When Shahab
told me that an assistant is needed for a workshop and a joint cooperation
between "Paradata" and "Freaks und Fremde" groups, I was
almost sure that tasks like coordination and follow up bureaucratic activities
are to be expected from the assistant. But no longer than the first session of
rehearsal my pre assumption proved to be wrong.
The rehearsal saloon was one for gatherings of Armenians living in Iran in one
of the central parts of Tehran. A nearly large stone-covered saloon, with a
number chairs, two ping pong tables and some fluorescent lights on the ceiling.
On the first day everybody was present in the saloon at 10:30 and started to change dress and warm up in their own way, except Max and I.
Next, they formed a circle and got ready for the rehearsal. Harry gave us a sign to join the group and we did so. We started a theatrical game and this continued every day in the first half of the rehearsal.
I was pretty well acquainted with the games because I already included them in my previous works. We know them as the training methods of Augusto Boal which are played for coordination, confidence, communication and mutual understanding among group members.
After a few sessions, I found out a big difference between what was being done here and what I had done. A difference not in form but in the way they were performed.
In directing courses there are always discussions on the time that has to be devoted to performing an act and that how changes in time can change the act. The difference was exactly here: the time devoted to playing the games.
In the workshop the games were patiently played and a kind of life was formed within the games.
They went beyond game-like forms so that one could imagine each of the games was a scene of a play.
The workshop could be divided into two sections: first playing the games that I talked about and second was the theatrical pieces with pre-determined subject. Each one of the participants had to work on a group ritual from his or her country that he liked it, disliked it or he somehow related to it as a ritual that the mass of people in the country follow it.
Shahab performed one of the mourning ceremonies that is done by a lot of people on the martyrdom of a holy religious character. Reza performed a traditional marriage ceremony, Heiki selected his military service and I chose the Zar …
Getting involved in this type of rituals, I came to recognize a new kind of understanding that was quite different from the one that I felt when I took part in or looked at them since my childhood. It looked that a kind of alienation had occurred. I seemed to encounter them as a new phenomenon that made me think about them anew. I felt I had come from a different country, like Heiki and Sabine, and had to see the ritual as if it were the first time I came to know them, regardless of the previous memories.
On the first day everybody was present in the saloon at 10:30 and started to change dress and warm up in their own way, except Max and I.
Next, they formed a circle and got ready for the rehearsal. Harry gave us a sign to join the group and we did so. We started a theatrical game and this continued every day in the first half of the rehearsal.
I was pretty well acquainted with the games because I already included them in my previous works. We know them as the training methods of Augusto Boal which are played for coordination, confidence, communication and mutual understanding among group members.
After a few sessions, I found out a big difference between what was being done here and what I had done. A difference not in form but in the way they were performed.
In directing courses there are always discussions on the time that has to be devoted to performing an act and that how changes in time can change the act. The difference was exactly here: the time devoted to playing the games.
In the workshop the games were patiently played and a kind of life was formed within the games.
They went beyond game-like forms so that one could imagine each of the games was a scene of a play.
The workshop could be divided into two sections: first playing the games that I talked about and second was the theatrical pieces with pre-determined subject. Each one of the participants had to work on a group ritual from his or her country that he liked it, disliked it or he somehow related to it as a ritual that the mass of people in the country follow it.
Shahab performed one of the mourning ceremonies that is done by a lot of people on the martyrdom of a holy religious character. Reza performed a traditional marriage ceremony, Heiki selected his military service and I chose the Zar …
Getting involved in this type of rituals, I came to recognize a new kind of understanding that was quite different from the one that I felt when I took part in or looked at them since my childhood. It looked that a kind of alienation had occurred. I seemed to encounter them as a new phenomenon that made me think about them anew. I felt I had come from a different country, like Heiki and Sabine, and had to see the ritual as if it were the first time I came to know them, regardless of the previous memories.
One more important point that was interesting for me as a graduate of theater
directing was the way a director can put the actors in situations that they act
innovatively and how they may be led to a direction on which they come up with
coherence without interfering their personal freedom and styles.
And the last but not the least is how one can communicate, live with and begin to create something with people regardless of the differences in languages and cultures. I owe this lesson to each and every one of the group members: Reza, Heiki, Shahab, Elham, Sabine, Sulmaz, Masoumeh, Harry, Max, Davood and Hessam.
And the last but not the least is how one can communicate, live with and begin to create something with people regardless of the differences in languages and cultures. I owe this lesson to each and every one of the group members: Reza, Heiki, Shahab, Elham, Sabine, Sulmaz, Masoumeh, Harry, Max, Davood and Hessam.
