What was the inspiration behind 300 TAPES?
We met when we were students in Montreal – Bobby at the National Theatre School of Canada in playwriting and Ame at Concordia University in the dance program. We became close friends, but until now, had never worked together. This was not a coincidence. It was due to a disagreement about performance, both in process and product. It was a great source of tension in our relationship so we simply avoided discussing it.
Many years later, having both relocated to Toronto, we decided to make a project together. The spark was an interest in addressing the conflict between us and to explore what that tension could give rise to in a creative process. Throughout the entire process, this playful spirit of risk has inspired the ongoing development of 300 TAPES.
We began the process by talking about our curiosities and how they might overlap. We decided we were interested in how the question of what is true or real, within a theatrical event, can be piqued by both movement and story. Instead of Ame’s choreographic, interests being in conflict with Bobby’s focus on narrative, we began playing with the flux between our points of view. We were both drawn to the play between the highly-constructed and the seemingly authentic. We decided to start with stories, with “real” life. We asked actors to tell personal stories in order to explore both the narrative and the choreographic in storytelling.
300 TAPES was created collaboratively by a group of artists. How important is this collaborative approach to the piece?
Using the structure of Ame’s company Public Recordings and its history of performance creation, we invited a group of collaborators to join us in our investigation and entered the studio. We asked three performers who were fantastic storytellers with strong physicality, as well as a sound artist we were curious about, a designer with whom Ame shared a history of working, and a stage manager we hoped would somehow keep track of it all.
Just as our initial desire was to find the overlaps between our seemingly divergent aesthetics and practices, at its core, this work seeks out the shared language that lies in between (and perhaps in spite of) our more comfortable modes. We have continually bounced off of each other, questioned each other, debated, argued, been rendered speechless and motionless. And, ultimately, we have found a method of working with this material that is unique to this process and that addresses our starting questions in ways that continually challenge our thinking and our art-making.
300 TAPES was created over 2 years as part of The Theatre Centre’s Residency Program. Can you tell us a bit about this development process?
Through several exploratory workshops with the performers, the performance’s structure and content began to arise from an archive of personal stories as told by the performers. With sound artist Anna Friz, we recorded these stories onto tape using microcassette recorders. Each performer now had a personal archive of stories documenting their lives, starting with their first memories and working towards the present. These tapes, in both their content and form, became the material we used to create the performance. As these archives grew, we explored ways to interact and play with this material to engage with the archive.
In performance, the recordings are edited and manipulated as the performers select from the archive and ‘play it back’ using different methods and effects. Similarly, all movement is based on set sequences of pedestrian gesture. On a larger structural level, these actions are recorded, scripted, and re-performed in a series of repetitions. Essentially, the entire space is transformed into a giant conceptual tape recorder in which the audience and performers are immersed. Inside this recorder, 300 TAPES explores the role of the performer as a physical playback vessel, and the interaction with their personal archive as a physical act. These ideas are reflected in every element of the developing production from the design of the space to the treatment of sound, movement, text and light.
During the performance, these recordings become audible to the audience through their live manipulation by Anna Friz, sometimes revealing and sometimes complicating notions of ownership, identity and interpretation.
What can audiences expect from 300 TAPES?
300 TAPES is a visceral theatrical experience that the performers and audience embark on together. The audience is immersed in a heightened sensory environment, watching the relationships between the performers, the material, and each other transform before their eyes and ears. The performers continually select and auto-recite (speaking them aloud as they hear them played on headphones) their stories negotiating with themselves and each other while performing. They select from each others’ archives, presenting the other performers versions of their selves. The audience watches these actions, follows the archives’ content, and witnesses a dynamic current between performer and tape, performer and performer, performer and audience, as all identities shift and change.
Posted: November 8th, 2010 under 300 TAPES, November 2010 Newsletter.
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