If you’re looking for some epic sword and shield action to get you through the beginnings of winter, look no further. Elgin Community College is putting on a production Ajax by Sophocles.
Fridays and Saturdays, November 5 through 20 at 8 p.m
Sundays, November 14 and 21 at 3 p.m
I hear tell that our very own Zev Steinberg has a cameo, this, in addition to the choreography work in put in to this show. Ya’ll should go out and support him.
I also hear there are animals. Animals! I say.
-Tiny-
If you find yourself suffering from a serious case of the boreds this coming Monday (October 25th), then you should get over to the Viaduct Theater and watch Chicago’s own Mud Queens do some “blood” wrestling.
The show starts at 8pm and the charge is $15, well worth it for some sure-to-be hilarious blood wrestling.
Also at the Viaduct Theater is Reefer Madness. I’ve mentioned this show before, but now having seen it myself, I strongly encourage all to go. This show is not only done well, it’s also extremely funny.
If you need any more encouragement to go (which you shouldn't), there is a cash bar open before the show and a “goat” during.
--Tiny
Susceptibility.
Memory is no longer considered to be hard data stored in the brain. For a long time brain science compared our biological memory to that of a computer, just not as easily recalled. Now the belief is that memory is a whole lot more quixotic.
Every time you recall a memory it becomes colored with the experiences of the present and restored. If you are presently happy then a happy memory will be enhanced and restored brighter than before. If you are presently sad then that same memory will be dulled a bit and restored with some of its original lustre depleted.
This effect also happens with factual information. We aren't very good at memorizing facts, especially facts without connected emotion. Sure some people seem to be living computers but most of them have to train hard to be able to record so much info (there are a few, however, that have true fact storing and recalling gifts). We even forget the context we learned the original information.
We are really good at generalizing and experts at grouping. Our minds hold onto the general info and then compare that will other similar information or situations. It's often why one thought will trigger another similar one.
With all that in mind (wink), it becomes easy to see how we are very susceptible creatures. Advertisers know this and try to willingly recall our memories and replace or insert themselves. Stuarts soda had a campaign, aided with their old time glass bottles, that had many convinced they had been around since the twenties (they have only been with us since the roaring 80's)!
With violence the audience is coming in with their own preconceived notions and ideas of what things should look like. Sometimes this can jive with where you want to go. Most times it is in opposition.
We can use clever tools to change their minds, however. One show, where I choreographed a series of hits by two hitmen, I put a excerpts from a fictional manual for hitmen in the program. This allowed the audience to gain insight into how the violence in the world of the play was going to go and gave my fighters an edge.
The program is a great place to start. Subtle physical cues in the play, how characters react to eachother or handle weapons, how the relationships change, and many others that I haven't even thought of yet, all aid in us in bringing the audience out if their heads and Into our violent (but safe) playground.
Greg
Blood Lust
...from an audience perspective.
I have mentioned many ways stage blood itself can be difficult (stage lights altering color, safe for skin/mouth, washability, sticky, slick, etc.). Physical aspects aside, blood is an attention demanding effect and if not given due respect it will distract or derail the story instead of enhancing it.
First, blood is red. Sometimes bright, sometimes dark. To be over simplific, our eyes go "Shiny object!"
Try for yourself. Look up and note the first color your eyes notice. Every time (unless you cheat!) Your eyes will go to the brightest color first then scan from there.
This may be something from our survival days; poisonous insects and animals are almost always brightly colored, life giving berries and fruits are bright colored, fire and heat glow brightly. It may also be due to the higher frequency of light demanding priority processing in our minds. It may be a combo.
Besides color, blood itself, is a warning of danger. It's never a good sign to be bleeding. We need that blood and our brain freaks out when it starts losing some! When other people are bleeding our brain equally freaks out, it is analyzing how the bleeding may have happened and working out ways to prevent it from occurring to us. A large part of our survival and dominance as a species is associative learning.
An audience watching a play is no different; hell the goal of any play is to teach the audience something. How not to bleed is a gimme. There aren't many people who have been stabbed in the stomach, after watching what happens, real or symbolic, they won't need the experience to know that it sucks.
The overall point is that blood has its own story and objective. It sends the audiences minds to places that often don't involve the play. You have to harness this nature of blood to serve your needs. If blood is out too early or long, the audience will miss important dialogue and action that explains or justifies its presence.
Blood revealed at the right moment, just near the point of a characters death for example (the act and portrayal of dying is just as interesting to the mind as blood), will greatly enhance the moment. An over abundance of blood in a comedy will push the mind past the discomfort envelope into humor.
On paper the blood effect may only appear on one page in one small section. That small area, however, demands the detail of an entire scene. If done effectively that small moment can be a pivotal point. If done ineffectively it can sour the entire show.
Greg
Sleep!
We need it and often in theatre we don't get it.
Scientists are still trying to nail down exactly why we need to sleep, especially for 8 hours. Since every animal has to do it there must be a real importance to it.
So far the basic agreement is that the rest we get when we sleep allows our brains to reuptake chemicals released during the day to make our world real and full of emotions. It may also be the reason the brain sends out a chemical to paralyze us while in deep sleep. Stopping any data from coming in means the brain can get a break from new processing to clean and arrange what it already gathered.
I think of it as cleaning and resetting props and the stage after the show. if you don't have the downtime to do so the stage remains cluttered and all the things you need are scattered everywhere from being used. You can still make it through a show in this disarray but it wont be smooth or as clear.
There is also some evidence that sleep allows us to run through and practice what we have learned that day or are thinking about most. Physical proof is when you wake up after an engaging dream with your heart rate racing, mind confused, and unfortunately exhausted for the rest of the day. With the visualization basketball free throw experiments showing that thinking about something can help someone Improve as much as doing the same activity, the Idea of dreams being practice fields makes sense.
Bottom line is that sleep is one of the most important things you can do to keep yourself safe onstage. It keeps you happy by your brain cleaning out alp the negative chemicals, it keeps your focus sharp, and you may even learn something!
Greg
Vocals: Reality vs. Theatricality
Vocalizations are crucial to selling a fight. They are the dialogue that let's the audience know how you feel about the abuse you are giving or receiving. They convey surprise, pain, fear, joy, sorrow, aggression, confidence, etc. Without the vocals it may still look like an interesting and dynamic fight but there won't be a purpose to it, it won't be driving the story.
The reality aspect is challenging. For vocals to really resonate with an audience and effectively get a message across, they have be big, open, clear, and relaxed. Noises in a real fight are anything but.
This is one of the many areas where we jump off our base reality into story telling. While we are choreographing a fight, we are really telling a very short, intense, physical story. No matter how real you play them or how much history you base it off of, a story is not reality. Events are truncated and amplified to elicit reactions and thought. Real reality involves a lot of down time, a lot of calm, and maybe a dash of crazy.
The flip side is that you can't be too over the top. If the vocals don't fit the context the audience doesn't buy it. You have to find the sweet spot with your vocal pain.
Yet another one of the many delicate and beautiful intricacies that make stage combat so wonderfully hard to do.
Greg
Special Forces snipers fire in between their own heart beats!
These individuals are so highly trained that they can slow down and control their heart rate, sort of like really lethal versions meditating monks! The snipers do this because a bullet can be thrown of course by the shake of your body from your heart beat. Some even claim to be able to affect blood flow and warmth to certain areas of the body to maintain stillness for long periods or to ready their trigger finger!
Now, we can't show the slowing of our hearts to the audience. Unless your are totally method there is no real reason (besides the cool factor) to train yourself to control your heartrate in this extreme way. What we can show is a character in complete control of his or her body. Someone like that is absolutely aware of and completely owns the space they are in. The way they hold their body and their movements all tell of their complete command. This Is what we as actors/actor combatants can strive to replicate when presented with these characters. It can also be a way to quietly stand out of you are one of the SWAT team or other background soldier.
Own your space and people will notice.
Greg
Motion tracking.
The human eye does many amazing things on a daily basis thay we take for granted. One of those is tracking moving objects. To accomplish this task we have to be able to lock onto an object and compute what it will look like in the next area of space and time it will be in. We are not just observing, we are anticipating what should logically be next.
Amazing as this is, it comes with limitations. We are only able to track one moving object or person at a time. The amount of focus and computing power doesn't allow us to do more.
We want take advantage of this trait when working to hide knaps and striking techniques. Along with being limited to focusing on one movement at a time, our eyes are always attracted to movement. Our brain gives priority to movement information; perhaps a left over from our survival days.
The more interesting the movement the higher priority and focus. Combat oriented movement is very interesting to the brain. We use the knowledge we vicariously gain from other peoples skirmishes to prepare ourselves for future scuffles of our own; another possible left over survival trait.
Back to stage.
Knowing that combat based movement is going to get processing and focus priority we have the ability to hide knaps in the open or throw punches while exposing the air. You have to direct the audiences focus away from where you don't want it and exactly where you do, and you can't overuse the trick, exactly like a magician performing magic.
Be wary though, our brains are very quick. We make up for our limitation by processing, grouping and judging the information extremely quickly. If you take too much time to execute the move they will catch the gag. Granted, the speed of information processing has its own set backs, but that is for another Thursday.
Greg
