Today we continued developing our physical connection to our bodies, each other and the space. We spent time flocking through the room in compact militarised little units, observing our comrades’ physical tendencies and if it made the overall picture of their unit more or less effective. It was noted by Jamie that when the pendulum of power swings in your favour and you find yourself at the front of your flock, you just need to ‘go for it.’ There’s nothing that’ll throw off a highly militarised unit of actors like a pussyfooting leader. I must confess, I found myself to be that sort of leader at the start, finding my flow a lot easier in the comfort of following (or blending in) but Jamie’s comments and the rest of the group’s observations rung true with me and were helpful in giving me a welcome kick up the backside.
We then split off into our battalions for further ‘war games.’ We were given various objects; A metallic medical table - the kind that if you search your mind’s eye you may find a quintessential pair of blood-spattered pliers resting on top of- and a looooong off white sheet. We had a rhythm and a set of rules with which to travel the length of the room with. Those rules included everyone needing to be in physical contact with another comrade and with one of the objects, to step in time, and to keep time in a host of different ways. We explored a great deal of each objects’ capability. We made hard work for ourselves when we decided to tumble the table in slow-motion. Images and free-flowing semiotic collages began developing out of this exploration. These images began blending our three worlds of church, castle and madhouse without the explicit attempt at creating narrative. One journey across the room featured the off white sheet daisy-chained round the eyes of three leaders, who were leading blind ‘patients’ into god knows what kind of hell. The final image involved an emperor-like Hamish riding the medical table, three comrades picking up the slack of his enormous white veil, traipsing in his wake.
Mylo McDonald (Alsemero)
Comments