GOOSSUN گوسان

Method & madness

2009-05-30T09:15:00.001+02:00

"There is always some madness in love. But there is always, also, some method in madness."

– Friedrich Nietzsche

2009-05-27T02:36:00.002+02:00

"[In] the social system in which I live [...] my obligation is not to make political declarations, but to make holes in the wall. [...] Art has always been the effort to confront oneself with the insufficiency, and by this very fact, art has always been complementary to social reality [...] it is not goodwill which will save the work, but it is mastery. Obviously when mastery is here, appears the question of heart. Heart without mastery is shit."

– Jerzy Grotowski, Tu es le fils de quelqu'un

The Water Snake Drinks Turns Poison

2009-05-05T21:41:00.000+02:00

2009-03-09T21:03:00.001+01:00

"'To select an author's play, does not mean to share his views."
–Grotowski quoting Meyerhold in the program to one his early productions, God of Rain

DD DANSEN 2009 Music Video

2009-03-03T12:34:00.000+01:00

AZDAHAK

2009-02-25T12:13:00.000+01:00

2009-02-14T21:40:00.002+01:00

Everyone at some point has at least once wondered, what will happen to us when we die. Nothing is certain about what happens to us after death except that we will cease asking that question.

ANAGRAM (104)

2008-12-19T09:46:00.001+01:00

If I ever had to be someone else than myself
I'd be Albert Camus
Dying like James Dean.

Words, words, words...

2008-12-18T23:42:00.003+01:00

"Every Hamlet has a book in his hand. What book does the modern Hamlet read?

– Jan Kott, Shakespeare, Our Contemporary, p. 68

Grotowski at Work

2008-12-10T15:08:00.001+01:00

This video has recently been uploaded on YouTube by Biagagli. It is a Polska TV program seemingly made after Grotowski's death 1999. It is a rough outline of his life.

What is most interesting for me in this video, is the part where Grotowski is leading the vocal exercises at the Theatre Laboratory of 13 Rows; the way he conducts the performer with his hands, indicating various places on body where he wants the performance to use as resonator.

I guess this fragment is from the Mike Elster's documentary, Letters from Opole. (If my memory doesn't decive me; I've seen that film seven years ago.) Elster was a film student in Poland in the 60's and decided to make a documentary about Theatre Laboratory after he was invited to Opole by Eugenio Barba and saw the work of Grotowski. He became instrumental in Grotowski's career not only by making the very first film about his work but also through introducing Grotowski to Peter Brook in 1965. (see E. Barba, Land of Ashes and Diamonds, p. 60.)

I hope someone uploads Letters from Opole on YouTube as well.

Baudrillard, Scorsese & Brecht

2008-12-08T15:06:00.007+01:00

I was looking for something in Jean Baudrillard's Fragments and I landed on this: "Given that it is better to be killed by a bullet intended for you rather than a stray one, and given that there are many more stray bullets than ones which reach their target, is it better to be one of the terrorists or one of the victims?"

It immediately reminded me of Frank Costello's line in Scorsese's The Departed: “When I was your age, they would say you could become cops or criminals. What I'm saying is this: When you're facing a loaded gun, what's the difference?”

Just wonder, is Baudrillard thinking like a gangster mob or the gangsters (the "wise guys" as Lefty in Donnie Brasco called them) are actually acting on a more justifiable philosophical basis? What is crime when the authoritative body–state if you like–who draws the line between "legal" and "illegal" has blood on its hand up to elbow?

I hear Brecht shouting from behind: “What is the crime of robbing a bank compared with the crime of founding one.”

Towards another political imagination

2008-12-01T15:08:00.010+01:00

Ryszard Cieslak at work 1980

I heard Eugenio Barba once saying that "the greatest revolution is revolution against our own laziness." This is an essential principle for theatre training. Training is a fight against laziness. In this sense laziness for me is the opposite of concentration. Concentration in training is the basis of setting one's imagination free. Freeing one's imagination is necessarily political.
That is why I have borrowed Foucaut's phrase as one of HamletZar's motto:"Towards another political imagination."

"We have to construct another political thought, another political imagination and teach anew the vision of future."

– Michel Foucaut in J. Afary & K Anderson, Foucaut and Iranian Revolution, p. 185

I recall Philip Gaulier saying in a video interview "I teach theatre, I teach freedom" which is in essence the same as constructing another political imagination. Doesn't Étienne Decroux also touches upon the same notion when he says art is "decomposition of the natural and re-composition of the ideal?"

Brook on Grotowski

2008-11-29T20:32:00.000+01:00

Jerzy Grotowski & Peter Brook in Shiraz Art Festival, Iran 1971

"The Theatre is not an escape, a refuge. A way of life is a way to life. does that sound like a religious slogan? It should do."

–Peter Brook, preface to Towards a Poor Theatre, p. 12

Etymology of the name Hamlet

2008-11-28T03:21:00.000+01:00

"incidentally, the name "Amleth" means "Dimwit" or "Idiot"; so the most intelligent character in Shakespeare's works inherits an aptly paradoxical name."

–Cedric Watts, introduction to Hamlet, p. 15

Hamlet on the sea

2008-11-27T03:08:00.003+01:00

HamletZar mainly takes place on the sea when Hamlet is sent to England to be killed. For this reason my colleagues and I have in many occasions talked about performing HamletZar, site-specific, in a boat and sail into the sea with the audience during the performance.
It is a common belief that "in 1608 Hamlet was staged at sea by the crew of Captain Keeling's ship Dragon, so that the men would not waste their time on idleness and unlawful games or sleep."

–see E . K. Chambers: William Shakespeare: A Study of Facts and Problems,
London, Oxford University Press 1930, Vol. II, p 335

Also see this: Hamlet aboard the (Red) Dragon

To Hell with Irrelevant Art!

2008-11-26T12:33:00.013+01:00

"... not true requirements, but the requirements of Truth; not the interest of the pro*******t, but the interest of Human Nature, of man in general, who belongs to no c***s, has no reality, who exists only in the misty realm of philosophical fantasy."

–Carl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The Communist Manifesto, p. 41

Over the years my interest in arts and in theatre particularly has changed. I am not interested in art as means of expression anymore. Today I am interested in art only if it is relevant to life in an im-mediate manner and only if it can better life even a tiny bit; even if it is a hopeless attempt as verbalized by Das Beckwerk's statement: "hopeless but necessary attempt to daily intervene in world history."

This notion has influenced the project, HamletZar in various ways and has expanded the field of research in the agenda of the project, most specifically a process where we endeavor to explore the possibilities of combining two principal notions of twentieth century's theatre practice, namely Theatre Anthropology and Theatre of the Oppressed.
This is an attempt to avoid the concentrated and largely isolated process of craft losing connection with our daily, real life and keep away from falling into the trap of "the misty realm of philosophical fantasy."

Otherwise what is the point? It is extremely difficult to make it possible to do theatre; it is so at least for me. If theatre doesn't make my life better, richer and more joyous, to hell with it.
As Malcolm X has said: "When you have a philosophy or a gospel–I don't care whether it's a religious gospel, a political gospel, an economic gospel or a social gospel–if it's not going to do something for you and me right here and right now–to hell with that gospel!"

NOTE: Pro*******t and c***s are of course "proletariat" and "class" respectively. I think it is extremely important, when we read Carl Marx today, that we demystify his terminology, which is the product of the period he lived in, in order to understand the profound humane and philosophical aspect of his though. In the above mentioned quote Carl Marx is criticizing the German socialists for being influenced by "completely emasculated" French communist literature without having experienced the real historical changes and thus indulging themselves in illusory rhetoric. However the essence of what he says goes beyond the specific problem he is addressing.

Altering the text of Hamlet

2008-11-26T02:49:00.002+01:00

Cedric Watts, in the short and interesting introduction he has written to Hamlet, cleverly points out that "Hamlet is delighted to add lines to The Mousetrap to give it topical relevance; and when Polonius objects that the recitation about Pyrruhs is too long, Hamlet immediately replies: "it shall to the barber's with your beard."

–Hamlet, Wordsworth Classics, p. 24

That is exactly what we are going to do with Shakespeare's text in HamletZar: "It shall to the barber's." And we'll add lines in order to give it a "topical relevance;" as Peter Brook has said, to relate it "to our lives."

Hamlet: Machiavellian villain

2008-11-25T01:10:00.001+01:00

"The new type of villain which we meet in Elizabethan drama is an image of some interest. I say "new type" because we must all deprecate the tendency to use the words "Machiavellian villain" when we mean merely a great or ruthless villain. By a "Machiavellian" villain we ought to mean one who circumvents his victims by cunning and hypocrisy—like Machiavelli’s ideal prince. Thus Kyd’s Lorenzo and Shakespeare’s Iago are Machiavellian; Tamburlain is not. The cunning villain is so useful to dramatists and has so long been part of their stock-in-trade that we tend to take him for granted. But the typical villains of medieval literature are not often cunning. They are seldom cleverer than the good character.”

—C. S. Lewis, English Literature in the Sixteen century, p. 51, Oxford University Press, 1944

Note: Despite of being the protagonist of Shakespeare’s play, Hamlet possesses many of the characteristics of so-called the “Machiavellian villain.” Although The Prince had not been translated into English until 1640, Machiavelli was widely famed to the Elizabethan dramatists as the devilish villain. What they knew as “Machiavellism” was based on a French book written by Gentillet, called Anti Machiavel which provided a tremendously useful instrument to form a model for cunning villain who circumvents his victim by hypocrisy.

Hamlet & Kierkegaards

2008-11-24T15:54:00.002+01:00

“It would be the task for a poet to represent this agonizing self-contradiction in a demonic man who is not able to get along without a confidant and not able to have a confidant …”

–Søren Kierkegaard, Sickness Unto Death, p. 56

Dance/music healing in Bible

2008-11-24T13:36:00.002+01:00

”David and all the house of Israel played before the LORD on all manner of instruments made of fir wood, even on harps, and on psalteries, and on timbrels, and on cornets, and on cymbals. […] David was displeased, because the LORD had made a breach upon Uzzah. […] And David danced before the LORD with all his might; […] And David offered burnt offerings and peace offerings before the LORD.”

—Old Testament, 2 Samuel, chap. 6

Craig on Shakespeare

2008-11-23T12:42:00.000+01:00

"Hamlet has not the nature of a stage representation. Hamlet and the other plays of Shakespeare have so vast and so complete a form when read, that they can but lose heavily when presented to us after having undergone stage treatment. That they were acted in Shakespeare's day proves nothing."

–Edward Gordon Craig, On the Art of Theatre, p 143

Brook on Shekaspeare

2008-11-22T12:28:00.000+01:00

"Our greatest problem in England where we have the best possibility in the world for presenting our greatest author is just this–the relating of these works to our lives."

–Peter Brook, preface to Jan Kott's Shakespeare, Our Contemporary

2008-11-22T12:22:00.000+01:00

Grotowski in Iran

2008-10-29T11:54:00.004+01:00

Jerzy Grotowski shaking hand with Empress Farah in Shiraz Art Festival.

I have been at the Library for Iranian Studies few days ago and there I found the book of Shiraz Art Festival and in it a few photographs of Grotowski and his performance The Constant Prince taken during the festival. Here is one of the photos as an announcement for the special event Goossun Art-illery is going to arrange to celebrate the Year Of Grotoswki in 2009.

Music

2008-10-18T09:07:00.006+02:00

Using music during training is a tricky thing. The danger is that the performers might be carried away by the music and begin to merely "enjoy themselves" rather than using the music as an aid that serves the purpose of each certain task they would be working on.
In my experience music can be a very useful tool in training in three different ways:
1) using music as pattern to clarify the movements by the guidance of the rhythm
2) using music as contexts: performing a fixed sequence of action to different musics, colors the action and helps the performers to explore more possibilities in the materials they have created
3) using music for orchestrating various parts of action: i.e. we could have three performers a and blues song played by a guitar, a base and a drum set and we ask one performer to move in accordance with the guitar, the other performer with the drums and the other with the base.
Furthermore, one single performer can as well use different parts of his or her own body, each reacting to one instrument. In this way the music serves as a very useful aid to clarify the orchestration of the action.
These have proved very useful when I train beginners to communicate certain principle to then in a non-verbal way.

Anyway, what does make music so magical? Isn't the precise mathematical structure of its scores that strikes our emotions? Grotowski says, "spontaneity only happens within a structure." That is what happens with music.