3 days with Norman Taylor... What is Mime!

The studio at Via della Chiesa... Florence.

In life you move through space... in theatre you move space. Like the genius of a sculpture when the statue appears to move - of course it doesn't move... it's the space around it which does. Like magic. To take the audience into an imagined world where they can dream.

Norman Taylor - master of movement, brilliant teacher, very funny, a musician with his timing... British. And we had a 3 day intensive workshop with him - How lovely indeed!

The word mime means to imitate... like a baby who watches for months the big people moving around until one day he mimes them... and walks. Or when someone has a distinct speech pattern and we adopt it when chatting. Quietly and subtly we are all mime artists... this is how children learn. The other day Ella, who is 5 years old, was sitting at the kitchen table eating sushi and drinking champagne when her mom found her - now that's mime, if a little scary xxx

When we were in the forest and on the beach, Giovanni said that when we watch waves, or look up at a tree... we change. We begin to imitate them, and this is mime. We are not the same when we look at the ocean. Mime is not theatre without words. Mime is theatre of movement and gesture... Giovanni would like to call it shape shifting but feels that might not be the best advertising platform for the website. This is therefore all theatre... Physical Theatre... who knows. I think its just theatre.

The gesture is born with the idea... that was what was so amazing about Normans classes - so much time was spent analysing what the students did whilst we listened to him... so what appeared to be 'getting sidetracked' was very much at the heart of the lesson... the analysis of everyday gesture. It was completely remarkable and totally fascinating. You don't have to make anything up - life is packed with good idea's - we have to learn to observe better! Norman kept saying... i'm not going to teach you anything you don't already know - you just don't know that you know it yet.

So, he taught us to row the boat, lift the bar weight, climb the wall, jump, cut the sugar cane, rake the grass, dig a hole... and throw the discus! By the end of the second day he took one of the girls in our class and asked her to do the movement of picking up the weight, without 'dropping' it and to move straight into the rowing the boat sequence. As she did he narrated... and his words informed her movement... You see it and move towards it, you accept it, you make it your own, you change and without dropping it... once you have accepted this path and made it your own, you are ready to steer your life along... as which point she pushed off in the boat sequence. It was profoundly moving and the mistakes didn't matter. The narrative and the sentiment of the movement brought a silence that left the audience awe struck for a moment in a brightly lit, heated little studio somewhere in Florence. It was wonderful.

Mama's Bakery from the courtyard - whose chocolate chip cookies have settled many a sugar low...

Don't look down, don't prepare, you are fine as you are, the floor is there. The space is what matters... Norman Taylor. Yay.

in nature... in Tuscany

We had an amazing wonderful unique experience about two weeks ago - or one week ago - or just the other day... it's not important... what is important is that we went to the beach, the forest and hot springs in Tuscany. All this - as part of our exploration of the neutral mask - the horizontal... the sea, the beach, the horizon; and the vertical... the majestic hauntingly stunning beach tree forest. The springs were much less about analysis of movement and much more about relaxation - a gift from the school - that - and fantastic authentic Italian dinner... but that was much later.

Let's start at the beach...

So you can imagine there we all were, about 24 of us 'finding our vertical and horizontal' - you do this, of course, by "undulating" your body from your feet right up to the top of your head - so that you are the tallest you can possibly be - and as neutral as you can possibly be... tucking in bums that stick out - stretching chests that are sunken down - pulling back shoulders that are slouched forward... and so on. The undulation is a primal movement that we have have been doing from the early days when we were in the sea and then finally on the land wondering around on all fours until... after a few million years or so of evolution... we stood up... the undulation is still there - part of our core movement (unless you are in the army). So there we were, all 24 of us on this deserted drift wood stricken remote beach undulating to the crashing waves, imitating their erratic rhythm... studying the tragedy of the wave that wants to get to shore but will never make it. The wave does not retreat defeated it simply goes back as the next one approaches, with the same need to move forward... and like this, the tragedy of the wave continues. Why? Because. Neutrality!! Grr. It's so simple and so complex.

I felt a little like I was in the opening scene of Calendar Girls... But I couldn't think of my own cuttingly brilliant witty one-liner! And then of course I really got into it... The sea is like that - can take you to another world if you look at it for long enough. We then ran through the shrubbery and along the beach with the same intention as the waves... to move forward. Without judgment. Without comment. Without looking back. Neutrality. Ooo. It was fun. It was like being a kid again. Being present to the simplicity of what is happening right now. Not looking back. I had to work very hard to control my facial expressions - which I have become painfully aware of.

We then moved on to the forest, and it was all misty - which I thought made it even more special. The energy of trees. And with the mist - it was like being in childrens story - if you go down to the woods today... and all that! Here we studied the trees need to go up, how they grow in order to facilitate their continued growth - with their branches either filling the space if there is space, or their trunks growing tall and thin and bare in order to pass the branches of another in an effort to try and reach the sun... and make it! In this, is the tragedy of those trees that will never make it - but there they are - vertical. Of course we 'found our vertical' in the forest - rooting our feet on leaf stricken earth and undulating in front of these towering giants and bending back to see the very tops... in a sense we were becoming trees. It was wonderful and bizarre and terribly moving actually.


The photo's of the beach are courtesy of KT and this forest one, Sally - thanks guys x


Nature has the rhythm we wish to learn inherent in it - the gap in a tight forest where the next tree finds it place - a fat solid rock sitting between skinny trunks - the wave that retreats as the next one heads for shore, sometimes quickly, sometimes not. It was a special day. How this applies to our studies. Well. This is neutrality - or part of it at least. Rhythm. And the desire to move forward. Ya. Okay. I don't really get it either - well I kind of do.

We then moved on the the hot water springs - after you've gotten used to the rotten egg throw back memory to that standard 7 science lab experiment smell - it was fabulous - and seriously hot! The best part is that it was totally dark. Just a bright half moon peering out from behind a thin cloud.

A month in Firenze

Giorgia who works in the Helikos office and was so wonderfully helpful when I arrived - a stunning Italian woman... she is standing next to Giovanni. This was on my first day here - one month ago - when we went on a historical walking tour of Florence (of course my camera is still broken so I don't have any new photo's) - The rest are just pics of Florence taken on that first day as well...





It is amazing to me to think I have been here for one month already - or one month only! Time is so elastic. One day can feel like a week and a month like a day. So much is happening in every moment... clowning, neutral mask, mime (bad mime!), improvisation (ya...), voice, creation - we really are first year students - everything feels is so completely new to just about everyone. And it's really quite difficult. I have actually started doing extra lunges in the morning - no really it's true - to try and build up strength to be able to do the exercises!

We are all somehow searching... or rather trying to break through... to understand neutral mask... which is the focus of this year - There is something wonderfully mysterious about it. It is a mask that has no specific expression - The Man and The Woman. If I understand even some of the essence of what we are doing - it is that we have to be in the space with the potential for action before there can be anything. So to carry no physical story that tells of a future or a past. It feels fundamental to theatre... storytelling... creation in general... but it is wildly difficult. In many ways I find neutral mask much funnier and somehow more tragic than clown work. The mask puts a magnifying glass on every tiny 'defect' in your body - something that you have been carrying your whole life and you didn't even know it was there - slumped shoulders, a crocked back, contained chest... These things tell stories... and as Giovanni says it is this that we are looking to iron out - like pulling out a crumpled piece of paper. The paper will never loose its folds completely but by pulling it will look more like a piece of paper than crumpled ball... ya. For example, I have gained about 3 or 4 cm's in height (some people say 6 cm's but I think they're exaggerating). It's strange - but something in this is the key... out of neutrality everything is possible. I don't think any of us really get it - but slowly we are starting to head in the right direction - at least I think we are. Clown work is run pretty much in parallel - the more you know your clown (your clown who loves the crumples and the folds!) the more you know where to locate your neutrality and vice versa. The work is extremely moving - it has a therapeutic edge - it is not therapy - but there is an element of having to look at yourself and move through emotions that do inevitably arise. It is almost like a micro 'uncrippling' of the body and it is amazing to watch. That something so small, something that you wouldn't even notice in every day life, is so extremely visible if you look properly. Perhaps this all sounds like mumbo jumbo - but it is amazing to me.

I am not learning to be a clown - like I often joked about in South Africa before I left - I think because I couldn't quite believe I was off to do this crazy thing and leave Nick and the kids - I am learning about creation - about theatre - about more than theatre. It is extremely exciting.

On Friday night we found the most wonderful pizzeria and ate delicious Margarita pizza's (one with salami)... possibly the best pizza I've ever had in my life. I thought a lot about Melie and Jack whose favourite pizza's are Margarita's - with olives or ham! - simple and delicious. I walked home and brought pistachio and chocolate gelato. It's amazing the freedom of walking. At night. Alone.

Wonderland Awaits

Deborah's fantastically fabulous wedding invitations - it is really going to be a wonderland wedding! And I won't be there. I am so gutted. I will still be in Italy - which is exciting - but perhaps less exciting than getting married. Sigh. But I can only imagine the wonderful detail, love and flare she is going bring to this very special day xx Thurston is a lucky guy!

postcards and pretties: {real wedding} jenine + nick

Ah - Postcards and Pretties loved our wedding! Yay! Go and check it out - such a fab blog x
postcards and pretties: {real wedding} jenine + nick: "today's real wedding captured by {we love pictures} is full of charm and personality that i'll let the bride jenine tell you herself abou..."