Nik Beeson - Risk and Balance

CREATORS JOURNEYS - CM 2024

Driving themes

• We are never alone and the world is what makes us the human we are

• Power dynamics

• Trauma to addiction to recovery

Goals

• To re-imagine and develop old piece about a person who releases himself from being a puppet to become more human

• To make the puppet human

Beginning with

• A story

• A character in a set

• Big themes

• Curiosity

• A set of scaffolds and harnesses and props

Desires

• To be able to perform the story from beginning to end!

Questions

• Who and what is this puppet?

• What kind of human does the puppet become?

Challenges

• To decide the helpers roles- are they characters, are they “invisible”, merely functional

• Adapting the predetermined action to respond to each audience in the unpredictable environment of street performance

Strategies used at the cm to develop material

• Allow self to be manipulated by the strings and structures of the set

• Allow story to disappear for a moment or more so freedom to discover is possible

• Slow down to work on a single aspect at a time

• Decide what i can work on now, at this moment.

Logistics of the set and set-up

• A treasure chest of technical challenges.

• Big ones: Money; How to make it possible to be suspended in the air while being controlled by an audience; Truck to carry all the gear; Amigos to make it happen; Absolutely ensuring the floor of the studio was safe - we made 8 footings out of styrofoam and plyboard; Arriving at the studio having tested the rig outside, with a new set of (rented) scaffolding, and realising it was way too high so re-engineering the whole rig to fit under the air duct; How to theatrically enable audience to use controllers, and then give up controllers in a specific sequence (didn't work); Strings getting tangled, and tangled and tangled...; Can i actually do this, personally, performatively??!

Discoveries

• How to “feed” the drama

• Need to dive much deeper into the literal bare bones of the role. Physical solutions for “what it is to be a puppet?” What it is to cut free?

• What i do depends on what i can do

Development

• Experimented with use of music – ambient, accompanying action, leading action (lip-syncing)

• Changing work from “making a performance event” to discovering the work from inside

Skill-building

• Practising built stamina

• How to move from joints of body

• How to rise from floor to walking (baby learning to stand and walk)

• Use of momentum to swing in the harness (big black rope)

Self-challenging questions

• Wurf (title) both enters into a deep deep history of conventions regarding marionettes and puppetry, and is also highly unconventional in that it may radically challenge the typical role of puppet and puppeteer, because the puppet is actually a human being, and the puppeteers are the audience.

• Is my story performable?

• Am i actually able to be the performer who does it?

• Is the whole idea (set, story, performance) remotely realizable?

Questions from mentors

• How do you establish limits for yourself as performer , for you and audience, for audience?

Discussion points

• Perceived safety- how to balance drama with the viewers’ concern for your or their safety? (thought of this because of swinging with open scissors)

Duration: several aspects

• A natural duration of action

• A chosen duration – when to cut it off

• An imposed duration – e.g. this story has to be told in 15 minutes

To practice

• How to move in the harness

• Moving “from his bones” and joints for puppet

• Biological mechanics of a human getting off the floor to standing to walking and then being comfortable moving.

• Lip-syncing (if you keep it)

• Different ways of looking at people

• Study or recall some clowning skills

Next goals

• Keep practising specific sections

• Slow way down.Spend a long time getting into the puppet's head/heart/action, letting the drama emerge from that.

What next

• Performing at the European Street Theatre Festival in Prague in 2025 or 2026.

Key words

Curiosity, strength, manipulation, control, power, transformation, safety, interaction, risk, empathy, experimentation, story, myth, suspension, traction, momentum, gravity

Biography

Nik Beeson is a change facilitator/artist deeply interested in curiosity & disruption, addiction & consciousness, and courage & compassion. As a change facilitator nik has delivered numerous workshops, consulted and coached on the themes of meaning, curiosity and disruption. As a musician he has written, produced and performed music in the genres of alt-rock, punk-funk, world music, ambient/electro-acoustic/sound art, contemporary opera, as well as compositions for contemporary dance, and video and sculptural installations.

As a dance/theatre performer nik was trained in martial & contact dance, performed in a wide variety of music, dance and theatre performances, and wrote, produced and performed a series of ‘sonic theatre’ works combining theatre, dance and music.Nik writes essays, prose & poetry on all of the above.Nik studied theology at the university of toronto with a focus on addiction, consciousness and ecology, was a spiritual care/chaplain on the neuro and icu wards at the toronto western hospital, worked in palliative care, was a live-in staff person in homes for the homeless and for people with mental health challenges, and raised two lads while working in digital communications for not-for-profits.