Donald Carr
CREATORS JOURNEYS - CM 2024
Driving themes
Philosophies of light & dark
“winged thought”
Living with cliché as legitimate form of expression
Goals
To bring clarity to his work
To further develop the piece with input from others
Beginning with
Lots of ideas
Playfulness
Humour
Intelligence
Using diverse clichés as useable performance genres
Props > lights, mask, fabric, horns
Text (original by creator)
Text (pre-existing poetry and prose)
Movement > set vocabulary
Desires
To communicate with audience
To celebrate the symphony of life
Questions
What to do with all the material within a performance?
Challenges
How to contain the material
How to detail or extend movement possibilities
Strategies used at the cm to develop material
Text is overwhelming all else. Work only with text to find phrasing, colour, diction that conveys what you want the audience to know.
Pare down what is being said and how to move and dance to clarify intention
Discoveries
The internal meaning of his text
Discovered the value of the inherent pacing/rhythms of the material (movement, text, sound, colour)
Development and skill-building
Text analysis for phrasing + tempo= meaning
Linking text with non-pedestrian movement
Self-challenging
To develop movement beyond pre-imprinted movement reactions
To stick with decisions
Believe that enough is enough
Questions from mentors
What do you want us to know from this performance at this moment?
Discussion points
What are the text links to the performance persona’s inner life (rather than the creator’s inner life)
What creates meaning? E.g. Donald’s work > colour + sound = meaning.
What is and isn’t necessary?
To practice
Remember decisions & form (directorial) so performance can grow rather than be constantly changing
Choose what is necessary at that moment, be specific
Practice sticking to decisions within the free-flow form of the work.
Future plans
Perform the work in summer festivals
Key words
Emotion, philosophy, inner world, journey, clarity, connection, sound, colour, light
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