Leandro Erlich – Argentine artist constructed a realistic full-size pool, complete with all its trappings, including a deck and a ladder set within 2 floors. When approached from the first floor, visitors are confronted with a surreal scene: People, fully clothed, can be seen standing, walking, and breathing beneath the surface of the water. It is only when visitors enter and view the piece from the bottom floor that they recognize that the pool is empty, its construction a visual trick. A large, continuous piece of acrylic spans the pool and suspends water above it, creating the illusion of a standard swimming pool that is both disorienting and humorous.
The term ‘physical theatre’ tends to conjure images of nothing more than crazy, hippy-types exclaiming ‘I’m a tree’ at the top of their voices. These people are alive and well waving their branches in the breeze, but physical theatre is much more than this and when done well is completely mind-blowing.
There is much debate as to how physical theatre started. A relatively new term (it has only been kicking around since the 1900’s – not long in the theatre world), even today it is often used as an umbrella term encompassing mime, contemporary dance, physical comedy, puppetry, mask theatre, acrobatics, circus skills and anything else that doesn’t easily fall into a typical genre. I tend to describe it as the telling of a story by primarily using the actor’s bodies rather than traditional means – some guy juggling dressed as a clown is not physical theatre! There may still be a script or it may be (more than likely) devised, but the outcome will still be highly visible.
Some believe that the form originated from mime. John-Louis Barrault started a revolution against the notion that all mime must be silent, utilising music and then voice within the physicality of the performance. One of his more famous performances was in the Children of Paradise:
Apparently our dearly departed Michael Jackson got the idea for the Moonwalk from Barrault’s performance in this movie.
It is widely acknowledged that physical theatre has been heavily influenced by the work of Bertolt Brecht.
His ‘Epic Theatre’ was a reaction to the naturalistic style which prevailed in the early 1920’s. In epic theatre pieces, the audience are not encouraged to identify with individual characters emotions, but rather encouraged to engage in thought. Brecht saw the naturalistic ‘getting lost in the character’s emotions’ style as merely a means of escapism – nothing more than a latter day soap opera. He thought theatre could be much much more; a tool to make society think. It should be accessible to the working classes and audiences will be aware they are watching a play but will move along with it questioning, rather than ‘getting lost.’ He used surrealism to great effect to break the audience link with the characters.
His earliest use of epic theatre in one of his own plays was “The Life of Edward II of England”, but perhaps his most famous play is “The Threepenny Opera”
seen here randomly starring Cyndi Lauper…I don’t know how much Brecht would approve of this…
Actors would frequently ‘break the fourth wall’ and address the audience, a devise which hasn’t aged a day, now being used to great effect on television programmes with ‘to camera’ narrative. My favourite use of it is in Malcolm in the Middle, which also uses a great deal of surrealism making it very Brechtian indeed!
This surreal, non conformist style lent itself well to physical theatre and cemented the genre into the theatre landscape.
Physical theatre has also picked up parts of Eastern culture in its development – Noh, a form of Japanese music theatre was heavily drawn upon.
Theorists like Jerzy Grotowski took the highly physical training the Noh actors had to pass through and used it as inspiration for their physical theatre theories.
Grotowski was responsible for ‘The Poor Theatre’ theory, the idea that the actor’s voice and body skills should be the primary spectacle on stage. Grotowski removed everything that could distract the audience from the actor. No more elaborate sets, lights and sound. The relationship between the audience and the actor became the emphasis of the production.
In his actor’s workshops, which he called a laboratory, the focus was on the actor. He focused on stripping down the actor into his essential self. The techniques and exercises used in Grotowski’s laboratory required serious concentration and commitment. The actor needed to find the strength of his natural voice and body. The perfection of the techniques was not as important as the awareness of the process. The video below shows one of Grotowski’s laboratories in action. He obviously felt the need to strip their clothes away too…!
As it stands today, there are a number of successful physical theatre companies across the world, some of the most successful of which being in England.
DV8 started in the 1980’s when a group of dancers became disillusioned with the direction of most modern dance.
The Chotto Ookii Theatre Company are based in our very own Leeds, forming into 2005 but already doing really well and getting great reviews at the Edinburgh Festival. Visit their website here: Chotto Ookii Theatre Company
Then there is one of my favourite theatre companies, Forced Entertainment based in Sheffield who produce the most wonderful, thought provoking pieces. There website can be found here: Forced Entertainment
If you haven’t seen any physical theatre before I would urge you to. Granted, there is a lot of rubbish out there, but there is in any theatre genre, or artform for that matter. When it is done well nothing can beat it in my humble opinion!
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Making public sector advertising work is a tall order. There’s no simple formula as it can often require the communication of contradictory messages and requires the correct balance of fact with fear.
Essentially it’s about making people’s lives better (and often saving lives), a noble cause which most creatives would love to work on. But how many get it right, and how has public sector communication evolved?
*History *
Adverts from the 1940s + were much tamer than the graphic highly emotive ads we see today. I’ve used Drink Driving ads as an example.
Today we are hit with a much stronger Think! message than ‘Mind how you go!’
New opportunities
It’s crucial to be resourceful when considering the end product – any public sector communication can’t be seen as being wasteful. This is where Social Media is presenting new opportunities. It provides the opportunity to engage the public through more cost effective campaigns, often tailored to the audience
Changing behaviour is a long term process and can not be achieved through one-off bill board advertisements. Take the Keep Britain Tidy campaign for instance. Personally, I was not convinced by impact of the bill board ad.
It’s missing the emotion and ‘fear’ element and doesn’t get across the consequences of dropping litter from your car – are there safety issues? What if a bike where to hit a floating bag and get it caught on their helmet? Or run over an empty can? It’s that level of message that would motivate me to report any instance of car litter (but people are motivated by different things of course, which is one of the main challenges when working on this type of campaign).
What is impressive is the campaign’s use of social media. You can follow the success of the campaign on Twitter. They regularly update followers on how the campaign is going and remind you of the campaign and what is expected of us.
Another example of the use of the internet is the shocking video recently posted by Gwent Police. The video is a graphic, painful film of a devastating car crash, filmed to warn teenagers of the dangers of texting while driving. This is not for the faint hearted.
The film has been a phenomenal success around the world – Gwent police believe the clip has been viewed at least 6 million times and has appeared on at least 17 sites.
This just highlights the value of shock tactics where serious issues like this are concerned, and the power of the internet to convey these messages…
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