RAT Design Your Own Performance Form: A Process

[Cat Hebert <virtualdrama@juno.com>]

DESIGNING YOUR OWN PERFORMANCE FORM

As someone who has spent a fair amount of time over the last few years
speculating about the future of storytelling forms, it has struck me that
we have an extraordinarily limited number of types/varieties of
performance forms in Western culture. Part of that is limited by
tradition, of course, part by notions of what audiences will "like" (or
will pay for);  and a fair amount of the limitation has to do with the
appropriation of more "unusual" performance activities by "fine artists"
as part of performance art.

But I also believe that each of us has at least one unique performance
structure / content combination that we can add to the history of
storytelling. To get at that form we need to dig deep. Need to burrow
under our own fears and lies and personal spin to get at what best suits
us.  Why? Because I believe that those who understand the power of
storytelling have an obligation to tell their own stories or to help
others tell stories. And the personal performance form is the ultimate
story experience -- our story child.

As one way of helping jump start the process of creating personal
performance forms I've created a questionnaire that tries to pry out
personal interests & proclivities,  and a focused brainstorming process
to help put those personal characteristics together in ways that can be
developed into performance forms.

The questionnaire and the process below are short versions of that
process, but they should get the juices flowing in the proper direction.

Cheers,
Cat Hebert



QUESTIONNAIRE INTRODUCTION
This is the short version of a questionnaire I've designed to try to get
at personal characteristics which are a first step in helping you to
design your own performance form(s).  Instructions for putting together
the pieces come after the questions. 

For this to work for you, it's important for you to be brutally honest --
no spin, self-delusion, "people-say-that-I'm", or wannabe answers.  No
"well they all look good to me" nonsense. To help make that work, I'd
suggest that you  *not* share answers to the individual questions with
anyone else. Write your answers down and date them.

Here we go.

-----------------------------------

Questions

1. What is your dominant sensory mode of communication? As a way of
testing this, write/tape record a description of a recent trip.  Just
talk/write in your usual way. When you finish take a look to see how many
times you used words like "saw" or "felt" or "heard" -- or the kinds of
things [their sensory mode] that crop up in the description. That's a
good indication of your dominant sensory mode.

2. Do you consider yourself a highly verbal person? Do other people
consider you that way?

3. Do you like to work with your hands? What sorts of things? (Be
truthful. Do you honestly enjoy building sets but don't want to admit it?
:))

4. What was your fantasy occupation as a child? What are your three
fantasy occupations now -- apart from performance?

5. What performance skill are you absolutely the best at?

6. What performance skill totally entrances you? (You consider it
extraordinary.)

7. What performance process "role" are you best at : performing,
directing, choreographing, costume, lighting etc.?  Be brutally frank.

8. What performance process "role" would you very much prefer to do :
performing, directing, choreographing, costume, lighting etc.?  Why
haven't you done this thing?

9. Do you spend a lot of time outdoors? What do you like to do outdoors?
What is your fantasy about being outdoors?

10. What aspect of the performance process do you like best? The
brainstorming phase? Planning? Logistics? Rehearsal? (As director or
performer?)

11. What parts of the performance process are you disinterested in,
relatively "weak" in?

12. What are the three most extraordinary live performances you have ever
seen? What was there about them that "blew you away"?

13. The 3 most extraordinary media performances you've experienced?

14. Do you have dreamscapes that you remember? (Settings and activities
during dreams)

15. What times of the day are you the most "alive" and active?

16. What are your best "sleeping times" of the day? Would you take naps
during the day if you could? What time of day, usually?

17. You walk through a curtain of leaves and come across a pathway which
leads down to a body of water.  You walk down to the pool and you meet
people engaged in some activity. Without censoring, describe the
surrounding and the people as clearly as possible.

18. What are your greatest physical fears and phobias? (Believe it or
not, these can provide an interesting clue to a performance form.)

19. What activity, situation that evokes fear in many people produces
virtually no fear in you?

20. What physical skills do you have? (E.g. cartwheels, running fast,
throw a baseball far, etc.)

21. Think back through houses and other spaces you have visited. Which
indoor spaces felt "the best" to you?  Describe them in as much detail as
possible. What was the furnishing? The textures? The colors?

22. What are your very favorite foods? (C'mon :) Be truthful) What color
/ shape are they? What kinds of people tend to like those sorts of foods?

23. Do you enjoy computers and technology? What aspect of it? What do you
really dislike about it? If you were to design a new performance form
involving some imaginary technology, what would it look like?

24. Do you like to cook? If you like to cook, what would a performance
form be like that involved cooking?

25. Are you a 1 second person or a 5 second person. (Meaning, do you
speak, think, move very rapidly, or with more deliberation. Rate yourself
on a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being the fastest.)

26. What "speed" of people drives you absolutely nuts? (Meaning, are
people who are quite deliberate get you "antsy"? Are you overwhelmed by
fast-talking friends?)

27. With which part of your body do you gesture the most? (E.g. left
hand, right hand?)

28. Are you naturally right handed, left handed, ambidextrous?

29. When left to your own devices -- say, in the woods -- how rapidly do
you walk?

30. What is the geometric shape that is the most intriguing to you? Draw
it.

31. Are there specific objects that continually crop up in your dreams?
What are they?

32. When you dance "free-form" what movement do you make? Try to
replicate it and examine it.

33. Is there any movement that you make in your dreams that is especially
esthetically pleasing to you?

34. Are you drawn to any particular period in history? What is it? What
aspect of that period do you find most intriguing? 

35. Are you drawn to any particular current world culture other than your
own? Why? What specifically draws you?

36. You are observing a performance that you have created. (Just let your
imagination run wild here. There are no boundaries, no budgets. Try not
to censor.) What are the performers doing? Where are the audience? Where
are they performing? What are you doing?

37. What sort of time pressure is most comfortable for you? Do you work
best on short, demanding deadlines? Do you like a slow, carefully planned
process? Do you find yourself almost collapsing near project deadlines or
are you 'flying"?

38. What size project teams do you enjoy most? Just yourself and one
other person? Lots of collaborators and their friends and neighbors all
coming together into a creative stew? 

39. How much experience do you have managing/handling conflict in project
teams? How comfortable do you feel doing that? How successful
(truthfully) have you been at handling difficult situations?

40. In the great book of life and civilizations, your name and activities
and relationships and profession are written down.  What "made-up"
profession name would you like to see as your entry in that book?


---------------------------
PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER

If you haven't spent some time answering the questions, please go back
and do so. What you've obviously been doing by answering the questions is
to provide yourself with a personal inventory of likes and dislikes,
skills and so forth that will allow you to start thinking about a
performance form.

INTRODUCTION
Remember, a performance form can be literally *anything*. (Think of the
Japanese tea ceremony, and of other ceremonies used in cultures which
make spiritual links/art forms out of daily activities.)  In the U.S. we
tend to get trapped into thinking of a very limited range of money-making
activities that we call performance.  For example, I had an artist friend
who was immensely talented in many ways, but what she dearly loved to do
was to create environments for parties. (She positively thrived on the
kind of last-minute pressure that drives most people crazy.) For the
longest time (except for her own, fantastic parties) she avoided doing
her "soul-activity" because it didn't seem like "serious art".  Finally,
after years of doing various sorts of design,  a chance contract allowed
her to put together a fantasy environment for a large interactive
convention "booth". The client was wowed. Competitors were *really*
jealous.  Suddenly she had a new, hectic, enormously demanding
profession.

DESIGNING YOUR OWN PERFORMANCE FORM
>From your answers to the questionnaire questions you should have come up
with some idea of your favorite activities, places, dreamspaces, and
sensory activities. You also should have a bit better idea of the kind of
work environment (pressure, number of people) that you prefer.

Put these headings on separate sheets of paper:

MY SENSORY WORLD... OBJECTS/SPACES.... COMMUNICATION....
LIKES/DISLIKES.... DREAMS.... ABILITIES... WORK ENVIRONMENT...PERFORMANCE
 LIKES/DISLIKES

Under the headings, write down elements from the questionnaire that seem
to correspond, then, off of the top of your head, brainstorm other
aspects of your interior/exterior world that you forgot to put down and
add them to the list.

Once you have all of the sheet lists completed, go back and number the
lists, running from 1 to whatever on each page. Then, write down the
numbers from 1 to [your longest list item number] on a sheet of paper,
and cut up the piece of paper so that you have a pile. Put the pile in a
hat or cup and, for each page of your personal inventory, pick a random
number. For example, you might pick a "6" in sensory world. The sixth
item might be "like frosted windows in winter time".

When you have chosen one random list item from each page, put the items
together at the top of a page, and use your imagination to outline your
own performance form out of elements. Forget about current
forms/requirements/audience tastes. This is for you. This is your form.
Don't worry if it seems "ridiculous". (How ridiculous is musical comedy,
anyway?)

Go back to the pages and the cup of numbers. Do the exercise again and
again. Create several performance forms. Take the new performance forms
and combine them if you like. What feels absolutely right? (Absolutely
right could be something that makes you beam or something that scare the
shit out of you just looking at it.)

Once you find a couple of forms that seem "just right", detail for
yourself what you would need to do to create these as a performance form?
What people? What elements? If the whole thing seems impossible (flying
monkeys), what technology, what "magic" could you apply that would make
it work.

Happy designing. Happy life.

Cat Hebert
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