never fight a clown...

Sunday, May 26, 2019

drawing...






Now when I say drawing, I am of course referring to drawing the attack. By way of generating an opening for an opponent to attack. Not so obviously of course that you are giving away the opening but subtle enough to lure someone in let’s say.  What does drawing have to do with the art of stage combat I hear you ask!


Before I answer that let’s take it back a bit. There is an aspect of staging attacks in staged violence that always makes me cringe. The moment when an actor ‘cues’ for an attack and the fellow actor is choreographed to avoid. There is inevitably that ‘eggy moment’ where the attacking actor at the apex of the cue is either thinking – “why aren’t you moving? I’m trying to attack” or the receiving actor is thinking – “why aren’t you attacking I’m waiting here to move”.


My experience is that the receiver is waiting for something to ‘feel real’ (an attack that makes them feel like they should move), and the attacker is trying hard to honour the system i.e. I’ve cued so you need to move, therefore I am not going to continue the attack until you move. But for some reason the illusion of attack and avoid always falls down in the early stages. There usually appears to be this stop start thing going on. 


To me this is where drawing can really help us. Let’s look at a slash with a sword and a jump back to avoid as an example. As an actor my line of thinking has always been put the focus of my work on the ‘other’ so if we combine that thinking with drawing and I am the receiver I will already be prepping my body to jump back as the attacking actor moves into cue. This means as they hit the apex, I will already be jumping back thus drawing them into the slash because I have created space for them to unleash and create a powerful slash. Indirectly I am giving them permission and time. 


To be continue…

Sunday, May 12, 2019

Rough & Tumble?

I was doing a class with the late great Robert Macdougall in the early 90’s and he was explaining a great way to work through the inevitable bumps and knocks we get or give during rehearsing or creating choreography. Put simply: Stop – ask: “is it uncomfortable or do you need to stop?” To which the answer will determine how the work proceeds. 

Ever since that class there are two things, I have been curious about.
1. The creative workflow when making choreography or rehearsing verses;
2. How to work out each other’s ability endure something that is physically uncomfortable rather than an injury or potential for injury. 

What I have grown to conclude is that a healthy version of stage combat conditioning needs to be developed within the training process of the art form. This will develop an actor you can recognise if the creativity needs to stop because of injury (or potential) or can continue through something that is uncomfortable. Because the nature of making art is that the answer to unlocking something new may be so close and if we stop that creative workflow, we may never know what we were about to discover.

Let me be clear I am not talking about being dangerous or reckless or working through pain. I am talking about developing a training ethos that recognises that bumps and knocks are a part of the work – sure we are extremely safe that’s not what I am talking about. I’m talking about a well developed approach to reducing a ‘flinch’ / ‘knee jerk’ response when in the process of practice and rehearsal. That way actors don’t immediately pull away from the creative process but rather, they remain present. Remain present and do a sophisticated diagnostic around what has actually happed. This is of course also being considerate of consent. 

To be continued…