(brevemente em português)
Dullness is not an inevitable consequence of age but of education.
Keith Johnstone
In our bad education program we are commit ourselves to explore the pedagogies of Philippe Gaulier, Jacques Lecoq, Alexandre del Perugia and Keith Johnstone and pass on these techniques in workshops. Workshops allow us to continually investigate what makes engaging magic theatre and unlearn the boring mechanisms of education and social survival which deaden instinct, vitality and pleasure. Teachers have taught us to fear failure. A person who avoids failure avoids discovery. A life without flops is meaningless. Perfection spells death for the risktaker, the adventurer, the artist!
Happiness is a game of tag
When did life become so dull, so boring? Does the sound of your own voice send you to sleep? How do we get un boring? Do you conform to the image of the rational responsible adult you think you ought to be? Stimulate your imagination by re discovering your pleasure in play. Find the game in each moment, scene, encounter. Follow your pleasure and bring vitality to your performance. Pleasure is the great glue stick. When performers are having a great time they have a magnetic aura, we want to watch them. If a performer is struggling, distracted or unhappy, the audience sense it instantly. You distance yourself from everything that performer says.
Did you eat a lion?
Do you have presence? How big does one have to be in order to reach an audience? When the spotlight is on you you must be larger than life, you must have a beautiful freedom. Most people dont even come close. Generally actors perform on a level appropriate only for TV realism. People make themselves smaller in every encounter. They come on to the stage and then apologise for being there. If you're in the light on stage, you can't afford to be small! You have to be bigger than the image you have of yourself, not just different. Expressing your conviction and position by just being you, is not enough. If you're so natural that you're not in a heightened energy state, then you may as well be performing in your lounge room. Exerting effort into being more interesting doesn’t help either.
Make the audience believe you ate a lion for breakfast.
Dump the little character
Get free of the roles that limit you. The role that will infiltrate every character and performance you make. This ‘little character’ is so familiar you’re probably not even aware of how much it inhabits you. This is the role you climb out of bed and button yourself into each morning. Miss Nice, Mme Sassy, Mr Sensible, funny guy, fascist, librarian, school teacher, Don Juan, feminist, Mother Teresa. Death to these little boring roles which capture us. Utilise the raw energy repressed beneath the facade, beneath the fear of what others will think, the imagined responsibility, sanity, instinct for saftety. Get in contact with the unadulterated essence which is where the great actor is born.
High level failure
If the improviser can find a way of celebrating the failure as much as success, then extraordinary entertainment can be created.
Keith Johnstone
We all want to embrace the unknown, produce the precious original material... But how badly? Our education trains us to avoid mistakes, to feel shameful about failure. But in avoiding these things we cut ourselves off from sponteneity and creative discoveries. Do you risk to be bad? Have you ever really failed gloriously? Learn to make friends with the flop and discover a new world in the process. In theatre as in life the gold is in the mistakes.
Through spontaneity we are re formed into ourselves. It creates an explosion for that moment, it frees us from handed down frames of reference, memory choked with old facts and information and undigested theories and techniques of other peoples’ findings. Sponteneity is the moment of personal freedom when we are faced with reality and see it explore it and act accordingly. In this reality the bits and peices of ourselves function as an organic whole. It is the time of discovery, of experencing, of creative expression.
Viola Spolin
The secret language of complicity
Do you know how to make people love you? The secret language of complicity is the language of agreement and playfulness which creates a powerful connection with your partners and the audience. When two people are playing with each other they create something magical between them, an energetic connection. Let the audience in on this connection and each performance becomes spontaneous and joyful. A great performance is intimate. It is sharing a secret, a wink, or a joke with the people watching. You have ‘to charm the pants off’ your public. An actor is something akin to a gypsy performing flamenco and selling the family secrets. He must conjure an atmosphere, convince the audience something magical is taking place, then make them pay for each revelation. If you are charming enough, the audience will give themselves willingly to this beautiful lie.
Demolish intellectualism
The audience doesn't care about your ideas. You can spend years discussing and analysing the text only to get on stage with nothing engaging to give. An audinece cares about what is happening in front of them. If you don’t want to bore your audience then you cant work on an psychological level. As Gaulier puts it: “When you stay in your mind, you don't have fun, dreams, or spirit." Imaginative work comes from acting without thinking.
King size
Awareness of the body is intrinsic to assuming the full size of your humanity. The body is your most convincing instrument on stage. Do you exude lightness and grace? Do you have strength and height? To what degree are you present in your skin? Learn about the hidden status interactions which govern both our verbal and physical communication. Discover what your physicality expresses to others. A body that is strong is impressive but one that is intelligent will make fabulous theatre.