"Please write one or more stereotype or cliche that you may have had to personally confront, engage with, turn upside down, negate, reinforce, groan about, put up with, laugh about..."
Here are a few of the responses:
Here are a few of the responses:
On the back of the cards Carole designed a "wallpaper" of cliches that we are dealing with in the show.
The audience stereotypes were fed under a live-feed by Carole, underneath the silhouette of Sandra "getting dressed" and next to a larger scrim behind which Cynthia and I were getting dressed and warming up for the show. There was a pre-show announcement, a blackout, and then Mixed Bag started.
Questions for feedback:
1. how does the audience investigating their own cliches and stereotypes connect to the show?
2. what do you feel about the question? is there another question that gets to the root of what we are doing, or another way to phrase the same question that is clearer?
3. If we can, are you interested in having a pre-show?
4. Any questions, ideas or opinions not included 1-3?
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ReplyDelete1. Bringing voice to their own experiences of being silenced/labeled. Creating a circle of dialogue and sharing stories. Draws them into our process – parallel to our choreographic process with the courtesans (Hari’s asssignment), and seems similar to the sort of technique that might be used in a SAN session. Clear connections to Mixed Bag and Marks, and sets up Mixed Bag well. The material would connect more if we asked them to explicitly investigate cliches having to do with (South/Asian) women, courtesans, and Indian dancers and/or if we found a way to directly integrate their words into our performance in an improvisational section.
ReplyDelete2. I like the range of verbs: confront, engage with, turn upside down, etc. Makes it playful as well as serious. Something about how it is phrased seems to not make it clear that these are cliches that the writer has personally experienced (ie, that it could be an interaction with another person who fit a particular stereotype). Maybe this would clarify:
"Please write one or more stereotype or cliche that has been imposed upon you, that you have put up with, turned upside down, confronted, engaged with, negated, reinforced, groaned about, laughed about..."
3. I loved how it instigated a dialogue in the audience about stereotypes even before we started the show and how it uses Babli’s past shadow. It seems like Mixed Bag would have to follow immediately after, however, so if this is not our ideal beginning, it might make more sense without. And I know it poses logistical/technical problems and lengthens the overall showtime, which might be running long.
4. What is the right music/mood for this section? Ravi and I both found the harmonium alaap he created a little grating for this length and looped. Maybe Anshu doing an alaap on violin? Or the sounds of classical instruments tuning first (as if the musicians were also getting ready?) Another old idea I had was to have interviews with the various collaborators about stereotypes they’ve confronted going on...though that might be information overload and not let them relax and talk to each other.
I like the idea of the audience engaging by contributing stereotypes they have encountered. However, since we are interrogating the specifics of how we can empower ourselves with our sexuality rather than be subjected to other's notions of what that is through their exotifying lenses, I wonder if there is a live feed that the papers then begin to bleed into our show's thematic stereotypes (the ones we wrote down for skin maybe). I also feel that the tigress piece could precede Mixed Bag? I do want to hear Our voices in response to these stereotypes. What do we feel about them? That to me is not being voiced at the moment in a clear way
ReplyDeleteHey Anj, I just realized I didn't post the other side of the card so that you can see that the stereotypes from the show are indeed there for the audience to read while they're filling the cards out as well. I've pasted it at the end of the post above just now.
ReplyDeleteShy