EVENT ARCHIVES

The Flesh is no longer the deepest thing - writing the Body from cellular to cyborg

with

Anna Furse

This workshop took place on Saturday 5 - Sunday 6 March 2005 in the Playroom Studio, Lancaster University

Please click here to see examples of participants' writing and film footage from the workshop

Anna Furse is an award-winning director and writer of over 50 text-driven and devised works. A classically trained dancer influenced by formative study with Peter Brook, Grotowski and in new dance forms, she has developed her own training methodology that creates theatre from the body outwards. Her published plays include Augustine (Big Hysteria ), and Gorgeous , and her productions have toured Europe, Asia and the USA.

She has taught for 27 years in the UK and internationally and is currently a full-time lecturer in the Department of Drama at Goldsmiths College, University of London where she runs the cutting edge MA in Performance. Artistic Directorships include the feminist performance company Bloodgroup, Paines Plough – with whom she developed a pioneering mission, collaborating with international artists and producers in seeking innovative forms and contexts for ‘new writing' - and her new company Athletes of the Heart.

This practical and dynamic workshop drew on Furse's work on themes of the body and how it is seen, used and abused, exploring how to write ourselves in significant and powerful ways. Furse's work as a director and writer has always focused on creating performance texts both written and devised from a sense of embodied perception. Inspired by imagery from bio-medical and fine art sources to locate some issues and ideas core to the project, the workshop moved from the body outwards, into space, narrative, imagery and composition. The body in any of its aspects, inside and out, as experienced both individually and socially, provided the material to be worked on, experimenting with form and content, language, syntax, narrative and mise en scene.

By making me realize my own body's limits, the workshop also inspired me towards a more systematic training method. It provoked me to re-think the issues surrounding contemporary performance practice and training for performers. Is systematic training necessary and sustainable? Can we, 21 st century performers, rely on the notions of the need for a trained body? Should we be aspiring towards the authenticity of each specific body? What is our limit and what is our potential? What is a body capable of?

LSA

 “What was interesting to see was the development of my writing in just two days, in terms of quality and precision of expression- the simplest details that say the most - and I think this was a direct result of the way in which we were working. The focus on the body in such a strong physical and emotional way ( through the warm-ups, discussions and visual imagery) stimulated for me a great freedom to write, which thankfully became tighter and more precise as the weekend progressed, meaning that I was producing more that I felt was of ‘final worth', rather than a jumble of words to sort through, to fish out the bits of ‘final worth'.

The process of writing then, for me, was greatly broadened, and became an extended physical and intellectual activity, rather than an almost entirely cerebral (and emotional) act.

I think it is important, as has been said before, to create and continue to create the kind of events and meetings that stimulate and support a network of artists and scholars in this way. As someone who is just beginning ( I'm a bit sick of the term 'emerging artist', so today I am 'just beginning'!), as well as someone who works a lot on her own, mostly in rural west Wales ('though that is misleading really, there is a wealth of artistic activity here!), and isn't very good at the whole social networking thing that can be so useful, I really need and appreciate such a forum for practice, discussion, working and playing that these workshops and lectures present. They always seem to be very well organised, and the group of people carefully considered to create a good mix and balance of people, and a successful working atmosphere.

AL