Marie Hartland - Task 1

1. “At its simplest, physical theatre is theatre where the primary means of the creation occurs through the body rather than through the mind.” (Callery, D (2001) p.4) Through the module content of Process and Performance, we have learnt through our bodies, rather than through dialogue and forward planning. For me personally, the module has taught me a lot about the genre of physical theatre and also about performance as a whole. Within physical theatre there is always a reason behind a movement. Due to this, I feel that the end result is not the entirety of this genre; it is in fact the creation of the material, which a lot of the time is achieved through play. The journey up to the final point is often a very personal one where the body is not only learning new skills such as weight sharing, the state of neutrality and contact but also emotionally there are many boundaries which are needed to be overcome personally. I found that I had to do this before I could progress and work well within the genre of physical theatre.

2. Ana Sanchez-Colberg indicates that the ‘hybrid-character’ of physical theatre is the combination of different genres. She talks about the ‘double current’ of influences which are both theatre and dance, and how a new genre is the hybrid of them; physical theatre. Physical theatre is a hybrid performance genre as it is easy to see both aspects of theatre and dance within a physical theatre piece. During our process and journey throughout Process and Performance, we have created material that initially started from simple pedestrian movements – something which would not be out of place in a text based theatre piece. The pedestrian movements we initially started off with soon became more stylised as our bodies led us in the creation of the movement. It is clear to see movements within our work which could be seen as dance, but due to the style we work in – combining movements together – it is in fact physical theatre.

3. DV8 are a theatre company who are renowned for pushing boundaries, personal, political and also social. DV8 describes their work as ‘about taking risks, aesthetically and physically, about breaking down the barriers between dance, theatre and personal politics and, above all, communicating ideas and feelings clearly and unpretentiously.’ (http://www.dv8.co.uk/about.dv8/artistic.policy.html)

Their work relies heavily on physical movements and it is created through the motivation of creative needs. They believe in recreating dance, and incorporating meaning. The issues they portray within their work can be seen as controversial as many social and political aspects are explored. The fact the company devise their work outside of the boundaries of theatre and include aspects of dance, mean that physical theatre is the genre which their work fits into. Their work allows spectators to interpret meaning however they wish to, but they mainly focus on exploring the roles of men and women within society.


Bibliography

www.physicaltheatre.com
www.dv8.co.uk/about.dv8.html
Keefe,J and S Murray (2007) Physical theatres: A critical reader London: Routledge
Callery, D (2001) Through the body. New York: Routledge


Marie Hartland