As I did several times last winter, I've fled my cold house on a Sunday to blog from the warmth and calm of the British Library. I'm still living in the Clapton house. The person who was going to move into my room decided she was going to leave school, and by the time she changed her mind again I'd told my housemates that I'd stay, at least for the time being. Chances are probably better than 50-50 that I won't move at all. It can be hard to find a place for less than 6 months, and I'm going to try to shift my work schedule so I only have two weekday mornings after late nights when I need to get going so early.
Three weeks left in the term. We set the epic dramas aside for a bit and will return to them week after next when we have no classes. As usual, they haven't told us much in the way of scheduling, but the assumption is that we'll present a program of some of the better pieces from the term on the final Thursday night (March 4). I think the coal mining piece has a shot at being included, as does the piece I'm part of now.
After we learned and presented parts of speeches, we formed groups of about 18 to do choral work in support of one person giving their speech. Again, these were to be speeches that espouse ideas we don't identify with. (Apparently mine was so problematic in its ideas that people wouldn't even let me finish! In part I took that as a compliment. In part I'm still pissed off about it.) Our group has chosen a speech given by an Indian classmate, taken from one delivered by a leader of the Tamil Tigers, the recently defeated terrorist/independence group in Sri Lanka. It's in Tamil and she's done the translation for us, but part of the power of the experience is in its being in such a different language. The communicative elements become the sounds of the language and the commitment of the speaker and the chorus.
I assumed all along that we'd be doing some Greek chorus this term because I know that's been a key element in the Advanced Course the past two years--and the years before that, I'm sure. But this assignment is a new wrinkle, and with only one more week of classes, I'm wondering if we're not going to do Greek chorus at all. Frankly, I wasn't looking forward to the chorus work, because I've never been much moved by it when I've seen it, here or last summer in Greece--it just seemed like a lot of overly dramatic shouting in unison--but this has been pretty intriguing.
Then again, maybe it's always more intriguing for those in the chorus than for the audience! Which would be a failing trait.
One thing that's become more and more apparent this term: While it's important for the performer to draw on authentic emotions, what's most important is that the performance evoke authentic emotions/memories/associations in the audience or spectators. (It seems like "witnessing community" would be closer to an appropriate term than audience, but it sounds so highfalutin'.) We've probably all experienced seeing someone so turned-in on their own emotion (in a play, in a sermon) that it becomes off-putting. Or maybe we become distracted, worrying that maybe they're not OK. But performance isn't therapy--not for the performer anyway. Though it can have a cathartic effect for those who participate by watching/witnessing.
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