Central Saint Martins Live 2016

Before the Theatre

To play, press and hold the enter key. To stop, release the enter key.

OK, Let’s Talk about ‘Death’ ♪

‘Death’ is a performance piece created by Raphael M. V. Schulenburg, George Turner and me. This piece was originally called ‘Birthday Party with Death’ that was created by Arielle Francis, Tom Coates, Sam Shaw and Leticia Laxon. As a process of exchanging practices, we recreated the piece from the score of ‘Birthday Party with Death’

Scores for 'Birthday Party with Death'

Issue : How do we recreate a performance for 4 people into a performance for 3 people?

To solve this issue, we decided to analyse actions and create new meanings in actions in order to figure out what our roles are.

Key 1 : Brings Death in. Complements Death, Listens to Death

There are loads of actions towards Death as if Death is something that can communicate with. However, Death doesn’t respond at all.

Key 2 : There is a person in swimming wear who wants to remove chairs

Why? Who is this person? Why was this person under the table?

Key 3 : Truism

What is the truth for every body?

Key 4 : The person who brings death in, complements death and listens to death

What’s the relationship between this person and death?

We randomly set rolls and started experimenting by following the original score.

Minshin as the person who says truism,

George as the person who takes chairs away,

Raphael as the person who deals with death.

Death is on Minshin.

Screen Shots of Video Documentation

When George tried to take away the chair from Minshin, some people read the action as lack of respect to elders. This comment helped us to construct the relationship among us as characters.

Minshin as Death -> Stillness

George as a kid in a swimming wear-> playfulness

Raphael as a person who’s asking the truth of death with a tin can telephone -> attempting really hard to get answers

When we were developing the playfulness of George’s character, we wanted George to have a reason to take chairs away. We decided that George wants attention from others(death and Raphael) in the party space. George developed his character in a very interesting way. George(the kid) created an imaginary world. The surface of the table in between Death and Raphael is the surface of the sea. Chairs were toys for the kids to play.

We tried as much as we could to keep the situation Birthday Party, but it looked like a funeral. One of the reasons was Raphael’s costume. He kept wearing Black. The second reason was lack of guest.

We tried to experiment with all other artists. When George becomes really playful, he forgets about chairs and swims over Death towards to Raphael. We tried to add guests in this scene. Basically, all other artists did the same action of George.

Screen Shots of Video Documentation

When I looked at the documentation of the experimentation, I found that the image of people swimming toward to Raphael looked like a Buddhism painting about life and death.

This painting was made by Bhikkhuni (female monastics in Buddhism). From right side of the bridge towards to the end of the bridge on left hand side, a kid keeps walking and gets older. The space under the bridge is the hell. Bhikkhuni used to use this painting to teach what life and death is and how to be save from the hell.

After I mentioned about the painting, we reconstructed our characters.

Minshin : Death at the same time Life

Raphael : Life at the same time Death

George : the one exploring Life and Death

“Death, in the widest sense, is a phenomenon of life. Life Must be understood as a kind of Being to which there belongs to Being-in-the-world.” (p.290 Heidegger}

What are Minshin and Raphael communicating?

Raphael and I developed the way of communication. We decided to communicate by using voice -> tin can telephone -> bird -> sign language -> Skype.

In this scene, I personally wanted to open a question to ask the meaning of questioning about death and life. Through showing the way of communication is being developed, I wanted to show that human-beings might not stop questioning about life and death forever.

In this performance, I personally reflected my own experience about death. My father died in the summer in 2013. Before he dies, he could barely move. He was so thin, but he was really heavy. Human body is heavy. I tried not to move at all in order to let George experience how heavy i would be when I’m dead. At the same time, I wish audience could feel my weight through watching George struggling with moving me.

Truism… Sugar is sweet. This is the only truth that I can tell that is true.

Egg or Chicken

I didn’t cook any actual food as a chef in ‘The Wedding’, I decided to actually use actual food.

I started from a scratch performance called “How to make grapes”

This piece is still based on the idea of ‘stereotype’. At the same time, I wanted to make fun of cooking shows. I always get annoyed with them not showing process. In Japan, there is a program called ‘3 mins cooking’. Chefs in the show always finish cooking by using what they prepared in 3 minutes, even it actually takes 30 minutes.

I used clay balls and green paint to create fake grapes,

“This process normally takes 30 minutes. I prepared finish product for you today.”

I threw fake grapes away and presented real grapes.

(This actually becomes my starting point for my Film Project.)

Reflection

I liked the idea that I cooked without using actual materials.
Not showing the whole process can be developed further…
I need to make people know what I actually want to say in the performance

For food preparation, the first thing came into my mind was Mr,Bean making sandwich in a park.

Interesting points I’ve found

He used a block of bread to just get 2 pieces of bread.
He never used cooking tool
He (acted like)killed a fish.
He got every ingredient and tool from his coat

To analyse…

over showing the process of preparation
not using cooking tools
hiding tools and ingredients

How to kill and cook

I actually really wanted to kill an animal in a theatre space. I always wondered why people avoid to see it. I can get chicken in supermarkets everyday, because someone is killing chicken everyday.

I brush my teeth everyday. I am sure that I am allowed to brush my teeth in a theatre space.

Someone is killing chicken everyday. Raising chicken and killing chicken are someone’s (everyday) life. Why can’t they show that in a theatre space?

There should be none who has the right to stop someone showing their everyday life.

Killing is very violent. It’s taking other’s life. How much are we actually appreciating that people are killing for us?

I chose chicken as the animal to kill because I thought that it could be quite ironic to show the process of raising an egg to a chicken as part of cooking process.

To play, press and hold the enter key. To stop, release the enter key.

The video behind me…

The music was Frédéric Chopin's Piano Sonata No. 2 in B♭ minor, Op. 35, popularly known as The Funeral March. In the video, the only animal died was chicken. Chickens don’t have funerals. Chickens don’t know the music is the Funeral March sent to them.

I tried to make sarcastic remarks on how self-indulgent and Childish some people can be.

This was the first time that I created text based performance. In order to learn the specific way how chefs in cooking show talks, I looked up youtube.

The one I found interesting was “NIGELLA BITES” by Nigella Lawson because the show was not about cooking at all. It was all about a sexy lady in sexy outfits cooks as part of her successful life. Her every movement was sex appeal.

The great point I found in the show was that she was not selling her cooking skill. She was selling her life-style. When she introduce her favourite cooking tools, she always introduce where she got them from(mostly overseas). When she cooks Italian meals, she also tells you what she experienced in Italy. She always eat left over during the night, but she is always in a good shape.

Describe ingredient
Explain why my way of cooking is special
Do not stop talking
Smile, Always smile
Eat what I cooked

Reflecting the process of works

The huge difference in this term was that we had outside eyes. Fine art students joined in this project and brought new point of views. Artists could comment and suggest on performances that other people made. Exchanging scores and recreate a new performance was really new to me. This helped me to start writing scores/scripts. Also I could try to work on text.

Reflecting on works

We got loads of comments on smells this term. Some people hated the smell of chicken and some people got hungry because of the smell of chicken.

Someone mentioned how they felt about the change of environment from the change of smell.

For the chicken performance, I hide my chicken in one of props, and I couldn’t find it. However, enjoyed the accident as part of the performance. Putting this accident in my script and perform in the natural way was a huge difficulty for the ext term.

Minshin Yano

Porster for Practice Exchange Second Performance|2016