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| Dana Ivgy (left) and Efrat Aviv in 'Guerrilla' rehearsal, Tel Aviv 2007 (photo: Lotus Etrog) |
The Secret Composition is a perspective that enables to examine the process of the becoming of an image rather than focusing on the production itself. It is a contemplation on the procedure of image-making from various standpoints, all enveloped in the performative setting: an ontological standpoint, a cultural one, a political one, a social one, an anarchistic one. Practically speaking, it is based on instructions, tasks, limitations and games carried out real time by the performers.
So, if the Secret Composition is kind of a solution, or an answer, what exactly is the question? There are a few. Here are a few thoughts I wrote this summer in the residency that try to discuss these questions, and the definition of the Secret Composition in relation to them:
In the creation of a theatrical piece, since the “materials” we're working with are people (on stage we are composing people – their bodies, ideas, thoughts, sensations, biographies), there will always be inherent ethical issues. The desire to create something with other people is the basic motivation in this experience. How exactly do we do that? What's the best kind of political structure for an artistic project of this kind? We know that democracy is out of the question, because there is always someone who controls the situation, even if we give the audience (and ourselves) the illusion they have power over us in the performative situation. There's no point pretending there is “freedom” or “equality” in this situation. Another issue is the problem of repetition; how to create this moment, which we already rehearsed many times, and keep it fresh and interesting? How do we keep the answered questions unanswered? A great deal of theories, methods, exercises and techniques were introduced in order to suggest possible ways of dealing with this issue of “liveliness” in this live art.
What I've found highly productive through my work in the past decade is to create “instructional menus” for the performers of a piece. These scores contain psycho-physical-performative tasks, which are applied on the participants and shape the piece as a sportive event. The performers are invited and challenged by these scores to exhibit their personal skills, and use those skills in order to achieve success in the tasks they are requested to fulfill, exactly like in any sports tournament. The difference, however lies in two facts: in the artistic/theatrical context it isn't as clear as in the sports context what is a proper “win” and what is a shameful “loss”. We don't have clear criteria and we cannot evaluate this phenomenon very easily. The other difference is related to the first and it is the fact that in the case of Theater, we also don't favor the win over the loss, on the contrary; many times observing people fail a task is much more insightful than the other way around. The tasks in those instructional menus are thus sometimes aimed at total loss.
These menus are helping me to get a step closer to what I define as a “secret composition” - a composition that's being created through the performers' attempts to do something, that happens as a side effect of the game that the stage is playing. Between the instructions the composer/director/constructor is giving to the performers to the reactions they initiate to answer or accomplish these tasks, the secret composition comes across. It's a way of generating content in order to offer musical compositional tools that can be applied on theater and performance. The different emotional or narrative levels of the tasks and questions that are triggering the emergence of content are intended to cover the widest possible range of experiences, so it can initiate various levels of performative presences on stage.
Thus far is the secret, and as for the composition, I find it to be more of a spatial issue concerning not only the performers but also the directors and the spectators. It is not only a question of performing or playing, but also a question of organizing, i.e., a matter of perception. The compositional aspect of the Secret Composition plays hide and seek with our perceptions, and by us I mean the performers, the spectators and the makers. In the gaps of our consciousness, where stuff happens without us wanting/noticing, this is the site of the secret composition. It is the possibility of a composition, the ground upon which something will hopefully grow and evolve. It means that our artistic responsibility is to provide the starting point alone and to leave all sensory output to what will happen in the performance, between us, our performers and the spectators. Of course, every composition of a live event could be described like this, but in the case of the Secret Composition, I would like to believe the manipulation aspect (only in it's negative meaning) is minimized in favor of an actual image in the making. Distracting our performers, our audience and ourselves from memorizing words, notes, steps or story lines, and forcing them to use their musical abilities instead of irrelevant physio-emotional ones, we open the possibility that in this well dictated and ultra dominated atmosphere, some little spark of freedom will occur.
Below is the list of signals I wrote in 2007 after the language of the London Improvisers Orchestra, to which I was introduced by Maya Dunietz and Jedo Gibson in Den Haag. After applying it to theater/performance with the AKA crew, a lot of new tasks and signs has been added, we divided the signals into three different groups and called the project “Guerrilla”. We performed it for a year or so monthly in Jerusalem's “Hazira” Performance art center. The reason I put it here is that the formulation of this list happened at a point where the tools I used in making shows went down to minimum, and I think looking at it can give a good notion of the vibe of the Secret Composition as an attitude. And also because it was a very cool project that doesn't have any good documentation.
Guerrilla - an AKA Performance Squad Project, 2007
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| Rachel Zinder in 'Guerrilla' performance in Levontin7 Club in Tel Aviv, 2007 |
Here are some wonderful flyers Alona Rodeh made for some of Guerrilla shows in 2007:
