(AK)
I'd go to this but it is pricey:
http://glasgow.gumtree.com/glasgow/27/61330827.html
This workshop is for all of those who are willing to explore the sensibility of their own body and the trnasformative force of body moving.
No experience is necessery.
16-18 July 2010
Fri-Sat 11am-6pm
Sun 2pm-8pm
Venue:
St. Serf's Church Hall
Clark Road
EH5 3NP
Edinburgh
£95 per person (3-day workshop)
Contact:
tel: 07864267206 (Monika)
email: lb.takitoataki@gmail.com (Lukasz)
Imre's website: www.bodytaster.com
"In my workshop I do not convey any fixed form or technique, but the principles that form the basis of movement (spiral, wave, gravity, emotion etc.). We will focus on everyday movements like standing and walking, as well as on emotional forms of expression. We will establish a basis that will enable us to exchange conventional patterns of movement for fresh approaches that will help us to execute movements more easily. This workshop is for professionals in dance and theatre as well as for amateurs of all ages.
My work is based on a training of seven years in Tokyo with Kazuo Ohno (Butoh) and Noguchi Michizo (founder of Noguchi Taiso, a Japanese form of body work), and education in Alexander Technique and my experience as a dancer who is living the dance."
Imre Thormann
Thursday, 8 July 2010
Teatrico Olimpico, 1585
Teatrico Olimpico, 1585
The Teatro Olimpico in Vicenza was Palladio s final commission and is still a working theatre.
The set was built for the opening of the theatre which was coincidentally the first modern production of Oedipus Rex.
In the film below the scene depicts Don Giovanni's man servant falling foul of a trick he and his master have conceived to dupe the virtuous Donna Anna by wearing masks so that they may immitate one another. The visual trickery of the theatre itself unfolds as the players undo the false perspective wandering through its streets and eventually confront the accused in the orchestra which in turn becomes a peculiar kind of court or 'court'.This notion of masquerade and deceit is used through out the film and the use of the setting for Oedpus Rex is interesting as not only does the tale of fate and filial duty relate to the Don Juan story but Don Giovanni happened to be Freud's favourite opera. I like Don Giovanni as a modern opera. Not everyone's motive are quite as they seem. And many of the public protestations of the individual characters conceal conflicted personal desires. The use of Palladio's architecture is particuarly interesting so too relaying classical themes through modern subjectivity.
Don Giovanni, 1979, Dir Joseph Losey.
The Teatro Olimpico in Vicenza was Palladio s final commission and is still a working theatre.
The set was built for the opening of the theatre which was coincidentally the first modern production of Oedipus Rex.
In the film below the scene depicts Don Giovanni's man servant falling foul of a trick he and his master have conceived to dupe the virtuous Donna Anna by wearing masks so that they may immitate one another. The visual trickery of the theatre itself unfolds as the players undo the false perspective wandering through its streets and eventually confront the accused in the orchestra which in turn becomes a peculiar kind of court or 'court'.This notion of masquerade and deceit is used through out the film and the use of the setting for Oedpus Rex is interesting as not only does the tale of fate and filial duty relate to the Don Juan story but Don Giovanni happened to be Freud's favourite opera. I like Don Giovanni as a modern opera. Not everyone's motive are quite as they seem. And many of the public protestations of the individual characters conceal conflicted personal desires. The use of Palladio's architecture is particuarly interesting so too relaying classical themes through modern subjectivity.
Don Giovanni, 1979, Dir Joseph Losey.
Wednesday, 7 July 2010
ALWIN NIKOLAIS
I have also looked at some of Alwin Nikolais' performances recently. Particularly Noumenon- and how it was criticised for objectifying the performer by conflating the distinction between setting, set and performer.
Noumenon, 1953
Noumenon, 1953
KEMP/ OHNO
I have been enjoying everyone's posts and now its time to respond- been letting everything sink in- its a good balm for sun burn anyway.
The Kemp Kabuki thing made me think about Butoh which I had come across in relation to Kabuki. Hence a few Kazuo Ohno clips.
I'm working backwards through car crash misappropriation http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhsMLrZ4j6Y and abusing the dying http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DzsJer_axM to the thing itself http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jildd4L6_UM . . . But its an interesting journey- afforded by Youtube of course. Sorry having bother embeding video- maybe its my computer!
As to Kemp there's definitely a physical resemblance in the would-be drag as well as a generally unsettling atmosphere between the two. However I think the resemblance means little in relation to two quite distinct theatre traditions (Commedia dell'arte and Kabuki) but more the recognition of these two performers in particular.
The Kemp Kabuki thing made me think about Butoh which I had come across in relation to Kabuki. Hence a few Kazuo Ohno clips.
I'm working backwards through car crash misappropriation http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhsMLrZ4j6Y and abusing the dying http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DzsJer_axM to the thing itself http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jildd4L6_UM . . . But its an interesting journey- afforded by Youtube of course. Sorry having bother embeding video- maybe its my computer!
As to Kemp there's definitely a physical resemblance in the would-be drag as well as a generally unsettling atmosphere between the two. However I think the resemblance means little in relation to two quite distinct theatre traditions (Commedia dell'arte and Kabuki) but more the recognition of these two performers in particular.
Sunday, 4 July 2010
Clinamen and serendipity
I have been doing a lot of research and thinking today, but mostly feeling overwhelmed! To bring it back to two simple points of great interest, I will introduce to this, our scrapbook-o-rama, some wikipedia, some youtube, and some odds n' sods.
1. Clinamen:
Clinamen is a swerving motion, an unpredictable movement.
Lucretius, a Roman poet, wrote an epic poem entitled: De Rerum Natura (On the Nature of Things). Lucretius described the void - the 'beginning' of the universe - and he described atoms falling through the void in parallel to each other at a constant speed. According to Lucretius, for some unknown reason, an atom moves an infinitesimal amount - this is the clinamen - and thus precipitates a collision with other atoms which gives rise to larger matter being formed. The clinamen accounts for the concept of free will.
In our recent 20th century, the concept of clinamen became a source of fascination to many literary figures: Raymond Queneau, Harold Bloom, Lacan, Derrida, and a French polymath philosopher called Michel Serres (who has written a lot on clinamen and its use in theories of thermodynamics). Clinamen was important to the Oulipo group... in fact, the concept of clinamen is integral to their manifesto.
Here is an excerpt from an essay on the Oulipo and algorithms, which at this point is discussing how the group tackled the problem posed by computer-generated programs being used on texts removing the human agency involved in creating literature:
"During one of its reunions in the early 1960s the Oulipo anticipated the risk of automatism in the structures they were defining. The group attempted to make room for individual freedom but they were unable to reconcile freedom with automatism. Jacques Bens recognized that every structure automatized writing to a certain extent, and Claude Berge added that potential literature generated new automatisms [Bens 1980, 144]. Le Lionnais insisted that a sufficiently complex system of constraints offered writers a number of options from which they could choose.
The Oulipians wanted to avoid the unconscious automatisms of the Surrealists, but the conscious use of structures in their writing produced what they could not avoid describing as "automatic". Le Lionnais admitted that "it is true that the birth of machines has modified the current sense of the word 'automatic'" [Bens 1980, 185]. The Oulipo recognized that the problem of using computers to create texts stemmed from the writer's inability to remain aware of how the machine applied constraints.
In the 1970s the Oulipo introduced the notion of the clinamen, which helped to resolve this dilemma. Based on a conception of the movement of atoms in Lucretius' On the Nature of Things, the clinamen is the primordial anti-constraint: it makes creation possible by introducing chance and spontaneity in an ordered universe [Motte 1986b]. The Oulipo recovered a sense of the unexpected in the constraints they used..."
- Digital Humanities (journal) at Hartwick College, 2007
(http://digitalhumanities.org/dhq/vol/1/1/000005/000005.html)
2. Serendipity
Oxford English Dictionary:
"The occurrence of events by chance in a beneficial way"
I recently met someone who recounted a lecture he'd attended at Edinburgh recently given by Malcolm Gladwell (author of The Tipping Point among other things). The subject was serendipity and purportedly Gladwell described three levels of serendipity:
i) Columban
ii) Archimedean
iii) Galilean
The lecture is not available online as far as I can tell and I can't find any information about this sketched out concept either. Below are my interpretations of the anecdote relayed...
i) Columban
Christopher Columbus set sail for India but intended to approach it the long way, by sailing west. Of course we all know he hit the Americas. This then is an example of what I hesitantly call accidental serendipity. Columbus was not looking for the Americas; he intended to land elsewhere and yet he stumbles upon this discovery.
ii) Archimedean
So you know the story about Archimedes in the bath... He had been thinking about a way to work out the volume of matter, and one evening or whatever he was in the bath, and Eureka. This is coincidental serendipity in that although he was not actively seeking a solution through experiments with water, the problem and the bath had a potential relationship which he discovered by coincidence. Perhaps up until this moment whilst indulging in baths he usually had a massage which distracted him...
iii) Galilean
This is the third level. Galileo was actively seeking evidence to support his theory that the planets orbited the sun and not vice-versa. He looked into space keen to see something that would prove him correct. And on one occasion he witnessed the moons of a distant planet orbiting the planet. This provided him with enough evidence...
I must apologise for my vague reporting of this lecture, but I had no printout or alternative source to check my handwritten notes against. I think the principle remains clear though. This systematic description of serendipity poses interesting links with the concept of clinamen.
And now, I leave you with:
3. Odds 'n sods:
Radical composer, Olga Neuwirth's Clinamen/Nodus:
Olga Neuwirth - Ce Qui Arrive
("explores the subject of coincidence")
http://iem.at/Members/noisternig/arts/cqa/index_html/document_view
Olga Neuwirth - Lost Highway
An opera based on David Lynch's film.
Production information:
http://www.boosey.com/pages/cr/catalogue/cat_detail.asp?musicid=31012
Excerpt:
Wikipedia definition of clinamen:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clinamen
Wikipedia on Lucretius:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucretius
Stanford Encylopedia entry on Lucretius:
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/lucretius/
1. Clinamen:
Clinamen is a swerving motion, an unpredictable movement.
Lucretius, a Roman poet, wrote an epic poem entitled: De Rerum Natura (On the Nature of Things). Lucretius described the void - the 'beginning' of the universe - and he described atoms falling through the void in parallel to each other at a constant speed. According to Lucretius, for some unknown reason, an atom moves an infinitesimal amount - this is the clinamen - and thus precipitates a collision with other atoms which gives rise to larger matter being formed. The clinamen accounts for the concept of free will.
In our recent 20th century, the concept of clinamen became a source of fascination to many literary figures: Raymond Queneau, Harold Bloom, Lacan, Derrida, and a French polymath philosopher called Michel Serres (who has written a lot on clinamen and its use in theories of thermodynamics). Clinamen was important to the Oulipo group... in fact, the concept of clinamen is integral to their manifesto.
Here is an excerpt from an essay on the Oulipo and algorithms, which at this point is discussing how the group tackled the problem posed by computer-generated programs being used on texts removing the human agency involved in creating literature:
"During one of its reunions in the early 1960s the Oulipo anticipated the risk of automatism in the structures they were defining. The group attempted to make room for individual freedom but they were unable to reconcile freedom with automatism. Jacques Bens recognized that every structure automatized writing to a certain extent, and Claude Berge added that potential literature generated new automatisms [Bens 1980, 144]. Le Lionnais insisted that a sufficiently complex system of constraints offered writers a number of options from which they could choose.
The Oulipians wanted to avoid the unconscious automatisms of the Surrealists, but the conscious use of structures in their writing produced what they could not avoid describing as "automatic". Le Lionnais admitted that "it is true that the birth of machines has modified the current sense of the word 'automatic'" [Bens 1980, 185]. The Oulipo recognized that the problem of using computers to create texts stemmed from the writer's inability to remain aware of how the machine applied constraints.
In the 1970s the Oulipo introduced the notion of the clinamen, which helped to resolve this dilemma. Based on a conception of the movement of atoms in Lucretius' On the Nature of Things, the clinamen is the primordial anti-constraint: it makes creation possible by introducing chance and spontaneity in an ordered universe [Motte 1986b]. The Oulipo recovered a sense of the unexpected in the constraints they used..."
- Digital Humanities (journal) at Hartwick College, 2007
(http://digitalhumanities.org/dhq/vol/1/1/000005/000005.html)
2. Serendipity
Oxford English Dictionary:
"The occurrence of events by chance in a beneficial way"
I recently met someone who recounted a lecture he'd attended at Edinburgh recently given by Malcolm Gladwell (author of The Tipping Point among other things). The subject was serendipity and purportedly Gladwell described three levels of serendipity:
i) Columban
ii) Archimedean
iii) Galilean
The lecture is not available online as far as I can tell and I can't find any information about this sketched out concept either. Below are my interpretations of the anecdote relayed...
i) Columban
Christopher Columbus set sail for India but intended to approach it the long way, by sailing west. Of course we all know he hit the Americas. This then is an example of what I hesitantly call accidental serendipity. Columbus was not looking for the Americas; he intended to land elsewhere and yet he stumbles upon this discovery.
ii) Archimedean
So you know the story about Archimedes in the bath... He had been thinking about a way to work out the volume of matter, and one evening or whatever he was in the bath, and Eureka. This is coincidental serendipity in that although he was not actively seeking a solution through experiments with water, the problem and the bath had a potential relationship which he discovered by coincidence. Perhaps up until this moment whilst indulging in baths he usually had a massage which distracted him...
iii) Galilean
This is the third level. Galileo was actively seeking evidence to support his theory that the planets orbited the sun and not vice-versa. He looked into space keen to see something that would prove him correct. And on one occasion he witnessed the moons of a distant planet orbiting the planet. This provided him with enough evidence...
I must apologise for my vague reporting of this lecture, but I had no printout or alternative source to check my handwritten notes against. I think the principle remains clear though. This systematic description of serendipity poses interesting links with the concept of clinamen.
And now, I leave you with:
3. Odds 'n sods:
Radical composer, Olga Neuwirth's Clinamen/Nodus:
Olga Neuwirth - Ce Qui Arrive
("explores the subject of coincidence")
http://iem.at/Members/noisternig/arts/cqa/index_html/document_view
Olga Neuwirth - Lost Highway
An opera based on David Lynch's film.
Production information:
http://www.boosey.com/pages/cr/catalogue/cat_detail.asp?musicid=31012
Excerpt:
Wikipedia definition of clinamen:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clinamen
Wikipedia on Lucretius:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucretius
Stanford Encylopedia entry on Lucretius:
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/lucretius/
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