Director Director Director

ROSS MANSON: I can't remember exactly when I met Jennifer Tarver, but it was a loooong time ago now. We were both becoming directors on the experimental fringes of Toronto at around the same time (early 90s). I have always been a fan of her mind, and her energy. Her work has spoken for itself, and has taken her from small rooms at the Music Gallery and the Theatre Centre to Stratford and New York.

Ross Manson: actor
Photo by Nir Baraket

Recently, I had the pleasure of auditioning for her. I haven't acted in Toronto for probably a decade, and Jennifer is one of the few who actually remembers that I WAS an actor (my acting work actually subsidized Volcano for the first decade or so of the company). She brought me in for the role of a director in a show she is directing this coming fall in Toronto. So there were three directors in the room: her, me, and the character, with the first two trying to understand the third.

Jennifer Tarver
Photo: Liz Lauren

We had two sessions together, and it was a pleasure. She is honest and brilliant, and focused on bringing the work to the stage in as deep and affecting a way as possible. I didn't get the part (a bit of a relief — I'm too busy!), but the audition experiences were themselves fun, fulfilling, and more like a real exploration than an audition — to her credit. I imagine her class will be similarly engaging. We're lucky to have her.

Visit volcano.ca to learn more about Jennifer's course, The Physically Active Monologue, and other classes at the Volcano Conservatory. To register, email meaghan@volcano.ca.

A Remarkable Trip

Robert Wilson's The Black Rider
Photo by NYNYNY on Flickr

ROSS MANSON: Sigrid Herzog directed me in a show in Toronto in 1989 (Big and Little, by Botho Strauss). Her approach — and that of the German team surrounding her — opened a window for me on a whole new way to make theatre. I visited her in Munich the next summer, and she was kind enough to set up theatre tickets for me to see the best work on at the time. I saw Robert Wilson's work in Hamburg (The Black Rider: amazing), and Berlin (Orlando: dreamlike), Peter Stein's work in Berlin (Roberto Zucco: astonishing), Tankred Dorst's work in Munich (Kaspar: the audience booed the director, deservedly so), and Klaus Maria Brandaeur on stage in Vienna (Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf: utterly bizarre). We also took a drive to her famous brother's house in the Austrian Alps, and spent the night. I got to hang out with her and Werner (who asked me my opinion of Donald Sutherland, and fed me an Austrian farmer snack of onion leaves, black bread and dark wheat beer — delicious).

I was a 20-something Canadian actor dropped into an elite of theatre and film in Europe. The trip blew my mind open, and set me on a course that I am still on today. It showed me that one never knows where things might lead.

Sigrid is worth meeting, and worth learning from. She is now one of the leading educators in the german theatre system. There are a few spots left in her class (but only a few). This opportunity will likely not come again.

Visit volcano.ca for more details on Sigrid's course, Body & Imagination, and other classes at the Volcano Conservatory. To register, email meaghan@volcano.ca.

On Action Theatre: "For me, it is all one: the human body as a form of expression."

There aren't many licensed Action Theatre instructors in Canada, which is why we're excited to bring one - the exceptional Sarah Bild - to our summer Conservatory. We've asked her a few questions about this unique improvisational method:

You're one of the first licensed Action Theatre instructors in Canada. What drew you to this style of training? What do you think makes Action Theatre valuable for contemporary Canadian theatre?

SB: I met Ruth Zaporah and this practice at a real turning point in my career. I'd been slowing down my dancing and creating in order to make room in my life for motherhood, and as a result, had started to feel quite disconnected from the dance form, both on a physical and aesthetic level. Ruth's first workshop in Montreal in 2003 awakened me in many ways. It addressed many of the questions that had been eating at me: questions about live performance, what it means to be a dancer, a performer, and an artist on stage. It allowed me to extend my range as a dancer and choreographer by opening up the possibilities of voice and language, especially by rooting these in the body. It also renewed my firm belief that dancers could be "whole" artists, and not just makers of beautiful lines and shapes on stage.

Sarah Bild in action
photographer: Frédérique Ménard-Aubin

Outside of Action Theatre, you're also a dance artist and choreographer. What's the link between dance and Action Theatre / physical improv? How do these disciplines compliment and inform one another, particularly in what you create?

SB: This practice of improvisation calls upon your creativity and imagination at every moment. Ideally, even when you're performing set movement or text, you should be discovering and inventing and composing with your body and presence on stage. Action Theatre gives you the tools to do that. It hones your listening skills, your compositional skills, your sense of timing, presence and projection. The exercises are carefully designed to isolate these skills to work them in a very rarified and sometimes, extreme way. And then, with practice, this accumulated physical experience informs all your performance choices. As far as my creation is concerned, I now no longer distinguish what is theatre and dance, text, voice, movement. For me, it is all one: the human body as a form of expression. I now choose to work with dancers that have these skills and can move freely between them. They are not mere technicians or beautiful executors of the work, they are artistic collaborators who are making decisions that feed the work at every stage of development: in creation, rehearsal and on stage.

It can feel like a huge risk to lay yourself bare onstage, particularly in an improvisational context. What do you consider the personal risks of improvisation for a performer, and how can Action Theatre help overcome those challenges?

SB: There are risks for any performer, when she (he) knows her lines or moves, or not. She is exposing herself, expressing something of herself, and hopefully, in sharing herself meaningfully, being quite vulnerable on stage. Action Theatre can help one face these feelings and work with them, coming up against them through playful and rigorous practice. There is an understanding and a respect among improvisers, that we've all "been there," been horrified at what comes out, or worse, doesn't, when we draw a complete blank and have nothing to say. We also get frustrated with well-worn patterns of speech or movement: our habits. Again, by stretching our range and working with specificity of image and physicality, we move beyond our patterns and into the unknown. Diving into the unknown, accepting it, relishing the discovery of it is a strengthening and humbling practice.

What is the value of Action Theatre training / physical improv to artists who work predominantly in script-based theatre?

SB: As performers, we mostly feel a safety in knowing what words to speak and what steps to take. And great performers will make those words and steps look like they are new to them at every instant. This is achieved when we can tape into our imagination and creative spirit while performing, and the best way to practice this access to our creativity is to improvise. In Action Theatre practice, we explore the speaking voice as a physical action, not a mental, logical, or intellectual one. Words exist on the same plane as images, sensations, climates, and textures. We approach them as sounds, feelings, and landscapes. Words are not an end in themselves: they are part of a much greater expression. We explore the details of speech, where it sits in the body, what gestures accompany our words to support them or offset them. This demanding work of analyzing while doing, observing while creating, is at the heart of Action Theatre and can only enrich an actor's relationship with the words she uses. To embody the words in the voice as a physical action brings colour and range to her expression.

photographer: Frédérique Ménard-Aubin

It's been said that Action Theatre allows performers to become creators. What do you want students to take away from your course?

SB: Ideally, every participant will have the experience of discovering a wealth of images and ideas and sensations to draw from in their own work. They will have begun to identify some of the skills they need to work on and how to stretch those they already master. They will have felt the absolute wonder of being entirely present in the moment: that wonderful state of not knowing but being completely open to any new impulse that presents itself, the feeling of being truly alive.

Tell us about what you're currently working on! What projects excite you right now?

SB: I am creating the new trio, Plus Vrai, for three Montreal dancers: Sara Hanley, Alexandre Parenteau, and Isabelle Poirier. It will be presented by Dance-Cité in November. I have recently opened the studio space, La Poêle, with a friend and collaborator, Susanna Hood. We have many exciting plans that include presenting work-in-progress and improvisations, holding workshops and creative mentorship programs. I myself am in a phase of rediscovering how I work and how I want to work. What interests me? What holds my attention in space, both as a creator and as a spectator? How can I move freely between formal and theatrical vocabulary on stage? What kind of expression do I expect from a moving body? I am also very excited to be teaching at the Volcano Conservatory again this summer. I can't wait to continue sharing this practice that I am so passionate about.

Action Theatre runs July 22-26 at the Volcano Conservatory. Visit our website for details, and email ginger@volcano.ca to register!

Mask Theatre: "Unflinchingly human"

We've asked Volcano Conservatory instructor Sonia Norris some questions in the lead-up to her class, 

Le Jeu & European Mask Theatre. Here's the first in a series of insights she's shared with us on the genre, and its value to theatre artists here in Toronto:

Off the top of my head, I can only think of one show I've seen in Toronto in the past year that used literal masks. Is mask used more frequently elsewhere? Or does common use of mask / mask training lie in production development, rather than the staged product? 

SN: In my experience, within Canada mask theatre is more present in the Vancouver theatre community than the Toronto community. This is largely due to Axis Theatre promoting the development of several mask shows over the years, which were possible because of the excellence of character masks created by Vancouver mask designer Melody Anderson. Without an incredibly talented mask designer, you cannot have good masks, and without good masks, you cannot create working characters, regardless of the talent of the performer. Melody Anderson has an exceptional talent for creating masks with great sensitivity and humour. Her characters have strong personalities, which offer actors a wealth of information to play with in their physical, psychological, emotional and intellectual development of character.

Sonia Norris leads a mask workshop in Zimbabwe.
Masks by Melody Anderson.

When I was studying at Ecole Lecoq, we all had to make masks without any instruction and bring them in for Lecoq to evaluate. All 30 masks were lined up on the floor at the back of the room and, one by one, each student would choose someone else’s mask and present it for Lecoq to see if it ‘worked’. As a mask was presented, Lecoq would give instructions for actions the actor should play with the mask on, to see if it lived. He would observe it in action for a few moments and then pronounce his verdict, which was simply either “Ca marche” or “Ca marche pas.” It either worked or it didn’t work. It either lived or it didn’t live, based on the skill of the mask maker. Disappointingly, I am not a good mask maker, therefore I commission my masks from Melody Anderson. Lecoq told me my mask was like a piece of Picasso artwork and should be hung on the wall, not played upon the stage. Being compared to one of the greatest masters in the art world was not meant as a compliment - my mask was a definitive “ca marche pas!” But it was this experience that started me on my own investigation into how to bring masks alive and how to teach actors the skills of finding the life force in a mask and translating this into their embodiment of character.

A Sonia Norris mask workshop.
Masks by Melody Anderson.

I do not teach mask because actors will have a plethora of opportunities to work in mask theatre – unfortunately this is not the case here in Toronto. (though by training actors in mask I would like to change this, and I hope to start work on a mask show in the coming year.) I teach mask because the skills gained in mask work will profoundly impact the work of the actor when not masked. When an actor is masked, every physical choice they make in response to their internal and external stimulus is suddenly, blatantly apparent to us in the audience. We see with absolute clarity the human truth of both the performer and the character before us. Ironically, it is extremely revealing to be hidden behind a mask. This allows actors to observe when another performer’s work is clouded by unspecific or timid choices, which then cannot be understood by an audience, leaving them confused by the information they are given and the story that is being told.

We rely too heavily on our intellects and our verbal communication, when it has been proven we absorb the majority of our information from the subtle physical responses of other people, not from their words. We are masters of this in life but it is done unconsciously, so actors often don’t bring these highly sensitized skills to their very conscious work on stage.

Mask training provides an opportunity to slow down time so that we can get inside each individual moment, each individual choice, and make conscious what we normally do unconsciously in our assessment of physical information in everyday life. This is essential for actors to understand and utilize in their work with character development and action on stage. It allows them to ensure the information they are offering the audience is accurate, and compels the audience to follow their character’s journey, just as they unconsciously follow every eye movement, heart beat and breath. The smallest movement of a single finger can tell a huge story if it is done with clear point of focus and isolation so that it is visible. 

Larval masks at a Sonia Norris workshop.
Masks by Melody Anderson.

We all inhabit the same physical vehicle, regardless of what differences there are in its shape. Therefore the experience of watching another human being is an incredibly visceral one. Actors can, and should, maximize on this unconscious connection with an audience to hook them through their physical response system so that they follow a character like it is themselves – because it is their own body through which they feel everything they are observing on stage.

I love masks because they are so unflinchingly human – we see their foibles, their truth, their stupidity, their ridiculousness, their brilliance. We see the strength of the human heart and its indomitable desire for life. But it is strength and sensitivity of technique in the actor that make this possible.

Specificity of thought and action, clarity of communication, physical awareness, strength of choices, physical and mental precision, movement isolation, embodiment of character, depth of understanding of the human response system, courage to take action on impulses, willingness to play on stage, expansion of imagination, pleasure to engage, sharing of spirit, and the development of a powerful and compelling physical presence. These are some of the elements addressed through mask training, which greatly strengthen the work of actors.

Mask is an essential part of actor-training in most countries, but not in North America. I have trained extensively in Europe and benefited from this physical approach to actor-training, which has inspired me to focus on bringing this work to Canada. I believe it creates extraordinarily engaged performers and therefore exciting, alive, provocative theatre.

For more information on Sonia's class at the Volcano Conservatory, or to register, click here and visit volcano.ca. Sonia teaches with us July 21-24.

"The artist, naturally, is expert at synesthesia."

Ideas from Conservatory instructor Quinn Bauriedel in the lead-up to his class with Volcano, New Directions in Music Theatre Fusion: 

A good friend and composer, Troy Herion, when speaking at the Pig Iron School, talked about a moment in his artistic life when he had immersed himself so fully in music that it was no longer distinct from the rest of his life. He didn't have to put on a music hat once he got to his desk. Music was the lens through which he saw the world. Birds sitting on a wire had a rhythm in the distance from one bird to another. He could hear the rustling of the leaves as a musical composition, as though the wind played an enormous harp. Everything - from autos careening down the highway to a ball rolling across a field to the slow movement of the moon in the sky - Troy couldn't help but notice, had musical qualities.

Photo: L. Todd Spencer

My lens is a theatrical one. I see individuals in the park and can't help imagine their stories. I watch someone walk down the street and intuit things about them from their gait, their gaze, to what degree they are falling into the earth or rising off of it. A ride on a subway is like watching a tremendous play with entrances and exits, chance encounters, relationships teetering on the brink, all range of human behaviour and interactions. But my theatrical lens, I must admit, moves far beyond people toward the more musical building blocks of live performance. Like Troy, there is a natural drama - and dare I say music - in a grove of trees planted too close to one another, each vying for sunlight, water, and nutrients in the soil. The tree that has been hit by lightening has endured tragedy, can't undo this scar, but continues to attempt to survive nonetheless. There is a song in these trees and a sound that comes from them. The artist, naturally, is expert at synesthesia.

Photo: Warisan Indonesia / Hardy Mendrofa

I lived in Bali, Indonesia for a year, soaking in the rich theatrical traditions there. There is no word for actor in Balinese, only a word for dancer. Actors are dancers and every performance is underscored with music. The music provides the motor for every piece from the tragedies to the comedies. In the Balinese shadow puppet plays, the dalang (puppeteer) is simultaneously puppeting up to 25 puppets and giving each of them different voices (speaking up to 5 different languages) while also playing drums with his feet and conducting the orchestra that accompanies the play. The dalang is responsible for the piece and understands how to control the tempo. The battle scenes need a driving tempo. The love scenes need something, perhaps softer. When the clown characters are caught with their pants down the music must resemble something closer to slapstick. Their master artist makes no distinction between music and drama - both are essential components of live performance and both are required to engage and awaken an audience. 

Cab Legs. Photo: Clemens Scharre

For me, the lines between theatre, dance and music are fairly thin, if they exist at all. A few years ago I saw a Christoph Marthaler piece in Avignon and the play was a mix of silences, choral singing, talking, dancing and stillness. I couldn't help think that  Marthaler envisions the stage as a kind of symphony. I remember an early Elevator Repair Service play, Cab Legs, which utilized loads of stage whispers as the main sound design of the piece. Though the PS122 space was 20'x20', they created a space far bigger than that with the playful use of sound. In Pig Iron, we often loop simple musical phrases - feet scuffing on the floor, a tennis ball bouncing - to lay a carpet on the stage of sound and tension. At times you almost don't notice the sound, but it supports the work the characters are doing. It heightens the drama. It draws you in.

Quinn Bauriedel and students. Photo: Andrew Daddio

This summer at Volcano, I am eager to crack open the big question about music and theatre, working toward something that is neither rock concert nor Broadway musical. I am eager to fuse the musical and theatrical lenses into one where music can be considered as the rhythms between bodies in space, and theatricality can be considered as the relationship between a character and the music that supports the stage. My guess is that this will take us toward the use of music in many Theatre de Soleil productions where live music is improvised alongside the actors so that, like Bali, everything is underscored onstage. Perhaps this has its roots in the early films that were live scored. Film directors, of course, know that without sound and music, ordinary actions and relationships remain ordinary, but with sound and music they become epic and extraordinary. We will also look at sound design to break the convention that sound design exists to cover scene changes, in order to discover ways that simple sound design choices can focus the action onstage and can contribute as a vital language of performance.

Lastly, we will examine songs and melodies, bands, and choirs onstage to understand the theatrical potency of live music, played and sung. Like in Emir Kusturica films, can we create a new convention in which characters are supported by bands who play the music that shares how they feel, as though in life you wander around with your own soundtrack? Mine goes something like this:

Tak tak dee doom ba dum dum dee dum...whack!

New Directions in Music-Theatre Fusion runs July 19-21 at the Volcano Conservatory. Click here to register!

"Mischievous and Compelling" Sigrid Herzog: back in Toronto for the first time in 20 years

One of the things we pride ourselves on, here at Volcano, is connecting local artists with the latest in  international trends. It's one of Ross' key considerations when curating the Volcano Conservatory, and for the first time ever we're bringing the cutting-edge ideas and styles of contemporary German theatre to Toronto.

Sigrid Herzog
Body & Imagination: Contemporary Training from Germany

We're honoured to have Sigrid Herzog join us in July for the Conservatory. Sigrid is the assistant director of the Otto Falckenberg School for the Performing Arts - part of Munich's Kammerspiele, and one of the leading training institutions for German-language artists. Sigrid has directed at renowned theatres across the world, including our own Harbourfront Centre. This summer, she's in Toronto exploring a pedagogy designed to make acting more physical and uncensored. If the body is the actor's instrument, why do we let our heads get in the way? This is the question Sigrid will unpack with Conservatory participants.

Ross on Sigrid: 
"an approach to theatre that would literally change my life"

Ross: before Volcano
superstardom

I first met Sigrid when she cast me in a show that was part of a Focus on German Art festival at Harbourfront, back in the late 80s. It was my introduction to an approach to theatre that would literally change my life.

We clicked. I was baffled by the play, and the whole non-naturalistic, inspiration-laden approach the Germans had to the stage. It was utterly unlike anything that I was acting in (or seeing) in Canada at the time. I wanted to learn more.

We became friends. I travelled to Munich a year or so later to work on a project with her. While there, I also worked with her assistant director - a young guy named Roland Schimmelpfennig. Roland is now the most produced living German playwright in the world. Back then, he was a drinking buddy, and hadn't written a word. Nor had I directed anything. Nor had Sigrid taken over the acting program at one of the top schools in Germany, for that matter.

But for both Roland and I, Sigrid was a mentor. She was (and still is) an imp. A brilliant, provocative, caring director / teacher with very high standards, and tremendous vision. She is mischievous and compelling. She has now trained a whole generation of German actors, and is doing the same for young singers at the Bavarian State Opera (one of the great companies in the world). She is having an true effect on performance in our era. And - on this side of the pond - my meeting Sigrid ended up in my pursuing further training in Germany, and the resultant founding of Volcano. 

Sigrid hasn't been back to Canada since we met over 20 years ago. This is an opportunity to study with someone truly brilliant. I cannot recommend her highly enough.

A little bit more on German theatre: 

German theatre-makers - particularly the country's contemporary indie artists - are widely recognized for shaking the foundations of the performing arts. The Goethe Institut has written extensively about Germany's indie scene, differing from the publicly owned state and municipal theatres operating in even the smallest towns across the country. In recent years, cost pressures have begun to dissolve the duality between indie and public systems, resulting in a variety of mixed organization / funding forms. You can read more about it here.

Rimini Protokoll's Best / Before

German cultural exports have made headlines in Toronto: She She Pop's Testament at World Stage (2012) and Rimini Protokoll's Best / Before at Luminato (2010) both spring to mind.



"When you see real people onstage there's a real vulnerability and accessibility," says World Stage Artistic Director Tina Rasmussen in the video above.

Real being the operative word: both Testament and She She Pop bring non-professional artists onstage to tell their stories, one of the major aesthetics that the Goethe Institut identifies in German indie theatre:

• participation: casting non-professional performers in the production
• inclusion: involving differently-abled performers (Theater RambaZamba)
• interculturality: asking questions about migration (Ballhaus Naunynstraße) 
• interactivity: breaking the barrier between performer and audience. Gob Squad, a German/British performance collective, will be engaging with audiences at Luminato in June, if you'd like a taste of that style.

Artists who'd like to experience the German method first-hand with Sigrid should visit volcano.ca and register now - Body & Imagination is already 50% full! Register here.

Music & Theatre: Bedfellows at Last

Pig Iron's Quinn Bauriedel is making his way up from Philadelphia for the Conservatory this summer. Quinn was with us in 2011 to offer a wildly popular workshop on devised theatre:

Quinn with Volcano Conservatory
participants (July 2011)

"The theatre I enjoy doesn't show me back a one-for-one copy of life; it understands that what theatre can do best - better than movies, better than TV - is to play with life, to fantasize with it, to treat life poetically. Yet most training only asks us to take one approach to the stage. At this moment, I am interested in pushing theatre to its extremes, shaking up the conventions that bore us or that only serve to stimulate our sense of sentimentality and nostalgia." 

(read Quinn's full thoughts on that summer here)

Quinn's musings:

Music and theatre are bedfellows: both require expertise in dealing with rhythms, tempos, and duration for an audience and both are built upon tensions, relationships, crescendoes and decrescendos  cacophonies and silences. Yet, so often, music is brought into theatre only during blackouts to cover scene changes or is relegated to the pit so as not to distract from the action onstage. And in many concerts - rock or classical - images are crudely brought forth to amplify what the music is already saying.

How can music and theatre co-exist without becoming opera or Broadway? In Bali, there is no performance without a gamelan orchestra. In Japanese Noh Drama, the stage is literally a drum so each step an actor makes has musical implications. In Pig Iron's work, sound, music, silence, song, and soundscapes are nearly always a part of how we make theatre and are a primary element from start to finish.

What if characters entered the stage supported by a trio of musicians, as in Emir Kusturica's films? What if every "ordinary" moment onstage was accompanied by a choir, turning the ordinary into the extraordinary as in Christoph Marthaler's world-class spectacles. What if sound design ran underneath scenes from start to finish, laying an emotional carpet to heighten the tension onstage?

This workshop aims to bring these two forms into the same sphere and to propose a neo-music/theatre form in which every stillness is supported by a body as well as by sound, and in which both languages of live performance are in complicity with one another. We aim to interrogate this relationship, resulting in things as wide ranging as musical numbers, soundscapes, spectacles, moving dramas supported by choral music, and clown numbers with a clown band.

The workshop is intended for actors who can make a little music (with their voice, a piano, a drum, a keytar or the spoons...) and musicians / sound designers who are okay taking a few steps onto the stage as performers (whether playing music or working with music as a partner).


We'll have more from Quinn soon! In the meantime, visit volcano.ca for registration details for this course and the rest of our Conservatory.