Rambert School Clowndance Intensive 2023
TUESDAY: Audience
I had wondered about the order of material for this intensive; whether to go with what was more familiar for dancers early on and build up to the more confrontational, clownlike strategy of playing directly with the audience, or vice versa. I decided on the latter, to bring the idea of working with the audience in today, as being probably the single biggest new idea that I wanted to introduce.
The dancers rose admirably to the challenge, and these games that could have felt exposed and terrifying, didn’t. This was down to their courage and how well they know each other, but also, I think, I’m getting better at making spaces feel safe for risk-taking.
The dancers rose admirably to the challenge, and these games that could have felt exposed and terrifying, didn’t. This was down to their courage and how well they know each other, but also, I think, I’m getting better at making spaces feel safe for risk-taking.
Material Covered:
We opened with walking, with an evolution this morning into the Stop means Go Game, playing with responding quickly to surprising external input. The meat of the session came from two games played as a solo player responding to audience. These were:
We finished with a new version of my own Good, Innit Game, combined with noises and gestures to play with the five core emotions, as we explored in the rehearsal process for Mark and the Marked (Box Clever Theatre, 2022) (see week 1)
We opened with walking, with an evolution this morning into the Stop means Go Game, playing with responding quickly to surprising external input. The meat of the session came from two games played as a solo player responding to audience. These were:
- The Applause Game, a game so simple and with such a long heritage that I’m not sure any more where I encountered it first. In it, a player leaves the room and the audience decide on something we want them to do. They re-enter, and attempt to do whatever it is guided only by the audience’s response to their offers, in the form of clapping, cheering, boo-ing and silence.
- Saving The Show, adapted from a game by Jon Davison (2015), in which a player dances to music, which suddenly cuts out, forcing them to come up with something, anything, to keep their audience onside.
We finished with a new version of my own Good, Innit Game, combined with noises and gestures to play with the five core emotions, as we explored in the rehearsal process for Mark and the Marked (Box Clever Theatre, 2022) (see week 1)
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Moment 1: Playing The Applause Game, there was a delicious moment of confusion and frustration. We the audience had decided that we wanted Swan to knock on a narrow door that we had just discovered on one side of the studio. They had narrowed the action down to something pertaining to this door and their hand, even curling their fingers into a fist, but then at the last moment opening them out to splay their hand on the door instead of knocking. They repeated this near-miss action over and over again, looking at us with utter desperation, and the tension built until the audience were literally squealing with agonised laughter. We agreed later that within this game, and perhaps in performance generally, we wanted to see performers struggle but then succeed, and that we felt cheated if success seemed too easy. |
A dancer stands by a closed door, looking back over their shoulder in confusion
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Moment 2:
Kestrel had chosen to Save the Show (see video below) by sneaking offstage and round behind me to switch the music on for themself. This in fact put them further in the shit, as in so doing they skipped tracks, giving them a whole new track to dance to from the beginning, which would leave them stranded onstage for longer. They repeated this trick at the second stop in the music, and encountered the same problem; a third track started to play. Our laughter grew at their repeated optimistic rule-breaking, and its consequent repeated failure.
As a final act of game-rebellion, Kestrel then stole the ipad controlling the music, and turned it off and on themselves, from onstage. They then declared the end of their turn by switching the music off, bowing and exiting, and we, the audience, allowed that. I missed a trick here however; I could have left them in the shit, unable to leave the stage because they had put themself in command of the music. Once the game mechanism had become part of their performance, they had taken the authority away from me to end their turn and bring someone else up, and I am curious to know how long we could have left them up and playing, and what other strategies they could have deployed to attempt to get offstage.
I reflected later how tricky it is to balance honouring the game, with its opportunities for in-the-moment play and learning, with making a structured and equitable session where everyone gets a turn.
Kestrel had chosen to Save the Show (see video below) by sneaking offstage and round behind me to switch the music on for themself. This in fact put them further in the shit, as in so doing they skipped tracks, giving them a whole new track to dance to from the beginning, which would leave them stranded onstage for longer. They repeated this trick at the second stop in the music, and encountered the same problem; a third track started to play. Our laughter grew at their repeated optimistic rule-breaking, and its consequent repeated failure.
As a final act of game-rebellion, Kestrel then stole the ipad controlling the music, and turned it off and on themselves, from onstage. They then declared the end of their turn by switching the music off, bowing and exiting, and we, the audience, allowed that. I missed a trick here however; I could have left them in the shit, unable to leave the stage because they had put themself in command of the music. Once the game mechanism had become part of their performance, they had taken the authority away from me to end their turn and bring someone else up, and I am curious to know how long we could have left them up and playing, and what other strategies they could have deployed to attempt to get offstage.
I reflected later how tricky it is to balance honouring the game, with its opportunities for in-the-moment play and learning, with making a structured and equitable session where everyone gets a turn.
VIDEO: Rambert Saving the Show
Extracts from several rounds of the Saving the Show game, where the dancer must respond to the music dropping out unexpectedly. All live speech and singing is subtitled.
Extracts from several rounds of the Saving the Show game, where the dancer must respond to the music dropping out unexpectedly. All live speech and singing is subtitled.
Moment 3
Usually in Saving the Show, the player seems happy to dance to the music, and disconcerted when it suddenly stops, and we laugh at their dismay. Nightingale reversed the expected laughter dynamics by reversing their attitude to the music versus the silence.
Their attitude to the music showed a strong sense of apathy, or even dislike; we laughed at a huff of frustration, an eye roll, the throwaway quality of their movement. By contrast, when the music stopped they decided to save the show by offering us a YouTube cat video to watch instead, while they sat down to do some crochet. This was performed with an air of satisfied relief, as if we would all rather be doing that than watching Nightingale dance to the music. We sat in rapt attention while they held the space in this way, anticipating the moment when the music would interrupt, but we didn’t laugh.
Usually in Saving the Show, the player seems happy to dance to the music, and disconcerted when it suddenly stops, and we laugh at their dismay. Nightingale reversed the expected laughter dynamics by reversing their attitude to the music versus the silence.
Their attitude to the music showed a strong sense of apathy, or even dislike; we laughed at a huff of frustration, an eye roll, the throwaway quality of their movement. By contrast, when the music stopped they decided to save the show by offering us a YouTube cat video to watch instead, while they sat down to do some crochet. This was performed with an air of satisfied relief, as if we would all rather be doing that than watching Nightingale dance to the music. We sat in rapt attention while they held the space in this way, anticipating the moment when the music would interrupt, but we didn’t laugh.
Saving the Show is a potentially quite frightening game, drawing as it does on the performer’s quite reasonable fear of something going wrong onstage and having to come up with something to cover the mistake. It’s an extremely exposing game for a group who don’t know each other, but these dancers didn’t have that problem. So, in true game style, they made some extra problems for themselves! They made it an unspoken rule not to repeat someone else’s show-saving solution, and they also felt the need to make the dancing while the music played funny.
Adding these extra self-inflicted problems seemed to push them a little faster into individualising their responses to the game, and in so doing, some clown personas started to emerge. One dancer’s proto-clown has an air of the boyband heartthrob, another revels in the line between sexy and grotesque. In our discussion at the start of the day, the dancers told me that it felt easier to perform to an audience (as opposed to performing in the presence of an audience behind a fourth wall) when in role. It’s perhaps logical that when faced with the active and potentially confrontational relationship with the audience that this game engenders, they put themselves in role as versions of themselves.
We played the Good, Innit Game in a quick and smooth-flowing format today. We took turns pulling an object out of a bag, looking at it, and then giving an emotional response to the audience, who then named the emotion or combination of emotions they were reading. I saw that many of the dancers struggled with giving the response directly to the audience; they looked over our heads, or at the object. This game actually proved more challenging than the more exposed earlier ones, perhaps because it required a specific use of emotion, which felt closer to acting and therefore sat further out of their still-expanding comfort zones.
Adding these extra self-inflicted problems seemed to push them a little faster into individualising their responses to the game, and in so doing, some clown personas started to emerge. One dancer’s proto-clown has an air of the boyband heartthrob, another revels in the line between sexy and grotesque. In our discussion at the start of the day, the dancers told me that it felt easier to perform to an audience (as opposed to performing in the presence of an audience behind a fourth wall) when in role. It’s perhaps logical that when faced with the active and potentially confrontational relationship with the audience that this game engenders, they put themselves in role as versions of themselves.
We played the Good, Innit Game in a quick and smooth-flowing format today. We took turns pulling an object out of a bag, looking at it, and then giving an emotional response to the audience, who then named the emotion or combination of emotions they were reading. I saw that many of the dancers struggled with giving the response directly to the audience; they looked over our heads, or at the object. This game actually proved more challenging than the more exposed earlier ones, perhaps because it required a specific use of emotion, which felt closer to acting and therefore sat further out of their still-expanding comfort zones.
People connect to vulnerability
When we did the nasty solo game I forgot about my technique and thought about arriving to their heart
Laughter comes when a person is in the shit
Sympathy laughter or just teasing?
Reflective Roll notes on the audience: 31/10/23
It’s difficult to see an audience as a whole and gauge an overall reaction. It feels more natural to catch one person’s face.
Don’t be afraid to fail because sometimes it’s better for the audience
Personal Post-It notes on the audience: 31/10/23
When we did the nasty solo game I forgot about my technique and thought about arriving to their heart
Laughter comes when a person is in the shit
Sympathy laughter or just teasing?
Reflective Roll notes on the audience: 31/10/23
It’s difficult to see an audience as a whole and gauge an overall reaction. It feels more natural to catch one person’s face.
Don’t be afraid to fail because sometimes it’s better for the audience
Personal Post-It notes on the audience: 31/10/23
Bibliography
Box Clever Theatre (2022) Mark and the Marked | Box Clever Theatre. Available at: https://www.boxclevertheatre.co.uk/mark-and-the-marked/ (Accessed: 10 March 2022).
Davison, J. (2015) Clown training: a practical guide. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Box Clever Theatre (2022) Mark and the Marked | Box Clever Theatre. Available at: https://www.boxclevertheatre.co.uk/mark-and-the-marked/ (Accessed: 10 March 2022).
Davison, J. (2015) Clown training: a practical guide. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
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