Friday, March 31, 2006

Baby Steps

Is there anything in the artistic world more daunting than a blank piece of paper?

For my money? No sir.

And a (several large) blank piece(s) of paper is what faced us at the first (almost) full meeting of Team Infinite Perspectives.

DRAMATIS PERSONAE:
Like any good bank heist, folks were brought on board for a reason (or in my case the late date and lack of other options)

Travis: Your current narrator - a performer
Martin: The Director
Dewey: The Writer
Austin: The Stage Manager - Keeper On Task
Ileana: Performer (and reputed Sound Goddess)
Clay: Performer

For the first (almost) full meeting we were all present save Ileana (Who I am assured is legendary, but not mythical).

Martin installed 2+ walls full of butcher paper, Clay installed a newly resurfaced vintage card table and chairs and we set off to vanquish the blank page.



As a group, but not a company, there are some loose connections amongst folks (except for me of course) but no previous experience creating together.
So there are no vocabulary shortcuts we can take, we need to learn each other's strengths and predilections on the fly. To start at the very beginning, a very good place to start (unless of course you only have twelve weeks).

The First Words

Martin led us in a discussion of what we considered to be our formative theater experiences, favorite performances, and loves in theater to get an idea of what moved us as artists.

Which tended group-wide to be non-traditional experiences:

For myself I began with my love of manipulating an audience.
I shared the tense moments at the end of a college production of Jeffrey I directed at the University of New Hampshire, waiting for the applause, sweating through the silence, only to realize that they were too busy crying to clap just yet.

I then talked about a performance by the Neo-Surrealists at the San Francisco Fringe Festival. A performer clad in nothing but his clown makeup and a Hefty bag shares his Last Hershey Bar with the audience silently, piece by piece. Upon running out of chocolate he then hands the next audience member the wrapper, and the next his (now sweaty) garbage bag.
Now totally naked and bereft of anything to give, the clown begins removing his makeup with is fingertips and badging the faces of the rest of the audience.
Watching an audiences reaction to this performance is astounding, as they move from laughter, to pity, to horror and discomfort, to an acceptance or even pride in the badging.

Not to disrespect the others but only a sampling as I don't remember their formative experiences as well as my own:

Martin talked about a variety of experiences, primarily guerrilla theater and street theater, that had really excited him. He spoke of a love of non-traditional spaces, and concurred with my enjoyment of audience manipulation (though he leaned Brecht to my Spielberg). He spoke of his respect for Peter Brook's process of creation which he had witnessed several years ago in Australia in one of Brooks touring productions.

Dewey talked about the lack of exposure in general in South Dakota, and later about his love of his Grandfather's barbershop quartet which toured the area. About how hearing them sing, and seeing them perform stoked his love of music, and made him curious about performing and performance.

Clay spoke on his love for street theater and happenings.

Austin talked about his work with a dance company and the love of the aesthetic that grew out of that.

Ileana said, "............"

The next steps:



The Spark.

That which we expected to narrow our scope was instead a mammoth, unconnected swath of thinking. So we began brainstorming the concepts. Mars especially seemed to dominate because it is a specific place. We also listened a bit to some of the songs included in the Spark packet (Gang of Four, Pere Ubu, Orange Juice, The Human League, others).

Love Music Mars Love Music Mars Love Music Mars Love Music Mars.

And what is theater?
And where in history do we want this to take place?
Do we want it to be linear? Non-Linear? A-Linear?

How do we turn the limitations on sets and props (where limitations = you can't have any) into an advantage?
How can we manipulate the space to manipulate the audience?
Do we want to use projections? How?

You know, little questions.

12 Weeks.

Wednesday, March 29, 2006

In the Beginning...

My name is Travis Bedard.

I am an actor who relocated to Austin Texas 18 months ago.

I am an actor who 2 1/2 weeks ago received a phone call from a stranger named Dewey.
Not a stranger stranger, rather an acquaintance of my girlfriend.

Dewey is a theatre professional who had a problem.
He had registered for a program called ArtSpark, and he had some members of his intended team drop out.
Mr girlfriend had mentioned that I was an actor and would I be interested in joining Team Infinite Perspectives?

And lo, I was interested and found myself in a room with forty other people including my 'team' on Monday the 20th, set to embark on a very ambitious journey.

Here we will try to record our process, the heart of ArtSpark, for all to see.
Shortly I will let the Team introduce itself but first? The basics:

What is ArtSpark?
Taken from the ArtSpark mission statement: "The ArtSpark Initiative mission is to promote the creative process and explore synergies among the Arts, Technology and Industry. ArtSpark programs seek to nurture, develop, and provide professional benefit to emerging artists and innovators, to build connections with industry and to give the community a first look at the future of the entertainment arts and technology."

Taken from meeting with the Teams and the Staff? It's Art for Art's sake. And just a little bit crazy.
Beginning with the meeting on the 20th the Teams have 12 weeks to create a new work, in theatre, games, or industrial design. The ArtSpark organization supplies the Teams with:
a small budget ($700)
office space and equipment, with 24 hour access
rehearsal space
performance space
event level marketing
workshops with industry professionals
support
and a license to fail spectacularly.

The soft pudding-y middle of art in the modern world is squarely due to artists need to eat. For art to be financially feasible it needs to be appealing to the broader market. It may drift to one edge or another - but to innovate, or even to strive for innovation, is financially disastrous.

So Manuel Zarate in creating the the HBMG Foundation and ArtSpark has created a mad artists laboratory, a place to focus on how you create the art, not simply how shiny it is when you're finished.
.
To ensure that the program is for pure creation the organization insists that each group start from scratch with nothing but their own abilities, they must start from the Spark.

So what was your Spark?
Completely different from what we'd expected.

I'd jokingly said to Dewey at the meeting where he brought me on board that the Spark was going to be "beagle". That we were going to have to steer an entire play from inspiration to performance based on nothing more than one word.

I couldn't possibly have been more wrong.

ArtSpark staffer Matt Cornelius as he was about to hand out the Sparks on the 20th said, "I hope the Sparks don't melt your brain", after seeing what each of the groups had spun out of simpler prompts at the introductory meeting. He couldn't have been more prescient.

We were handed a manila envelope marked "top secret", and headed down to our office to unveil the Spark.
To discover three FOLDERS worth of Spark.
To break it down thematically: Love (especially love in the modern era), Mars, and Music (especially punk music).

Which is to say considerably broader than 'beagle'.

NEXT: First (Almost) full meeting!