Tempest, Lear two Shakespeare plays with different interpretations

the whole idea of minimalism is personally appealing to me most of the ideas that i have had when it comes to plays have all been minimalistic, not because of lack of potential resources, but because minimalism really accentuates the themes and the symbols of a play and two plays that seem to fit that idea of minimalism is the Tempest by donellan and King Lear by Tadashi Suzuki
Tempest is the one shakespeare play that, when i  hear the name i have beautiful images of the sea and ocean, beautiful islands mostly because of what i had seen from the video that was shown to me about how the royal Shakespeare company once interpreted it.
The interpretation that the Russians had in this rendition of the Tempest was absolutely superb and very different to the one i saw in the video and the difference in of itself is a great inspiration. the Russian theatre company went for a minimalist stage with only a white wall and three doors, with sand placed in locations by the wall with little bits in the sand. the design t use the whiteness of the wall to display the scenes' backgrounds and the use of the sand and the items in them. it kind of made me think, why have the props backstage when you can have them on stage instead, not that all the props were on stage in tempest. The direction of the play was excellent and the choreography was very good not as much as Lear but i will get there later) the body floating in water, the characters physicality- the daughter , the air spirit and the one flimsy guy that was with caliban (trinculo?) all really accentuated their characters brilliantly. when it comes to scorched moments, it was not one area that i focused on, it was the usage of water as a running theme on the island, even if it only went so far, but using water on stage gave the play a feel of realism in amongst the minimalism. another memory that will stay is the onstage music played that to me represented the wind of the play and gave the play motion in sound.
on the other hand there is King lear as directed by Tadashi Suzuki, another play with a simple stage set up that worked to really accentuate the picture of the stage, the frozen scenes. a slight difference between these two shakespeare interpretations was in costumes, Tadashi seemed to put more effort into stylistic clothing whereas tthe tempest was very symbolic, and in movement. the was more action and motion in the Tempest, but the amount of physical control in King Lear astounded me. one point when the one evil daughter, the one with the memorable laugh, was giving a monologue i noticed that she was doing something with her eybrows, which led me to notice that she wasn't blinking. i had forgotten the importance of the eyes in Japanese theatre, and noticing the unblinking stare and actually experiencing that sort of physical control will make sure i never forget it again, i even spent a goo while of the play having staring contests with the actors, which led to some interesting revelations. one such one was that, because i was staring at a frozen picture it burned the images in my retina, so when there was any movement i could notice it because a sort of sillouhette was left behind. one such ncident i was staring and then mrs. Moon moved her head, then i had a mrs. Moon shaped image floating in mid air. not sure if such a finding is helpful in designing any of my own creations but it is certainly an interesting way of looking at the world. but one thing in King Lear i would like to use is some of the ligting techniques included in the play, most notably having thing hang from the ceiling and using their shadows to add texture to an otherwise plain stage, like gobos that the audience can see. another lighting technique i noticed was one we used in Good Soul of Schezwan (still cant spell it) and that was making a line of light that makes  stark separation between downstage and upstage with use of barn doors, but theirs was more professional. one complaint about this play that i heard is the reason i like it, the fact that the stage and the movement was less expressive and minimal allowed for there to be more emphasis on the words and meaning, and when they do move it is important and purposeful, but because of language barriers this made non japanese/koreans had trouble understanding what was going on at that particular time.

tppp list and paragraph

list of what to include into tppp:
symbols;
picture of the internet-driving force


influences;
dervishes- got-cultural
sienaar in die suburbs?
pina baush- dance

studied;
lighting- got good soul-
bertolt brecht good soul of setchuan
andong- actually doing mask dance
mark hill - tadashi suzuki
maybe get one with daniel foley- shakespeare

symbol paragraph:
My symbol is a picture representing all the connections of the internet, this on it's own is a good theme to have in terms of connecting ideas because it is a symbol of connection. however it is more profound than that because of what connections and the internet represents. the connections are the synthesis that we make and the connections we make in our classes, when we create theatre we are making connections to the world, between ideas, to the audience. the internet on the other hand is a tool for knowledge and for sharing knowledge and this is a theme that i believe all theatre should be about, sharing knowledge with the audience and with each other. how i can use it specifically to string the pictures together however is different. by using this symbol that is specifically about sharing knowledge is kind of the area i can use to express the symbol. the class and my whole theatre experience has been me collecting knowledge about what i can and then sharing it, notably with my family, and two of whom already know what i'm talking about so we discuss instead.

Fab Five, the tempest

company: Moscows international theatre company
director: Dunclan Donellan
form of theatre: minimalist
the play itself: Shakespearian play

tppp

internet- connections

dervishes- dance and rythmn/ scorched moment

lighting

andong

Pina Baush

tadashi suzuki- mark hill

Romeo and Juliet shakespeare

bertolt brecht

"The spectator was no longer in any way allowed to submit to an experience uncritically (and without practical consequences) by means of simple empathy with the characters in a play.  The production took the subject matter and the incidents shown and put them through a process of alienation: the alienation that is necessary to all understanding.  When something seems 'the most obvious thing in the world' it means that any attempt to understand the world has been given up."- bertolt brecht

Theo Jansen- Strandbeest

as i start to think through my tppp a bit more i realised some things about my designing focuses and the values i have in relation to design, and i am very scientific. the things i enjoy are methodical and have rules tied to them, if they don't have rules i create them, i saw this in my fascination with lighting and the artwork of theo jansen who is less theatre and more art but it is more of a secondary symbol for me as it is my way of thinking expressed directly as i see some art, as something beautiful created for the purpose of motion, which is another part of theatre i enjoy. dance has a system of rules put in place which each individual responds to and knows what to do with each other to create one beast that is the ensemble- just like each individual part of theo jansen's creations come together to make a moving preformance. basically i think i am not a very good creative designer, but i am a designer with his own merits and style that requires a certain degree of extra thought in order for other creative elements to burst out. it's not i'm a bad designer but that i constrict myself with rules of the world of the play. this is something i want to put forward along with my belief in how everything is connected.

Gary Card

I think it’s about communication ― what are we trying to say, what are we trying to get people to feel? It is about considering every element of the design and making sure you are staying true to that message you hope your viewer will take away with them. 

i feel that this is the backbone of art as a whole and is what all artists need to strive for, communication. if art does not communicate or has no message then it is good art irrespective of the quality of the art itself. 

pilobolus

here is a picture of pilobolus

now here is a picture of the theatre group of the same name

and what interests me right now about this group is how they arrived at the name they did and why. When i was back in South africa there were several advertisments who used pilobolus to sell their product or service i have pretty much forgotten the company but i never forgot the shadow making group. as such, a local news group interviewed the team while they were in SA and i remember that they mentioned why they chose to name themselves after a fungus. it seems the dance company named themselves this back in 1971and drew inspiration for their dance from biology and natural movement and that the name pilobolus was a catchy name.but in recent times they are not the only inspired thearical dance troupe. not so long ago, this year in fact another hungarian shadow group called attraction won the britains got talent competition. in the US in the american version of the show there was a group called tell-a-vision who used lcd screens for their preformance but got booted off early for being too artsy.

as ine final thing, back in south africa there was another advertisement for Volkswagen or bmw and featured not a preformance but something more sciency but looks just as amazing, but is more a feat of engineering and art than dance and art

these are considered a type of wind chime as they are kinetic sculptures

 oh it was bmw

updated tppp

plays acted in

o    last days of judas

o    pajama games

o    good soul of schezwan

plays watched

o    the odyssey

o    gullivers travel

o    black watch

o    apac

o    artefact

o    pina baush

plays read

o    antigone,

o    Eurydice,

o    mother courage

o    love of three oranges

set elements helped in

o    Artifacts- helped build set and paint props

o    lighting for ib play

festival-

o    apac

o    seoul performance festival

workshop-

o    apac

o    mark hill

o    andong

studied

·         JAPANESE

o    butoh

o    kabuki

o    kyogan

o    bunraku

o    underground

o    tadashi Suzuki

·         greek

·         MASK

o    comedia

o    talchum

o    neutral mask

o    found mask

·         physical theatre

·         realism

·         brechtian

·         minimalism

·         modernism

·         post modernism

·         verbadum

·         viewpoints

·         devising

·         directing

·         technical theatre