Stills ©from Wojcek, Sandra Then
Recently, the "Berlin Theatre Festival 2019 in China" hosted by the German Cultural Center Goethe-Institut (China) in Beijing was officially launched in Beijing. In the context of science and technology, the theater workshop takes the theme of "machine theater" to explore what possible changes the stage competition between machines and people will bring to traditional theaters, and what changes will occur in the roles of actors.
Original text: Machine Theater: A Valuable Way of Presenting
Image | Network
compere:
Ke Li (Dean of the Goethe-Institut Beijing)
Panelists:
Margret Affonzelle (Viennese cultural critic, member of the jury of the Berlin Theatre Festival)
Kay Tuchmann (German theatre director)
Li Yinan (Professor, Central Academy of Drama)
Machine Theater: What is the function of an actor?
Currie:
We recently held a workshop on theatrical creation, screening the play Wojcek directed by Ulrich Rasch, a work invited to the Berlin Theater Festival in 2018, in which machines play an important role, which is a typical representative of the machine theater and also provides us with a topic of discussion - "machine theater". From the background of cultural exchange, what kind of changes will this bring to China's drama tradition or theater tradition?
Margrethe Affonzelle:
Machine theater is often discussed in German-speaking countries. Using the concept of "machine theater" to describe the work of Ulrich Rasher, we see that the machine, as the core of the director, constitutes a stage, and all the actors make some action performances on a variety of machines.
Ulrich Rasch developed a variety of different models to apply to the performance, these machines are basically moving, forcing the actors to make corresponding movements, sometimes walking a little slower, sometimes going faster, and the machine sets a certain rhythm. On the one hand, this rhythm will spread to the actor's body, such as breathing, if the actor goes faster, his breathing will definitely accelerate, which actually constitutes the way that the machine determines the entire director, which is a core.
At the same time, the machine will also affect the overall performance of the actor's lines, so that everyone pays more attention to the line part. The actors' movements are basically the same, relatively single, nothing more than going forward, backward or backwards, and the costumes are basically dark. The actors are all on the turntable, and man and machine form a kind of competition. This way of directing limits the freedom of the actors, and even the ability to perform is gone, leaving only walking and talking. By restricting the actor's performance space in a certain way, for example, Suzanne Kennedy will also use strong visual sense costumes and masks to present a sense of ceremony.
So, in the machine theater, what is the function of the actor? With the disappearance of acting ability, actors tend to present more of the uncontrollability of the body. In "Wojcek", we can see that the actor's movement is restricted, so the expression is very exaggerated, and he wants to try to show this role, and the line speech is more intense and prominent than the usual way of directing.
So why do such machines appear in theaters?
We are very interested in machines. We want to know how the machine works, what functions it has, what its influences have, and what kind of expression it has on the stage. For example, there was a performance at the Remini Record Theater, and during the performance, they made a robot based on the German writer Thomas Mailer, and Thomas Mailer communicated with his simulated robot on stage. Can such a robot have its own emotions? Does the performance arouse the empathy of the audience? Will people applaud its performance? Ulrich Rasch made a simulated machine that had only one function, either like a mother, or as a technical support to guide the actors to make certain movements. In his works, we can clearly see that there are many dance elements in it. Putting the machine on the stage is equivalent to giving the actors a venue on which they can do their movements like dancers. Therefore, after the speech-based drama has a machine, it will force the actors to perform more dance actors.
Director Ulrich Rascher, including actors, won awards at the Berlin Theatre Festival, proving the success of this play and the actors, which is able to promote new forms of performance. We see the presence of these machines in the theater, hear the sounds made by the machines, and the whole theater has background music and sounds, which helps the actors find their own rhythm, especially the rhythm of the action. Basically, the language occupies the main body, and the machine is only a means to complete the end, so it can enable the actor to exert its expressiveness and interpret the role, which is a new way and a very valuable way of presentation.
Make the work of theatrical composition more creative
In Wojcek, the machine is the giver of rhythm, it determines the rhythm and action of the whole play, and I think it poses a challenge. So I would like to ask Mr. Kay Tuchman to talk about what role the way machines, including digital machines, perform, plays in the performing arts as a whole and in the theatre.
Kay Tuchman:
When the theater is affected by technology, including robots and information network technology, what kind of changes occur in the theater? What do we really mean? In Berlin in 2018, Marco and Wu Yandan did the configuration, structural design, the performance of three dancers, wearing intelligent things on the body, looking like a human spine, exploring whether humans can get rid of the power they must follow. It is inspired by the experience brought about by the latest developments in the field of artificial intelligence, machine performers in the presence of intelligent robots, through tactile sensor neural networks, facing the movements of the three dancers on the stage, in the process, exploring what kind of interaction these machines can have, responding to the physical limitations of the surrounding environment. They explore new possibilities for subjective observations brought about by ai-powered involvement.
From the drama "Please Fall in Love with Austria", we found that in the information network, there is no longer a direct correlation between form and medium, that is, the media of the performance related to a specific location is bundled with the online voting game, and it is difficult for us to determine the production of uncontrolled media coverage in this process, to what extent it is the part of the media of the performance that can be arranged, this form, this way of performance is composed of various different new media, it can be regarded as a kind of irony, it can also be seen as a farce, At the same time, it is also a form of active participation in politics by art. Through the successful operation of the neural network of the art and sports configuration, we can see that the material in the drama is not limited to the human body, the drama is not only defined as the reality on the stage created by the human body, the neural network has also become part of the performance, and the original performance rules are now marked with question marks. The play "Please Fall in Love with Austria" does not need to gather all the audiences in a fixed venue for theatrical performance, everyone can understand the state of the play through their laptops or newspapers, and get rid of the role of the original form of theatrical structure and machine. These two examples raise very extreme questions: new ways of theatrical performance; how we can break down the boundaries of the original; and what role we can play as theatrical constructs.
We don't know what role mass media plays in a work like Please Fall in Love with Austria, and we can't predict its ending, which is open-ended. The more creative of our time will make our theatrical compositions more creative.
The purpose of the machine theater: to turn people into a kind of "machine"
So from the perspective of traditional theater, how should we understand the form of machine theater? How does a person present an action like a machine through constant practice?
Li Yinan:
We grew up in an era when machines provided us with a lot of convenience in life. For us, the machine is a tool for making life convenient, cold, the antithesis of flesh and blood people. The machine theater's treatment of the performer is to remove the so-called "psychological depth" of the characters. But let us not forget that the so-called "psychological depth" of performance is the product of the bourgeoisie under the influence of the European Enlightenment, especially in the 19th century became the mainstream of European theater. The Sun Theater and the Bread Puppet Theater, until Suzanne Kennedy was full of weird and surreal horror aesthetics, they no longer used psychological realism as a form of theatrical performance, but were very much focused on the physical skills of the actors, and these artists were directly or indirectly inspired by the traditional Asian theater.
In our Chinese, the "machine" of the machine has a meaning that is the cause of the change of things, and it is the "machine" that the heavenly machine cannot leak, which is the so-called natural law. In "Liezi", "machine" is the "beginning of the group", that is, the beginning of the crowd, Zhuangzi's so-called "all things are out of the machine" and "all are in the machine", so "machine" is the law of nature. Chinese theater aesthetics and traditional philosophical ideas have a lot in common, and the purpose of opera actors practicing from an early age is to better control themselves, let the limbs take off the auxiliary tools, and make puppet-like movements. People imitate puppets on stage out of human humility - not to elevate their own reason to the status of gods, like Chinese opera, some are dedicated to god, imitation puppets do not have so-called humanism.
Their emphasis on technology reminds people of Zhuangzi's so-called "Tao almost skill", which has a profound impact on the creation of later generations and even the practice of people. Tao is beyond reality, but Zhuangzi gave many examples of practicing technical operations, using fascinating and handy technical operations to illustrate the realm of Taoism, such as Ding Ding Xie Niu, his voice rhythm is like a beautiful music, the so-called "dance of the mulberry forest", obeying the natural meridians of the cow's body, playing with ease, and his movements have reached the full heavenly chance. Chinese Taoism and skill are interconnected, qin and Han have Taoist art and technique, through repeated practice to achieve handy, which is a measure of an actor's performance skills. Chinese believe that man is flexible, constantly changing and developing, such as the cycle of the four seasons, metabolism, and is in eternal development. People strive to forge themselves with humility and tend to the heavenly way, so the Chinese opera action takes the circle as the criterion, the circle is "heaven", and both the action and the sound cavity simulate the circle, which is a way to turn people into "machines". This practice is considered to be in line with the laws of everything in the universe. In this sense, Chinese opera may be said to be a kind of machine theater, the operation of the machine must conform to the laws of the universe, the purpose of which is to turn people into a kind of "machine", into a law-abiding person to a higher level, this is the artist.
This solves the problem that the essence of man is fixed.
Why am I so interested in the machine's point of view? It is because we are always thinking about people, but all living objects together write the history of mankind and advance the development of human history, including animals and machines are coexisting. This can make us rethink the relationship between man and nature, and what the essence of survival is. If I go back and think again, all these companions who coexist with humans have spirituality, Zhuangzi said, and he walked by the lake and was very happy to see how cheerful the fish were in the water, and said that it was from his own happiness that was refracted to the happiness of the fish, the unity of man and all nature, man and machine and even bacteria and animals. At first I had some difficulties thinking about it, but now I understand that we all have to deal with the rules of the Tao, the Celestial Chance, and so on.
There is no need to emphasize the isolated names of each theater culture
I would like to ask Ms. Margret Affoncelle, although you have not been in China for a long time, but what impression do you have? After watching Kunqu opera and then looking at the works of Ulrich Rasher, what are the similarities and differences between the two?
After watching Kunqu opera, I did not feel strange, but had a sense of déjà vu, even in the same way as the drama in the German-speaking area. Watching Kunqu reminds me of a writer and director in the German-speaking area, whose creations do not necessarily emphasize individuality, but also have a lot of machine-like movements, which are highly repetitive. Although I do not understand the language of Kunqu, I can understand and keep up with it, feel the information that the body can transmit, and through this repetition, slowly understand the meaning of this action. Ulrich Raschel is also characterized by this repetitiveness, through constant reinvention, constant shouting, constantly roaring, walking, stopping, etc., reflecting the differences between the characters, the difference in personalities, I think this is also the similarity of Chinese and German directors.
The element of machine nature can be seen in many places, and there is a very good trend in the German-speaking drama circle. Looking for different ways to experimentally connect with traditional dramas, I think this combines well.
From the point of view of the development of German theatre mentioned by Ms. Margret Affonceller, what points do you think can catch your attention? What are really out of touch with the original tradition? What was influenced by the European Enlightenment?
The concept of intercultural theatre has been debated so much for more than a decade, and now there is more and more international cooperation, so this debate may not be particularly meaningful today. In the past, the theater culture was relatively closed, and there were indeed so-called Westerners who discovered Chinese theater art and consciously used it. Many people say that Brecht is a complete misunderstanding of Mei Lanfang, but this misunderstanding is a legitimate, very creative misunderstanding, he sees what he needs, and uses some of the postures of this opera to serve his social posture, which is completely reasonable. There is no need to emphasize the isolated names of each theater culture, just use them when you see them.
Drama training is not as good as starting from skill and practicing the body flexibly
In China, is the training of traditional theatrical actors to perform the same as before, or has a certain similarity, or in some respects the original traditional training methods are stopped and new requirements are put forward for the performance of actors according to the current era?
The training of drama is more problematic. Our performance system was established by soviet experts in the 50s to express ourselves in an empathetic way as an opera performer. Now there are so-called rich reality artifacts on the stage, which is a symbol of high technology, a symbol of economic development, all our sets are realistic, and the actors' performances are shown with their own experience. On the drama stage, there are very few performances that truly achieve psychological realism, and it is easy to overdo it, which is related to the traditional way of expressing emotions Chinese. Because traditional Chinese used to use a symbolic thing to show emotions, and it has been stylized and symbolized when communicating, starting from our tradition and imitating Western psychological realism is often laborious and unflattering. Therefore, our drama training is not as good as starting from skill, practicing the body flexibly, using opera to train our actors, and doing technical processing, maybe our theater and our performance will be more interesting.
The article was originally published in the 6th edition of the 1667th issue of the Social Science Daily, and it is forbidden to reprint without permission, and the content in the article only represents the views of the author and does not represent the position of this newspaper.
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