1. Every character in Porto had their individual journey but there were certain instances where the community came together. The first moment when the community were unified was in entering the space. All characters wanted to enter the space, claim their territory, no one had the desire to leave straight away. The characters of Porto were by no means passive in this liminal environment. They all wanted something, hence their reason for staying, so they could perhaps figure out what they wanted whilst they were there, whether it was love, help, freedom or something else. General human relationships are a core theme in Porto, which many practitioners in this genre like to explore such as Pina Bausch, Lloyd Newson, and Jasmin Vardimon. Another moment that unified the community was with Blake’s character fighting to let go of his bag. It was a moment that everyone couldn’t ignore, everyone was involved in a ‘…a typical ‘Bausch-Reigen’ in which the whole ensemble moves one after the other across the stage performing identical movements…’ (1999:26) Even the characters that stayed on the periphery were still locked into the moment of what was happening.
Another shared experience the group had was finally witnessing the face of the hooded character. ‘A European approach to dance making - the performers on stage are developed flesh and blood characters rather than neutral bodies that are used in a sculptural abstract way. Jasmin’s characters are real people who, although usually somehow on the edges of society, represent aspects of what it is to be a human being right now.’ (http://www.jasminvardimon.com/testimonials.html) This quote relates to Porto because these characters were all humans, with real human emotions and real human behaviour. These characters reacted just like people would in the real world, if a child at school always hid their face, there would always be someone trying to uncover them or at the very least be very intrigued that day when eventually the hood would come off.
2. ‘Bausch has broken with traditions and conventions wherever she can. Thus she has not used conventional décor. Usually the whole stage is completely empty and the brick walls are visible.’ (1999: 26) Like Bausch’s works, this was the space we had to inhabit; very different from the studio the ensemble was comfortable with. We had worked in that studio for months. That is where our relationships developed, that is where our characters were born and began to evolve. The new space meant that relationships evolved again, characters finding new areas and new people to interact with, especially within the periphery. For example, where I was situated in the arena, there was a wall. My character had never encountered a wall before, and my body started to react instinctively towards it. That was a strength of the whole group, their ability to adapt to a space, knowing what their characters would do in this new environment. Jay for example, using the podium to watch over me, he could have sat n the floor, or on a chair but he was using the new space to what best suited the character. Also, Amy J’s character used the stairs to show the distance between her character and Gavin and Sarah, which was symbolic of the emotional journeys of those characters even though they had never encorporated stairs in any rehearsals previous.
One of our weaknesses as a group perhaps was that sometimes individual perceptions of being in a theatre (that had nothing to with their character of Porto) infiltrated this transitional process and people were not seeing it as a character in a space, like it should have been, they were seeing it as themselves performing at the arena and bringing with them all the attitudes that that carries. ‘…the actor has to read the space. But in order to do this s/he has first to really ‘see’ it,’ (2001: 79) What Dymphna has stated here is a metaphor for what the space really is, there was an obvious line which separated the wings from the stage, and it was important to not let the mind take control and think ‘I have to perform on the stage, not be hidden in the wings.’ This can link in with the ensemble reprise at the end when the stage often became crowded because people were not seeing the space for what it needed to be at that moment.
3. With my head permanently inside a hood, it is not always easy to literally ‘see’ the growth of the performances, it almost became a task of ‘feeling’ it. Much like the exercise of feeling when the ensemble is going to stop walking, and then start again, I had to become aware of everyone’s energy in the space and if movements were full of precision and sharpness or if the whole piece was lethargic and dragging – which it wasn’t by the performance stage, the energy of the ensemble seemed to grow from show to show. In terms of my own character, it was never a case of just ‘going through the moves’ as the topic was very personal to me, but by the last performance something did change, which Lloyd Newson from DV8 comments on: ‘…I chose to examine these themes through physically challenging movement. However when we made ‘Strange Fish’ (1992), the risk was not so much about physical danger, but whether dance can deal with complex emotional narrative, and whether tragi-comic theatre can in fact be created through dance alone. You can take risks without always being physical.’ (http://www.dv8.co.uk/about.dv8/LN_butterworth.html ) What he says here about whether dance alone can deal with complex emotional narrative really does resonate with how my character felt during the final performance. Even though her body was exuding emotional qualities, it wasn’t enough. Throughout all rehearsals, throughout all mock runs she had never made a sound, never cried, never screamed. For the first time in the final performance, using her body just was not enough and although I had never practiced or used an aural element before, it felt right to do so. So, when it came to repeatedly punching the bag for the last time, using all my energy to take out my feelings on this baggage I had been carrying, this sound came out. A sound that reflected what my body was doing and what my mind was feeling. In terms of the RSVP model, it was most likely happening constantly but at an accelerated rate. Because the research period was so extensive and thought out, it meant that the scoring and validation process almost happened instantaneously in my head, confident that I knew the character well enough to trust that it would work in performance state.
‘Before starting rehearsal she has a concept, but she changes it all the time (even after the dress rehearsal or the first night).’ (1999:26) This is one of Pina Bausch’s philosophies, and is something Porto also adhered to. Even a couple of days before the first show, things were being added all the time such as Jay’s character, throwing the chairs everywhere, Amy H’s character saying ‘Shhh’ to calm herself down, and Amy J and Gavin’s piece changing from Amy slowly rolling off to Gavin throwing her off, which conjured up a lighting concept in which Amy was lit separately to Gavin and Sarah, never thought of before. Finally, Pina Bausch’s quote ‘It is not how people move, but what moves them’ (2002: 57) can relate to all characters in Porto. No performance was the same because different things moved people at different times each night. It really was a liminal space where the journey was different every time.
Bibliography
Bremser, M., 1999., Fifty Contemporary Choreographers, London: Routledge
Callery, D., 2001, Through The Body, London: Nick Hern Books Limited
Huxley, M., 2002, The Twentieth Century Performance Reader, s.l., Routledge
Spalding, A., Testimonials For Jasmin Vardimon Company (Internet) Available at: http://www.jasminvardimon.com/testimonials.html [accessed 14/5/09]
Newson, L., 2004, Conversation with Jo Butterworth (Internet) Available at: http://www.dv8.co.uk/about.dv8/LN_butterworth.html [accessed 14/5/09]
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