Dramaturgical Questions; Listening and Retelling

DRAMATURGICAL QUESTIONS

Mona, the dramaturg with whom Shy and Cyn worked with at NET MicroFest, offered us the following questions to mull over:

"1. What question, or set of questions, are you exploring with each sequence? This is not something you should be able to answer, but I have found it useful to think about it. I like to generate lists of questions and then compare them, see how the scene works toward confronting the audience with questions. It's in keeping with Mira Rafalowicz's process of dramaturgical questioning (attached), which I've found a useful tool . . .

It might be interesting to write these questions down.

It also might be instructive to create titles for each scene that evoke the essence of what happens, is evoked, communicated in each scene. One can make these titles anything from very straightforward and clear (i.e. "courtesan cliches") to more poetic and visceral ("silent cry").

2. Think through the whole piece in terms of what your relationship is to the audience moment-to-moment. I understand why you decided not to worry about audience placement at this point. At the same time, where the audience is in relation to the piece is crucial. Physical placement determines in many ways emotional and intellectual engagement. Your discoveries as you generate the questions under (1) will influence audience placement. The "courtesan cliches" scene, for instance, is successful because it engages/confronts the audience in a very direct way. What is the nature of our engagement scene-to-scene?

Maybe each of you can write down/articulate somehow what you want each scene to do in that regard.

This issue seems especially important as your story engages individuals who are professional performers. When I was watching the videos in the exhibit I was struck by how the dancers control their audience, how this power/control is in many ways a central attraction of the performance (one of them manages to control the spectator merely through her voice, compelling him to stop his carriage and enter the performance space . . .). Perhaps you can help each other by very consciously putting on the hat of audience at certain moments in rehearsal?

3. I think there could be great possibilities in using your working process even more as a guiding principle throughout the piece: When you work across geographical distance, through skyping etc., you observe each other (and your selves). You have to continuously find ways to "write yourself into each other's processes / creations." Heiner Müller talked about this in a public letter to Robert Wilson, explaining why he (Heiner) couldn't write the text for Death Destruction & Detroit II. He couldn't find a way to "write himself into Bob's process." Each of you continuously does. There is something in this communal and at the same time very individual process that relates to the courtesan culture (at least as I understood it from Veena's lecture). At the same time, it relates to the community of women (and other) survivors who have found a way to tell their stories. The telling can happen because there are listeners. How do you listen to each other, observe each other, invite each other to comment, play with your work/stories? The opening scene sets up this structure / idea, but I lost it as the piece went on. It re-surfaces periodically, but more peripherally. When Cynthia was dressing while Anjali was doing her piece and we talked about the screen, this issue became more clear to me. I thought her presence created a compelling tension. Not that this should be the choice, but investigating presence of other performers/on-stage observers/mirrors at certain moments might be of value.

In this context, you could play with the Brechtian device of the re-play (just for rehearsal purposes, although it might find its way into performance . . .). What would happen, for instance, if each of the performers did an improvisation (perhaps guided by Anjali) on her voice, the loss/recovery of her voice? It's such a central moment/reversal in the survivor's journey. It will gain power through rep&rev (repetition and revision/variation).

This connects to the mirroring: I think some motifs could be mirrored more extensively. At the moment nothing is 'over-worked.' Perhaps make a list of motifs (face, hands, marks, tracks, wounds, mouth/voice/ eyes, frames/doorways, borders, cloth, etc. etc.) and see how they are present in each scene. Then ask how else they could be present? How is each of these charged with different meanings as the piece progresses? Try out choices. Examine impact."

In response to this, we've given ourselves the tasks of (1) giving TITLES to each piece, (2) articulating the central intent/questions/audience relationship of each piece and (3) examining when the MOTIFS of performers, video, text, movement/gesture are present and absent in each piece, and what the function of that presence and absence are.

Cyn:

(1) Cyber Communications: An Introduction

intention: introduces us to ensemble, internet/Skype mediated process, how art-making sits inside everyday home life, and central themes of the show
motifs: performers (4 on video, Shy live), video (single rear projection), text (rhythmic, spoken, sung), movement (gestural storytelling/communication)
(2) Leather and Snow
function: brings courtesan cliche into contemporary times, fragmenting of body, showing geographical context

motifs: performers (Sandra only - would need to be integrated with others), video (single rear projection), text (none), movement (gestural and imagistic)
(3) the tears went running, running... (or "dry mouth, salt water")
function: a minimalist abstraction of loneliness and subtle despair. Based on Uma's story but could attain other valences if concrete connections are made to other material (ravi suggests working with "kahe rukata" thumri as sound).
motifs: performers (Shy, both live and live feed), video (frames plus 2 live feeds), text (none, needs sound support), movement (facial expression). Tension between solitariness of live body and the intimacy of live feed close-up on face (allowing involvement with abhinaya in theatrical setting)

(4) EAT ME

function: a humorous commentary on the exoticizing gaze
motifs: performers (Sandra on video, but not identifiable, Shy and Cyn live), video (small on front scrim), text (Madonna's Om Shanti lyrics and lascivious audience comments), movement (full-bodied dance)
(5) The Pleasure of Longing

(6) Ranri (Note: "ranri" is a bengali word that means both widow and courtesan)
function: tells/embodies the story of a child widow turned courtesan. covert resistance, longing for sweetness, and suffering of physical violence connect to the SAN women. still need to pull out her positionality and strength as courtesan.
motifs: performers (Cyn live and on initial video, Anj on video). video (projected onto body and ceiling). text: in projection - gives context/history to the character. monologue - expresses the character's resistance, bitterness, sensuality, longing in the present. during wrist: clarifies that the woman is being subjected to violence. movement: stillness, gesture, stretching cloth, footwork, angsty ripping and collapse.

(7) Losing My Tonsils, Finding My Voice

(8) Composite Courtesan (stolen from Carole)

(9) viva-la-vulva (from Sandra Cisneros' "Loose Woman")
function: the bold, the audacious, the super sexual, desiring, too-much woman
motifs: performers (Cyn and Anj), video (none), text (none), movement (Bharatnatyam, pseudo hip hop)

(10) Learning to Walk like Radha
function: the story of a misfit in the classical Indian dance world.
motifs: performer (Cyn live), video (none), text (improvised spoken text, rhythmic syllables, song), movement (pedestrian, manipulation of cloth, task-based, related to spoken word, kathak)

(11) The Thorn, the Leaf, and the Butterfly
function: Variations on Uma's story
motifs: perfomers (Shy, Anj, Cyn), video (live feed of Anj's face, frame), text (poem spoken aloud), movement (face and hands, full bodied struggle with cloth, task-based)

(12) Shringar/Getting Dressed

(13) s k i n remix
function: How are cliches/conceptions of women written on our dancing bodies? How do we pass through, resist, critique and interact with those projections?
motifs: performers (all live performers, Cyn on "skin"), video ("skin" on rear wall, projected words on floor/dancers' body, live feed of dancers on scrim), text (recaps/fragments of all text in show), movement (mostly centered around interacting with text physically, needs to be deepened)

SUNOH! TELL ME, SISTER PHRASES
We also continued to work on our "SUNOH! Tell Me, Sister" phrases:

Anj's phrases (abhinaya, Bharatnatayam, creative), password "listen"

Anj Sunoh phrases from Post Natyam Collective on Vimeo.

Cyn: Listening for the Tawaif's Trace (abhinaya)
shot through the window: (password "murky")

Listening for the Trace of the Tawaif from Cynthia Ling Lee 2 on Vimeo.

shot in the studio, password "listen"

Listening to the Trace of the Tawaif (studio) from Cynthia Ling Lee 2 on Vimeo.


LISTENING AND RETELLING

In addition, we decided to expand on Cyn's response to Hari's Sunoh phrase assignment ("I listen, I take you into my body") by having each of us respond to each other's stories through our own personal lens.

Shy's listening/retelling of Cyn's logomotion/cloth solo:
Password: logomotion

shy logomotion from Shyamala Moorty on Vimeo.

Note from Shy: I meant to do a section about Cynthia teaching me to walk when she was directing me in the widow to courtesan piece that would parallel her walk section with her teacher. Because it was an improvisation I forgot that part but have done some writing on it and think it would have gone in the part when I cross the river to become the courtesan. Would be interesting to go between the character being surprised that she has to learn to walk, and me finding the specificities of kathak hard on my BharataNatyam trained body.

Shy's Retelling of Cyber Chat
Password: "cyber"

Cyber Re-Miss from Shyamala Moorty on Vimeo.

Note from Shy: This may be a part of my listening to Sandra...it started out that way but became it's own thing...I'm still working on the rest of listing/retelling Sandra.


Mona also pointed out that our material seemed to fall into two categories: (1) intense involvement with a personal story and (2) ironic reflection on a (courtesan) cliche, with the latter less investigated. In an attempt to bridge the two worlds, Cyn did a quick choreographic study of a pseudo-kavita I wrote for my artbook, Harassing the Sanskrit Heroine. She was imagining it might go into my Logomotion improv somewhere, since her personal story might lend itself to dealing with cliches, insofar as it speaks about the collision of trying to fit into the mold of a classical Indian dancer.

password "kavita"

Harassing the Sanskrit Heroine from Cynthia Ling Lee 2 on Vimeo.