American Theater Lecture 13: More Rehearsals!!!

Now this was hilarious! All of us standing outside Haladia Hall, waiting for it to be unlocked. There came Ms. Asma Niaz , instructing us to start the breathing exercise right there and then. While we were shouting out "Eleven Benevolent Elephants" and "Toy Boat" with all our might, people started gathering around and seemed quite amused. Well! we didn't bother much about it and continued. 

Not many days are left for the final performance and we have to be really vigilant and efficient in our rehearsals. Though today's session didn't seem to be so long, it came out to be quite successful and fruitful. Finally, we gave a form to our "Mirza Sahiban" and it was a great relief to at last see our ideas materializing into stage performances. 

We started off by discussing our performances with Prof. Boyd Branch. Further, Dr. Erika Hughes improvised our part in "Heer Ranjha". The way "the visual group" has to come down the stage while singing the song "layian layian main tere naal" to become a part of "Heer Ranjha" performance, was enchanting. We all are playing the part of Ranjha's family whose blessings he seeks before going to marry Heer. I really like the idea, the way narration of different versions of "Heer Ranjha" is being done through historians in the play. 

The highlight of the day is that our group, i.e. the visual group, eventually succeeded in staging "Mirza Sahiban" for the very first time.  Our narration of the story is in poetic form that Sanaa Mahmooda has written quite well. It is just the beginning of rehearsals and  we have to work really hard to produce something presentable.

As the days are passing by, we are getting a better understanding of what Experimental Theater is. We are planning and practising a lot of unconventional things on the stage. The settings, the flow of stories, the division of the audience; all this is going to be really exciting and hopefully a unique and entertaining experience for the audience. 

American Theater Lecture 12: Rehearsals!!

I never thought of Lahore the way I have started thinking about it now. Only when we sit together and think of the visuals that are special to Our Lahore, we realize that how these small scenes from everyday life of Lahore serve as the interlocking pieces without which the picture of Lahore is incomplete. We all relate to it differently, yet with the same feel. 

Today in our visual presentation of Lahore, we took a stride. We rehearsed for it on the stage. Yes! Though all lot of improvisation requires, hopefully we will do it. 

All nook and corners of Haladia Hall were occupied today with Actors. Well, at the end, being a part of Ranjha's family felt good. We were all cool about his marriage with Heer. We support love! 

American Theater Lecture 11: Contemplation!

Today was a day more of contemplation and discussion. In order to shake our slumbers, we did our usual warm up exercises with Dr. Erika Hughes. After that we sat in the same groups as we were divided yesterday. As a group, we are working on presenting Mirza Sahiba on the stage and rendering visual depiction of Lahore. Prof. Boyd Branch listened to the different narrations of Mirza Sahiba folktale that we wrote. One of our friends came up with a beautiful poetic narration of the story. We discussed the ways we can depict this folklore on stage. 

Soon we were joined by the M. Phil students of Media Studies of Kinnaird College. We shared different visuals that we associate Lahore with. Everybody had her own unique way of connecting and associating with this wonderful city. Lemonade vendor under a huge shady tree, golla dandaa, shades of seasons in Lahore, rangeela rickshaw, shrines are a few images to mention. Together we worked on the images and the ways to illustrate them on stage. Exploring the technical aspect of our performance, Prof. Boyd Branch demonstrated our group that how different images can be projected on screen to get the required effect. That sight was really heartening, as we were now getting a clearer picture of what our presentation may look like. With this we called it a day. A day that started with contemplation, ended with contemplation!

American Theater Lecture 10: Sounds, Smells and Pictures!!

Things have started making sense and I feel myself able to connect to all the activities that we have been doing from the last two weeks. Sounds of Lahore, Smells of Lahore and Pictures of Lahore is what we have been exploring. And now it is time for us to stage the sounds, smells and pictures of Lahore. Today's American Theater class was all about this.

After our usual warming up and breathing exercises, Dr. Erika Hughes and Ms. Asma  Niaz divided us into three groups. One group had to think of sounds of Lahore, second group had to think of portraying Lahore through its smells, and our group (the third one), had to brainstorm our favourite images of Lahore. Our group came up with many interesting images that we associate with life in Lahore, which illustrate what it is to live in Lahore.

Well, talking about myself, along with other things I mostly picture Lahore through its seasons. The fascinating thing about Lahore is that it changes its colour with the changing seasons. Each season in this city of mine has its own aura and mood. The long summer in Lahore is bright yellow, it harbingers the arrival of long vacation, it is the season of fruits, water and pools. It marks the time when we usually take solace in our houses or people decide to go and explore the mountains.

Bright summer in Lahore

No beaches for Lahoris...just pools and canals

The monsoon is grey and green at the same time. It brings with it fun family time. People come out of their air-conditioned rooms and feel the pleasure of natural cool breeze against their face. The weather comes up with delicacies of its own kind. 

Gray Monsoon in Lahore

Then follows pale yellow autumn and white winter. Though we don't have snow fall in Lahore during winter,  yet it is piercing cold. For Lahoris, even winter is not a season of hibernation and they prefer to come out and warm themselves up with soup and fish. 

White winter of Lahore

Spring in Lahore is like nowhere else in the world. No one colour can justify the beauty of spring in Lahore. It is cozy, it is bright, it is life-giving. Hence, all these kaleidoscopic images are Lahore to me!

Spring in Lahore

Spring in Lahore

The same canal changes its colour and form in spring in Lahore.

American Theater Lecture 9: Twine Twine!!!!

Voice is the most important tool that an actor possesses to emulate emotions and to communicate with the audience. Its importance is further emphasized when the performance is theatrical. It is with the element of voice that an actor develops different characters and produces variety in his speech. So, in order for us to acquire control over our voice and speech, Dr. Erika Hughes made us do certain exercises with her. She stressed upon the breath control for proper voice projection on stage. We practised this. While all of us were on the stage, Dr. Erika Hughes was in the last row of the seats in the auditorium. We all employed voice projection in order for us to be clearly heard by her. This helped us to gauge how much successful we will be in gaining the attention of the audience once we will be on the stage. Our professors want us to tame our voices so that they are properly projected while using the flow of air from the diaphragm of our body rather than just the lungs. Later on in the day, we further practised this. This time half of us were on the stage, while the rest were in the last row of the auditorium. We had to throw our greetings to each other. The whole idea of the voice projection here was to be loud without shouting.

Art has a strange quality to it. It breaks the barriers and connects. The students of Arizona State university designed a twine game for us. Twine game is described as a tool for making interactive fiction in the form of web pages. This game contained textual commands that we had to follow. The early part of the game greatly comprised questions related to the personal information about the person playing the game. We not only shared our personal choices but also wrote about our dreams in this game. We piled up those paper strips that carried our dreams for Ms. Asma Niaz to keep with her. This is how the pile looked like:

The later part of the game demanded us to be in two groups and to make a tableau that presented Pakistani culture first and then to present a tableau on the American culture. It was enthralling to watch the colourful graphic presentation of the Pakistani and American culture on the stage. 

Pakistan Tableau (Group A)

Pakistan Tableau (Group B)

American Tableau (Group A)

American Tableau (Group B

I think this game serves as a bridge that will ultimately help the students on the both sides to have a better understanding of the two cultures. It was fascinating that how people whom we never met were in a way controlling us and that also through technology. Moreover, I conceived the twine game to be all about exploration. It was just like a treasure hunt, where the clues lead you and take you towards an end. You never know what is going to unfold. At the end of the presentations, we brainstormed in groups to think of employing the concept of twine game and technology in theater and discussed it with our professors.

Eventually, we presented the dialogues written by us in pairs and with this our four hour American theater class of Friday came to an end. 

American Theater Lecture 8: Rituals

In our previous class, Ms. Asma Niaz told us to capture some pictures that represent Lahore or stand as a symbol of Lahore. Since, she didn't ask for them in today's class, I thought to put them here after all the trouble that I took to capture them. Here they go:

Quaid-e-Azam Library, Lahore

Quaid-e-Azam Library, Lahore
A Closer look

Jinnah Garden

Talking about today's class, it began with the usual reinforcement of our  muscles and breath exercises that we have been doing for a week now. This was followed by using the space of the room for moving in random patterns and using our sounds in a direct and strong manner in order to convey who we are and what we want. It was a continuation of the previous day's exercise, making us learn to project our voice while being on a theatrical space.

We formed all sorts of patterns through our random movements, movements on imaginary grids and in circular motion.  By introducing the concept of soft focus and narrow focus, Prof. Boyd Branch showed us that how we should be aware of our surroundings without our eyes coming in direct contact with them. Prof. Boyd Branch wanted us to work and operate like one organism and one body using our soft focus and narrow focus. To further practice on it, he told us to present Lahore Tableau on the stage by imagining it from the audience's point of view that how it would look. 

One interesting thing happened and that it was actually today I understood the purpose of "make your partner look good" exercise that we did almost a week ago. According to Prof. Boyd, when you are confused on the stage, just choose between the options that you have in mind and go ahead with them. In this, the other performers should try to make him look good by adding to the choice that he made. Once I understood the idea, I liked it.

After a short break of five minutes, Dr. Erika Hughes divided us into groups and gave us almost five minutes to prepare a small enactment of "rituals". The first group enacted the Mehndi ceremony in Lahori/Pakistani weddings. Our group was the second and we also presented a wedding ritual. Group three and four enacted rituals that presented the religious aspect of our people. Group five enacted a pure domestic scene with a fussy mom and a bossy dad. The last group was just awesome. They presented the ritual of how proposals for arranged marriages are being initiated and then finalized in our society. All these enactments largely brought to the ground that most of the rituals in our society are embedded in our social and religious consciousness.

It was for the first time that we were being assigned three homeworks by our three worthy professors. On reaching home, we had to update our blog entries, we had to bring with us an object of some importance and we had to write a dialogue. Finally, Ms. Asma Niaz greeted a good afternoon to us and I left the Staff House wondering what was good about that afternoon.

American Theater Lecture 7: Just Breathe!

SOUNDS. 

That is the word that echoed my mind once I left the American Theater class on Wednesday. 

The class began with some warm up and breathing exercises with Prof. Boyd Branch and Dr. Erika Hughes. Dr. Hughes made us pay attention towards how we breathe. She told us to stand straight and notice the parts of our body that are involved in the breathing process. We learned that the correct body posture changes the way we breathe and that our breathing process gives us breath control. Breath control is an important element for a theatrical performance as it helps us to master control over our bodies.

Using tongue twisters was really helpful in learning the breath control during speech. We all did those seemingly odd exercises that made sober people like us look silly and out of our minds. But that very sense of loosing ourselves and letting our bodies free always comes as quite a relaxing and fun thing to do.

Next, we listened to the audio compilation of all the Sounds of Lahore that we sent to Ms. Asma Riaz. Listening to those sounds was a pleasurable experience. Each one of us could relate to most of those sounds and could understand their representative quality for Lahore.

Lahore is a city that has a very rich cultural and social heritage. It has its own character. Its music, art, streets, geography and a lot more things were represented in those sounds. Those sounds ranged from individual to collective, just as the city has an individual and a collective perception. It was fascinating to discover at the end that how we all connected to those sounds. For instance, the song by the famous folk singer , late Reeshma reminded us of the rawness and beauty of dessert. The voice of Tariq Aziz in Neelaam Ghar had a great nostalgic quality to it that reminded me of the sweet old days of my childhood, when our lives were free of internet, dish antenna and of the breaking-news culture. 

Tariq Aziz

The sound of traffic in Lahore, I guess, is the idea that crossed through everybody's mind while thinking of Lahore. Somehow, my city has developed that new character in which all we can think of is the chaotic python of traffic on the roads. The presence of this noise makes us more conscious and aware of what is absent. The sweet rhythmic sound of Tonga hitting the Lahore roads is that what is missing and is being missed. It also reminds me of the high pitched sounds of eagles during the long summer noons. The koo of Quail that ruled the gardens of the city is now a rear occurrence.

Tonga on Lahore roads near Badshahi Mosque

This fact makes me realize that how cities change in nature with time. They evolve. They grow and in that growing they shed some of their old parts. However, those parts remain somewhere inside us.

American Theater Lecture 6

I am....

I want.......

Everybody contemplated hard and dug deep inside themselves to find answers to who they are and what they want. The same pieces of self-knowledge and self-discovery for each of us, that we created on Monday, were handed over to us randomly by Ms. Asma Niaz in our Tuesday's class. Everybody had to speak out some other person's mind through those writings.  While presenting those bits of contemplation, most of us thought them to be a part of our own-selves. To me, that was just like an ethno-theater performance in which different human experiences/thoughts were presented dramatically for an audience. Further, in our discussion and exchange of views over these presentations, Prof. Boyd Branch emphasized the fact that theater is a way to experience things. That is so much of a theater that is not story based but experience.  

Dr. Erika Hughes showed us three video clips on her laptop. The first video clip was a production by PIPS: lab that is a Dutch company. This video presented a theatrical performance that was intense with the use of holograms, lights, technology, varying sounds and music tracks, different visuals, multi-talented people, all on the stage at the same time, and most of all, the active participation of the audience. PIPS: lab describes its theatrical performances to be "fiction and reality" mashed up.

Audience participation in PIPS: lab production
Image Courtesy: Google Images

The second video clip showed to us was 100% Melbourne. Our city, on stage. Watching that video was a real delight. In that theatrical performance, different people from Melbourne, who represented the demography of the city, were invited on the stage to share their opinions, feelings and stories of life. It brought about many heart-touching aspects of human race, irrespective of their demographic divisions and differences. It was being aptly described as "part theater, part game, part reality performance".

100% Melbourne. Our city, on stage.
Image courtesy: Google Images

The third video clip showed people from entirely different backgrounds being connected through technology. The best part was that each effort of this human connection was warmly reciprocated. It showed the modern advancements in technology in a real positive way that how they connect humans. This idea of human connection was further deepened with the use of art i.e. music and dance in it. 

After watching these video clips, we all had a real fruitful discussion with our professors about our views and thoughts on them. Through discussion it was being explored that how, through the fusion of fiction, technology and human realities, these theatrical performances stand for experimental theater. Particularly, in the first two videos, personal was turned into theater, which again is a feature of ethno-theater.

Next, we all got CONNECTED virtually through internet on our smart phones and took an online test designed by Dr. Erika Hughes. It was rather a short game, that comprised certain directions. The directions mainly involved a hand shake and eventually giving ourselves a grade. To me, again this test carried the purpose of connection and understanding others as well as ourselves.

Finally, we were being given the homework of recording three sounds that represented Lahore. And with this, another of our American Theater class came to an end.

American Theater Lecture 5 : Question of the Day???

Q. What would someone has to do to find you?

Ans.

"All our knowledge has its origins in our perceptions."

                                                                                                        - Leonardo da Vinci

Well! I am lost in the perceptions of the people, I am lost in my own silence and I am lost in the distances. In order to find me someone has to wrap the distances, sit with me and talk to me. One has to eat with me and read with me. One has to walk with me and travel with me. One has to laugh with and cry with me. 

We are complex, we are different, we are distant. Let's sit together and I am sure we will find some commonalities. 

Show some empathy and there I am, already waiting for you.

American Theater Lecture 4

The day is Friday and the date is 4th September, 2015. It seems to be a long day as we are going to have two consecutive classes of American Theater that comprises four hours. Yes! Four Hours! 

After taking our Classical Drama class, we dragged ourselves to the Staff Hall of Kinnaird College just to discover that the class is in the Auditorium of the college. We were sure of missing the attendance but were relieved to know that it wasn't. Auditorium of the college is a pretty cool place. This is how it looks:

To begin with our session, we all sat in a close circle with Dr. Boyd Branch. The discussion began with the role of theater in our lives. Someone began with the idea that the theater does not have an essential or beneficial role to play in the life of human beings or in the society. As it is not real, it creates illusion, which obviously is temporary. This led to a prolonged discussion on the idea of absolute and relative reality. To me, apart from being didactic and instructive, theater has a lot more other roles to play. We go to watch theater because it is entertaining. Letting yourself lose in the characters' lives, living their experiences and be a part of their reality not only enriches our life experiences but also provides us something to ponder upon.

This discussion called for a short break of fifteen minutes and the professors were kind enough to grant us. After the break, the discussion resumed. Dr. Boyd Branch and Dr. Erika Hughes got us to brainstorm the audience for whom we would like to present theatrical performance and for whom we would not like to do so, The welcomed audience comes out to be this: people who don't like me, haters, Kinnaird people, our families, extremists, disabled, uneducated, poor, The Queen, anti-literature people, artists, gray people and anyone (in general). And the ones that were collectively not welcomed by us would be: politicians, professionals related to theater and negative people, of course. Dr. Hughes now wanted us to explore the themes and tools that we would like to experiment with in our theatrical performances. Again an exhaustive list came in that goes like this: simple stories, holograms, music and light aesthetics, bringing animals on stage, generational inversion, portraying monsters and superheroes, anime, dystopian, psychopaths, cabaret, music as message, non-human voices, digital puppetry etc. After this discussion, we were lucky enough to get yet another break of fifteen minutes.

Once all of us were back, we were made to play the huggy bear game so as to divide us into groups randomly. Each group was asked to think of its target audience and prepare a 30 seconds performance choosing any of the tools/themes that we came up with. Now this was interesting. We spontaneously had to stir  our creative faculties and think of a performance that was entertaining and meaningful at the same time. Though it took us some time to choose the tool, we came up with the story line in minutes. The twenty minutes of preparations were the best as we all laughed our hearts out during rehearsal. After twenty minutes of preparations, we all were good to go. 

There were five groups altogether. Each group came up with a unique and brilliant ideas. 

• The first performance was based on an actual incident of how a girl in hostel was compelled to leave her cubicle by the efforts of some other mischievous mean girls. 
• The second performance was by our group in which we presented disintegration of family. The thoughtless behaviour of parents was presented by reducing them to the level of animals and the effects of their conflicts on their children.
• The performance by the third group was on the sensitive issue of Eve-teasing and woman-oppression in society. The change of voice in this act gave it different perceptions. The last story presented in this act stood as an opposite to the earlier ones showing us two different scenarios that can be created for women in a society. 
• The fourth performance was a light one. It gave an impact of Elizabethan drama in which a scene loaded with tension is usually followed with some comic relief through the presence of a clown. They brilliantly presented the idea of the flop superheroes and their lameness.
• The last performance began with the dignified entry of the Queen. The team efficiently made use of the shift of focus and gave voice to the statues in the castle of the queen to show how happy they were to be placed at such a luxurious place.

We thoroughly enjoyed all the performances and at the end had a brief discussion about them. Dr. Branch took our views on the performances and elaborated different aspects of these performances. He highlighted and appreciated the use of shifted focus in the last performance. Moreover, he elaborated that how in the third performance when illusion combined with the real experience, it gave us an entirely new perspective. This created a different kind of experience which gave us new answers. Further, he talked about the importance of theatrical space. On the stage, everything has a purpose and meaning. The lights, the sounds, all are there to convey a message.

Finally, we called it a day, thanked our professors, and moved out thinking about the approaching weekend. And this is how it ended.

American Theater Lecture 3

On 3rd Sep, 2015, we had our third lecture on American Theater. We all had been told to come to the Staff Hall of the college. Well, we were there well before time and waited outside. Once we were allowed in, we discovered the Staff Hall to be reasonably spacious and comfortable. Ms. Asma Niaz took the attendance and demanded us to call out our names in a pretty audible and loud manner. she told us that she will be recording the entire session and asked if we were comfortable with it and almost all of us were fine with it.

After the roll call, we moved the furniture of the Hall to the corners on Dr. Erica Hughes' and Dr. Boyd Branch's instructions. Dr. Erica made us all stand in a circle and we all did some exercises with her. The exercises and moves apparently seemed odd to me but once I was into them I realized the fact that how these moves enabled us to be less self-conscious of ourselves and  to let go of control and be more free and accepting. After this, we were told to move around the Hall at varied speeds, taking somebody as our defender and maintaining a distance from that person and then thinking anybody to be our enemy and to maintain a distance from her. After that we had to take our friend to an imaginary tour to our bedroom. 

Then followed the part that I enjoyed the most; the huggy bear game. Dr. Boyd Branch told us that when he will say "Hug One" it will mean hug yourself, "Hug Two" means two people will hug each other and so on. The hugging partners were to be chosen randomly, whatever person you catch hold of. we all enjoyed this thoroughly. To me this activity was very very significant because it played a major role in breaking the ice between us. During the game we were frantically looking for partners, irrespective of the fact whether we know them or not. We immediately developed a level of comfort with each other.

That followed with yet another interesting activity. The last person we hugged became our partner for this game. We had to assume the roles of hypnotist and hypnotized to control the other person and after some time, the roles were switched. Dr. Boyd branch told us to make a perfect circle with equal division of spaces between us. We were asked which role we preferred to have, either the hypnotist or the hypnotized. Interestingly, some people said that they preferred the role of being hypnotized because in that role they had to just follow, while for others the hypnotist's role was better as it gave them certain control over the other person. 

Finally, we all sat down in the same circle. Dr. Boyd branch told us to play improvisation game with a purpose to make your friend or partner look good. He demonstrated it as well. The idea was that one has to accept the gift with all positivity, no matter how useless or lame the gift was. Dr. Branch encouraged us to have some sort of physical connection while accepting the gift, like a high five or a hug.

According to me, all the activities that we did were significant in the sense that they brought us to a level where we were comfortable with ourselves and with each other. It developed a sort of familiarity and openness among us. We seemed to be more accepting and less aware of the differences. Thumbs up to our mentors, and ourselves.

American Theater Lecture 2

As I missed my first class of "American Theater", today was my first encounter with Ms. Asma, Dr. Erika Hughes and Dr. Boyd Branch. As a class, we all were made to sit in a sort of semi-circle so that a discussion and interactive session could be held conveniently. The class started near 3: 00 pm. The session began with a brief introduction by our mentors. Mrs. Nadia Anjum was also very much there.

The discussion began when we were being asked what "performance" means to us. There were multiple of views being shared by some of us. I don't really have those replies in my mind now but one was quite interesting and straightforward which said that performance is when someone says something to people in front of him. Moreover, we were asked about our comfort level of being featured on blogs etc. 

Then followed an extensive discussion regarding posting on the social networking site i.e. Facebook. Everybody spoke her (his) heart out about limitation of perception and understanding that an individual post on Facebook entails and how it provides grounds to certain people to judge and perceive the person who is posting in a particular light. Some were of the view that one should be able to take all this judgment and criticism in a positive way and should be able to use the same as a tool for self-development, while some were of the view that it is not easy to get away with the part of you that is being affected with this judgement and criticism. 

In my view, today's class was fun and more of an ice-breaking discussion. It provided an opportunity to everyone to openly express one's views about the fears and feelings that are being attached to putting one's thoughts on a social forum. The discussion session ended on a very positive note where Ms. Asma encouraged us to open up to new experiences as they help us in exploring the undiscovered aspects of our personality. After today's class I am hoping and looking forward to a great learning experience ahead!