Tuesday 22nd: Walking Workshop

I've come down to Norwich for a few days because of a very exciting opportunity. Robert Wilson's Piece Walking is being transferred to Norfolk for the Norfolk and Norwich Festival, and they need people to be 'Angels', so there was an open audition/workshop for people to come along to to see if they were interested/right for it/capable etc. So I got myself on an overnight coach after Monday's rehearsals to go to it!

Because Robert Wilson.
Obviously.
*freaks out*

I was very hot and sweaty before we even get to the venue, british summer has ARRIVED and I was tired and buzzy after taking in a whole new city and wandering around in the sunlight for hours dragging my suitcase behind me.

We arrived at Open and find ourselves utterly enclosed in an airless, windowless black space (space is at a premium during the N and N festival ), the absolute opposite to the project we are auditioning for, which will take place outdoors along the through the Norfolk countryside and along the coastline. Boukje (one of the artists who worked with Wilson to create it) talked to us about what the project was, and what they needed from the participants. The idea is that we'll stay in a hostel near the project for three weeks, working in shifts on the project for part of the day and then using the rest of the time to collaborate with each other, arrange lectures and skill-shares and so on.
We all introduced ourselves. Most of the other people there had a background in visual and fine arts rather than performance, but everyone seemed to do a lot of work with or inspired by the landscape.
I never thought much about it but a great deal of my work has been inspired by it in some way. Joe and Petunia was inspired by the ocean, and Little White Dresses current project is inspired by the night sky. It would be amazing to explore such a different landscape to mine in the pennines. To be somewhere so flat and open...

The workshop was all about spatial awareness and ways of leading and guiding.
A lot of the games and exercises we did were similar to those I've been doing with Red Ladder but  where with Red Ladder we've worked on building energy, stamina, and focus, here everything was on learning to fully experience what we was happening to us.

We began with simple games.

• Say your name. Look to your right, visualise yourself in the space. Give the space your name. Step into the space, claim it, and say your name again.
• Make eye contact with someone across the circle, say their name and move to inhabit their space. They have to say someones name and continue before you get to them. Then repeat game just with eye contact.

We then started walking around the space, placing hands on the base of peoples backs to energise their walk. Once we found our own 'energised walk' we had to link up with other people, joining in their walk and then returning to our own. We then started an exercise we have done with Red ladder, saying your name, starting to fall and everyone gathering to catch you and put you back on your feet, building up to them laying you right down, and eventually picking you up and carrying you around. The feeling was very different with a group of strangers in an 'audition' situation. Everyone seemed very tentative and not ready to trust everyone yet, whereas with Red Ladder the problems came when too many people fell at once!

We had to learn to trust each other pretty quickly though as the nest exercises all involved someone having their eyes closed!

We built from letting one person wander around the circle with closed eyes and us keeping them safe up to several wanderers who we had to keep safe from each other. We experimented in the ways we guided them, using voice or touch, being gentle or forceful. As staid as saying left, right, left, to the playfulness of waltzing around.

We then split into pairs, and took that work, using it to guide one another on a journey through the room, choosing a small number of images for them to see. (Something about having your attention focused on one small object after a long time blind makes that object far more precious and memorable. I looked at an old shoe and a poster, my partner at a wheel and an apple core.)

We continued the blindfolded work with some more playful activities, such as leading them blindfolded through two rows of people enacting, through touch and sound, a place (we had a river, a rainforest, a factory and a playground), with the blindfolded then guessing where they were.

The next half of the workshop was directed at building our spatial awareness and exploring the possibilities within it.

We started this with some physical exercises.

1.   Standing with feet parallel and legs unlocked feeling gravity work on us, and letting it ground us.

2.   Feeling bubbling energy rise through our bodies pulling us upwards, whilst still being grounded, stretching us vertically as far as possible.

3.   Feeling a magnetic force pulling us first to the left and then the right, stretching us horizontally.

4.   Feeling waves pulling at us, drawing us forward and backward.

5.   Letting energy push our arms up (making sure to let it happen, rather than forcing it to happen, as though helium balloons were underneath our arms).

6.   Gathering that energy from our arms and pulling it down into our bodies (similar to a sun salutation in yoga).

7.    Shaking all that energy out of our bodies in all directions.

8.   Twisting and spinning our arms around us, letting a pendulum force take hold of our bodies so the movement happens with no energy expended on our part.

9.   Bringing this pendulum motion together with another person, standing back to back and spinning around to clap hands together.

Next we built on this back-to-back relationship, walking around the space backwards, bumping into people (backwards) and feeling them through your back, rubbing against each other like bears scratching on a tree! Eventually we found partners and spent a long time back to back with them, figuring out how to move together, really trusting each other to take our weight. We were then told to very slowly break away from each other, still feeling that connection between us as we moved further and further away. Eventually we turned to face each other, making eye contact and moved, slowly (always slowly) together again., feeling with each step how the experience felt, moving as close as could be until we were standing nose to nose, still making eye contact. We stayed their for a long time, experiencing that closeness to a stranger, taking time to really notice them, notice their presence, and how it felt to be that close to a person. Finally we were told to break away once more, to maintain eye contact but to walk away from each other, feeling that presence shift again. It’s a very intense sensation, holding eye contact with someone for so long, and we spent a long time discussing how little eye contact is made, how it’s often seen as a threat, or as an immensely emotionally sensation, and  (edit: writing this after I got my email telling me I’ve been selected! ARGH!) I’m looking forward to working more on this project, and seeing where this work leads us!