sketch part 1&2

well image research 1

Well The symbolism of well is commonly associated with qualities of the sacred or of the unconscious; wells are places of the knowledge; the source of life; places of healing; wishes or good luck.

well image research

Final show sckedule

Final show budget

Final show ground plan

Martina Sacchetti: Phase Lapse Trailer#links

Martina Sacchetti: Phase Lapse Trailer#links

Response to "Ambient noise"

25 th of March in the TV studio, first group was showing their performance,which titled "Ambient noise". I already saw their rehearsal just day before, when I found so many audience, I surprised and at the same time started to worry. Because the space they decided to use was tiny and I think packed people would affect on progressing of the show. Anyway the door opend, show started.

I found that using the space between TV studio and doorway as a balcony was very succesful idea. looking up perspective gave me a expectation about the show and it was interesting because it was unexpected. But I felt sorry I couldn't see the draped fabrics like a bow, which I think they tried to show elegant and decorative touch to the balcony. when another door opened, the TV studio was black out and I found audience was hasitant about moving in the darkness. First impression of staying inside was that there is no way of getting bored, because this piece is full of idea. Sound constantly was giving some informations, performers was using every walls I mean right side we'v got TV, on left a mirror, wall and masks in front, prejection behind, finally the falling apple from the celling. I couldn't think during the show, just because I was busy to follow those actions and sound. However I don't think that was a bad thing. We are in school and it is for experimeting every thinking and idea. whether it was successful or not, we could learn something from that, and I found their confidant to show their ideas, which I don't have that much. Two things I'd like to add is costume and masks on the wall. I though contradiction between man and woman is their intension, but the shiny PVC boots looked too much, even its style reminded me a street girl or that kind of sexy look. If it was not intended, it dosen't necessary. I liked the idea of see other worlds through the mask with sound, and even smell of oranges, but I was thinking what if placing the masks reverse. If so, it would give a more feeling like see through others eyes, fit more tightly.

In general, even its title ambient noise, I think the sound dosen't sound like noise, rather it reveal sound standing for noise to be natural, not annoying sound just like our general surrounding environment, which is usually busy but we don't notice. In my point of view, because of the title and relation with the sound, a bit busy design conponents seems intention and works well together.

solo proposal

1. Aim/ Objectives
I want to make a space into a surreal installation stage and a performance installation piece, testing an idea that how make audience interact or perform themselves in the piece.
In my piece, only space, objects and action will provide audience with their own decision to react, without actors or narratives, according to provided condition and asked mission audience could create their own story in abstract and surreal stage (space).

2. Methods
When the audience enter the space, they can find shiny tube lines which are hanging on the ceiling. These lines are linked on the centre part, which audience cannot see inside before they reach this area. Audiences will be asked to keep walking between two lines. They can make their own way by changing connections of tube lines or just follow the way made by other people. In the centre, I will put heart-shaped object which people can take one part of it away. After every piece is taken away, clear heart can be seen.

3. The thing I need
- space : TV studio or lecture theatre (clean square box space which can be black out)
- Date/ duration : 30/ Apr – 1/ May
First day --> Set up
Second day --> Show all day from morning to evening
or split into two times or three times.

I am going to Korea during ester and back 26 Apr. Even though I will keep working in Korea, I need few days before the show. If the space above is not available, I need to find other space and change the plan.

4. Materials
- One spot light in the centre
- Possibility of using sound, Not loud, Using background sound
- Installation --> LED/ PVC/ Fishing rope/ Reflection tape/ liquid/ etc
- Ladder for set-up

Phase lapse

Draft for solo piece

Alongside my critical study, in my solo piece I will examine my idea in terms of visual outcome and structure of performance. In visual point of view, some objects and installation which can work as a entire set piece will be used to create action inside actual space. In the other part, I want to see each audience as a performer inside space. Thus without actors, each audience can create their own performance.

Theme for project is that questioning happiness and its nortion, then looking for different definition which are originating from individul's experience of life. Being involved in my piece can be regarded as a meditation or ritual of daily life. Throughout this, I want to extend this rituals, pilgrim to everyday life. Even though we don't have a fixed or final answer of that question, we are not in front of final destination of life, I want to let my audience stop walking for a while, and looking at our daily life, searching for something (can give us sense of happiness or anything can be valuable in our life), sharing what we found with other audience.

synopsis- almost like installation work, the space will booked for entire day, and audience are allowed come and go whenever they want. However only one person is allowed come inside center space. Before audience reach center space, they will walk through revolving elly which finally lead each audience to the center space. I haven't decided how I make this elly like jouney or pilgrim of everyday life. (I 'm thinking of using simple story or narrative and make storyboard for each step(stage) When single audience enter the center space,there will be a tree and an animal of imagine(I still looking for what will be suitable). That animal will give them a ball which contains other audience's defination or memory of happiness. The audience with this can spent some time inside the space until he/she get their own answer, then pick up one of ball which are hanging on the tree. After they finish write theirs and give to the animal, their pilgim/ performance will finish, but the ball they left will be delieverd to another audience.

This is still just an idea, I need to define this piece, but I made drawing as I followed first image coming up in mind.

Themepark VS Theatre

I have been stuck in my mind at some point since 2nd term started. It 's getting seem clear the thing make me in trouble was fear or lack of confidence in making performance. Even though I aleady got several ideas, I couldn't go further. I hope that this language process will the first step toward the solution of the question.
When I was working as a costume designer, whether a director likes me speak up my voice about the pieces or not, my job was clear to me. I had my own tool and I knew how to use and apply it to the entire production. However here I've been given a chance to make performance my own. It can be a oppotunity at the same time a chllenge, because I got only one tool, me. In order to creat someting which could be called as a performance, I needed to exert my tool and skill. Natually I started look at installation or situation which have a possibilitiy for me in using in a prctical way. My idea would be fitted in the that kind of construction of notion. Without a performer and their speech or text, audience will be allowed to explore space and also given some mission to be engaged in the space and the performance. Furthermore in this piece each audience can understand her/himself as a performer. It was ok until some question arose. If so, what is difference with themepark? In this consumer's society, not only theme park, but also other entertainment facillities such as shopping malls, museums, and even restarants can be themetised place and their audience (customers) will be given some experiences. The question is how my show could be differentiated from this kind of things? It could be because they have different objects(of a maker) or expectation(of a visitor) or point of view(of disciplinary), but I'm not sure and it's not enough. One more question, what does entertainment mean in this contempory and experimental theatre? Is it guily to have it like industrial theatre? What do you think?

Be lost in a conception

I have to say that today's VLP reading group gave me some impression not only about our academic subject but also looking at a cultural gap or differences. While group was disscussing about their point of view toward a spectatorship and a new theater form as a theatre maker, I faced the term political again. To me that word has a power like a magic, making me freezing in front of it. It sounds like echoing from another planet, at the same time giving me strange feeling that I cannot be involeved in that word forever. Unlike my personal situation, I have been confronted with that since I came to UK. In Korea, we don't say that word political very often, because that is generally regarded as a term which is related to an ideology and a politician, and we (or I)have a tendency that a speaker of this kind of term seems to have aggresive and strong personalities. Besides, Korean live still in the state which different ideologies exist, even divided into a two different contry.

On the contrary, in UK and European culture, I found out the term political is used a lot in books, conversations, and a daily life. It seems very natural to say that word and like person's own philosophy, everyone seems to have their original political issues. It's expression would vary depends on each person's personalities or situation around them, but point is that it's not something far from our daily life and society. As Christina said, in this postmodern or after postmodern society everybody seems to have a own voice, and political way of thinking or idea might be one of qualities of comtemporary theatre or art. If I have to make my conclusion of this fragmentary though, I will say that now I can be more natural and comfortable in front of political, and maybe it wll offer me more chance to open my heart more widely.

Following is what I found in "Travels in Hyperreality" written by Umberto Eco. Just like today's disscussion, he helped me understand this term.

' I believe it is my political duty. Here again I cwe the American reader an explantion. In the United States politics is a profession, whereas in Europe it is a right and a duty. Perhaps we make too much of it, and use it badly; but each of us feels the moral obligation to be involved in it in some way. My way of being involved in politics consists of telling others how I see daily life, political events, the language of the mass media, sometimes the way I look at a movie. I believe it is my job as a scholar and a citizen to show how we are surrounded by "messages", products of political power, of ecomomic power, of the entertainment industry and the revolution industry, and to say that we must know how to analyze and criticize them.'

water related images for the group work

2nd term group work-progression 1?

As a part of group work, Dafni, Martina, and I had a 4th meeting at 16th of Feb.
Since we had a agreement about the text in which each of us found out common in meaning of water and ritual across the our cutural diffrence, Martina recreated text, using different text. We discussed about the things that we need to take into account before moving toward practical working process. Those are following.

*We need to consider how the performance or audience fit into the TV studio.
Will audience be scattered in the space? Will they share space, being mixed with performer?

*We want to see clean and simple stage, not over designed.

*We also need to have man presence in some way.
It would be just voice.

*We might use one of direct speech from Ophelia's or Inferno.

*Keeping the idea of utilizing projection to present water, we still want to use real water, so we need to find the practical way.

*We felt sympathy for that there would be a moment of comic somehow in the middle of tradegy, just like life it is.

2nd term group work -my text

Gong mu do ha ga
공무도하가(公無渡河歌)

Gong mu do ha 公無渡河 (공무도하)
-Dear don’t cross over the river

Gong kyong do ha 公竟渡河 (공경도하)
-Crossing over the river

Ta ha yi sa 墮河而死 (타하이사)
-you are drowning with the flow, died at last

Dang ne gong ha 當奈公何 (당내공하)
-What can I do for you

Background
It is known as the oldest Korean lyric poem. It is situated in transition period from public folk to personal poetry. In the background of this poem, there was a man who let down his white hair and walked through the river in the madness or ecstasy, holding a bottle of alcohol and his wife was trying to detain him. But he just died under the water, she sadly sang a song and died after her husband. Another man watched this on his way by chance, he said what he saw and listen to his wife. His wife was moved by that story and song, so she played Gonghooin(an ancient instrument similar with harp), singing that song. There is no one who didn’t feel sad and be impressed by that song because it was very sorrowful and beautiful.
There is an interpretation of this poem. One is about it’s periodical situation. The madman could be seen as a priest, and his madness and action which through the water could be understood that he is possessed by a spirit. This was in transition period from the unity of church and state to the separation of that. He might be loosing his power and there is no place for him, so he tried to transcend through death. In his point of view, that space ‘water’ could be explained as a place which surpasses life and death. Another interesting ides of this poem is interpretation in relation to western myth. In this case, Prof. Ahn(a scholar of Korean literature) explained that a mad man have a reference to Dionysus and his wife to a nymph.

公無渡河: Gong mu do ha: Dear don’t cross over the river
-It is the moment loving husband (beacksugwangbu) is about to run to the river. In this case, that river(water) could separate her with him forever, so she is trying to detain him by the sleeve desperately.

公竟渡河: Gong kyong do ha: Crossing the river
-Water means the end of their love and absence of her lover, so it can be seen as a symbol of death.

墮河而死: Ta ha yi sa: you are drowning with the flow, died at last
-Now it’s not just about absence of lover, extending a meaning to death. She would felt a sense of alienation profoundly through his death.

當奈公何: Dang ne gong ha: What can do for you
-She sigh for grief, lament for the death of her husband. At last burst out pathetic crying. This burst of the extremely tragic psychology cause her suicide in the background myth.
This kind of pathos is traditionally inherent in the prototype of traditional Korean women.


*one Korean singer(Lee Tzsche)compose about this theme with same title and lyric, and it is also very inspiring for me, so I put the webpage in which you can watch the music video of her song. I need to tell you that the English translation of this poem was quoted from her English version of song.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQPtoqsj41s&feature=channel_page

Seeking Oedipus

Theatre of Silence/Ex-Machina Athens (Greece) - Seeking Oedipus

I had a kind of expectation for this show, because it’s form Greece which is origin country of mime. I had never interested in mime before I saw several images of London International Mime Festival. Unlike what I though before about mime, those images capture my interests.
In this production of Oedipus abstract and simple but very strong visual images are used. Costume designer used only 3 colors which are white, red, black, and each color really helps audience understand the story and the meaning of performance. Usually specific colors are selected according to their symbol and cultural meaning. Because these are easy readable and predictable, sometimes it dose not look like a fresh or a new idea. However in this case I found each color plays a significant role as one of language. This performance decided to take nonverbal structure, so it had to rely on actor’s movement, visual languages, such as set, lighting, costume, and only sound without language. This limit enable this performance to have even much strong feeling and captivating visual moments on the stage. Steep wall or ground reminded me of our life which is unstable and demands hard work and sometimes have danger. It also beautifully depicted the moment of death and love on the wall like dancing in the air.
There were humorous moments which I didn’t know if it was intentional or not. A few people laughed, but I agree with that there are humorous moments in life even middle of tragedy. These kinds of old tragedy are always moving and make me look back into my life and think of philosophic subject ‘What is a life to me?’, ‘What kind of person am I?’. As a theatre designer and also a forever learner, it was definitely a chance to refresh my mind and look around what is going on where I haven’t knew much about. Every time after watching a show Back to home when I look around the place where I am belonging, I found myself they looks different now.