LANGUAGE, BODY AND SOUL

Physical and immersive theatres are becoming increasingly popular today. Unlike rich hands-on experience of Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian, and Kazakh theatres in this modern theatrical genre, Azerbaijani theatres have just started mastering it. Nobody is dealing with physical theatres in Azerbaijan, but Tarlan Rasulov is actively developing the immersive theatre. At least there have been attempts to create an immersive action at the YARAT Centre for Contemporary Art and at the Carpet Museum.

It's easy to guess that immersive here means something that can surround the audience so that it feels completely involved in action. It was the staff of the British theatre company Punchdrunk, which coined the term during the staging of the now famous play Sleep No More in New York back in 2011. Masked spectators were wandering around the McKittrick Hotel (actually, the abandoned warehouse) during the performance of the play, which remotely resembled Shakespeare's Macbeth and the noir movies of the 1930s. It looked like Hollywood crime dramas of the 1940-1950s depicting the atmosphere of pessimism, mistrust, disappointment and hypocrisy, which was typical of American society during World War II and the early years of the Cold War.

Both the audience and the critics liked the feeling of involvement in action. That's why it is so difficult to get the tickets for Sleep No More even now, after so many years after the premiere. Immersion has become the most popular form of theatrical interaction with the audience including in the CIS, pushing aside virtual reality and computer games. Cinema can eventually become immersive. City quests, backstage wandering in theatres are becoming increasingly popular. Immersive theatre has also become popular in both directing and urban leisure. The essence of the theatre is that the actor at any time can involve the spectators in performance. Fortunately, Baku is now open for theatrical interaction and various specialists in this field often visit Azerbaijan to share their experience. Apart from immersive theatre, this also includes interactive theatres, theatres for children with impaired hearing and speech, as well as ethnic, psychological, physical theatres, etc.

Immersion in Baku

Our guest is a young director from Israel, who told us about the immersive trend in the modern theatre. Leon Moroz is a student of Sofia Moskovich and the author of his own program on acting. In Baku, he has held a master class for actors and directors of the SABAH Group founded at the University of Culture and Arts for talented students. This is his first visit to Baku and felt a complete merger with the city immediately after arrival, right at the airport. This is normal – you leave the plane and feel how the city opens its arms to you. Leon had exactly the same feeling. At dawn, as soon as he touched the Azerbaijani soil, he let the beauty of the awakening city mesmerise him. Then he decided to return to Baku again to recover this personal feeling and then to deal with his professional interests. 

Is immersive theatre popular today?

I cannot say that immersive theatre is popular. It had long existed as a concept of immersing the audience before we added more modern touches and forms to it. Since the modern theatre is seeking for its future, and given that everything new is well-forgotten past, the immersive theatre is presented as a new kind of theatre, hence the interest in it.

Do you think that there is a future for immersive theatres?

Only as one of the possible forms of theatre. A sort of offshoot from the main kind.

Physical Theatre

It is often presented as a kind of innovation, albeit this form of theatrical art is rooted in the distant past of the nascent Soviet theatre. You probably remember the Litsedei of Vyacheslav Polunin and the DEREVO of the Soviet Russian actor, director, choreographer and musician Anton Adasinsky, both widely popular in the 1980s. In the 21^st century, we have the very popular Czech theatre Farma v Jeskyni created in 2001, and many more. A characteristic feature of this genre is the absolute dominance of actions over the text, albeit not excluding it completely. Director and actors are independent from the original text of the playwright, expressing the actions through the body language and facial expressions, which makes the physical theatre closer to the genre of pantomime.

Lidia Kopina, who has recently made a professional visit to Baku, is the artistic director of the Laboratoriya Fizicheskogo Teatra in Moscow.  

Do you think that drama actors, who usually work with text, need a physical master class?

Absolutely! Great masters who started with pantomime, for example, French actor Jacques Lecoq, the founder of L'École Internationale de Théâtre in Paris, believed that any actor, regardless of the genre, should definitely deal with his body. I share his point of view. In fact, many generations of European directors, actors and even set designers have benefited from Lecoq's system. Any actor should be physically fit to remain in shape throughout his professional life, no matter what the genre of his theatre is: drama, musical, puppet, pantomime, ballet. Any actor should and needs to feel his body, which is his tool of trade, same as his soul.

In other words, physical training can help any actor with minimal means to achieve maximum performance in personification of his character…

Yes, but I'd add that not physical, but psychophysical training is important. It's important to find and maintain the balance between the psyche and physics.

Do physical and psychological theatres have anything in common?

This is one of the components of psychological theatre. The things that I do is also part of psychological theatre. It also has to do with the search for a human spirit. All our feelings, thoughts, emotions are a combination of both physics and psyche. The most important thing on the stage is a man with all the manifestations of his soul. Always. In the past, present, and future. Many experts believe in the importance of a human actor on stage...

By the way, what are your impressions of Baku and the recent theatrical conference held here?

Wonderful! Such conferences are very necessary and important. This is our chance to see all the problems of theatre, exchange the ideas and experiences, and establish practical cooperation including master classes. Alas, I couldn't spare some time for detailed discussion of professional issues. But I could meet people who are involved in the study of psychophysical issues of the theatre. We have exchanged contacts but didn't have enough time for a serious dialogue. As for Baku, it's literally shaken me with its unusual beauty. We had a sunny and warm day upon arrival. I walked in the streets of your city; it was a wonderful experience. Downtime reminds me Paris, a bit of Barcelona, while the Old City looks like colonial Cartagena in Colombia, but at the same time remains completely distinctive and inimitable. I was really impressed by the beauty of Baku and its people. I am glad that we had a chance to meet new professionals and friends during the conference.

Interactive Theatre

Monika Nechpalova is a young director and actress from Slovakia. She and her colleagues are seriously involved in practical research of interactive theatrical action. Their small theatre tours with performances locally and in neighbouring countries. The experiment involves children who do not speak Slovak. The objective of experiment is to know whether the expressiveness of gestures, facial expressions, actions, mental and physical condition of actors (like any other person) can be expressed without using the means of verbal communication, or words.

How important is the interactive theatre in the 21^st century?

Not only does it develop the potential of children, including their thinking ability, but it also helps their parents to solve issues related to social and psychological adaptation of children, who due to migration processes are increasingly becoming a national minority in countries speaking different languages.

Do you get what you expect from such a serious program?

Yes, we do! Because it helps the children to adapt more quickly in a foreign environment. It makes them know that people can always understand each other if they want to. The main thing is to have good intentions.

What is the professional interest for actors in this case?

This is a sort of uninterrupted training for skills, as they have to improvise and experiment online all the time. This helps them to stay fit professionally.

What kind of experiment do you mean?

The experiment coupled with onstage improvisation. Sometimes we come across unforeseen situations caused by unexpected behaviour and reaction of children to actors, which change our actions on stage and makes us to improvise.

Do you think the interactive theatre is the future of theatrical art?

I think yes. I also think that theatres of future will be different. Just like all of us. The theatre is for people. And people always create what they need.

Theatre for people with impaired hearing

Emily Kamarinopoulo (Greece) is the creator of children's theatre of characters called Little Foxes. The performances are designed for children up to three years old and their parents with and without hearing disabilities. It's a unique theatre thanks to its style, content and essence. The actors work (actually play!) with the children on stage.

In Soviet times, we had a mimicry and gesture theatre for people with impaired hearing and speech, but not for this age category. Is it difficult to work with children?

No, not at all. In fact, it's interesting. I love children very much. They are the best that we can have.

What techniques do you use to interact with them?

We use the sign language and the ability of younger children to match movements or images with their meaning, to feel through empathy, and to improvise in order to express their desires and to convey them in all possible ways.

How does it help children?

It gives them a practical ability to express their feelings, acquire the skills of conscious movements, develop spatial perception, communication skills and perception of complex concepts.

Psychological Theatre

Alisa Ivanova is a director and a teacher of acting at the St. Petersburg State Institute of Performing Arts (Veniamin Filshtinsky's studio). She is the author of a series of master classes presented as the Demidov Etudes, widely popular in theatre schools of Europe, Asia and the USA. Creative works of the Russian theatre director and teacher Nikolai Demidov, who was the son of the famous textile manufacturer Vasily Demidov, assistant and opponent of Konstantin Stanislavsky, have not been sufficiently explored. Now this rich material, which have previously remained latent in the archives because Stanislavsky did not want to make them officially studied, is widely accessible. 

How do the etudes of Nikolai Demidov help drama actors?

They help all actors to recover confidence in themselves, not the outside world. To listen to and to hear the inner world. The objective of my program is to take the actors out from the environment they are living in and immerse them into their inner world. Creative art is only possible in a safe environment, where you are loved and can trust yourself to others.

Thanks to the initiative of the Russian Union of Theatre Workers, you held a master class in Baku for actors of the Russian Drama Theatre and the teachers of the University of Culture and Arts of Azerbaijan. Are you satisfied with the results?

More than satisfied! We have managed to do something that usually takes a week just in three days. Your actors are so wonderful. They are all very different and very deep inside. Each of them has a high spiritual potential. We need to work with this. Unfortunately, we did not have time for a more in-depth study of this method. I could not have additional classes for your actors either. Alas, I could not make a presentation on Demidov and his system of etudes. But I am glad that I was in Baku. It's very interesting and important to travel sharing the professional skills. It's also important for sharing the best theatrical practices, getting to know your colleagues and communicating with them on theatrical issues. Especially when all of this is taking place in such a beautiful city as Baku! It's a shame that not everyone could do this. As if we've left something behind, untold.

We fell in love with your beautiful city and its inhabitants. I wish this charming sense could last as long as possible. We said goodbye but we hope that we will meet again in Baku.