Things are coming along. Hector has been helping with the logo- looks pretty- no? We keep going back and forth about the exact name of the corporation. First it was Good Life Corporation, then it was Good Life Pharmacom, then it was Good Life Pharmercom, and now it's Goodlife Pharmacomm (GP for short). Of course, there already is a business that uses GP for short, but whatever. It's just a play. Plus, I like that it's also the acronym for General Practitioner.
One thing I'm really worried about is the projections. Well, not the projections themselves- my commercials are coming along really well- I've made three so far. But the technical aspects of making sure they work and everything causes me anxiety. Hector designed me a screen frame, but I need someone to build it. And of course I have zero budget.
The script is still in process, but it's coming along. Sometimes I wish I was funnier and more eloquent than I am. But I seem to be happier with each subsequent draft, so that's good.
The last two rehearsals we've dealt a lot of movement stuff. So, in the play, as I've mentioned in previous posts, the set up is that it's a reception and webinar. The feeling should be glossy and clean- precise and slick. Then, there are certain points of interruption (Thanks Jeremey Catterton for your influence!) The interruption happens when the CEO and assistant CEO are hacked, and also there are a couple of other points- where there's a silly repetitive thing going on as the "presented" space, and movers come in and show, abstractly, what is actually happening inside the brain through movement.
We tried this in several ways last week, but what I liked the best was when Rakel was cheerfully reciting a little chant about mindlinking while I came in, mirroring some of her movements and sort of embodying what happens when you are being inundated with all these commercial images. Jeff was reading the text as voiceover, which I really liked, and so hopefully Dixie can help me develop a soundscape that gets at that feeling, similar to what we were doing with the starvation play.
Last night, Rakel, May, Romina and I met at Romina's house and had a really great rehearsal. Romina had posted on our facebook group some videos of people with different movement disorders, which was an interesting entry point into what happens to people when they are mind linked. We had a discussion about developing the movement vocabulary for both when people get hacked and also when things go haywire- which was in the script at one point and I want to put it back in. The hacking is still there, but I might want to put in there sort of the "side-effects" to the technology- like maybe at some point your basic functioning capabilities begin to break down.
We did some brainstorming and freewriting about 2 questions. The first was a time in our lives when we felt frustrated that we couldn't get something that we wanted, and the second was when we felt we were right about something, though everyone else thought we were wrong (similar to the plight of a whistleblower). When we were done freewriting, we did authentic movement, while our partner read what we wrote and we improvised movements.
Some great stuff came out of the exercise. Both May and Romina found movments of touching the bottom of their neck- top of their chest- almost as if they were choking, and Rakel's found some interesting movements where she was completely crouched over. We developed a sequence of movements for when someone gets hacked. Basically, it's like there's a sharp pain in the person's chest, which leads up to the neck, almost as if they are choking. Then, the energy shots upwards, through the hands, and then the person collapses over, coming up a a hacked person.
So, we've got one small movement, and I'm pretty happy with it. Now to figure out the rest of the play! I'm excited to really try to figure out the hacking moments, but I also need to work on the text. Ah! Anxiety. I'm so happy I have such talented people involved.
