Some notes from training with Norman Taylor, 10-14 April 2023, produced by Performers' Playground at Gorse Hill Studios.
Norman is a brilliant idiot, funny, a genius teacher, and very knowledgable about human movement. My current project is 'HIP' (Human Idiot Puppet) temporarily renamed in honour of Norman. The following are some selected notes from the work. These will become prompts for participants in the upcoming workshops, firstly in Sefton on 10th May
(Workshop details below, contact r.talbot@salford.ac.uk to ask about participation).
'Undulation'
This is a fundamental in Lecoq's training system, and in human movement in general. [See Carran Waterfield (2023) Linda Hartley (1995) and Sandra Reeve (2023)] But to put it very simply - undulation is everywhere in nature. There's also reverse undulation as well as a movement like the opening and closing of petals on a daisy. These are connected to, and evolve through, dynamics of interaction and locomotion: 'with', 'for', 'against'.
When undulation reaches the head the image of standing in breaking wave could be helpful:
'Swimming'
How do you performing swimming breaststroke? It begins with a long extension, and the feet come up to the hips, the hands push down, and then the head comes up. It's also produced from spinal undulation:
Objects in water
The ideal objects that can be used to convey floating on the surface of the sea are stiff. If you use something soft, like a sock, you have to create the illusion of rigidity. The rigid object reveals the movement of the sea: swell - roll - pitch - yaw. This is Alice Robinson clinging onto a yellow 'cleaning in progress' notice, as if she is drfiting on the sea. The plastic notice is held at arms length when she sinks. Transformed, it becomes a chart for an old sea captain who is trying to find her.
Shoals (also crowds; communities; groups; herds; assemblies)
We use 'flocking' all the time in clowning classes. And 'socking', where a group of people shrink away from the audience. The group can swell and shrink like a flock of starlings in a murmuration. Moving around the space has tempo too. Moving in direct lines, cutting across the space, and walking with a distant objective, we tend to fall into an even rhythm on the beat. When objectives change and the direction is random, the rhythm becomes 'off-beat', syncopated and this can be performed.
Chorus
In the Disney animation, a shoal of fish get swallowed by Monstro the whale, and Pinocchio spills into the whale's belly with them. Jordan Peterson has offered a Jungian reading of that - thanks Mark Winstanley. The fish in our version also have an important role as commentators, although we're less interested in psychology. In Norman's work, the chorus were talking about Julius Ceasar's tent. As they hide under a stretched shawl, this mantle becomes the tent.
The chorus later 'create the centre': not by stepping into it, but by feeling the atmosphere in topography. They mark the edges of the stage centre, they daren't step into it as that closes potential.
An individual is joined at the centre by others but, as they join the balance in the space around the centre as to be adjusted - in terms of contrasting levels/height and proximity to one another. Norman's approach produces an affect on dialogue, and the tension between characters in a constantly shifting dynamic. Viewpoints (Bogart & Landau 1995) approaches the same thing through a matrix of lines and shapes between performers from a dance root.
Sunrise
The sunrise 'bursts'; light suddenly fills the sky. Try showing that with your fingers appearing behind your arm. Your arm has to drop to reveal the sun burst.
'Attitudes'
Start with a radio broadcast and work up to addressing a huge crowd. Give your self permission to address them, to dress them down, even.
The speaker can shift through physical attitudes, on the spot, changing their 'situation' in relation to the narrative...
with a flat back, as if they are talking from under a table, or in a luxurious balance, or reaching and looking upwards.
'Changing perspective'
Alice said 'imagine me in the kitchen', suddenly this improvised idea changed the location of the presented scene to a kitchen, before the audience's minds could wander off somewhere else. Changing physical positions and perspective have a similar function. In an exercise with Romeo and Juliet, the chorus reveals someone looking up to a balcony from the ground below, (an actor lying on a bench with his head towards the audience)
Juliet 'falls' backwards into his arms, while he is still lying on the bench, parallel to the stage.
The chorus closes ranks.
When the chorus parts again, the same two people are now standing upright side by side, arm in arm. We are with them on the ground, the chorus above them and their story is moving on, taking the audience with them.
'Sculling'
This is something I'll work on for Geppetto in July. I think he will be building a boat out of whatever he can find in order to search for Pinocchio in Itoshima (don't ask me how P. got there).
In China and Japan, traditional boats are steered with a single oar that is sculled. An analysis of the movement, requires the performer to think about weight, efficiency, where to position the body, when to release arms, when to push, where the hips are - and much more before they can master the sequence.
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