As humans of the twenty-first century we are comfortable with our routines and tend not to stray away from what we know and for the most part we ignore how obscure some of the tasks can be at times. What happens if you combine everyday life and magic, banality and idealism, work and entertainment all into one? The curious minds that introduced me to this question are known as Gob Squad, a group of seven “bosses” based in Berlin. With influences from mid to late twentieth-century “New theatre” and the events of May 1968, (a turning point in the development of a radical ideology of revolutionary change in education, class, family and literature in France), they search for new ways to combine media and performance. By producing stage shows, interactive …show more content…
Human interaction and the act of creating is magical. An important part of magic is seeing and appreciating the beauty in people and in the simplest of things- thus one’s everyday life can be considered, as Einstein once said, “... two ways. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” If one goes about their day as though nothing is a miracle, that is when the obscurity and beauty of the world diminish and an individual starts to live in the past. On the other hand, once everything is considered as a miracle, one starts live in awareness and is easy to see miracles everywhere, you are now in the …show more content…
Realism takes the side of banality in that realism explores the world as it stands. Where as an Idealist would think of things in a fantasy realm, presenting a what if type of world. The Idealist movement was strong but short lived and I believe this is true, because people respond to banal things and banal things are familiar. People don’t want to face the future, and in turn people don’t want to accept their history which equals out to people being very comfortable with what they know and how they go about their lives. But living a banal life is boring! Thinking about this conflict I feel as though Gob Squad, intentional or not, was commenting on this in one way or another. Contextually, Super Night Shot was made in 2003 when major Hollywood films, mainstream media and social networks start to take over the world. If we think of Hollywood films taking the form of idealism/fantasy and Super Night Shot as realism/banality, the “squad” is poking at those fun ideological major films and critiquing society's ideals on many different types of subject matter and levels. Gob Squad brings the theater to the streets by creating a “real” feature film, in real time, with real people, with real jobs and real
in the end magic is magic, and one does not explain it so easily. That is why it is magic.”
As a child the notion of magic was as simple as a magician sawing a woman in half, then piecing her back together, or the illusion of a human gravitating in mid air. Even as adults, we are still awed by such pastime entertainments of magic. On the contrary, Rebecca L. Stein and Philip L. Stein depict magic as a way of life similarly to elements of religion. In The Anthropology of Religion, Magic, and Witchcraft Stein and Stein illustrated magic as being a subcategory to religion; laws of magic; functions of magic; how it works; magic in society; and divination. In terms, of magic, what is it; and what makes it real?
The sense of magical realism is a natural product of literature. Letting aside literature, in reviewing the circumstances of nature of the world, it can be observed that there are a lot of elements that are expressing magical things which are also real. For instance, a sudden change in the weather at a same place from autumn to spring describes a phenomenon, a thunderstone or a sudden earth quick that demolished many long lasting things. A former grows a seed and it gives birth to a plant which becomes a tall tree or it brings many beautiful flowers onto its boughs. The appearance of Sun and Moon in a planned intervals all these happenings have a logic behind it.
Angels in America is a play by Tony Kushner exploring themes of identity, power and stasis versus change in the setting of McCarthy era San Francisco. The play looks at homosexuality and homophobia, race, ethnicity and the AIDs crisis through exploring motifs of religion (especially Judaism and Mormonism), politics and law. This essay will explore how these themes could be examined and expressed through stage magic and circus arts in the context of a production inspired by Part One: Millennium Approaches of the two part play. A circus interpretation of Angels in America raises issues of casting skills and practical stunts performed live, demands consideration for set requirements and digital effects, music, and for style of process devising work. Kushner’s playwright’s notes for Angels in America describe “moments of magic”, referring to the appearance and disappearance of characters on stage, hallucination sequences and the dramatic conclusion of the play featuring an angel crashing through the ceiling of a small New York apartment. He states that “the moments of magic are to be fully realized, as bits of wonderful theatrical illusion – which means it’s okay if the wires show, and maybe it’s good that they do, but the magic should at the same time be thoroughly amazing” (Kushner, 1992, p11). It was this statement of aesthetic that inspired me to apply the themes of the play to creating circus and classic stage magic.
Every theatergoer may consider the question: What is it about performance that draws people to sit and listen attentively in a theater, watching other people labor on stage and hoping to be moved and provoked, challenged and comforted? In Utopia in Performance, Jill Dolan “argues that live performance provides a place where people come together, embodied and passionate, to share experiences of meaning making and imagination that can describe or capture fleeting intimations of a better world (p.2)”. She traces the sense of visceral, emotional, and social connection that we experience at such times, connections that allow audience members to sense a better world, and the hopeful utopic sentiment might become motivation for civic engagement
... a way for audiences and performers to connect on a closer level. They are both experiencing the surreal, disassociating themselves from the performance taking place. They both become more introspective. The performance becomes a vehicle for self-understanding, metacognition.
American musicals just weren’t proving successful- as they were focusing on the previous century’s trend of “substance over spectacle”. However, ‘Brit Hits’ became overwhelmingly successful by breaking away from the previous ideal and creating a theme of ‘bigger and better!’, focusing primarily on creating sights over substance. With casts and creative teams of the shows being larger than ever, as well as the aid of technology advancements- it proved to be the way to go! Larger sets and bigger special effects were introduced, including helicopters flying onto stage and chandeliers crashing on stage. Due to higher budgets and musical theatre reaching its peak, shows like Cats changed the way theatre published and promoted. In the past, shows had only souvenir programs or shirts, but Cats’ signature pair of yellow eyes, plastered the show’s logo, across coffee cups, jackets, ornaments, key chains, pins etc.- anything that could be thought of, changing the course of advertising. These “Brit Hits” showed a promising future for musical theatre, bringing in tens of thousands of new fans and showcasing a real ‘WOW’ factor through the ideal of big budgets, big effects, big orchestration, big casts and overall, big
Applied Theatre work includes Theatre-in-Education, Community and Team-building, Conflict Resolution, and Political theatre, to name just a few of its uses. However, Christopher Balme states that “Grotowski define acting as a communicative process with spectators and not just as a production problem of the actor” (Balme, 2008: 25). Applied Theatre practices may adopt the following “theatrical transactions that involve participants in different participative relationships” such as Theatre for a community, Theatre with a community and Theatre by a community Prentki & Preston (2009: 10). Whereas, applied theatre one of its most major powers is that it gives voice to the voiceless and it is a theatre for, by, and with the people. However, Applied Theatre practitioners are devising educational and entertaining performances bringing personal stories to life and build
“Theatre makes us think about power and the way our society works and it does this with a clear purpose, to make a change.”
Performing arts consist of a variety of artistic disciplines such as musical, dance, music, stand-up comedy, theatre, and orchestras. Still, there is significance and serious issue affecting performing arts taking away the real essence of going out to the real theatres with real people and that is technology .In the past way before television, radio was one of the most popular forms of entertainment, having radio shows that were being broadcasted week to week very much in the same way that television is used in the present day. As Edgerton (2007, p.91) stated that “Television took America by storm all through the first decade of the Cold War era, alternately fascinating and consternation its viewers and critics”, in other difference of opinion it became the main influence on the daily lives of many of American people. TV sets slowly began to take over the living rooms in American households as a loud-mouthed, from time to time humorous, every so often shocking, regularly unpredictable guest. Looking at the current day television there is a wide range of daytime soap operas, melodramatic offerings, night time situation comedies, Hospital and police shows, as well as news documentaries. It all started in the early 1950’s when television became popular in America causing major changes and affecting the wh...
In the seventies, we could do anything. It was the rainbow coalition, anti-Vietnam, all of those elements. And then we morphed over to where it became extremely straight-laced and non-risk taking. I think we are beginning to take risks again but within those societal norms.” Theatre only goes so far as society will allow it, as showcased by the Conservatory and it being influenced by the culture surrounding it. The mirror that is theatre reflects a culture and what it may want or not want to know, depending on how far it is allowed to
Nevertheless, the question at hand is whether theatre will have a role in the society of the future, where cinema, digital television, and computers will continue to expand and grow. The answer to this question is yes. Heading into the 21st century, theatre will only be a fraction in a solid media industry. However, despite all the excitement technology brings with it, they will never replace theatre because it has something that can not be recreated or offered anywhere else. The cinema and its larger than life world appeals as an affordable alternative. Digital television provides digital interaction between the viewer and the producer. Theatre on the other hand, and its contents may take on a larger dimension, but we receive it directly in flesh and blood – one to one. The magical atmosphere between an actor and spectator who are constantly aware of each other and the theatre’s level of engagement is fundamentally more human and far more intimate.
A mere mention of the term theatre acts as a relief to many people. It is in this place that a m...
We have seen magic as a form of entertainment, from making someone disappear, to sawing a girl in half. But all great illusions have an explanation. “Magic, as we have seen, is about power- a seemingly magical power used and expressed by a skilled actor to create the illusion of miraculous happenings’. But the most mysterious part of magic is how these miraculous happenings are performed. The real power of magic lies within the native effects themselves (Blackstone, 117).