PARKS METHODOLOGY addressed to the public

How to intervene?

PARKS - INSTRUCTIONS FOR USE - part 1

In addition to what I have already said, I will try to describe as closely as possible, through a few articles, what the experience of ParquesThe creation of this new project will take place in less than a month's time, as this backlog reports.

To sum up, for the benefit of any new readers, there are two groups of dates in the 5 days of performances:

The first, on 20, 22 and 24 April, constituted the matrix, and the second, on 21 and 23 April, was an outgrowth, a pseudo-pseudo-solo attempt on my part; I will come back to this expression later.

3 phases for the first group of dates. The first of these:

20 April : THE MERRY-GO-ROUND OF REALITIES

I have indicated on the site:

Orientation of the improvisations, choice of texts : temptation of the possible, impossible realizations, fantasies against the density of reality, fracas

First meeting - Not yet first kiss. We're here to rub it in. Come walk around in my brain; we'll see how you like it.

These are guidelines for launching our common experience.

Some of those who attend my Sunday workshop in Montreuil, but also others, members of the No-Naime Cie of Maisons-Laffitte or my courses at the Claje, although the occasions are rarer, will perhaps recognise the method which consists of launching a collegial improvisation from very few, sufficient and essential pieces of information.

In this case, disembarking from a world of ancient and fluvial inspiration, hence the collection of texts used here, recomposed from The Fleece is sleeping, is from, it is about approaching the coast and its new shores.

We must imagine physical and mental space as a sea, and the place, in this case the immense nave offered by the Generator, as the caravel on which each of us travels. Like a holy trinity, between the environment, the vehicle (body) and the deepest being, all united in one and the same entity that we carry within ourselves: perception (all senses combined).

It is indeed an inner as well as a physical navigation that leads us here, on an island with a fairground spirit, resonating with sounds, colours and voices. The play prompts : temptation of the possible... tend to push towards the staging of the self.

To smell, to look, to be tempted, to take hold of an accessory, a mask, a costume... To dare to show off under the guise of being disguised in order to better put at risk something of one's deepest personality, in the eyes of others or alone in one's corner, it doesn't matter.

In what I propose, representation does not have the naive necessity of always being seen or of being seen as in a children's show (which is the case with almost all shows in my eyes).

There is no reward for doing well, looking good, succeeding or being heard.

No, for the time being, we have to start weaving this first phase, as one would do on the canvas of a large carpet. The pattern is to come. The Fates spin our lives; we weave, knit and interweave our relationships from the very first moment of the beginning. We create the soft bars of our bonded prison long before the day of the first. Nine months of residence before birth; just enough time to rehearse before jumping into the water; out of the water, that is.

A uterine stitch on the right side of the self, a uterine stitch on the reverse side. The first exhibition of the representation of what our senses indicate to us, shapes the foundations of the terrible ego to come, a real wizard of Oz of our bravado personalities. The original mental images thus fabricated, piled up in the reserve (a reserve that some will always keep later, by choice, in all circumstances) are interwoven and configured first for oneself; in a corner of one's head. You carry it around, your good idea, any 'party', like a conquistador disembarking from his world into a conquered country. This is a spectator who comes in from outside, an actor who, unsuspecting and believing he understands everything, arrives on stage with all his heavy load of fakery. What a drama! Conservatories and public stages resound with it every day, under the clatter of the applause of castes that incense each other. No, a thousand times no. I recommend taking advantage of the wandering allowed by the device to slowly and suavely appropriate the stage and the gaze of the other; and then we'll see.

A little more confident, everyone participates in their own way. The texts at your disposal are there to help you, to keep you focused on the basic theme behind all this: having fun with your solitude; against all odds, against the belief that you can live for the other, against the idea that the encounter would be "understanding each other". I don't think we understand each other that much, and it's a great source of freedom and vitality to see it that way. You have to keep checking, questioning again and again, and finding out that, well, no, it's not what you wanted to say that was heard; it's quite the opposite. Far from calming, true understanding leads to sadness, because it is when we have understood each other that we part. But we are only at the beginning, so much the better.          

So we have to go for the shock. The energy is still new; the expectations are not fulfilled. This is the time and the hour in this first part of things when we must go joyfully to the war of the encounter; subtly, fearfully, vehemently, lovingly, with distance. Gauging is much better than judging. Gradually getting naked and smashing one's a priori idea of beings, things and behaviours against the sharp and hard reefs, splintered by life, of the reality of others. This is what performance is all about; these are the ingredients of theatre in my eyes and the performance is in the highlighting of all the programmed uncertainty of this encounter.

That's what my job is: to programme uncertainties.

Everything is put in place so that a possibility of which we know nothing, of which we hope for so much - which can even welcome all the hopes of more than the daily routine of life can ever do - is given an opportunity to exist.

It's my own Big Bang. A few frills, a universe of words like so many asteroids to encircle space, bodies that move, move and sing as if in battle, to give themselves the courage to face their exposed solitudes.

Come who may; come who will.

to be continued...