Lessons Learned

This is a road story. After 30 years of being on the road with Dell'Arte you can imagine that there areliterally hundreds of these kinds of stories. Each of us over time, and given our selective memories, may tell them a bit differently. But in many ways they chronicle the development of a performance perspective as much as any theory derived from conceptual thinking. It is a perspective that was developed over time, with attention to craft, and a commitment to an ensemble of people who strived to create a body of work and a way of working that was vital to them and hopefully those they played for. Most of what we discovered was born out of doing. I admit to being an autodidact - one who learns best by doing and certainly from making mistakes in that doing. While we all had substantial training in theatre before we started, none of us had done something quite like making a company before. Yet, this is the journey that many of our students chose to undertake when they leave Dell'Arte. And a great, important, vital journey it is.

The story: 1980. Venice, Italy. The Dell'Arte Company's first international festival invite to the Venice Biennale. And Carlo Mazzone Clementi was to perform with us for the first time. We were invited to do two pieces, LOONS RAGE (commedia and Native American characters in a work about nuclear power) and BIRDS OF A FEATHER (a Stan Laurel piece we had updated). We'd talked to some people, read some stuff - and thought we knew exactly how to do this international festival thing.

In 24 hours we had a huge success and an abject failure. We were scheduled to play at two different theaters in Venice in the same day. We had shipped our material in too big of a box and it was quarantined in Italian customs. Our equipment was finally shipped to us on a gondola after being broken open. We watched the hardware bag gently fall into the canal as it was delivered to the loading dock. On a combination of adrenaline and guts we did LOONS RAGE to great acclaim at 4pm. At midnight in a different theatre we did BIRDS OF A FEATHER to an unreceptive audience and silence. The humor did not translate. Carlo had difficulty with a mask he had commissioned by Dontato Satori that we had never seen and he had never worn. Two Americans in the balcony thought it was the funniest thing they had ever seen. They were a minority.

But we hung together. Enjoyed the roller coaster ride of the day. Acknowledged we didn't know as much as we thought. And then saw for the first time over the next week performances by Dario Fo, Franca Rama, El Commediants, Bolik Polivka, Marcel Marceau and a production of La Donna Serpente that I vividly remember to this day for its powerful mix of a dynamic visual world with great acting heart. We also participated in the spectacle of Carnival in Venice where, behind the mask, all is possible. Late night before we left, we did both our shows for the waiters and staff at the hotel that had fed us and treated us like kings for two weeks. It was a kitchen performance, sans set. It was the best we had ever done. They loved it.

We came back eyes opened and inspired by what we had experienced. It deeply influenced all that we created next. And there were some simple lessons we carried home:

• Travel light but with great theatrical design.
• In the heat of it - Keep your partner's back. You can and should talk about it after its over.
• Know that you don't know it all. Be prepared to be "Surprised" as Carlo would say.
• Get yourself places where you can learn from the best and yet stand for what you do at the time you do it.
• Don't assume because someone said it will be this way, it will be that way.
• Believe in the long run - the short term is just a step on hopefully a long life in this work.

We at Dell'Arte are now talking a lot about the future of this place. To do that it is necessary to look back as well as forward. And as I look back, I believe more than ever that this place, these theatre-makers, this training, is one that pushes the edge of the permissible, pushes the edge of the possible and consequently is the source of the future of this work. Is it perfect? No - thank God. It questions itself every day-and in that effort, it is vital. alive, vibrant. I have been lucky to recently receive this grant to advance my skills as an artist/manager/director to better help navigate this organization as it evolves into its 4th decade of life. It is not what I set out to do at 22. But I cannot imagine a more vital journey in a more incredible environment with exceptional partners in the effort to accomplish something that we believe is essential. And there is so much left to learn.

all the best to you all in the new year.

Michael Fields

Copyright Dell'Arte International 2008
PO Box 816, Blue Lake CA 95525
(707) 668-5663
www.dellarte.com

Suddenly I Actually Saw It

This week the D'AI Blog is taken from an email that was sent to Associate School Director Stephanie Thomspon by Zoe Teets, a Professional Training Program alumni who graduated in June 2008. Like many Dell'Arte alumni Zoe finds she sees the world differently than almost everyone else around her...

Hi Stephanie and all the Dell'Arte faculty,

I've been thinking of Dell'Arte a lot and wanted to give you an update about what I've been up to and how I am.

I applied to a University in my hometown of Cincinnati, OH in late June and got accepted, which means that I get to live at home and save tons of money. Things weren't going well at all until I auditioned for a play. When the director saw Dell'Arte on my resume, she told me she trained with Carlo! I was so shocked and pleased to have a Dell'Artian at school!

One of the audition requirements for her was a movement piece. I planned a very short piece with my clown pretending to ice skate on the wooden stage. The director smiled through all of it, but the other students looked at me like I was insane. Everyone else did a "movement piece" with mime and a place and event...like burying their pet or getting pulled over by a Policeman. I think my clown playing loud music and excitedly using the entire stage and her whole body not only shocked them but also disrupted their quiet, quaint stories.

During the second part of the audition the director told me that she knew how I felt. I thought to myself "I doubt it," and then she said, "I know your head exploded in Blue Lake. I know you see everything in a different way now, and you're walking around here and can't understand why other people don't see things the same way you do. You have a different sense of humor, you're a different person, and you don't fit in here, I know." Then she offered to be my mentor and help me retain the things I learned at Dell'Arte, while trying to remember how to be around people who haven't had the same experience. I was amazed. I felt so overwhelmed because I do see everything in a different way now.


The other day in History class, we were discussing briefly the arts in Greece and a picture of the Discus Thrower on the board. I have seen that sculpture a thousand times before, but suddenly I actually saw it. I saw how beautiful the spiral of his body was; I suddenly saw how his arms are like wings, and his feet bizarrely at ease.

I remember a time when I was training at Dell'Arte that it got so difficult that I thought, "I never want to do this again." I wanted to give up theatre, never touch it again and have horrible posture that no one ever corrects. Once I left Blue Lake and got a real break, I felt extremely desperate for theatre! Now I'm addicted. I've had nearly nonstop rehearsal since September in three overlapping shows and I am already signed up to assistant stage-manage the next one. Four plays in a row for a freshman is unheard of. Not only have I found a group of people I can play with, but I also got nominated for the Irene Ryan scholarship and get to go to the American College Theater Festival in January to compete for it. (Wish me luck!)

My resiliency has really grown. I'm trying to listen to my instincts and act on them more to help figure out who I am. Things are going really well, but of course, I'm homesick for little ol' Blue Lake. I hope everything is going splendidly there!! All my best. All my love.

Zoe Teets
Professional Training Program, Class of 2008

Copyright Dell'Arte International 2008
PO Box 816, Blue Lake CA 95525
(707) 668-5663

www.dellarte.com

Welcome to DAInternational Blog

Welcome to the DAI blog… where the faculty and artists of Dell’Arte can share their personal perspectives on the work, as well as reflections on our 35 year history. Articles, letters, class notes, and writings-in-progress will be excerpted for this blog, as well as brief postings. We will include links to our website where you can find the full text of excerpts of longer pieces, so that you can investigate further the ideas that interest you. As we approach our 35th anniversary, we are increasingly engaged in the work of transmission. We will be adding new posts weekly, and happy to have your comments.

Joan Schirle, Founding Artistic Director/School Director

“We pursue the ensemble not as strategy for presentation but as the force of a theatrical community … for giving access to greater insight, and force, for inspiration and exaltation.”

-- Ronlin Foreman

In our first blog post, Ronlin Foreman offers a perspective on collaborative creation, or ensemble devising. It seems fitting to start this blog with thoughts about how ensembles create. Our organization has ensemble governance, and for years the Company developed plays collaboratively, In Year Two and Three of our MFA program students devise full one-act plays; Year One MFA and PTP one year training require students to collaborate on thematic assignments weekly, in groups. Heated discussions arise, questions as well as requests for more ‘how to’s’ on collaborating. While we offer guidelines and ground rules for this ensemble work, we do not include specific classes in ‘how to collaborate’. Here’s why:

Training …the way of Dell’Arte
At this point in time (at the beginning at the 21st century, in America) we are taught that the only way to learn is by way of encouragement and compliment, with the least confrontation possible. In many of our fundamental assertions DAI is counterculture; it is also this way when it comes to our educational perspectives – we believe in the efficacy of provocative leading (offering direction with critique that is not a prescriptive solution –from the Latin, pro voce, for the voice). And, we believe in the positive aspects of via negativa, fostering personal responsibility for “physical self-discovery” (subjective knowledge) and “the self-discovered point” – the point at which curiosity, research and discipline convene, creating a source of “primary” knowledge (objective knowledge).

With regard to ensemble devising…
it is true and difficult that here at DAI we err on the side of less formal involvement in the process of ensemble devising. Taking our cue from the Lecoq model, which was implemented as a result of the students’ demand that they have an explorative stake in their own education, this “laboratory work”-- while furnishing a progression of themes-- was to be explored on their own. We offer a few models and encouragements with regard to “agreements,” preferring that the ensembles learn from actually engaging each other. If the group knows that we will intervene if difficulties arise, then there is little incentive to endure / persevere and require / teach oneself to learn from-- to learn in-- adversity. (We willingly assist in last rites, the burying of the dead, and believe in prayers for the resurrection...)

We continue to evaluate our level of involvement in group mediation and techniques for ensemble process. In the end, our love is “the work” done well, not logistics or manifestos or paradigms articulated. DAI is not simply a unique and interesting school for “being taught” ensemble practices and physical theatre techniques. Nor is it a prescriptive training the Actor/Creator. It is a Realm of exploration and investigation … of submission to the road. For some entering, it is an uncharted region that seeks recognition from the student, requiring the person to define/see themselves in reference to “the work” and “the group” over and against what had been/what was then -- because “the work” takes place in the present.

My philosophy with regard to ensemble cohesion and power is: the force of the objective -- the investment of all members toward the goal, i.e. on a soccer field, on a basketball court, in an operation room, in a court room, in a sick room, on the field of battle, in a prayer meeting, in the wilderness…. Cohesion and focus “happen” where self is sublimated in deference to “the other.” Where the risks are high and community necessary-- winning the game, saving the patient, supplanting the enemy, petitioning God-- it is easier to invest personal desire in a common goal. Generally speaking, the “stakes” in creating a piece of theatre in a school environment are lower even than in the society at large because “here” The Work is not about the struggle of the Poet to survive, but my rights and desires for the product versus yours. Except in cultures where Artistry and the Metaphysical are deemed necessary and real by the community, “agreements” and “contracts” are necessary in order to allow for community and the establishment of objectives. As opposed to “skill” or “calling,” the personal agenda--spoken or unspoken-- will fracture the ensemble and undermine community.

This is human nature. To program against it we would have to devote the training to interpersonal relations and group dynamics. We are not a Performance Studies school. Our training deals with the practical application of physical dynamics and alchemical proposals. We are a school of Theatre dedicated to the development of the Actor (animator) as Poet (author) creating not from a literary perspective but from the body in time and space -- characters in situations and circumstances. We pursue the ensemble not as strategy for presentation but as the force of a theatrical community … for giving access to greater insight, and force, for inspiration and exaltation. We study how / why playmaking is important in our world.

--Ronlin Foreman

 Copyright DAI 2008
Dell'Arte International www.dellarte.com
PO Box 816, Blue Lake CA 95525
(707) 668-5663