REPERTOIRE
Weaving the Cry is a journey
through a dark wave toward a threshold that is both an end and a
beginning. It explores our capacity for survival inside the rituals of
living and dying. This re-working confronts the scenario of Syngeʼs
play, exposing a complex and eternal bond between mother and son
concentrated in the relationship between Mauyra, the missing Michael,
and Bartley, her only remaining son of six. On the crest of a wave of
loss, with Michaelʼs absence and Bartleyʼs dangerous sea crossing, the
inevitable and its repercussions must be reconciled by those left
behind, three women, a mother and her two daughters, Cathleen and Nora.
Directed by Aiden Condron and performed by Marián Araújo, Sophie Campbell, Joseph Moylan and Gemma McGill, with dramaturgical assistance and original writing from Jeffrey Gormly; this ethno drama, integrating traditional songs from Ireland and Galicia, sees the company weave its unique experience and approach to theatre-making into a stark re-imagining of one of the greatest dramatic works from the Irish literary canon.
Weaving the Cry was utterly beautiful... an immediacy and integrity I saw nowhere else last year.
The Irish Independent.
Theatre simply conceived and rigorously realized… compelling and enchanting.
Irish Theatre Magazine.
Directed by Aiden Condron and performed by Marián Araújo, Sophie Campbell, Joseph Moylan and Gemma McGill, with dramaturgical assistance and original writing from Jeffrey Gormly; this ethno drama, integrating traditional songs from Ireland and Galicia, sees the company weave its unique experience and approach to theatre-making into a stark re-imagining of one of the greatest dramatic works from the Irish literary canon.
Weaving the Cry was utterly beautiful... an immediacy and integrity I saw nowhere else last year.
The Irish Independent.
Theatre simply conceived and rigorously realized… compelling and enchanting.
Irish Theatre Magazine.
THE MYTH & THE FLESH - Performed in Ireland and Europe 2007/08
nervousystem
Presents
THE MYTH AND THE FLESH
Created and performed by
Marián Araújo
"A woman weaves a trail that leads her through the many doors of her inescapable memory. As she fleshes out her myth to reveal other selves, she invokes and confronts a sensuous innocent, a woman in the still pain of adulthood and an ancient pilgrim all bound by the touch of an impossible love for one that cannot be counted…"
What is reality?
How do we perceive ourselves?
What does I Am / Myself mean?
What does memory do to us?
All of these questions embody the concept of The Personal Myth created in the space between Us and The Other. If that space is a question of perception, how do personal free associations work for the artist and for the viewer (the doer and the receiver)?
There are an infinite number of associations to a specific action if our perception is opened beyond our own reality, but how can we access them? How can we change our habits of looking, seeing and perception?
In The Myth and The Flesh all of these questions are incarnated in the figure of a woman who interrogates her past through a solitary ritual in which she invokes the remembrance and memories of what was and could have been her life.
Dramaturgy by Marián Araújo from texts by:
Jeffrey Gormley, Paul Celan, The Song of Songs, Apocrypha texts, Julio Cortazar, Kahlil Gibran, Margarite Yourcenar and T.S. Eliot, traditional, Sefardi, Cuban and Spanish songs.
With the artistic collaboration of Gey Pin Ang during different phases of creation.
First work-in progress montage assisted by Aiden Condron, August 2007.
Photography: Bohoe.com
Graphic design: Paul Regan
THE MYTH AND THE FLESH PERFORMANCES AND PRESENTATIONS TO DATE:
October 15th. 2008
University of Kent. Open presentation and talk to students as part of the British Grotowski Project and The European Research network activities. Canterbury, England
September 25th-27th. 2008
The Back Loft at La Catedral Studios. Public performances. Dublin, Ireland
August 26th. 2008
Galway Arts Festival. As part of MART (Media Art) festival program. Public performance. Galway, Ireland
June 12th. 2008
Grotowski Center. Private presentation to a group of international theatre practitioners. Wroclaw, Poland
May 30th. 2008
Teatro C-Videocentro. Theatre festival Soli tre donne. Public performance. Terni, Italy
March 15th. 2008
Sala Ambigú. Public performance. Valladolid, Spain
August 31st. 2007
Project Arts Centre, Dublin. Private presentation of primary work-in-progress montage
Presents
THE MYTH AND THE FLESH
Created and performed by
Marián Araújo
"A woman weaves a trail that leads her through the many doors of her inescapable memory. As she fleshes out her myth to reveal other selves, she invokes and confronts a sensuous innocent, a woman in the still pain of adulthood and an ancient pilgrim all bound by the touch of an impossible love for one that cannot be counted…"
What is reality?
How do we perceive ourselves?
What does I Am / Myself mean?
What does memory do to us?
All of these questions embody the concept of The Personal Myth created in the space between Us and The Other. If that space is a question of perception, how do personal free associations work for the artist and for the viewer (the doer and the receiver)?
There are an infinite number of associations to a specific action if our perception is opened beyond our own reality, but how can we access them? How can we change our habits of looking, seeing and perception?
In The Myth and The Flesh all of these questions are incarnated in the figure of a woman who interrogates her past through a solitary ritual in which she invokes the remembrance and memories of what was and could have been her life.
Dramaturgy by Marián Araújo from texts by:
Jeffrey Gormley, Paul Celan, The Song of Songs, Apocrypha texts, Julio Cortazar, Kahlil Gibran, Margarite Yourcenar and T.S. Eliot, traditional, Sefardi, Cuban and Spanish songs.
With the artistic collaboration of Gey Pin Ang during different phases of creation.
First work-in progress montage assisted by Aiden Condron, August 2007.
Photography: Bohoe.com
Graphic design: Paul Regan
THE MYTH AND THE FLESH PERFORMANCES AND PRESENTATIONS TO DATE:
October 15th. 2008
University of Kent. Open presentation and talk to students as part of the British Grotowski Project and The European Research network activities. Canterbury, England
September 25th-27th. 2008
The Back Loft at La Catedral Studios. Public performances. Dublin, Ireland
August 26th. 2008
Galway Arts Festival. As part of MART (Media Art) festival program. Public performance. Galway, Ireland
June 12th. 2008
Grotowski Center. Private presentation to a group of international theatre practitioners. Wroclaw, Poland
May 30th. 2008
Teatro C-Videocentro. Theatre festival Soli tre donne. Public performance. Terni, Italy
March 15th. 2008
Sala Ambigú. Public performance. Valladolid, Spain
August 31st. 2007
Project Arts Centre, Dublin. Private presentation of primary work-in-progress montage
PARK ACTION - Presented at Phoenix Park, Dublin 2006
PARK ACTION - DIRECTOR’S NOTE by Aiden Condron, August 2006
Working within nervousystem’s research domain: Actor as Writer as part of the second phase of Theatre Haiku, actors Marián Araújo and Regan O’ Brien along with a new actor Helen Delaney (selected from a recent open Worksession conducted by the company) commenced work on a new performance structure which was later given the working title ‘Park Action’. Working individually at first, these actors elaborated their own entirely original individual action ‘scores’. These scores were composed via the montage of their personal repertoire of ‘Physical Actions’ and ‘Vocal Actions’. These they integrated with several carefully selected traditional European folk songs along with fragments of text, both established and original, from a variety of sources including T.S. Eliot’s The Game of Chess, and some work written by writer Jeffery Gormly as a response to the actors’ research work. Many of their actions were born out of their previous ongoing research work, while others were discovered within this focused time period. Inspiration was found within their own autobiographical impulses and associations and also largely influenced by what was provoked in them by the elements within and ambience around the site-specific performance space chosen for this particular project. The first performance was presented at the Visitors Centre in Phoenix Park and a later performances presented at SUPA in Valetta, Malta.
Working within nervousystem’s research domain: Actor as Writer as part of the second phase of Theatre Haiku, actors Marián Araújo and Regan O’ Brien along with a new actor Helen Delaney (selected from a recent open Worksession conducted by the company) commenced work on a new performance structure which was later given the working title ‘Park Action’. Working individually at first, these actors elaborated their own entirely original individual action ‘scores’. These scores were composed via the montage of their personal repertoire of ‘Physical Actions’ and ‘Vocal Actions’. These they integrated with several carefully selected traditional European folk songs along with fragments of text, both established and original, from a variety of sources including T.S. Eliot’s The Game of Chess, and some work written by writer Jeffery Gormly as a response to the actors’ research work. Many of their actions were born out of their previous ongoing research work, while others were discovered within this focused time period. Inspiration was found within their own autobiographical impulses and associations and also largely influenced by what was provoked in them by the elements within and ambience around the site-specific performance space chosen for this particular project. The first performance was presented at the Visitors Centre in Phoenix Park and a later performances presented at SUPA in Valetta, Malta.
AVERSION (II) The I-Eye Performed at the Hugh Lane Gallery, Dublin 2005
nervousystem
At
OFFSIDE LIVE II
In association with Hugh Lane Dublin City Gallery, Pallas Studios and Fergus Byrne.
Presents
A selection from a work-in-progress action opus
AVERSION
The I-Eye.
Performed by Regan O’Brien & Marián Araújo
Montage by Aiden Condron
The Hugh Lane Gallery of Modern Art, Charlemont House, Parnell Square North, Dublin 1.
Event commences at 6pm, AVERSION at 8pm Saturday Sep 17th 2005. Admission €6 before 8pm and €10 thereafter. Tickets at door. For further information contact Pallas Studios, 17 Foley St, Dublin 1
Can Fader, “the bird who picks” and Onanon, “the bird who looks on” endure, abjure, exorcise, silence and ultimately accept each other in the face of a crisis that has divided 1 in 2; will 2 be 1 again?
At
OFFSIDE LIVE II
In association with Hugh Lane Dublin City Gallery, Pallas Studios and Fergus Byrne.
Presents
A selection from a work-in-progress action opus
AVERSION
The I-Eye.
Performed by Regan O’Brien & Marián Araújo
Montage by Aiden Condron
The Hugh Lane Gallery of Modern Art, Charlemont House, Parnell Square North, Dublin 1.
Event commences at 6pm, AVERSION at 8pm Saturday Sep 17th 2005. Admission €6 before 8pm and €10 thereafter. Tickets at door. For further information contact Pallas Studios, 17 Foley St, Dublin 1
Can Fader, “the bird who picks” and Onanon, “the bird who looks on” endure, abjure, exorcise, silence and ultimately accept each other in the face of a crisis that has divided 1 in 2; will 2 be 1 again?
AVERSION (Based on Phaedre by Jean Racine) Performed at Belvedere Chapel, Dublin 2004
AVERSION – Director’s Programme Note
Phaedra, in her original Greek incarnation, was a tragic aside to the story of Hippolytus, the object of her doomed passion. In the 17th Century, the French playwright Racine gave her centre-stage: her faithful maid Oenone struggled through plots and schemes to find a reason for Phaedra to live in the face of an overpowering fixation on Hyppolytus which could find no resolution. The consequences were fatal for all concerned.
Now nervousystem look for a way for “Fader” (Phaedra) to overcome her objectifaction of “Him” (Hippolytus), and “Onanon” becomes the mirror she must endure and abjure, exorcise, silence and ultimately accept…so that she can live.
AVERSION is a further step in nervousystem’s foray into an alternative, impulse-based theatre language. It is an attempt to create a greater space for the audience’s imaginative and sensory participation. This is facilitated through the detailed juxtaposition of alternate organic elements, allowing ‘windows’ for the spectator’s associations.
The actors are performing real actions in real time. There is no attempt on their part to play a fiction. The fiction is revealed through the mise-en scene and interpreted by the spectator/witness. This, it is hoped, will allow you the audience as individuals to find your own story (or stories) and your own authentic experience.
AVERSION is set in the present – tonight in a chapel.
Aiden Condron – Director
Phaedra, in her original Greek incarnation, was a tragic aside to the story of Hippolytus, the object of her doomed passion. In the 17th Century, the French playwright Racine gave her centre-stage: her faithful maid Oenone struggled through plots and schemes to find a reason for Phaedra to live in the face of an overpowering fixation on Hyppolytus which could find no resolution. The consequences were fatal for all concerned.
Now nervousystem look for a way for “Fader” (Phaedra) to overcome her objectifaction of “Him” (Hippolytus), and “Onanon” becomes the mirror she must endure and abjure, exorcise, silence and ultimately accept…so that she can live.
AVERSION is a further step in nervousystem’s foray into an alternative, impulse-based theatre language. It is an attempt to create a greater space for the audience’s imaginative and sensory participation. This is facilitated through the detailed juxtaposition of alternate organic elements, allowing ‘windows’ for the spectator’s associations.
The actors are performing real actions in real time. There is no attempt on their part to play a fiction. The fiction is revealed through the mise-en scene and interpreted by the spectator/witness. This, it is hoped, will allow you the audience as individuals to find your own story (or stories) and your own authentic experience.
AVERSION is set in the present – tonight in a chapel.
Aiden Condron – Director
FIRE FACE (Based on The Cúcullain Plays by W.B. Yeats) Performed at The Studio @ The International Bar, Dublin 2003
Fire Face Fire Face Rehearsal Process by Aiden Condron, Director – June ‘03
Having worked as a full time ensemble for two years in the area of research and
development Nervousystem initiated a seven week period of formal rehearsal beginning in mid January of this year for it’s debut production of FIRE FACE a version of four of W.B. Yeats’s Cuchullain plays to be performed for two weeks in March at The Space at The International Bar in Dublin.
I had always been drawn to Yeats’s plays and felt that he was hugely underrated as a dramatist and man of the theatre. While the plays are not without their weaknesses they are brimming with ambition and contain a beautiful strangeness. Most importantly for me however was the fact that Yeats’s theatre is truly experimental. He wrestled with the medium and drew on all kinds of unusual influences including many great innovators of the European Avant Garde and theatre practices from the Far East to develop a stylized form incorporating mask, music, dance and drama allowing him to intensify his stage poetry.
This material offered tremendous challenges to our ensemble most notably in the area of masked performance (all of thirteen masks were designed and made by the company) but it also provided an opportunity for us to elaborate on many principals underlying Eastern Theatre practices, particularly Japanese No Gaku, Kabuki and Butoh, which we had been exploring as part of our research. I have always been very drawn toward stimulating internal impulses via strict external forms or katas in order to create more authentic inner realities or truths within the actor.
The first half of each rehearsal day began with intensive physical and vocal training using adaptatations of various yoga techniques, plastic physical exercises stimulating physical and vocal imagination. This was followed by compositional work in the afternoons comprising of exercises in Neutral Mask drawing largely on the work of Jacques Le Coque, practiced alongside the exploration of several principals developed by No Gaku theatre master Zeami, particularly the concepts of “Jo-Ha-Kyu” and “Iguise” movement.
Later in the process we made significant progress by incorporating the above with work on our own interperation of Psychological Gesture, as developed by the Russian actor/director Michael Chekov. Through Chekov’s ideas on the creation of character through the practice of expansive sculptural bodily forms to provoke inner psychic landscapes and feelings in the actor we managed to unlock a vocal and physical vocabulary of great resonance and truth. It was this vocabulary that became the building blocks of the acting score that was blended with the mise en scene and finally brought to performance.
While FIRE FACE proved to be a significant success for nervousystem, receiving extremely good houses, positive critical responses and very good press it is only the beginning of its life. It is only now, for example, after much trial and error that we feel confident enough to refine our work with mask. The process of creating fire face allowed us merely to scratch the surface of what is only the beginning a very new and limitless endeavor. It has unlocked for the ensemble and myself enormous potentials for re-imagining Yeat’s text and the possibility of building new montages.
Having worked as a full time ensemble for two years in the area of research and
development Nervousystem initiated a seven week period of formal rehearsal beginning in mid January of this year for it’s debut production of FIRE FACE a version of four of W.B. Yeats’s Cuchullain plays to be performed for two weeks in March at The Space at The International Bar in Dublin.
I had always been drawn to Yeats’s plays and felt that he was hugely underrated as a dramatist and man of the theatre. While the plays are not without their weaknesses they are brimming with ambition and contain a beautiful strangeness. Most importantly for me however was the fact that Yeats’s theatre is truly experimental. He wrestled with the medium and drew on all kinds of unusual influences including many great innovators of the European Avant Garde and theatre practices from the Far East to develop a stylized form incorporating mask, music, dance and drama allowing him to intensify his stage poetry.
This material offered tremendous challenges to our ensemble most notably in the area of masked performance (all of thirteen masks were designed and made by the company) but it also provided an opportunity for us to elaborate on many principals underlying Eastern Theatre practices, particularly Japanese No Gaku, Kabuki and Butoh, which we had been exploring as part of our research. I have always been very drawn toward stimulating internal impulses via strict external forms or katas in order to create more authentic inner realities or truths within the actor.
The first half of each rehearsal day began with intensive physical and vocal training using adaptatations of various yoga techniques, plastic physical exercises stimulating physical and vocal imagination. This was followed by compositional work in the afternoons comprising of exercises in Neutral Mask drawing largely on the work of Jacques Le Coque, practiced alongside the exploration of several principals developed by No Gaku theatre master Zeami, particularly the concepts of “Jo-Ha-Kyu” and “Iguise” movement.
Later in the process we made significant progress by incorporating the above with work on our own interperation of Psychological Gesture, as developed by the Russian actor/director Michael Chekov. Through Chekov’s ideas on the creation of character through the practice of expansive sculptural bodily forms to provoke inner psychic landscapes and feelings in the actor we managed to unlock a vocal and physical vocabulary of great resonance and truth. It was this vocabulary that became the building blocks of the acting score that was blended with the mise en scene and finally brought to performance.
While FIRE FACE proved to be a significant success for nervousystem, receiving extremely good houses, positive critical responses and very good press it is only the beginning of its life. It is only now, for example, after much trial and error that we feel confident enough to refine our work with mask. The process of creating fire face allowed us merely to scratch the surface of what is only the beginning a very new and limitless endeavor. It has unlocked for the ensemble and myself enormous potentials for re-imagining Yeat’s text and the possibility of building new montages.
THEATRE LABORATORY
