Pulse at Next Wave
As part of the 2006 Next Wave Festival, an ensemble of VCA Drama students, known as Throwing Room, presented an installation of Pulse at the Container Village in Shed 14 at the Docklands. Originally conceived by VCA lecturer Tanya Gerstle, Pulse is a process of ensemble improvisation based on a set of principles including group awareness and an appreciation of the architecture of the space. Audiences witnessed four unique and entirely unprepared hour-long pieces which arose out of the collective imagination of the ensemble.
The unusual performance venue of the Village afforded the opportunity for a small ensemble of actors to engage with a transient audience over an extended period of time. A Pulse is often an ephemeral thing, lasting ten minutes or so, and is used as a generative source for theatre-making. However, in this instance, Throwing Room were investigating the extent to which the principles can be used in creating live non-literal, non-lineal theatre that is valid in its own right. An hour of continuous improvisation pushed the limits of imagination, stamina and awareness on the part of the actors. It also demanded an attuned sense of what the piece needed in order to sustain itself so that it would remain engaging for an audience who could choose to move on at any point.
A Brief History of Pulse
Tanya Gerstle’s process for ensemble theatrical improvisation, Pulse, finds its precedent not in theatre but in the distinct format for improvisation developed by the cornetist Lawrence “Butch” Morris.
Morris, born in Long Beach in 1947, developed his musical acumen in the “new jazz” scene of Los Angeles in the early 70s. By 1976, Morris was working in France and experimenting with diverse ensemble structures and frameworks that ranged from solo performances, trios and jazz big bands to a 29-member saxophone choir. The common denominator in all these ensembles was that Morris’ selection of musicians was strongly linked to their personality and the blend they would create with other members. His method for leading these ensembles is known as conduction. As one of Morris’ press releases states:
Conduction (conducted interpretation/improvisation) is a vocabulary of ideographic signs and gestures activated to modify or construct a real-time musical arrangement or composition. Each sign and gesture transmits generative information for interpretation, and provides instantaneous possibilities for altering or initiating harmony, melody, rhythm, articulation, phrasing or form.
In other words, Morris composes live with his baton and hands. The process, known as comprovisation, relies on the improvisatory capacity of the musicians as much as it does on Morris’ on-the-fly authorial decisions. Conductor and musician are thus involved in a kind of symbiotic feedback loop where both are influenced and directed by the other, though the conductor clearly retains a greater deal of authority. Hence, the results of a conduction are spontaneous and emerge out of the creative interplay of the conductor-composer, whose aesthetic takes precedence, and the musicians, whose personality, playing style and improvised offers strongly affect the final nature of the music. It is interesting to note that while Morris was bringing conduction to the new music and jazz scenes, Frank Zappa had long been using a similar method for conducted improvisations during live rock concerts–Zappa similarly used encoded hand gestures to communicate to his band members.
Having attended workshops in 1989 at the Whitney Museum in New York, where Morris was artist-in-residence, Tanya Gerstle began examining how comprovisation/conduction could be used in devising theatre. Drawing inspiration from Morris, she imagined actors working improvisatorially while receiving live feedback from a director. However, getting the attention of actors who were moving about a space and interacting with each other proved to be far more difficult than it was for a conductor to direct musicians sitting still. The most practical solution was for Gerstle to instil in the actors basic precepts that would guide their work and, thus, largely free the director from having to interrupt–she called this mode of working Pulse. While Gerstle may still call out some side-coaching, the true directorial influence and aesthetic development comes in the post-improvisation breakdown and debriefing, where Gerstle can comment on what worked and what failed, the opportunities missed and the ideas that should have been dropped. Through these sessions a common language of improvisation is established. Hence, the actors and other collaborators (providing improvised lighting and music) gain an understanding of how the format can be used to devise engaging theatre.
When the Pulse begins, the actors have no idea what will emerge. They are attempting to allow the piece to evolve organically. To work from a place where the unconscious and conscious meet. To synthesise inspiration with technical understanding. The only structure that exists for them is a shared performance language developed over this working period of 8 weeks, a strong trust in each other and faith in this process.
Photo courtesy Emily Sexton.