After the conclusion of our concert together, Karen Bassett wrote this piece as a sort of post-mortem for our work. I think it wrapped up our work together really well and asked if I could place it here for you to read:
Struggles and Successes in Cross Disciplinary Practice
suddenlyLISTEN and Irondale Ensemble Project spent about twelve hours broken into several short rehearsals in preparation for the theatre/concert of Dorian. In this short time there was a lot to learn from each other’s typical improvisational process of theatre or music. On a surface level, the actors and musicians had to form a common language to communicate effectively. As a humourous example, several rehearsals went by before the musicians realized that when the actors referred to “ the piece” they meant the entire play, not one section of music.
A deeper challenge of cross-disciplinary practice was the desire for the music to be as integral to the narrative as the theatre. From the musician’s perspective, they were adamant that the music not only become background or atmospheric to support the actors; they must be equal partners in the improvised conversation of the piece. When improvising, the actors did their best to stay true to this goal: they fought the ingrained urge to lead the narrative, and listened intently to be led by the music. The musicians also resisted their typical role in theatre as followers of action, and sought to reach out into the space to lead the action, both in terms of physical presence on stage, and in their playing.
In the performance of Dorian, this goal was ultimate in the playing of the evening—sometimes the goal was reached artistically, at other times it was overreached or underplayed. Developing and improvisational give and take, a constant flow between the musicians and the actors, is an idea we want to pursue and provoke further.
The collaborators also dialogued extensively with how much structure was necessary to create a piece based on a novel without compromising the integrity of improvisation. The performance of Dorian was an experiment in that as well. The flow of piece depended both on some narrative structure and some purely improvised pieces. Again, some steps were taken to better understand this balance, but the perfect palate has yet to be coloured.
Finally, a huge revelation in the mix of these two improvised cultures came to Norm Adams, the artistic director of suddenlyLISTEN during Dorian:
“I learned about what a difference an audience makes to a theatre show. In music the audience does have an effect, but they rarely laugh. That makes a difference! When they did, I felt like the piece was suddenly transformed, which gave all of us the opportunity to act and respond differently!”
Editors note: As an addendum to this writing by Karen, I especially like the email I got from Theo Pitsiavas, “I don't think we all really knew what to expect Tuesday night. There were a lot of amazing discoveries and has the potential to go so much further. But we also created some really groovy stuff in a short period of time. I had a lot of fun in this process and from an actor point of view found I that my focus for deeply listening to all the music and dialogue while performing and rehearsing was taken to another level.”
Notice that use of “listening”? THAT confirms a success!
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