Experiment initiated by Goossun Art-illery as part of the developing of the performance project HamletZar. 

Set-up

Goossun Art-illery’s project HamletZar, developed through a series of workshops and residencies – the production method in itself an experiment. Meeting Laboratoriet’s series of experiments: Rehearsal¤Reversal, investigating modern, vibrant methods of rehearsal that correspond to modern, vibrant theatre and performing arts forms. The focus of the experiment entitled Structured Spontaneity is contextualisation: how meaning is created in the interplay between physical movement, text and the director’s structuring of the material.

Participants

Director and leader of the experiment: Vahid. Producer: Lene Bang. Facilitator: Barbara Simonsen. Performers: Dafne Louzioti, Julia Giertz, Steven Loader. Writers: Debbie Kent, Sue Balint. Guest director: Soheil Parsa. Video and photo: Stifani Brothers. Production manager: Maya Foa.

The experiment

The theme of the 7 day investigation is contextualisation, and the primary, practical question is put like this: “How can context be created for sequences of physical movements that have been created without any kind of plot, story or character as their basis?”

Before the start of the experiment, the performers have created each two sequences of movements (or physical “scores”) in collaboration with the director. During the first two days the scores are presented to two writers who then produce text. The writers are free to produce any kind of text inspired by the scores.

During the following three days a guest director develops the work of the performers and the writers into scenes or a montage of the material, creating or extracting his own context and meaning from it. The guest director is also free to add props, music etc. to the material.

In the final two days, the first director works again with the performers, now using “tools” for creating context that he has observed from the work of the guest director. He also develops the sequences and text material into scenes or a montage.

At different times during the process, the team discusses the various discoveries about how context and meaning is created, and tries to define tools and methods from the practical work of the directors and the writers.