Performing Earth - Performing Earth

I note this as ‘ideas for a kind of foreword’, mainly because that’s exactly what it is. To be honest, as dramatically, theatrically, or indeed literally correct as I may attempt to be throughout this documentation, it is in fact a series of truths documented for myself, and those others that may wish to read it. The fact is, I’m not quite sure where to start with all this. I grasp at opportunities to avoid cliché, but find myself lost for expression of words to begin to describe some of the experiences, intended or inadvertent, of the journey of travel and theatre over the past year or two.

Sat, beverage in hand, just outside Seoul in South Korea, it seemed like a good time to write an introduction to ‘the journey’, or more specifically the ‘Performing Earth’ journey. Still unbeknown as to whether this project will ‘succeed’ or ‘fail’, ‘progress’ or…I’m not sure. One thing I am sure of is that it’s my diary and my experience, my development and my gain.

Theatre and performance can be empowering to the point of bulging the impulsive creative veins within us to the brink of explosion, but mix this with an overdose of culture, old and new, and only then do we start to see and experience the true satisfaction in this art of performance.

Some things can be accounted for all-over the world, football the international language, music the international form of listening, maybe performance and art the accounted form of creativity.

I’m very grateful of the performance skills I have been taught both at university and at drama school. At the same time I am also very happy with my own take on natural creativity, together they blend, but I also think seeing the world has opened my mind endlessly. I say this both with regard to ‘general life’ and performance and creativity, as much as an actor as a performer, as much as a traveller as an ordinary bloke. The mixture of creativity, imagination, and performance is a thing that at one time was beyond the academia or learned properties I could profess to have acquired.

I write not knowing if this will be my eventual ‘foreword’ or just a scribble for my self-diary that I may look back on some day. I write telling truths, I write giving an account, I write not knowing where this or these experiences will lead but knowing both travel and performance tied together make for quite an adventure…

I have run workshops all around the world since founding Performing Earth. I’m a trained professional actor, having graduated from Drama Studio London in 2008. The first idea I had was to go to Korea, where I could create a learning experience both for myself, and the students I came into contact with. In passing my knowledge of acting and performance onto others I would be benefitting both the students learning as well as my own skills as an actor/director. With this thought in mind, the ‘Performing Earth’ project was born.

There are certain assets I find that many of the students display that may affect the success of whether they will be a successful performer or not. "I find that two of the most valuable assets are 'Confidence' and 'Timing'. I believe confidence involves a willingness to be different or take risks when necessary. There is a tendency from students to conform to the structures of what they think is technically right to do. For example, in a storytelling class there are ten people delivering individual story monologues one by one. The first person brings a chair into the space to sit on and delivers their monologue on it. Then, the next person does the same, and automatically sits on the same chair the first person provided, then another, then another, then another. It goes on until the chair becomes a kind of safety point for each performer, and they conform to what has been set up as the structure. It becomes a hidden rule that the chair must be sat on. Remove the chair and immediately the space is different, and with that their performance is different, and with that they are automatically unique and entertaining which makes them speaking English more fun for both themselves and the audience.

Some actors have mentioned to me the concept of taking away your individual characteristics/properties and becoming a blank canvas so that you can become anything or anyone you want to as a performer. For me, the primary aim in achieving any success from this concept is by admitting that those characteristics of movement/behaviour/speech patterns exist, and are likely to be with a person all their life. It is, essentially the acceptance that we all move, react, think, and speak differently. Some of these characteristics are inherent through genes, through the body and its learning process.

As part of evidence to myself I use technology, eg. motion capture. Sport participants can now be wired up to motion capture hardware/technology to acquire an animation of that particular individuals' movement. This has often been used in modern sports based video games. The mere existance of the fact that the power of technology should be invested and used in such a way to record one specific individuals' movement is proof to me that unique characteristics within individuals is now well acknowledged by society.

This shows we have inherent human properties that even the concept of a 'blank canvas' human/actor fails to iron out. For me the understanding of yourself as a performer is the acceptance that these human movement properties exist, and are built inherently to the self. My understanding therefore is the sooner we begin to learn and understand about what these properties/individual characteristics are and how they affect us, then the better performer we may become. In covertly teaching these skills to the Korean students through methods in the workshops, I believe I am helping them become better performers in the session, and thus increasing their chances either as a performer or another job based around communication skills.

“In performance there is no such thing as a rich or poor country, every country is rich in culture…”

“In performance there is no such thing as a rich or poor country, every country is rich in culture…”

I believe this slogan defines the ethos behind what I am trying to achieve, in both the Korean Arts centres I’m currently working in as well as anywhere else I end up travelling to. The slogan is particularly relevant in relation to Korea, a nation undergoing an extended period of dramatic change, where modern infrastructure meets old tradition. However both sides of Korea, both modern and old, are key in defining the nations’ culture, which is of course of great value to the performing artist. From the traditional market streets of my place of residence, Gwangju, Gyeonggi-Do, to the high rise modern structures of Myeong-Dong, Korea is producing a fluid circle of culture, which is embedded into the heartbeat of ‘Asia’s best kept secret.’

I see it as invaluable to document these travels and experiences of performance. It is essentially a combination of travels and truths, truths that enable us to try and assess what our understanding of this fluid art of ‘performance’ is. Indeed in each country there are things to learn, thought provoking issues and cultures, different ideas and mentalities. It is sometimes impossible to include these in the space of a small two hour workshop, but the hope is that they can at least be a learning experience, and in some way help form and shape the concepts during the travelling performance work.

Other than Korea, although no official direct workshop took place there, it is Hong Kong that provided one of the most vivid performance experiences which had a direct connection to the culture and tradition of the people. Upon arrival in Hong Kong it was around 6am in the morning and modern Hong Kong was waking up. Skyscraper buildings, machinery, and computer operated devices were all key to the smooth running of this seemingly technologically driven metropolis. Then what did I find at the middle of it, but one of the most traditional performance experiences one will ever find.

A typical Hong Kong park, not too dissimilar to those you would find in central London or Manchester, or any kind of large UK city. I found at it's centre one of the most true performance art activities I believe I will ever find. The local Hong Kong residents fully engaged in their morning practice of Thai-Chi style movement, every small motion so precise and telling a story in itself. No lapses in concentration, and not even an eyelid blinked at the awareness of my presence, an everyday western man stood at the centre of one of the most prominent art forms of the far east.

Indeed this was not an isolated incident on my travels, the journey to Australia brought me into contact with the Aboriginal art form, again an experience unto itself. Stood on Sydney harbour front, dwarfed by a colossal man who would demonstrate hundreds of years of history in one simple blow on his overtly large tuba-like object. It is in these moments, just a split second, that a fragment of performance can be captured which stimulates my next idea or workshop for a class either at Broadway Arts Centrel, or anywhere else I end up going in the world. It could even be that these experiences influence the next script that I write for the students, as was the case when I ran a festival with them in Seoul. At this festival the students performed ‘In the Jungle’, a play I made myself as a result of my experience with the Aborigine man I met and saw performing in Sydney. In fact the soundtrack was his music that I had negotiated a price for when buying his CD.

This was a prime example of when something I have seen has influenced my own work. Because I am working with students, this experience then indirectly influences them also, as essentially I am teaching from my experiences, and feeding this knowledge or ideas to others. I think the whole ‘Performing Earth’ project, together with working with an Arts centrel abroad is also central to this learning experience. It is something that I hope will help shape my work as I get older and enable me to improve and develop both as an actor and instructor.

As I gradually go through documenting 'Performing Earth', I get a feeling that is at times quite indescribable. It's a desire for more, but at the same time a reflection upon achievement or accomplishment. I didn't know what to expect at the beginning of my trip, to be honest it felt a very bold decision to even begin, but somehow at the time was a correct one.

It's essentially taking two things that over a number of years I've learnt to very much enjoy, travel and theatre, and giving it a chance to exist as a project that never really had any right to exist. Or did it? As 'Performing Earth' has moved on and grown, I sometimes conclude to myself that I've taken two things that as empowering as they can be to people, can also be very alienating and destructive, or even lead people to believe they can't achieve things. In this sense I mean the 'travel', in that all the 'unexpected' and unknown connotations it brings to the recently graduated university student, which despite their initial idea or interest often leads to people 'not bothering yet', and essentially as time goes on living life in the same safety net of their own country, or as in a lot of cases even their own town or village.

The same type of 'alienation' or a kind of subconscious 'self-fulfilling prophecy' exists when it comes to theatre too. An industry dominated by those at the top, where nepotism is part of daily business for those in it and another mountain of a hurdle for those trying to break into it. Indeed the intense difficulty of the industry is often what can squeeze every artistic drop out of those who spend a year or so in it, their creativity flattened by the need for financial security or at least some basic income, often turning to the local shop or pub for work that provides some kind of disposable income and the small sense of self-satisfaction that comes with it. After seeing this briefly I became more determined for my income to come from the industry, and to use my creativity that I'd had such fun and exploration with over the years of my education.

Country to country, place to place, I see similarities between students that despite their miles apart is evidence that the properties that form their socialisation are in many ways similar. The at the same time I can drift from one country to another and see the culture the students live in define their personalities to the point where they come up with a totally different end product to those similar to their age and up-bringing in another country or culture.

The Theatre…

When I consider the theatre abroad, I suppose the first thing I think of is whether it is similar to home, or if its different. Then, if it is different what are the cultural factors that make it so.

Obviously it goes without saying that cultures and ‘norms and values’ can form the tone and nature of a particular performance. However, what is interesting when travelling around with Performing Earth and working in the industry abroad, is seeing how theatre moves with pretty much the same ethos and mentality globally.

The theatre is fast moving, and through what I’ve observed and worked in there is at times a universal language for ‘your late’ or ‘make that scene change much quicker’. Of course, this comes accompanied by the expected expletives in the appropriate language and the sound of the directors hair being ripped carelessly further out of his or her already gradually balding scalp.

It is indeed a profession that stretches the usual boundaries of time and money, those in it willing to work and rehearse for long hours often for below average salaries.

So why do people all over the world do this I ask myself? Why can’t everyone save themselves the hassle and live in a blissful contented world of work and money rather than slog ourselves through this unenviable struggle? The obvious answer is the constant ‘taunt’ in the back of ones mind, the taunt that flaunts the odds at you of your ‘big break’. I often think of the education system as a kind of filter for the theatrical profession. Go to many high schools in Britain and we find class upon class of budding drama students all trying and believing they can be the next theatre or TV star. Move on to sixth form or college and the numbers of serious Hollywood wannabes halve through a combination of realization, or pressure from others (including family), to study for, or indeed become, one of those ‘normal jobs’. Go on to university and these same filters of ‘realisation’ and ‘pressure’ exist to again halve the numbers of potential starlet thespians. On to drama school, and we really start to halve again to get to those still chasing the acting dream.

Indeed, it could be said that with the odds so stacked up, drama school is simply where the quest to be a performer begins, and despite the effort, time and money ploughed into the work before this time, at the end of the day people find they’ve still not yet achieved anything in the industry.

Thoughts...

I write through my own thoughts, and of course there are people who don’t fit into the aforementioned descriptions. But I’m sure there are many who have…

I also write not trying to say that the people and actors or actresses in this category are at all wrong, I have had this experience through drama school and that rather ominous feeling of ‘what now?’. But for me, although it is touched upon as much as it can be in drama school, the key weapon for any actor, actress or performer is ‘application’, and is something that no academic can teach.

In ‘The Wood Demon’ speaking through the character of ‘Alexander Serebryakov’, Checkov was persistent on getting the message through that in order to achieve or progress ‘we must do things’. Although not always an admirer and acknowledger of some of the great literature of the past in my time at drama school, this was one thing that really stood out to me. It has become a kind of philosophy to try and shape my career, to do anything we must apply ourselves and ‘do things’, and choose the world and its opportunities rather than waiting for it to chase us.

Acting and performing is hugely difficult to become a success in, that is fairly-self explanatory and most people setting out openly accept that. What is also accepted is that because of this we have to do things that set ourselves on one side, that make us different, that make us ‘stand out from the crowd’. For me this is gained not from the over-hanging fringe you corrected on your headshot, or the choice of the odd word you think you ‘messed up on’ in your cover letter. Yes, we need to be professional in the way we go about these things, but for me the ‘exception’ that makes us get that job or position above others is providing something that is of interest and intrigue, that thing that allows us to talk in an audition or interview and actually live our CV or resume rather than dictate it. That thing that forces an on-looker to believe in us and what we can potentially achieve, rather than submit to our inadvertent claims that we are a self-professed anomaly.

For me going abroad and setting up something different to the everyday drama school graduate was what gave me that belief that I had/have something a little different to offer. If as actors or performers our job is to play different people surely we have to see as many different types/cultures of people this diverse world has to offer before we can replicate their character or even profess to be able to play them? I believe in this, and I believe that seeing and learning stimulates my mind, and when that occurs is when Fmy creativity can flourish.

PERFORMING EARTH - THE BOOK, BY DANIEL WALKER, is soon to be available. The above is an early extract on the journey of performance throughout the world. To read more on the visits to; USA, Mexico, China, Poland, Australia, Korea, and the U.K., email info@performingearth.com, and receive information on the book and it's imminent release

Thank you, Performing Earth