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PERFORMING ART IS NOT A ONE MAN SHOW: BASICS OF ARTISTIC WORK (In Search of Cultural Heritage as a Production Advantage) TATJANA AZMAN, DRAMATURGE My Motherland - Slovenia I come from Central / Eastern European Country, neighboring to Italy, Croatia, Hungary and Austria. The population of this small country is only 2 million. Slovenia was formerly a part of Yugoslavia and is independent since 1991, now Slovenia is a member of the European Union. Because of the historical background, Slovenia was always a mixture of different cultures. Before the First WW we even didn’t have our national institutions, because we belonged to the Austrian-Hungarian Empire this was only possible after 1918 when in this region a Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenians was formed. Geographically Slovenia is located as a bridge between Western and Eastern Europe. Our capital Ljubljana dates as far as the time of the Roman Empire and was in that time called Emona. The dragon, a symbol of our capital, is something close to Chinese culture, but in fact it is supposed to be a legendary dragon which Jason and his crew of Argonauts killed while travelling in search of Golden Fleece. Ljubljana, foto: internet Academy for Theatre, Radio, Film and TV, University of Ljubljana My alma mater - AGRFT, is a small academy, recruiting students in Theatre, Radio, Film and Television in majors like theatre and radio directing, acting, dramaturgy and film and TV directing. Since we changed a university system to Bologna Accord, after First Cycle of 3 years and getting a BA and during MA studies, students have even more developed and varied studies of particular subjects in performing arts, film and TV industry. My profession - DRAMATURGE By profession I am a dramaturge, which is a very interesting field of performing arts, both in the sense of practical artistic and theoretical work. To be more precise, dramaturgy can be understood in many ways, but please consider this profession as one which is still developing, because you can find dramaturgs all around the World, but you might notice they cover different fields and have different jobs. More or less we can understand a dramaturg to be involved in playwriting, as a member of the production artistic team as a close collaborator of a director, a member of the theatre artistic team as a consultant, a dramaturg can also be a theatrologyst, researcher and critic and can work as a part of theatre teams, such as literal consulting, audience developing, education and marketing. After graduation I was a freelance artist for some years and was working in a Municipal theatre in Celje. I was also involved in many projects in many different disciplines, including drama, dance, children’s theatre, puppet theatre, etc. I also worked at our national TV on TV shows and was a journalist for a while, all of which was a great experience. Later I was invited to an independent theatre in Ljubljana to be a dramaturge, and after entering the national Opera house in Ljubljana I was a first professional in house dramaturge there after many years. After finishing the University, the artistic work one does may be quite different from what you were studying or you will be executing later in your professional life, but in fact all professional experience can become useful one day. I personally consider a dramaturge in many ways quite important for each theatre. Dramaturges position is a collective experience, between the stage and audience. In order to produce a good work or performance, we need to cooperate with the artistic team (director, conductor, stage and costume designer, makeup artist, light designer, sound design …) and also with the performing part of our ensembles (singers, dancers). After working with the professionals, we would also like to see the performance objectively as an audience sees it; our position is therefore to represent audience at the same time. During the performance rehearsal we observe the location of performers on the stage, their interaction and interpretation set by the director, interpretation of the text, function of costumes, lighting, back ground settings and many more important things happening on the stage. If there’s anything wrong, we are supposed to make our remarks in time. To make sure the performance is going to be successful, we always need to convey the right emotions and values to the audience. If the show went well, then we could say that a dramaturgical line was well performed. Where I work I would like to introduce The Slovenian National Theatre Opera and Ballet Ljubljana, one of the largest theatres in our country, which has almost 300 artists, technical and management stuff employed. This place used to be a very old and not well maintained building originally built in 1892, the main problem was also that many contemporary technical demanding works were not possible to be produced due to an old and bad infrastructure. After several years of renovation (2007 – 2011), now there is a very nice platform as well as stage, audio and lighting equipment, together it well provides a lot of excellent performances, including ballet, opera, experimental productions and other events. It is also considered to be a magnificent historical building. More on: www.opera.si Slovenian National Theatre Opera and Ballet Ljubljana, foto: R. Balen Slovenian National Theatre Opera and Ballet Ljubljana, foto: D. Prelovsek Workflow Our working time is from September to June or July. Before the project begins, the artistic leadership starts a discussion, to decide what our next message to the audience is going to be. The theme for the season of 2016/2017 is The Encounter between the Worlds. We wanted to express our point of view on this matter and compose it together with the choice of titles on the repertoire. The next step of our collective planning is the selection of the artistic team. First are to be determined the director and the conductor, then according to our mutual artistic vision, we choose the professional artistic team. A good team is very important in order to have a good communication from the very start and later in the artistic creation process. It is very much appreciated that the members of the team listen to each other, search for good ideas and later together combine those ideas to a complete work. Opera The Tenth Daughter – practical example Slovenian opera novelty The Tenth Daughter was produced in May 2015 and is based on the Slovenian national heritage, on the very folk old story about the tenth child in the family who was usually not very much appreciated. So, the leading character is the tenth daughter of the family, who had to leave her home in search of better life. The background was based on the old social perceptions. So, to attract the audience’s interest, especially the interest of the young audience to accept this work, was a demanding task. Nowadays we have to be aware that it is easy to be influenced by pop-culture, fashion and all modern influences and, at the same time, it is also very easy to forget a precious cultural heritage, which we may find in many art forms and may be as varied as a simple folk poem, a painting, a legend ... We started our creative process of this new opera from a very simple poem which was transformed into libretto, an opera text. In this libretto we one can find a lot of influences from our national, Slavic background, some of it almost forgotten. The Tenth Daughter, SNT Opera and Ballet Ljubljana, foto: Darja Stravs Tisu The Tenth Daughter, SNT Opera and Ballet Ljubljana, foto: Darja Stravs Tisu The Tenth Daughter, SNT Opera and Ballet Ljubljana, foto: Darja Stravs Tisu The Tenth Daughter, SNT Opera and Ballet Ljubljana, foto: Darja Stravs Tisu Then, a composer added his perspective by composing music which was inspired by different interesting motifs from our music national heritage. In one part of the libretto a composer added the oldest known written text in Slovenian from the 8th Century A.D and his music was improving a force of this detail by its most powerful way. In the musical meaning of the word, orchestration of the work was contemporary, but at the same time it included also the use of traditional instruments, not used in the orchestra those days anymore. The Tenth Daughter, SNT Opera and Ballet Ljubljana, foto: Darja Stravs Tisu The Tenth Daughter, SNT Opera and Ballet Ljubljana, foto: Darja Stravs Tisu The creation of sets incorporated many symbols and elements which have the background in national heritage. When the Tenth Daughter leaves her home and she finds herself in the forest we did not use the realistic way to express the forest and therefore used many symbols instead. Long wooden sticks marked the forest, ancient Slavic symbols marked different kind of trees and we incorporated those also as a part of singer’s costumes. Because the stage of our opera can be lifted, we decided not to build anything else, but to use only the technological elements of stage to express different stage design. The Tenth Daughter, SNT Opera and Ballet Ljubljana, foto: Darja Stravs Tisu The Tenth Daughter, SNT Opera and Ballet Ljubljana, foto: Darja Stravs Tisu The Tenth Daughter, SNT Opera and Ballet Ljubljana, foto: Darja Stravs Tisu To move even closer to some national heritage elements there was a moment of the creative process when we decided to use also some ancient text and even created a new language which we incorporated in the scene of arrival of the ancient nation of Gypsies. There we added a tense atmosphere through music, dance and colorful costumes. The Tenth Daughter, SNT Opera and Ballet Ljubljana, foto: Darja Stravs Tisu The Tenth Daughter, SNT Opera and Ballet Ljubljana, foto: Darja Stravs Tisu The Tenth Daughter, SNT Opera and Ballet Ljubljana, foto: Darja Stravs Tisu Next element we used is “the purification of the soul” which led us to bring and optimistic end to the story. Besides the main character of the girl interpreted by the professional singer, we used also a symbolistic figure of the young Tenth Daughter performed by a very young singer. In the story the little girl is alone on the stage; there are only music and a little girl. She sings, with the water in her hand and the water pouring on the stage, which is the symbol of purity, purification of our souls in this cruel World. This, by the way, was also the main topic of this work: we wanted to show the brutal strength of the power of our society and the destiny of anonymous human being. But, the good prevails if we bring out the best in us. The Tenth Daughter, SNT Opera and Ballet Ljubljana, foto: Darja Stravs Tisu The Tenth Daughter, SNT Opera and Ballet Ljubljana, foto: Darja Stravs Tisu The production was very well received. It was not at all just some story foretold. It was a dynamic, clean and energetic performance with many different elements, oriented to bring the forgotten nature of our nation as well as the contemporary staging of the up-to-date theme. Collective work Theatre is like a big family, people involved are in charge of different elements and they all spent a lot of time and hard work for every single show. So, it is important to know that as a professional you will be working with a group of people, not just by yourself. At the very beginning of each creative process we have to be aware of many different facts and conditions we have, and this comes besides our strong wish to be artistically creative. Such things as: a performing place or venue, budget and the importance of audience are nowadays unfortunately even more important than artistic creativity, even though artist don’t always agree on that. But fortunately, even though some ideas might need more funding, a lot of good ideas can as well be realized with very little funding. Some artists consider those projects to be even more creative and opened for different approaches. The most important thing working in such teams, which often are marked as a smaller scale productions in professional theatres or productions produced by independent companies, are maybe the best place to learn the basics of artistic work. The fact that sometimes you will have work with people you don't like, but that you still have to work with them, is something we add to the fact we do our artistic work for living and this often becomes an obstacle in big professional companies where artists are engaged for a longer period of time. Independent companies are usually run by free-lance artists who gather for a project and therefore the group is gathered for a certain production and more carefully selected. There is a good question about whether to work with your friends or with artists you know nothing about. One needs to try both and get to know both sides of the business to know which is better for her or him personally. When a project is ended, some people might still work together, some might not, but this is what makes an artistic World alive. This way we all gain more knowledge from each other and we learn how to collaborate. Summary Team work is the basis of collective work. Especially in performing art we cannot develop any creation without the team. Directors, set designers, costume designers, lighting designers, text writers, dramaturges, all those artists are this or the other way connected in the process of conceiving a production. Later, performers take over and the artistic team is there to build a production together. So performing arts is always about the collaboration, exchange of ideas and sharing ideas between all the artists involved. Even a one man show cannot be produced properly without some kind of a team. I tried to give you some ideas about what is a professional work and what is expected of you, as I have had masters who guided me during my studies. Thru the description of what was needed to produce an opera with the national heritage character and ideas about my professional work, you can have a glimpse into practical way of production. For sure there are many opened questions and one presentation is not enough to give you a full picture. But, as an artist, I would like to underline one very important thing. Trust your intuition and ideas and when later in the creative process you feel lost, try to remember your first idea, because this is most definitely the purest thought you can always share with your team. I wish you good luck with your life and art! ADDITIONAL PRODUCTION INFO: Milko Lazar THE TENTH DAUGHTER An Operatorio in Ten Scenes Based on a Libretto by Svetlana Makarovič A Slovenian Novelty, performed in Slovenian with English subtitles First Performance: 15 May 2015 Music: Milko Lazar Libretto: Svetlana Makarovič Music Director and Conductor: Marko Hribernik Stage Director and Set Designer: Rocc Costume Designer: Miro Sabo Dramaturge: Tatjana Ažman Choreographer: Gregor Luštek Lighting Designer: Jasmin Šehić Choir Mistress: Željka Ulčnik Remic Language Coach: Nevenka Verstovšek Concertmaster: Igor Grasselli Opera Soloists, Choire and Orchestra SNT Opera and Ballet Ljubljana IN BRIEF The Slovenian composer Milko Lazar (1965), who has established himself abroad as well, created an “operatorio” The Tenth Daughter, based on a libretto by one of our greatest living literature writers Svetlana Makarovič (1939). The story revolves around a refined and rather common understanding of universal love as traced in the mythological structure of the folk song about the Tenth Daughter. The performance is directed by the Artistic Director of the Ljubljana Opera Rocc, who mainly dedicates himself to directing of contemporary opera pieces. The performance is conducted by Marko Hribernik. Notes on the Tenth Daughter Extracts from the Interview with the Composer Milko Lazar by Veronika Bervar /…/ It was already back in 2001 that Svetlana Makarovič and I created together the Tenth Daughter for the solemn presentation of the Literary Award Kresnik at Rožnik Hill in Ljubljana. For the event, directed by Igor Likar, a mixed choir and percussionists were put at my disposal. Svetlana wrote the lyrics and thus our scenic oratorio was born. Even then we were already thinking about conceiving something bigger – an opera, perhaps. Six years ago we were discussing its staging at the SNG Opera in balet Ljubljana. However, at that time the theatre's management was changing so fast that it was quite impossible to reach any definite agreement there regarding our performance. This time, fifteen years after the oratorio's premiere, the initiative came spontaneously from the side of the Opera. Thrilled about the idea, Rocc, the Artistic Director of Opera, immediately asked me how much time I needed to finish the work. My guess was a year, so the opera was already listed into this year's season. Then Svetlana and I got together again to write a brand new libretto and to compose a very new music to it that had nothing to do with the work we created fifteen years ago. I asked Svetlana to include an additional role for an actor in the libretto. Thus to perform in the opera beside the singers is an actor-reciter-narrator, on whom Svetlana bestowed the role of the Court Jester. With this character a drastic change occurred to the story as compared to the folk legend and its original text, giving way to a spanking new, and yet a very interesting libretto. From there on the things unwound very quickly, since there was not much time left and the performance was already planned for this year's season. I am convinced that a new operatic work to a new libretto can be created only in a close collaboration between the composer, the director and the dramaturge. Although the music was composed quite autonomously, I regularly discussed the course of my work with the director and the dramaturge and with the conductor as well, since some musical parts had to be adapted to the theatre or stage realisation in advance. In some cases I also gladly gave ear to the director's suggestions. I would like to use the opportunity and thank all the members of the artistic team, who supported me throughout the process of creating, and especially the director Rocc, the conductor Marko Hribernik, the dramaturge Tatjana Ažman and the choreographer Gregor Luštek. /…/ I see Desetnica (the Tenth Female Child or the Tenth) as an eternal character, present throughout the history of mankind. It is a myth, symbolising the difference from the majority, the everlasting homelessness. It all boils down to the two sides of the coin; one of it - folk and pre-Christian and the other one - topical. We are all aware of the fact that »different« people are still outcast from all levels of specific public sphere, specific society. If you are different, you are outcast and forced to leave. And this is where the topicality of the story is revealed as well. /…/ I have always liked a play on words, so I made up a word operatorio, which was never used before. Stravinsky described his work Oedipus Rex as an »opera-oratorio«, but I did not want to follow his example. As a creator I am certainly allowed to manufacture any word I might choose and write it on the score. The duality of the work's title also follows its contents and the main motto, brought to us by the Court Jester: »There's a grain of truth in every joke.« And as far as the sound of the »invented« word is concerned, there is a certain musicality to it in different languages as well – operatorio, operatorium, operatore … I find it interesting that to many people it sounds familiar, although it never existed before. Indeed, it offers quite a number of associations, but what was most essential for me was that it also introduces a new way of thinking. I am aware that some people will find such denomination quite problematic. But that's how it is, some of us are creating and the others are making comments. My wish was to unstuck myself from the dusty, mothball labels and morbid, stuffy forms, which are hindering development and inspiration. This time I really had an opportunity to compose a text – partly dramatic and partly poetic – in an entirely new way. And honestly, I did not see classical opera in it … /…/ THE TENTH DAUGHTER CONTENTS First Scene: Townspeople Second Scene: The Court Jester - Prologue Third Scene: The White Castle Ten Daughters are celebrating their birthday at the White Castle. They are playing a funny game, in which the youngest among them must leave her home. The Court Jester drops a hint that there is a grain of truth in every joke. Offended, the youngest daughter calls her mother for help. Fourth Scene: The Mother The Mother tries to calm down her daughters and to console the Tenth one. The Court Jester plays the Ninth King, but the Tenth Daughter is not amused. It is getting dark and musicians are expected at the castle. The merrymaking starts to last until late in the evening, when the daughters are sent to bed. Only the Mother and the Court Jester stay awake and the latter reminds her of an old legend about the Curse and the Midnight Bat. Fifth Scene: The Midnight Bat On the stroke of midnight the beating of wings is heard. The Midnight Bat brings in a ring, obliging the Mother to put it on, or else everyone will have to face Death. When she puts the ring on, her heart turns to stone and she banishes her Tenth Daughter from the Castle. Sixth Scene: The Forest On a Midsummer Night the Tenth Daughter is seeking shelter in the forest. During a thunderstorm she takes refuge under a pine tree and then under a beech tree, but both trees warn her that they can be struck by lightning. Finally, she finds shelter under the seven time blessed holy hornbeam. Yet lightning hits this very tree and burns it down to the ground … The Tenth resumes her journey … Seventh Scene: Death The Court Jester tells the story about the Tenth Daughter, who comes back home after seven years and is rejected by her Mother, when she asks if she could stay overnight. In the story the Jester reminds the Mother that the time has come for her to take the ring off. When she does that, her heart is no longer a stone; she becomes aware of her deeds and weeps for her daughter, who is never to come back. Her heart bleeds to death. The Court Jester is now free to leave the White Court. Eighth Scene: Gypsies Singing and saying their ancient healing prayers, Gypsies bring a ceremonial fire to the country, thus cleansing it of all its evil. Ninth Scene: The Living Water The Living Water in the hands of the Tenth is a symbol of a new life. Tenth Scene: The Tenth The Tenth Daughter bids farewell to her suffering and sets off for a white bramble flower as the Tenth. Kaja Novosel