DAI Week Three Part One

We started Day Eleven with Daily Practice with Joe. We had class with Ronlin in the morning. He talked about tension and forces. We experimented with creating a structure using three sticks and a length of rope. We started our work with creating masks in the afternoon. I chose cardboard. Our first directive was to create the shapes cube, cone, sphere, and ovoid. This was an experimentation for us to better understand the cardboard. We then started making masks. We showed them at the end of the class period and found out we had really been making helmets. That night we worked on making actual masks.

Day Twelve started again with Daily Practice with Joe including tumbling. We worked with the cardboard in the morning and were given the requirements that the masks must work in 360 degrees, the eyes must come out and live, and the masks must not simply be protrusions from planes. We had an optional class with Joan in the afternoon on metaphysical masks. This work is to  -see clearly -inhabit the entire body -have specific attitudes -work with what's really happening. There must be a core behind the mask (the actor's head).

The film colloquium Tuesday night included The Two Journeys, a film on Jacques Lecoq's school in Paris. It showed the class's explorations of larval masks, verbs in different languages with movement, personal nature, and neutral masks. Ronlin talked about Artaud's plague and the way theatre festers in a person and ideas started in this workshop can manifest and come to realization years later.

Day Thirteen started with Daily Practice with Joe then we worked on our masks all day. Monday I started a wolf mask, Tuesday I started an amphibious creature mask, and Wednesday I started a lion mask with mechanically manipulated features. Wednesday night, we had a guest performance by the group Independent Eye called "50 years of Co-creation." It included three vignettes. The group is a couple in their 70's that have been performing together for 50 years, touring around the country. The three vignettes were pieces from their time touring. The pieces were very dream-like, existential, and employed puppets some of the time.

Enjoy the Day,
Brandon Brockshus