"I am America" performance by the Open Program of the Workcenter of Jerzy Grotowski and Thomas Richards in Toronto.

The Open Program after I am America performance in Toronto (Photo by Gustavo Thomas © 2014)

Last night the Studio Theatre of the U of T was again packed, this time to see "I am America" by the guys from the Open Program of the Workcenter of Jerzy Grotowski and Thomas Richards.

It was a great night, full of energy and, as some of the people said during the short Q&A session, with many reminiscences of the Grotowskian tradition of doing things.

Once more singing was a very important part of the work but not the less the poetry of Allen Ginsberg, the vocal game and in some moments a very impressive fluidity of the movement of many of the actors.

If in "Electric Party Songs" we saw a young group singing, this time we saw and noticed a theatrical group of young artist doing very well what they wanted to do and that is remarkable, as spectator very appreciable and enjoyable.

Public was less shy in the applause and more enthusiastic in their comments after the performance.

Some of the guys of the Open Program are very young but it was impressive the way they grew on stage during their actions.

Being a critical work on America, the country, through the voice and questions of immigrants (if I understood correctly) I felt opened to the critic of the Americanism, and some of the ironies there were very enjoyable; America is a country and a being who they (or we?) dream with, fall in love, hate and think eternally about.

I kept some images in my memory, especially around the American flag used as a dress and wings, and some remarkable vocal and physical moments.

I couldn't avoid to recall the taste of "Akropolis" (one of the great works directed by Grotowski) during some editions of actions and in the tempo of the actors' work.

At the end, again during the short Q&A session, and old man mentioned about the difference between the joy he felt in this work and the suffering (probably he used other word) people felt in the first Grotowskian works, and Mario Biagini made him notice that the inner work of the main actor in The Constant Prince, Cieslak, was a line of associations related with a very pleasurable moment during the adolescent years of the actor (his first sexual encounter) but the public, worked by the edition of the actions by the director, saw other thing, a man being tortured. Joy then has been always present in this group, even without the physical presence of Grotowski, and this time openly exposed.

Finally I can say that Mario, actor himself, is a master of directing audiences when talks about his work with Grotowski and the group, using his own skills to reach the people who is listening to him, we all were almost static with his words about Grotowski giving to the people through his work, founding the truth (Mario’s truth) in his voice and body in every sentence, giving us what is in his experience as an artist and as human being.

Lovely moments, and now looking forward to see what will happen next in this residence of the Open program in Toronto, with their masterclasses, screening and performances to come.

(I didn't take any photographs of the performance, sorry. I wanted to concentrate myself in the work I was going to see. So, you have here only two of the group during the applause, just as a visual document of the event).

Mario Biagini speaking after the performance of I am America in Toronto (Photo by Gustavo Thomas © 2014)

Texts, photographs and videos in this Blog are all author's property, except when marked. All rights reserved by Gustavo Thomas. If you have any interest in using any text, photograph or video from this Blog, for commercial use or not, please contact Gustavo Thomas at gustavothomastheatre@gmail.com.

"Phantom", a Butoh improvisation in front of Athabasca Glacier, Jasper.

Silent Shout -Butoh improvisation in front of Athabasca Glacier- (Jasper, Canada. Gustavo Thomas © 2013)

The Rocky Mountains are an impressive line of mountains which goes from the United States to northern Canada. Following one to another dozens of national parks were created in the two countries for the conservation of these natural wonders. As myself living in Canada considered a must visiting this place and this summer of 2013 went to the national parks of Banff and Jasper in the province of Alberta.

Very personal reasons (as always happens) took me there, but I kept the wish to do some Butoh improvisations in those landscapes full of snowy mountains, huge glaciers and beautiful lakes.

Performing Butoh in these places was not only for framing my work with a beautiful -or impressive- natural setting, but also entailed a real Butoh practicing in total relation with the basic teachings of  Tatsumi Hijikata and Kazuo Ohno, the creators of Butoh in Japan: the dialogue with the natural environment with our movement. Our body, in the thought of Hijikata, has been domesticated in every way through the life in the city, our movements are codified and we must seek break those codes (Kazuo Ohno spoke of moving our body with the impulse coming from the heart); a way to break those codes of movement is going back to our natural sources, places which by their unique force bring us back to our primordial state. That means, of course, hard work, practice and exploration, but since I started my work with Butoh I decided that this exploration with the natural sources should have a big importance in my professional life, a big importance in my own technical findings.  

I am a man born and raised in a city, so I could not go to find my sources to my original place out of the city -like Hijikata in the Akita region, for example-, but I can go to places where I feel impressed by their beauty or by their own force. Every improvisation in those places brings the source I'm looking for, it is an adventure and I feel how my body revolutionizes itself, feeling the soil, the wind, the sun, the extreme weather.

The walking phantom -Butoh improvisation in front of Athabasca Glacier- (Jasper, Canada. Gustavo Thomas © 2013)

Weeks before this travel I had many rich and powerful experiences with several masters of Butoh, first in Japan with Yoshito Ohno, Natsu Nakajima and Seisuko, and after that with Denise Fujiwara, and Ko Murobushi who visited Toronto. All of them have a different interpretation of Butoh but they are also great teachers and guides, so I can find my own way of absorbing their teachings without any fight in my mind. Those teachings were practised in these improvisation in The Rockies and I felt great.

In this post I share one of the four improvisations I performed there, but my plan, if I find the time to edit everything, is to share the all four, of course.

With this video in the Blog you can see some photographs I considered of some value to illustrate better what I experienced.

Video "Phantom" 

Gustavo Thomas Butoh improvisation in front of Athabasca Glacier, Jasper

Phantom: Butoh Solo Improvisation in Front of Athabasca Glacier (2013) from Gustavo Thomas on Vimeo.

Texts, photographs and videos in this Blog are all author's property, except when marked. All rights reserved by Gustavo Thomas. If you have any interest in using any text, photograph or video from this Blog, for commercial use or not, please contact Gustavo Thomas at gustavothomastheatre@gmail.com.

"Sayonara" and "I, Worker". Japanese contemporary theatre in Toronto (2013)

"I, Worker" (Photo from the program by Tsukasa Aoki)

After some months without seeing any theatre performances (totally dedicated to publishing my plays, writing poems, training Butoh and editing photographs) I returned as a spectator of two short plays by Japanese playwright Oriza Hirata: "Sayonara" (さようなら) and "I, worker" (働く私) as part of the Robot Theatre Project. 

The performances were also part of a cultural festival around Japanese culture, Spotlight Japan, here in Toronto, Canada at the Berkeley Street Theatre. 

It was interesting to come back to the theatre not exactly because of the quality of the plays and performances but because of the performers: half of the cast were real robots. 

The program says the following about the project:

"Robot Theatre Project began four years ago at Osaka University. The initial goal of our project was to change the status of robots from being merely displays at expositions to becoming essential elements of theatre arts. At these expositions, where scientists gather to present their latest technologies, we saw that while robots "impressed" audiences, they never "moved" them - and we wanted to show that robots could really move people. We believe that our mission should be to help lead current research efforts that examine how robots can be part of the future of human society - how robots can be created so as not to alienate people, or scare children or the elderly."

Sayonara was in English and Japanese (with subtitles) and I, Worker totally in Japanese (with subtitles as well), so there was no problem in understanding what what was being said on stage.

Sayonara, as the name refers to directly, is a "Good bye" from the life of the real human, a lady, and of a kind of android which has served as her company. The play is full of poems and also some references to the Fukushima nuclear disaster of 2011. 

I, Worker is the story of two couples, two humans and two robots and how they interact when one of the robots begins to refuse to work, like the man of the human couple did, it seems, some time before as well. 

Real robots in relationships with humans in an almost no science fiction imaginary. Interesting for the questions the plays provoke in the spectator's mind (not much, you will see), but I think still a little bit short-sighted about those kinds of relationships in a not so far future. 

Robots don't work in our houses yet, but they have been in fiction films for years, from the stupid ones in the sixties to the one in Kubrick's masterpiece, "2001, A Space Odyssey", and so on -Star Wars, Blade Runner, Terminator, etc.-, doing all we can ever imagine and more each time. So, we are trained to see those things as spectators, no doubt, but to our disappointment we only see on stage, first, one that almost has no movement and, afterwards, two more others which interact like those in those sixties series but without being really funny. So, where and what is the new thing here? Thinking about real relationships with real robots? But haven't the best films and novels about them done that now? Of courses, and very well! 

They only new thing I can see here is that real robots are coming to the theatrical stage too, as in novels and films, and the company gets a good promotion for working as a kind of artistic show of whatever happens in the industry, specializing in human interaction (like 'commercial happenings" in public relations or in advertising), and we'll have to wait many years to see real action with those robots live. Then we won't have to write short long-term fiction, and will see real problems in our relationship with them, we'll be impressed and actually moved by them, I hope.

Here the promotional video by the Japan Foundation:

Texts, photographs and videos in this Blog are all author's property, except when marked. All rights reserved by Gustavo Thomas. If you have any interest in using any text, photograph or video from this Blog, for commercial use or not, please contact Gustavo Thomas at gustavothomastheatre@gmail.com.

"Golem", A street perfomance by Shadowland Theatre at the Ashkenaz Festival in Toronto (2012)

Shadowland Theatre at the Ashkenaz Festival in Toronto (Gustavo Thomas © 2012)

Every two years Toronto celebrates the Ashkenaz Festival, and one of its main events is the performance and parade, in the end of the festival, by Shadowland Theatre, on one subject referent to the Ashkenaz culture.

"Golem", by Shadowland Theatre at the Ashkenaz Festival in Toronto (Gustavo Thomas © 2012)

This year the theme was "the golem", that mythical monster of the Renaissance Praga, which once he is alive gets mad and kills everyone who's not a believer, and the only thing could stop his fury is being in love.

"Golem", by Shadowland Theatre at the Ashkenaz Festival in Toronto (Gustavo Thomas © 2012)

Shadowland Theatre works using giant puppets, Klezmer musicians and non professional actors who are volunteers from the Jewish community of Toronto.

Slideshow of photographs from the "Golem" performance in Toronto

Texts, photographs and videos in this Blog are all author's property, except when marked. All rights reserved by Gustavo Thomas. If you have any interest in using any text, photograph or video from this Blog, for commercial use or not, please contact Gustavo Thomas at gustavothomastheatre@gmail.com.

Toronto Buskerfest 2012 (Some photographs)

Toronto Buskerfest 2012 (Gustavo Thomas © 2012)

This occasion I could only spend some hours of one of the four days of Toronto Buskerfest 2012, the already famous street performances festival organized in many Canadian cities during summer. I had the opportunity to see two full spectacles, one by a Mexican acrobat, Pancho Libre, and another one by Ernest The Magnifique, an australian performer.

I'm sharing some of my photographs and I hope you like them.

Pancho Libre. Mexican acrobat. Toronto Buskerfest 2012 (Gustavo Thomas © 2012)

Pancho Libre. Mexican acrobat. Toronto Buskerfest 2012 (Gustavo Thomas © 2012)

Ernest The Magnifique. Australian performer. Toronto Buskerfest 2012 (Gustavo Thomas © 2012)

Ernest The Magnifique. Australian performer. Toronto Buskerfest 2012 (Gustavo Thomas © 2012)

Slideshow of photographs of Toronto Buskerfest 2012

Texts, photographs and videos in this Blog are all author's property, except when marked. All rights reserved by Gustavo Thomas. If you have any interest in using any text, photograph or video from this Blog, for commercial use or not, please contact Gustavo Thomas at gustavothomastheatre@gmail.com.

Practicing Taijiquan in Quidi Vidi, Newfoundland (2012)

Gustavo Thomas. Taijiquan. (Newfoundland, Canada. 2012)

In this new era of my Blog, where I'm sharing more of what I call the theatre of my life, I'm starting to include my Taijiquan practicing.

As some of you know I've been doing Taijiquan since my 20's and studied in China for almost five years, so this Oriental discipline is already an inherent part of my life, one more part of that theatre I want to expose (or share) openly.

Taijiquan, among many other virtues, has helped me to retake my balance in many occasions, a balance to my mental heatlh as well to my physical one, especially after some terrible illnesses and accidents. Of course I have a great affection for it.

This time, in my travel through Newfoundland, I practised it en two occasions; what I'm showing today was during my visit to the small village of Quidi Vidi in Saint John's (the capital of the province). The set probably is not the more spectacular but it's beautiful and inspiring. First I tried some postures to warm up and after then worked with the 8-Step Yang form, the most basic. You'll notice that I'm doing it little bit quicker than normal and it was because some tourists arrived at the precise moment I was starting to move, they were pressing me waiting for me to finish and take photograph from the same spot. Even though, it was a nice moment and I greatly enjoyed it.

video: Taijiquan Yang 8 Step-Form in Quidi Vidi, Newfoundland (2012)

Gustavo Thomas. Taijiquan. (Newfoundland, Canada. 2012)

Gustavo Thomas. Taijiquan. (Newfoundland, Canada. 2012)

Texts, photographs and videos in this Blog are all author's property, except when marked. All rights reserved by Gustavo Thomas. If you have any interest in using any text, photograph or video from this Blog, for commercial use or not, please contact Gustavo Thomas at gustavothomastheatre@gmail.com.

Interview to Robert Lepage and my account of "Playing Cards 1: Spades" during Luminato 2012

Robert Lepage interviewed at Luminato Festival (By Gustavo Thomas. Toronto. 2012)

Robert Lepage is one of the Canadian figures I have followed most during my already 3-year-long stay in Toronto. Every year he stages at least one production in the city, but I have also searched for his work in his home city, Québec.

Over time and through seeing his stagings, attending lectures on him and somehow studying his work, his image has set foot on the ground of my perception.  Therefore I no longer need to avail myself of the qualifiers the Canadian press and critics shower him with, like "genius and visionary," and I’ve been able to place him as a theater director who knows well how to tell stories scenically and who makes great use of technology applied to the theater, as well as a financially successful artist who is secure in his continuous and personal exploration (which has a very chaotic character or, in any event, is carried by the same current of his own successes).

I've seen great moments in his productions, and other not so fortunate moments too; I'm rarely satisfied with the acting and I’m always surprised by the great love the Canadian public shows his work, as well as by the prices they pay to see his productions.

His latest production, the reason for this interview and which was also presented at the 2012 Luminato Festival in Toronto, “Playing Cards 1: Spades”, is part of a planned tetralogy with students (or so I understood) of the University of California in the United States.

Playing Cards 1: Spades. Luminato Festival (By Gustavo Thomas. Toronto. 2012)

I had the opportunity to see Spades the night before the interview, at its premiere, so my head was full of questions about the reasons for the creation of this staging. The interview itself, conducted by researcher Renate Klett at one of the beautiful stages of the Canadian Stage Company in Toronto, did not elaborate at all on the creative work of Lepage and was little more than a kind of advertising report, in the style of a television review that included an interview with the creator, where the director talked about how the production came to be, how he achieved certain effects, and some additional curiosities about working with the actors. Obviously informative but not critical at all, the interview was boring for me and even cloying, with positive adjectives about Lepage's work that I would  not expect from a serious researcher. In the end I thought, somewhat maliciously I admit, that if part of her work (including payments and trips around the world) depends on the proximity to very important people, then it would be professional suicide to openly and publicly criticize your interviewee.

My need to see and hear a critically objective interview was mostly because the production gave me the feeling of it being in a very high state of immaturity (that somehow Lepage accepted himself), uncharacteristic of all that I had seen from this director.

The play seemed to me, as a spectator, distant and cold, with a sort of naive view of the life of immigrants and of the American mindset. Everything happens on a circular stage with dozens of effects that became more of a problem for the actors than a solution for telling a story.

On the road that has taken me around the world to see great productions, some with wonderful technological effects and some without them (or, in any case, with the effects of a great training in acting), I do not find the work of Lepage as a whole as deep or enlightening, and I see it now only as just another example of a good stage show that has managed to reach economic success with respectability.

My experience with Einstein On The Beach was something completely different, where you know you’re in the face of a monumental masterpiece in every way. But that is the subject of another blog post.

Robert Lepage interviewed at Luminato Festival (By Gustavo Thomas. Toronto. 2012)

Renate Klett interviews Robert Lepage. Luminato Festival. (By Gustavo Thomas. Toronto. 2012)

Texts, photographs and videos in this Blog are all author's property, except when marked. All rights reserved by Gustavo Thomas. If you have any interest in using any text, photograph or video from this Blog, for commercial use or not, please contact Gustavo Thomas at gustavothomastheatre@gmail.com.

Daisies and the Sea (3 Photographs taken in Newfoundland, Canada. 2012)

Daisies and the Sea
(Fort Amherst, St. John's Newfoundland. By Gustavo Thomas. All Rights Reserved. 2012)

Daisies and the Sea II
(Fort Amherst, St. John's Newfoundland. By Gustavo Thomas. All Rights Reserved. 2012)

Daisies and the Sea III
(Fort Amherst, St. John's Newfoundland. By Gustavo Thomas. All Rights Reserved. 2012)

Texts, photographs and videos in this Blog are all author's property, except when marked. All rights reserved by Gustavo Thomas. If you have any interest in using any text, photograph or video from this Blog, for commercial use or not, please contact Gustavo Thomas at gustavothomastheatre@gmail.com.

Van Gogh: Up Close. An Exhibition at The National Gallery Of Canada (Ottawa. 2012)

I learnt from his paintings, from his way of seeing Nature and the energy of life. I learn about the source of that energy through those brush strokes coming from the roots of the trees and plants, from the earth itself. My feet felt their roots, their own source.

Watching Van Gogh's work in this way he became my Butoh master as well.

http://www.flickr.com//photos/gustavothomastheatre/sets/72157630883733204/show/

Texts, photographs and videos in this Blog are all author's property, except when marked. All rights reserved by Gustavo Thomas. If you have any interest in using any text, photograph or video from this Blog, for commercial use or not, please contact Gustavo Thomas at gustavothomastheatre@gmail.com.

"Maman", a sculpture by Louise Bourgeois at The National Gallery Of Canada (Ottawa. 2012)

Araignée "Maman", a sculpture by Louise Bourgeois at The National Gallery Of Canada (Ottawa. 2012), a set on Flickr.

Louise Bourgeois made several of these sculptures during all her life and they are spread all over the world.

The first time I saw one of these monumental sculptures of spiders with its eggs was at the TATE in London in 2007, but it was the end of the day and was very dark, impossible to take any good photograph in that moment; then, in 2008, I saw another one at Ropongi Hills in Tokyo, and this time it was snowing and foggy, the photographs I took resulted totally blurred. This time in Ottawa during my visit to the National Gallery (Musée de Beaux-Arts du Canada) the day was magnificent, sunny and clear, and the sculpture was stunning from any point of view. When I was watching recalled Bourgeois's words about the piece:

"The Spider is an ode to my mother. She was my best friend. Like a spider, my mother was a weaver. My family was in the business of tapestry restoration, and my mother was in charge of the workshop. Like spiders, my mother was very clever. Spiders are friendly presences that eat mosquitoes. We know that mosquitoes spread diseases and are therefore unwanted. So, spiders are helpful and protective, just like my mother." (Louise Bourgeois)

I enjoyed that "Maman" spider enormously and I hope you like the photographs...

Dancing My Own Loss (Video from my Butoh vlog. Recorded in Newfoundland)

Dancing My Own Loss 

This was a Butoh improvisation I performed under the lighthouse in Ferryland, Newfoundland, Canada.

There was all an atmosphere around: green grass and rocks all around; behind, the lighthouse you see in the photograph; in the front, the sea covered by fog (I could only hear the sound of the waves hitting the rocks and the wind). Everything I tried to follow with my sight was lost in that fog. I felt lost. That was an unique moment for moving. I put some music playing with my phone and started to move.

Butoh is liberating in all senses.

Dancing My Own Loss (From My Butoh Vlog July 27, 2012) from Gustavo Thomas on Vimeo.

Texts, photographs and videos in this Blog are all author's property, except when marked. All rights reserved by Gustavo Thomas. If you have any interest in using any text, photograph or video from this Blog, for commercial use or not, please contact Gustavo Thomas at gustavothomastheatre@gmail.com.

Little Bird and the Changing of the Guard at Parliament Hill, Ottawa(2012)

Little Bird and the Changing of the Guard at Parliament Hill, Ottawa (2012), a photo by Gustavo Thomas on Flickr.

Robert Wilson, Lucinda Childs and Philip Glass talk about Einstein on the Beach (Toronto. 2012)

Robert Wilson, Lucinda Childs and Philip Glass talk about Einstein on the Beach. AGO. (By Gustavo Thomas. 2012)

Last Wednesday June 6th, 2012, at AGO (Toronto), the three gods of American Performing Arts talked about their creation of Einstein on the Beach, premiered in 1976. It was an amazing two hours discussion, not only because they talked about this mythic masterpiece of the performing arts but because they were there, alive, in front of us, 35 years later of the creation of it.

I got some interesting quotations (could not be entirely accurate, I wrote them while listening to them):

- Philip Glass: "Einstein of the Beach is unique because there was no, and there is no, other creation like this. There is no references, simple."

- Philip Glass and Robert Wilson: "We didn't know what kind of piece this was, but when it was performed in France, French critics called it "a contemporary Opera", and we thought it was right. It was an opera in the sense of opus, a work."

- Bob Wilson: "Form is boring, what's important is how you feel inside that form."

- Bob Wilson: "You don't have to get anything, just experimenting the piece."


- Bob Wilson: "Einstein on the Beach has a classic structure, but each of us created their own piece inside that structure."


- Bob Wilson: "All the actors, singers and dancers are dressed with the style of clothes Einstein used to wear. All of them are one part of Einstein."


- Bob Wilson: "I worked the stage direction and illumination designed with the three ways of seeing in painting: the hand (close up), the body and the landscape."

Robert Wilson, Lucinda Childs and Philip Glass talk about Einstein on the Beach. AGO. (By Gustavo Thomas. 2012)

Robert Wilson talks Einstein on the Beach. AGO. (By Gustavo Thomas. 2012)

Philip Glass talks about Einstein on the Beach. AGO. (By Gustavo Thomas. 2012)

Lucinda Childs talks about Einstein on the Beach. AGO. (By Gustavo Thomas. 2012)

Robert Wilson, Lucinda Childs and Philip Glass talk about Einstein on the Beach. AGO. (By Gustavo Thomas. 2012)

Texts, photographs and videos in this Blog are all author's property, except when marked. All rights reserved by Gustavo Thomas. If you have any interest in using any text, photograph or video from this Blog, for commercial use or not, please contact Gustavo Thomas at gustavothomastheatre@gmail.com.

Tamasaburo Bando Poster Exhibition at The Japan Foundation in Toronto (2012)

Sign at the entrance of The Japan Foundation in Toronto (2012)

I've written before about my fascination with Tamasaburo Bando, since I saw a video of him performing till the moment I had the chance to watching him performing live in Beijing in 2008. Today I celebrate The Japan Foundation brings to Toronto some posters and photo books as well as screenings of some of his greatest performances and, specially, an amazing documentary, The Written Face.

While watching those amazing images today I found a very interesting quotation. When Tamasaburo was 20, in 1970, Yukio Mishima wrote of him, amazed by his face and his performance:  

"The fascination of this beautiful young man is of another era than our own. But it may carry with it a magical power, which by the right and privilege of his young age, will succeed in completely overturning the prevailing tastes of our time."

Posters viewed through the outside window at The Japan Foundation (2012)

Posters viewed through the outside window at The Japan Foundation (2012)

Flyer given as a gift for attending the Tamasaburo Bando Poster Exhibition at The Japan Foundation in Toronto (2012)

 

Texts, photographs and videos in this Blog are all author's property, except when marked. All rights reserved by Gustavo Thomas. If you have any interest in using any text, photograph or video from this Blog, for commercial use or not, please contact Gustavo Thomas at gustavothomastheatre@gmail.com.

Good Friday Parade in Little Italy (Toronto. 2012)

From St. Francis de Assisi Church throughout all Little Italy, Toronto:

Good Friday Parade in Little Italy (Toronto. 2012), a set on Flickr.