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!