Butoh

Those of you who went to see 'Butoh Moon' and/or took part in Terry Hatfield's Butoh workshop during ISTA TAPS might be interested in looking at Yokohama's blog. they've obviously been exploring Butoh as well - and where better than Japan. Their teacher, Tim, says : "I searched for some meaning to the meaningless in Butoh." Have you searched for the meaning? Did you find it? Is the meaning for a performer of Butoh the same as the meaning for an audience member? perhaps Y13 would like to add their own thoughts on this. They have long debated both Butoh and Brook's work and the word 'self-indulgent' often crops up in conversation. Would you agree? Or have they been tainted by their realism-fixated, Brecht-loving teacher?

Peter Brook

We have just finished creating a piece of performance based on an extract from 'Birds without Wings' by Louis de Bernieres. This was the culmination of a unit exploring the work of Peter Brook. Oh, if only you'd all been there for all of the time, it would have worked so much better. It's hard to run a movement/stick workshop with three people....

Anyway, we talked a lot about Brook and his ideas about 'illuminating' a text rather than illustrating it. Most of you experieced this style of working when you took part in 'The Golden Masque of Agamemnon' last year. I thought that the following quote from a theatre director about theatre students was interesting:

'Their idol is more often than not Peter Brook, and in this I tend to sympathise with David Hare when he said that Brook "set about draining plays of any specific meaning or context to a point where each became the same play - a universal hippy babbling which represents nothing but fright of commitment."

The director quoted is called Paul Miller and you can check out his blog from the links list (if I work out how to do it). Thanks to Tim Evans, top t.arts teacher from Yokahama , from whom I found the quote. The link to Yokahama's theatre arts blog is also on the links list. Check it out and see what others are doing!

Can you comment on the David Hare quote in the light of your exploration of Brook's work?

Welcome to Patana's Theatre Arts site!

Hello Y12!

This blog is for you to post ideas, thoughts, words of wisdom, links and homework. You might like to use your responses and entries on this blog as the basis for your journal entries. If you are doing this, then make sure your entries are of sufficient length and depth - it's easy to be superficial on the web.

I will post an entry once a week unless there is something specific I want you to comment on, in which case, you will know from the home work database as well. Your deadline for entry onto the site is midnight Sunday unless there are exceptional circumstances.

So here is your starter for this week: link to this post with a commentary about your work on Arabian Nights. How do you see your role as technical crew? What do you hope to gain from the experience? What new skills are you picking up? Are you using any old skills in different ways? Why is it when I set a simple task like 'find a design for an Egyptian costume' it takes the average Y12 student three weeks to come up with one internet print?! We can keep this thread going throughout your work on Arabian Nights. Get writing!