SUMMER WORKSHOP GUIDE
Missed our KID SISTER Summer Workshop? No worries! We are sharing our workshop guide and post-play musings with YOU! Here, on LAB NOTES!
As we geared up for KID SISTER SUMMER, we wanted to celebrate us all coming together again! Winter hibernation has come and gone, and now all of our friends have come out to play! The KID SISTER SUMMER Workshop was the first of three events for our second season as a theatre collaborative. We were so fortunate to gather with our friends from past collaborations and forge new friendships with fellow makers, and we are thrilled to share the “structure” that we sculpted to invite our players to explore the realm of “spontaneity.”
Our workshop guide below is constructed based upon what we found to be exciting about devising our second collective work, Everything is About Something (2022), and building blocks for composition that we have hungered to dig into!
Materials Needed
White Board Marker x 2
Doodling Markers (Niko’s paint markers interacted brilliantly with the brown paper!)
Crayons
“Pavement” Paper (Roll out that brown paper!)
La Croix 8-Pack x 2
Diet Coke 12-Pack
Ice for Cooler
Copies of KID SISTER SUMMER Poem x 12
KID SISTER SUMMER Playlist
INFORMED CONSENT FORM (linked)
(Director Commentary: We value all bodies and voices who play at the playground with us. We, artistic directors, must be transparent with our collaborators; particularly when it comes to recording work devised in a rehearsal space based on individuals exploring their impulses and making courageous choices to further the creation process.)
“SIDEWALK CHALK ART” (15 minutes)
(…because it was raining, and Camden skwirms even at the thought of chalk)
Choose your square of “pavement,” and doodle considering the following prompts:
Who are you? (Name/Pronouns)
Where was the place that little-you liked the most?
What are you excited for this Summer?
INTRODUCTIONS: Gallery Walk “Sidewalk Chalk Art” (10 minutes)
(questions from above)
What are two intentions that you have for the workshop this evening?
Introduce KID SISTER…Who are we? How did we meet? What have we done? What are we looking forward to this Summer for KID SISTER?
FLOCKING (6 minutes)
“There is an art to flocking: staying separate enough not to crowd each other, aligned enough to maintain a shared direction, and cohesive enough to always move towards each other.” Collective Leadership/Partnership. Adaptability. (adrienne maree brown, Emergent Strategy)
Person in the front is the leader–all following must accurately duplicate
Simplicity is key, but HAVE FUN/PLAY with the sounds of the space/music…“Move at the speed of trust. Focus on critical connections more than critical mass—build the resilience by building the relationships.” (adrienne maree brown, Emergent Strategy)
When flock leader is tired or feels the need to change, they may shift their gaze to the right to shift leadership
Make the movement live a full life!
If there is a large group of players, perhaps consider dividing into smaller flocks that may shift throughout the practice…
BOUNDARY PRACTICE (as much time as needed)
(The boundary practice we engaged with larger ensembles is adapted from Theatrical Intimacy Education (linked)…)
“Your boundaries are perfect exactly where they are.”
“Throughout these two hours, it is okay if your boundaries change.”
BUTTON/FENCES/GATES
Establishing a BUTTON (is button the correct language?)
Fences: Show/Tell
COMPOSITION FOUNDATIONS (Building Blocks…45 minutes)
(REMINDER: keep it objective and specific—the subjective is for later…each building block is like sedimentary rock (strata))
Many of the building block practices we are exploring this evening utilize components of Viewpoints developed by directors Anne Bogart and Tina Landau: “Viewpoints is a set of names given to certain principles of movement through time and space; these names constitute a language for talking about what happens onstage.” (The Viewpoints Book)
BB #1
Topography of Least Favorite Food
What is Topography?
“The landscape, the floor pattern, the design we create in movement through space.” (red paint on the bottom of the shoes)
Ingredients List:
Tempo
Repetition
Duration
Locomotion (walking, hopping, skipping, sliding, crawling, running, galloping)
Scale
Experiment:
Move your floor pattern in space…
When you meet eyes with another, maintain eye contact as you move through your topography.
What happens when you avoid eye contact?
What happens when one is seeking eye contact and the other avoids?
Let’s Play!
In a circle, two people meet in the center and choose which regard they will maintain. The two persons move through their topography and return to the circle for another pairing to play with each other.
BB #2
Filmic Gesture Practice
Choose a scene from your favorite childhood film.
Concentrate on one character.
Find two specific gestures—two behavioral, two expressive—that can be replicated and repeated…choose and label one to three four
“Gesture is Shape with a beginning, middle, and end.”
What is Behavior Gesture?
Gesture of the concrete and physical world: pointing, scratching, sniffing, bowing, etc.
What is Expressive Gesture?
Expresses an inner state, emotion, desire, idea or value.
Bring out the couch…Let’s play!
In pairs—two on the couch.
What happens when two players with their sets of four gestures share space? What story can be derived?
Settling in: Niko or Camden counts as direction to shift gestures: 1, 2, 3, 4.
“Structure invites spontaneity.” (Jerzy Grotowski)
Invite the players to move through their gestures at their own pace in response to the music being played…What happens when the music shifts? What is the story?
BB #3
Frantic Assembly “Squeeze”
Check-in with your partner…
Partner A finds four locations to “squeeze” with their hand on Partner B’s body.
Partner B finds four locations to “squeeze” with their hand on Partner A’s body.
Partner A locates first squeeze and makes contact, Partner B does the same, and on through the six remaining squeezes.
How quickly do you both move through the squeezes?
What are the transitions?
What happens before, during, and after the squeeze?
Let’s play:
Put on music…tracks should shift for every pairing.
Invite players into another circle.
Each pair has the opportunity to share their “Squeeze” structure, and play with the spontaneity that comes with the sensory experience encouraged by the music.
NOW! Let’s invite two pairs to the playground. What if one person from each pair maintains eye contact and the other partners seek with their original partner? What is the story? What if one pair acts as voyeurs and their regard is solely concentrated on the other pair?
BREAK (5 minutes)
LET’S COLLAGE! Poetry in Motion Edition (...[ideally] 45 minutes)
“When the theater experience feels disappointing and lifeless, it is often because the audience is constantly seeing the same thing that they are hearing. The layers of perception all agree with one another too often.” (Anne Bogart)
Niko wrote a gorgeous long-form poem, introducing the sensations we hope to stimulate this summer, and chose two stanzas to experiment with our compositional building blocks we played with in the last hour.
(Director Commentary: We had about twenty minutes to collage with our workshop players…we have learned that a three-hour workshop is the sweet spot for what we had hoped to explore, rather than the two hours we had.)
Split into two groups: we recommend one partner from each “Squeeze” pair joining Group I and the other, Group II.
Divide Text: What is spoken solo? What is choral? Where are the pauses? Rhythm? What are the stories we hear?
NOW! Let’s decide which composition building block (from the last hour) that we want to play to compose in partnership with the text.
(Group I paired their topography sequences with the poem, and Group II combined both the previously-conceived gestural language and elements of “Squeeze”!)
TWIST! Add one piece of Architecture!
POST-PLAYGROUND SNACK TIME
Bring out the goodies (La Croix, Diet Coke are our bevvies of choice)!
JOY was palpable that evening. As the Sun fell to the West, the space felt bright amid a darkening world. Engaging with the roles of player and observer was our primary task for those participating in the workshop, and the thoughts shared with us seemed to substantiate our perception of the evening. There exists significant power in the body of the active audience. “The brain wants to create the narrative,” said Olivia Buck, a Salt Lake City-based performer and playwright. Makena Reynolds, another phenomenal theatre and filmmaker, alluded to the responsibility of players and audience members to maintain a shared presence and take part in the narrative elements or images conjured as bodies interact in space. The studio buzzed with kinetic energy as all offered their voices to the practices we explored and the community space we fostered together.
What a thrill! We hope you have a blast with the compositional elements we explored last Thursday. We have exciting happenings ahead and are eager to return to the playground to dissect new elements of theatre-making that we have yet to play with.
Cheers!
KID SISTER
(Compiled by Camden)
