times that she could not find them and she was going in a totally different direction. This could have been due to the fact that we were in a studio where we cannot use the lights as a guide and there are no tapes on the floor that she can use to orientate herself. When it happend I helped her to get to the socks by saying "left", "right", "front" and "back". What is important is that I say the directions from her perspective and not mine (the audience). If she is facing the right stage, that is my right but her front. She does not know where the audience, front, is and thus I have to give directions from her point of view.

One performer.

One spot.

Closed eyes.

Tied hair.

Hand movements.

Gestures.

Looking for something.

Guiding the body through touch.

Making a step.

Compass.

Footwork.

Adapting.

Relearning how to function.