This episode has taken me back to my theatrical roots, to Bilbao (Basque Country -Spain-) and in specific to my old drama school the BAI and my old collaborators and their company LaRessistens.
The process was intense, we only had less than two weeks to create a performance from scratch. We had talked and established before my arrival some ideas and concepts, but the main creative work was going to happen during this short period of time.
First day we look at the spaces available and decided which space to use and the setting for the show, once these decisions were taken, we started to built up the screen and rig the lights for the creative process to start.
For this performance I was equipped with a back projection screen of 4 meters by 2 meters. I just had to create the structure to rig the screen.
I decided to used stretchers. After positioning the top three stretchers I realised that it wouldn't be necessary to use any more.
The lighting system from that venue was limited to 12 channels, and there was an acute shortage of lamps and cable, so I had to reduce the lighting concept to a minimum, just to support the acting and the projection.
By the early evening of the second day, the screen was ready and we had a minimum of lighting that allowed us to start working.
We sat down and had a look to the videos I had in my video bank and selected the ones that we thought could give us possibilities to play with during the rehearsals, videos that could create interesting connections and interactions with the performer.
That night we draw the plan of action for the next few days and established a calendar until the day of the performance, thinking of it more like a guide but also as a path to follow and never to lose in order to complete the mission. We understood the limitations of time, and by following that calendar we knew that it would indicate when we were running out of time and when it was time to start simplifying.
From the next day we started to work on interactions and reactions from the performer with the videos, then creating scenes, then links and transitions between scenes and after we start to think on the structure of the piece. The idea behind this process, was to follow a logic path on creating from the smallest of the elements and then starting to combine them, to finish with the structure as the final element to create.
Along the creative process we realise the differences between parts and scenes, differences in atmosphere, intention and energy, we decide not to force the process by choosing a theme or structure on an early state, to leave it until when we could see that the parts were more concrete and consolidated by themselves, and then we could try to find a thematic or storyline. By doing this, we avoid to force the intentions and concepts of the individual piece towards an specific theme or idea, and to allow these intentions and concepts to become or to happen freely.
The whole process was very relaxed and felt natural and not forced in any moment. This is due to have a magnificent performer and the connection I had with the co-director due our previous collaborations.
This experience was extremely enriching and had taught me ways of incorporating dramatical elements to my practice. Those dramatic elements had transformed and evolved The Entire City into a new and more complete performance.
