Flowers for her hair

Even though today is freezing cold... Spring is in the air. The first blossoms are sprouting... little dashes of pink in the garden poping out to say 'Hi!' ...The pool is getting warmer. The cats are staying out in the evening. In celebration of flowers I found a few clips filmed in Italy when we were given little yellow flowers by the school for womans day. Ah. So... Hello spring. Welcome.

"We see you!..." - The art of mocking

In the Wings has its first guest writer... the ever brilliant supremely wonderful Vika Mia Dahlberg-Hansen to talk about Bouffon and Grotesque from this past month at Helikos International School of Theatre Creation... Where she is currently studying...

Dancing Bouffons!
photo by Stefano Borghi

Hello! This is Vika, a fellow traveller at the HELIKOS journey; I am honoured to be a guest writer on this blog as I have always told Jenine that I consider it my best notes.

Jenine asked me to write about last term where we studied Grotesque and the art of mocking in the crazy world of Bouffon –or Buffoons as I have heard English speakers call them. I had never heard of them before they invaded the school…who are they? Well, they have big white puffed bodies; their shape is somewhat human, but twisted into a grotesque version of the human form. Giovanni tells us that they are minor Gods related to satyrs, who come to our world, and love to imitate it, because to the Bouffons everything is a game, and their favourite game is called “Human Society”. They see everything and will play with the subjects most dear or painful too us: family, moral, race, religion, war… Nobody or anything can feel safe…

How to become a Bouffon? Well, once you have got your puffed body, you need to change your state of mind into an extremely playful one, somehow similar to that of a child – but with absolutely no feelings about what you play except for the ecstatic excitement of the game. And then you have to change the way you look at things, isn’t it all fun? The gaze in your eyes will adjust and get a slightly sadistic smile behind… and AH! The Bouffon has arrived, as Giovanni would state. Now all you need is a Band – a gang of fellows up to no good – ready to mock in jubilation…

Of course there are many ways to mock something. A character might contain a mocking aspect, but the treatment is somehow compassionate, a clown is the mocking of the actor behind it, but in both cases they generously give or share their suffering with the audience…the Bouffons take from and feed off the audience and make them suffer. At best it should be almost unbearable to watch, and the laughter is different, if it comes… once you have surrendered to the madness.

At our show Giovanni warned the audience that the might feel offended, but he did not apologize, because it is not the artist that makes the world grotesque, the world is full of contradictions. The Bouffons have no opinion, they just play the game, can you imagine to be part of this?

However, even if the Bouffons have no opinion the actors and writes behind them do, and you have to check what you want to say, and first of all check that in the mocking of a subject you must mock EVERYTHING about it… luckily the Bouffons have no problem with that.

So if you mock the subject of abortion, make sure you get around both the people for and against. In the mocking of the event of 9/11 let the Bouffons scream with fear as they watch the airplanes crash but at the same time let them take photos in excitement and film it for YouTube. And if you let the Bouffons have a go at the people who do not care about the extreme exploit of the third world, have them also mock the new age conscious consumers who feel like such a better person. And in the end do not forget to give a kick at artists who make art about social injustice through the art of mocking...

Bouffons are played at an extremely high level of tension and energy,
and after a full of play you would find big white pools of exhausted actors lying around the floor of the studio...
photo by Stefano Borghi 

After the crazy mind-blowing period of mocking madness we worked on grotesque characters. The word grotesque means something that is hidden. What lies underneath?

A singing duo.
photo by Stefano Borghi

There are several levels of grotesqueness in the world around us, all you need to do is push the hints further to find what was hidden. Often it means that the dynamic of a character must be pushed so far that the complete opposite will appear. Something is grotesque when the mask and counter mask are present at the same time, like fear and excitement, like complete order and absolute chaos… like a vulgar woman singing a sentimental love-song or a diva that demands: look at me – don’t look at me!..

The pushed contradicting dynamic creates an extreme tension that twists the characters and makes them suffer. The physical forms, like the Bouffons, are also puffed with stuffing underlining or creating a tension in the body. Any character can be pushed to the grotesque, it is a bit like wearing the character inside out and turning the volume to the max… sometimes you find quite surprising things stirring underneath the surface in the grotto –tesque.

Ahhhh.
photo by Stefano Borghi

Thank you Vika... you rock!

Love,

Jenine

A Laboratory of Self Discovery

My school... Helikos International School of Theatre Creation in Florence Italy, has just released a wonderful video - made by the fabulous Elena Day who spend hours filming for these fab moments... featuring all the truly amazing work of the school and the ever brilliant Giovanni Fusetti.  Helikos is now offering a one-year course... and you should go.  It will change your work.  And your life.  This... 'laboratory of self discovery.'

The bell tolls

Summer in Johannesburg is quite something when you haven't seen it for as long as I haven't. I feel like on every corner I turn there is a tree packed with pink or yellow or red flowers. Avenues of leafy Oak Trees blocking out the sun... a parade of light and shade. It fills my heart. But I shall no doubt long for the breathtaking buildings of Florence that stand majestic around just about every corner. Towering towards the sky. Like this one. The church of Santa Maria Novella. The bell that tolls. The cold air. The cobbled streets.  Like all brilliant art, if there is beauty and substance it will last. For centuries.

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A conscious kitchen

When man, way back when in Africa, first took a stone and bashed it against another stone breaking it in two... he thought to himself, someone can do that to me.  He looked up to the sky, afraid... The Gods... and tragedy is born.  The idea that there is something much bigger than you that can wipe you out.  It was in this way that Matteo (our mask and movement teacher) described tragedy to us.  The fight with the Gods.  The inevitable.  The hero who knows he is going to die... and bravely sets foot on that journey.  The other way he described it was by asking...  What is the most tragic room in the house?  The answer... The Kitchen.  Imagine if the carrot knew its destiny.  Or the knife knew its job.  Or the hot oil understood what it had to do to the egg.  A conscious kitchen.  Tragedy right there.  Everybody knows... and continues anyway.  The opening title sequence to Dexter.  Mn.

At the same time that we were studying tragedy... the second years were studying the dramatic - and often tragic - silence of full mask.  An interesting parallel because in the end it is all mask... we were just working with a hero and a tragic chorus to amplify emotions and reveal subtext... they were working with a physical mask in a poetic silence that carries exquisite subtext and drama.  How?  I don't really know. It's a miracle.

Puja, Marisol and Vicky in masks made by Matteo Destro
Photo by Stefano Borghi

Write that down

As I quietly begin to rearrange the house and get ready for what will be a very full year ahead... 2013.  13.  A lucky number.  I have gathered all my Helikos notebooks... Two and a half years of notes. Of memories. Of learning. Of doodling.  Of remembering... In years to come. X

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A late-night baking bash

As has become a school tradition, each year the Scandinavian students celebrate Santa Lucia... Freya makes the most delicious glug and Vika bakes... and here we are inventing different patterns and shapes with the dough.  A real baking bash in our little kitchen late at night.  The next evening the school studio was plunged into darkness... bar the flickering of so many tea candles... and Freya told us the tragic story of Santa Lucia.  This year Georgia and I were the Lucia brides...  As we are both pursuing other paths and leaving Florence.  We stood, the two of us, holding our single white candle as everyone launched into the Lucia song... doing our very best to sing in Danish, Swedish and Italian... and if there was English I don't remember it.  By then I was trying not to cry.

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A pirates life for me

Tara, Justin, Me and Freya... leaping forward in a sword fight with Jack Sparrow!  Naturally... Aaargh!
Photo by Stefano Borghi

We first did our pantomime version of Pirates of the Caribbean in October... and happily we returned to it for our final performance in December.  Happily because it was a ridiculous amount of fun.  We had a slightly bumpy road getting to the final version... which of course it to be expected with devised work and new theatrical territories.  We went from being way to silent in our original version to being way too loud...  one could call it untreated shouting, with loads of over explanatory dialogue... thus becoming redundant.  Ja.  The stuff of theatrical nightmares.  So basically our explaining was taking more space than our action.  Yes.  A wonderfully important dramatic question posed by Giovanni in our pre-view performance... 'How long do you need to do something until the audience gets it?  Do you need to totally finish something... or rather evoke it and then move on.'  Last night I was watching the Woody Allen documentary and in the edit suite he will not take more of the audiences time than is necessary.  A wonderfully important lesson.  So here's to moving on... when necessary.

With all of this insight... first being too silent, then being too loud... we made brutal edits.  We fully embraced the advise from Matteo... 'be inspired by the movie don't try and recreate it'... and we did.  Finding fun ways to mask the voice... like an actor doing the voice for another character.  Careful choices with dialogue... what does the audience have to know that they can't see.  Being totally clear with our key images... like the reveal of Jack Sparrow.  Ta daaa.  It was so much fun.  The first night of our performance we were quite freaked out as we had made a stack of changes and were hoping like hell we would remember them all... but for the most part we did... and where we didn't somehow our energy was so high that we 'moved on' without giving anyone - even ourselves - time to think about it.  Ho ho ho ho a pirates life for me!  Ha haaa!

2012 High

As 2012 quietly draws to a close... Our yearly family tradition is to reflect on our highs and lows of the year we are about to leave behind... And our dreams for one that lies ahead. Right up there on my list of the very best of 2012 is performing as my clown 'Fiona van der Walt' with 'Andromeda' ...Barbara's clown. However the universe colluded for these two unusual friends to meet and share what they think of the world... I am delighted. And very grateful. Here we are in our secret underground rehearsal room with The Harp preparing our song for the crescendo of our show. How lucky we are.

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Through the streets of Florence

We have started running.  No.  I'm not even kidding.  Through the streets of Florence.  Once a week.  Besides the stitches and the faint taste of blood ... and the majority of the group who find it easy! ... it is actually fun.  Yes.  It's true.  Ready steady go.

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Knock knock.

As winter slowly begins to stretch her arms and pull us in close...  and low cloud hangs heavy over Florence threatening rain.  I ventured out for a Saturday afternoon walk to clear my head, and two artists ventured out to paint two lions head door knockers... It made me think of the mime walk argument... that goes something like 'Its all very well to have brilliant walking technique, but where are you going?'  ...Its all very well to accurately paint identical door kockers but where do they lead?  As Barbara says...  Knock knock.  Who's there?  ...we'll see.

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A puppet and a ping pong ball

Choreography with ping pong rackets ping pong balls a mini ping pong table and a puppet... The most wonderful lighting design... Great music... And a bit of philosophy made for a rocking night out to the theatre this weekend in Florence.  A Dance Tribute to Ping Pong. Rocking.  My best bit was the glow in the dark ball choreography.  Also the theatre hosting the festival was brilliant... A ting hole in the wall door that lead to a secret garden with lush green grass for a starlit pre show drink.  The theatre itself somehow had a perminant festival theatre feeling. I loved it.  I want one.

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Blue sky backdrop

The sun is shining in Florence... And we (Vika and I) ate Gelato (from Grom - rocking!) on the steps opposite Il Duomo (as eating on Il Duomo steps is illegal - for real) ...to celebrate being back in this amazing city.  Back at Helikos.  Back to being students.  Back generally.  For the last time... In this way at least.  There is something so exciting about that...  A feeling that you really have to take everything in.  Like this church.  For example.  And we have began in full swing with theatrical territories... starting with Pantomime.  More on that soon.  Yay.

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Hello Italy

Joburg to Rome via Addis Abbaba.  And finally Firenze.  The old man sitting on the pavement outside the corner cafe is still there.  A continuous fixed point.  The old woman with the pink hair, the fur coat, the lace gloves and the gold takkies passes me. On her way to anywhere.  I lug my now very heavy suitcase to our apartment past the Madonna and child painting which three years ago, at the beginning of this massive journey, I stood beneath crying.  24 hours later and I'm back in my old room.  The familiar sound of wheels on wet tar.  A church bell tolls.  A distant dog barks.  Third year has began.  Hello Italy.  Ciao Firenze.

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The road is long

Pinch and a punch it's the first of the month.  The month in which from around the world we descend upon Florence... for our third and final year at Helikos International School of Theatre Creation.  But sadly not all of us.  Helena will remain tucked away in her newly formed studio creating theatre masks in Helsinki, Finland.  And I shall miss her desperately.  So as I think of the beginning of the next part of our journey I have a heavy heart... knowing that Helena - such a brave and brilliant player - will not be there.  For now life has other plans for her.  I shall miss her.  Very much.  But hopefully the road really is long... and we shall meet again.  Till next time.  Till then.

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The mask of theatre

Towards the end of my second year at Helikos earlier this year... I made a mask.  An old woman.  So that I could learn the negative mould technique of mask-making. (I had missed this lesson due to a day spent at some grimy governmental business building organizing another piece of bureaucratic what-not for temporary residency in Italy) Matteo took a day out of his schedule to teach me this.  It ended up being so much more than simply learning a technique, but a day filled with what it means to make theatre.  Matteo said if someone calls him a theatre-maker he says he's actually a director... and if they call him a director he says he's actually a mask maker.  Because theatre is a mask.  Unless you are working in realism of course.  Which we're not.  Giovanni often talks about something being true but not necessarily real.  I like that.  So with mask making the volume and form emerges as it does when you improvise a scene... whether you work on the floor or in front of a computer writing.  That work on stage requires a level of poetry that takes it further than the literal world...  How does the whole stage explode in joy... the mask... the volume... a level of removal that brings you right into the work. (Yes I know... I've spoken about this before... so I won't repeat myself - as such)  But - lately I have seen so much realistic theatre and I can't help thinking i'd rather see the movie... where they have the close up... the swell of music... the cut away to the crashing waves.  Where the camera brings the poetry that two people on stage, one with their backs to you most of the time, cannot achieve.  I know it's a style and a choice.  Ja.  There needs to be more.  For me.  And it's hard.  And you might fail.  But you might not.  

So now as I prepare to return to Italy for my third and final year... this morning I looked sadly at my little box of masks who have not been out to play since I got back.  How quickly life rushes by.  My old woman is still a paper mache mould... waiting for stucco and sanding and painting and ultimately playing... (Which will hopefully happen in the year that lies ahead).  To celebrate her and the art of mask making... which may just be the art of theatre... I have put a few pics below taken during this very important day of mask making and theatre discussion with the ever-brilliant Matteo Destro.  

A family of larval masks

The final step on the mask making journey at Helikos International Theatre School earlier this year... Larval masks.  From very little to very large. A family is born.  Barbara Kysela and mini Barbara Kysela. 

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A lone clown on a bare stage

We often speak about this idea of 'the mask' of the play... The idea that the theatrical mask extends beyond the actors physically wearing a full or half mask or a clown nose (also considered to be a mask)... I understand this concept in many different ways... For example violence should to be 'masked' on stage, or it makes the audience uncomfortable to watch someone be hit for real... Love should to be masked or the space for play is somehow dropped if there is a real life somewhat ordinary kiss on stage... somehow these things untreated - or unmasked - brings too much reality into theatre.  We are often challenged with questions like... how can you make the whole stage burst into the kiss of all kisses... and become the love of all loves that is not a private intimate moment between two actors...  a moment which works well on TV with the close-up and the swell of music.  Theatre has to go beyond.  Creating a moment that the audience can share in - because they remember that kiss in their own lives.  Theatrical transposition.  How do you do it.  Who knows.  But this is the endeavor of theatre.  Or so it should be.  I think.

So on this point we did our final solo performances to complete our second year of training.  I have said so many times that this or that has changed how I see theatre... and all of it is true... I am learning so much I feel like a sponge with a physical sensation of absorbing all this brilliant stuff... so here I shall say it again... There was a moment in the final solo performance that constitutes some of the most important learnings thus far.  Matteo (our mask teacher of course) described it as with mask making so is your performance a mask... In mask making you have the clay and sometimes while you are making your mask quite unexpectedly another form or another volume arrives from the clay and you have to go in a different direction... you have to go with what the clay wants you to do.  Esoteric.  Maybe.  But true.  You don't know what you have till you start making it.  So, you have to make the mask that emerges and not the one you had planned... even at the risk of destroying what you have done.  How does this relate to performance.  Well... in the solo I was going along with my planned performance and at a turning point in the piece a different 'volume' arrived as Matteo put it... it went from being light and fun and full of energy to something quite tragic and still... the switch arrived quite suddenly but then instead of staying in this newly emerged volume I quickly ended the scene and walked off stage.  Leaving the audience going... huh?  And the thing is - it is not enough.  Making theatre is so hard.  I'm a very good typist... if only I could be happy typing.  But i'm not.  So if you are going to make theatre... you have to push yourself.  The alternative is too depressing.  To make mediocre work... that is almost moving... that is almost good... I'd rather be a typist.  So the lesson in all of this is that sometimes you are going along steadily in your 'vertical' journey as Matteo puts it and then the 'horizontal' plain arrives... and this is the poetic journey... where anything can happen... it is no longer linear...  When the death arrives on stage - what happens then?  A whole world can open up.  Unexpectedly.  Instead of escaping... stay at the risk of failing.  So next time that is what one wants to aim to do... otherwise it's just writing on a blog.

And with that we end our second year at Helikos.  A lone clown on a bare stage.  What a wonderful journey. x

Nicole as 'Penelope'

Vika as 'Clara Nightingale'

Barbara as 'Andromeda Andromeda'

Me as 'Fiona Van der Walt'

Larval Mask-Making

We have entered the final week of second year.  Amazing.  And to wrap up the year we have spent some time reflecting on the work we have done in these 6 months.  Even more amazing.  But the most inspiring part of this journey of reflection was when we were tasked to make our own larval mask interpretation of our clowns.  In other words... a simple mask that captures the movement dynamic of your clowns body and possibly sentiment... some clowns are fast, some slow, some chaotic, some ordered etc...  The thing that is so exciting is larval masks were the first masks we used to begin the epic journey of mask theatre.  This is because they are so essentialised - a form emerging from a volume - so in terms of mask-play they are where we start... I wrote about it in a previous post.  But in terms of mask-making it is much harder to capture an essential dynamic movement in a simple form.  It is much easier - conceptually - to make a figurative face.  So this is why the mask that looks the simplest is saved for the end of the programme because in some ways it may be the hardest.  And somehow that's often true.  Simplicity is complex but not complicated...  Deep.  I didn't say that.  But I think it's true.  

A line-up of Laval Mask

and here we have the movement dynamic of Freya, Vika and myself...
We also happen to live together in Florence.  Romantic!

Quietly in the background I have continued to make my full mask... very exciting.  I have completed the mould and all that is left now is to paper mache, paint and hope it works on the stage.  

Our amazing teacher Matteo teaching me a new method in a negative mould
 which helps better preserve the features and details of the clay sculpted version...

When mask-making turns to baking!  Freya and Matteo placing the plaster for the negative mould :)

A garden in serious conversation

In a week filled with rain... on one very unlikely day I was walking home from a studio we don't normally use, on a route I don't often take...  the sun unexpectedly peered out from behind the clouds, just as I walked past the entrance to the Boboli Gardens... which to my surprise - for this week only - had no entrance fee.  So in I went.  Just like that.  An unexpected visit.  To a very pretty place.  Where statues hide in every alcove and line every pathway in silent but serious conversation.