The Wise Words of Tim Etchells

'Investment is what happens when the performers before us seem bound up unspeakably with what they are doing - it seems to matter to them, it appears to hurt them or threatens to pleasure them, it seems to touch them, in some quite and terrible way.
Investment draws us in. Something is happening - real and therefore risked - something seems to slip across from the private world to the public one - and the performers are 'left open' or 'left exposed'.
To be bound up with what you are doing, to be at risk in it, to be exposed by it. As performers we recognise but cannot always control these moments - they happen, perhaps, in spite of us.'

We, performers of the Failure Project, need to invest. With a week to go we need to push against, stretch out and commit to our given tasks. Seek, discover, embarrass and expose. Who cares if we don't?

'Investment is the bottom line - without it nothing matters'

Hi.
Blog post number 1 from the biggest failure in the group...having failed so far in not contributing to the blog.
Just checking to see if this works and I am promising you all that I will write something a little more in depth this evening!
Hope you are all well and looking forward to Failing.

Love H x

Inevitable Failure

Exposure - Questionnaire

Full Name
Amanda Castro Romasanta

Date of Birth
17th April 1985

Height
I make a point of not knowing this as it is a sore subject – but I imagine it’s 5ft 1 or 2

Weight
51 kilos – I know this because the doctor told me recently

Eye Colour
Brown

Hair colour (both real and fake if applicable)
Brown

Shoe Size
Mostly 4, sometimes a 5

Clothes Size
Mostly 8, sometimes a 10

Nationality
Spanish (both parents are from Spain, I was born in London)

Distinguishing physical features
Frizzy, curly hair, shortness, no scars but all the women in my family have a mole on the back of their neck.

What is the first album you bought?
Jagged Little Pill by Alanis Morrissette – I must have been going through my angry woman phase but I stand by my purchase!

What is your favourite film?
I can never answer this question but just for the heck of it…The Big Lebowski. To my mind, it’s perfect in every way.

What is your guilty pleasure (something you should be ashamed to like)?
This is a recent one, but during the bank holiday weekend I found myself sucked into watching more MTV than I usually would, and now I am obsessed with The Hills. I’m sorry. There is something fascinating about watching idiots live lives that don’t correspond to my experience of real life on TV.

What was the last argument you had and with whom?
It was probably with my sister – I was ordering pizza over the internet, and she asked me to order something in particular which I didn’t hear, even though I was sitting right next to her. When I got it wrong she got pissed off at me so I told her to order her own damn pizza and walked off, laptop in hand. I feel stupid even re-telling this story.

What is the song that you feel most represents you?
I've thought about this long and hard and have NO idea.

If you were on a desert Island and could have only one item what would it be?
Jefferson Toal (although I wouldn’t call refer to him as an item). I literally couldn’t get by without him.

If you were animal, which one would you be and why?
I’ve always admired cats for being independent and intelligent and beautiful and just generally being very cool and although they’re a bit too selfish for my liking I’ll go with them anyway, because they’re also very funny (especially when they fall over).

What was the last lie you told?
I lie all the time at work, so it was probably there…it wasn’t a specific lie, but this morning I did pretend to go and do something work-related when actually I was making a personal phone call. I also spent over half an hour reading over my boyfriend’s dissertation instead of working. In my defence, I make up for constantly taking breaks by working hard and being quite good at my job the rest of the time (and I’m a fast typer so I can get away with it)

What was the biggest lie you’ve told?
I never really tell major lies...I did get myself a job on the understanding I would stay for at least a year, I when actually I was secretly planning to leave after six months and go travelling. When I left, I told them I was going to make documentaries in India, and they believed me (only the first half of it was true)
I heard yesterday of a friend of a friend who pretended to be blind for two years…now THAT is a lie.

What are your 3 most positive character traits?
I think I am caring, creative and passionate.

What are your 3 most negative character traits?
Probably that I am impatient, sarcastic, and lacking in confidence.

Now get a close friend to answer questions 21 and 22.
My ‘close friend’ (i.e. Jeff) refused to answer the question properly, but eventually said:
Positive Traits: Nice, funny, and intelligent.
Negative Traits: She won’t play ‘Braid’ (a computer game), she makes me answer stupid questions, she doesn’t 'get' Lost (which I do, I just don’t think it’s that great).

What was the best day of your life?
Hmmm…I can’t really say. I don’t really think I’ve had anything good enough to label ‘the best day of my life’, wasn’t that excited when I got any of my exam results, haven’t won anything major, not married, no kids…that’s usually what people pick. I was pretty darn happy when me and Jeff got together though; that was pretty good, and it had been preceeded by a pretty wicked day hanging out with him and one of my best friends Sahil on the Sussex Downs.

What was the worst day of your life?
The day my grandmother died. She had been taken to hospital about a week earlier suffering from pneumonia – the doctors had expected her to make a full recovery but one night she suddenly took a massive turn for the worse and there was nothing they could do for her. The whole family came to the hospital, sat in her intensive care room, and watched her die. I remember obsessively staring at the screen that showed her heartbeat and breathing, waiting for something to happen. My grandfather’s death would also be up there except that when my grandmother died, I was already pretty depressed due to other problems in my family and general stress at school.

Tell me a secret.
I won't ever allow different foods to touch on my plate.

What character traits do you admire in others?
Bravery, kindness and humour.

What character traits do you despise in others?
Rudeness, being inconsiderate of others, and cowardice

What is the most pain you have ever been in?
When I was about 5 years old, my mum was in the kitchen ironing. I was in the kitchen too and for some inexplicable reason decided it would be a good idea to touch the hot side of the iron, which I did, with my entire hand. Thankfully I don’t remember the pain, only the screaming and shouting and being picked up, and then later showing off my bandaged hand to everyone in sight.

What has been the biggest failure in your life?
As I’ve said before I honestly don’t feel like I have encountered any massive failure. I do wish though, that I wasn’t one of those people that is terrible at most physical stuff. I can dance (in a club), I can do a forward roll, and swim enough to not drown, and that’s it. I feel like people get kudos for being naturally good at this stuff and it’s something that I’ve never been able to access, even when I try practising.

What has been the biggest success in your life?
I take great pride in the fact that I funded my travelling and my entire MA completely by myself, without help from my parents. If I’m honest, I have a slight chip on my shoulder about it. It’s very important to me to have that level of independence (although I do still live at home which I don’t particularly want to do).

What was your biggest failure on stage?
When my boob fell out of my top in the middle of a show (which, incidentally, was a absurdist version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream)…I want to curl up and die when I think about it, I truly do.

Name a physical action you have never been able to do.
Cartwheel, amongst many other things.

What scares you the most?
I would really, REALLY hate to die by drowning, I don’t know why but to me it would be a terrifying way to die. I’m even more terrified of getting Alzheimer’s – my grand father had it and it was the most heartbreaking thing in the world to see him deteriorate day by day. When you have it you become a different person – you not only lose your mental faculties like memory, but your personality, the essence of your being. To me, Alzheimer’s killed him way before he actually, physically died.

What excites you the most?
Performing and performance can give me a real buzz that is unlike anything else. I also like rollercoasters.

When was the last time you cried?
I think it was when I saw a really graphic picture of someone dead on the internet – it was a girl who had died in the middle of an exorcism. I am usually quite mentally strong when it comes to stuff like this, but it was unexpected and a very, very horrible picture. Not in the sense that it was bloody and gory or anything – she just looked terrifying.

What is your biggest regret?
Not being there for Jefferson when he was going through a really tough time (I was travelling).

What makes you laugh?
Lots of things…I have a sense of humour that can be very dark, but I love very silly things too. One thing that has been making me laugh non-stop at the moment is this You Tube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLGfbL9Cfxc

What is your most burning desire in life?
To make a good career out of my passion for performance (never gonna happen, is it?)

Fill in the gap:
SIAC!

Exposure

I had been planning to write a post on the blog about the difficulties of the facilitator/director's role in a piece like this. During rehearsals I have always feel a complex mixture of emotions - an envy where I wish that I could be doing the tasks too, a (some would say machiavellian) desire to set the performers even more difficult, arduous and mean tasks, and a guilt at setting these tasks and then just sitting back and watching, unable to fully take part. These last two emotions have been the most difficult to negotiate - how can I balance them both? How can I push my performers but do so in a healthy, happy, accepting atmosphere? I feel like I had already been making progress (our blindfolding exercises, for example, get better, more engaging and adventurous every time we do it) but realistically we just don't have the time to develop each task in the same way.

I had conveyed these emotions to a colleague, Jessica Hartley, who is at the moment writing a PHD thesis on risk, fear, exposure and failure in performance and pedagogy. She agreed to come to a rehearsal and, in her words, 'poke' us, with games and exercises based on physical and emotional exposure.

It was a fascinating experience.

As a group we were hesitant, we held back, and were overly polite and nice to each other - we obviously still have some way to go in terms of truly exposing ourselves as performers and people. However, what pleased me the most - apart from what I learnt about my performers, how they work, what they are like, and how they interact with each other through watching them during these games, was their positivity and commitment to the project in future rehearsals, to pushing themselves, and allowing themselves to be pushed.

I came to the rehearsal looking for validation, for the green light to be the facilitator/director that I want to be, and happily, I found it. Future rehearsals may have a completely different feel to them now...

I am in the present and only the present matters to me.

As I continue my research for my portfolio I have observed the existing argument between imagination and presence. Actor training still currently relies on Stanislavski's system. Actors are encouraged to use their imagination to 'transform' themselves into a character, and the emphasis is placed heavily on the individual. It is interesting then to look at eastern styles of training, such as Suzuki, whose aim is to train the actor to be present at all times, constantly ready to accept and react to the unexpected. The emphasis is on the ensemble working together, and in order to do so, the actor can not escape or drift into his or her own imagination.

Today Darren and I participated in what has been labeled as 'the blind fold exercise'. Throughout Darren was really taunting me, tapping me in different places, lifting and spinning me, and overall, completely disorienting me. By the end I was truly exhausted, primarily physically, but my emotions had begun to creep in as well. Feeling abused and fatigued I felt on the verge of tears. Naturally I do not know what the experience was of watching this performance. However, I imagine this real human experience was theatrically interesting. Some would say this was not acting; however, I would argue that 'acting' is a subjective term. We naturally begin to portray a performative self when placed in front of others or a camera in this case. Furthermore, as the exercise progressed stories start to creep in. I imagined I was a prisoner of war at one point, then it seemed as though we were lovers fighting. See? It is impossible NOT to involve the imagination. But it is my belief that the answer to creating exciting theatre is through liveness (being present and allowing anything to happen), whether that is through true physical pain, exhaustion, or failure.

www.uk.youtube.com/watch?v=2sZbrclbwTs

www.uk.youtube.com/watch?v=2sZbrclbwTs

Just tried the other link and it didn't work maybe this one will?