Performer Profile: Natalie Cutcher

This Friday morning, for our program titled A Shared Imagining: Beyond Self-Enclosure in Performance through the theory and technique of the Idyll at Towson University's 5th annual Geo-aesthetics Conference (see just previous entry), Natalie Cutcher will apply our theory and approach to "Leda" by Anne Ashbaugh, a poetic soliloquy. This will directly follow Anne's lecture on Penelope - I'm thrilled once again to present her "Leda" in a new incarnation with a new performer, beautiful as it is in its poetry and sensuous sense, and compatible as it is with the multilevel imaginative approach of the Idylls performance technique.

I called Natalie after watching her at the D.C Actors' Center Lottery Auditions this fall, and she came to our work cold, without introduction to our performances or participation in the Power of the Poetic Monologue workshops. 

Nevertheless, Natalie immediately accessed the poetry of Anne Ashbaugh's Leda during the first rehearsal, with an instinctive feel for the more abstract aspects of the piece's flights ("the pleasure clinging to our dying flesh surpasses god's, persists, but slides from the immortal frame not knowing how to end, stretching"), and since then she has brought out naturally, with flowing ease, the play - the clash - of  human encounter with the divine. Here, with the rape of Leda by Zeus as a swan, this encounter is violent, transgressive, under duress - all that is indeed there in her relation to the character, and yet Natalie keeps the lyric in her body as she moves and at times glides through the piece, appropriate to its mythic import.

The lyric in Natalie's movement: towards activation of the intrinsic power of words, the Idylls approach begins with a variety of exercises designed to connect to the script with immediacy, by-passing analysis; recently, we've tried taking spatial, stretching, dance-like passes through the words, and this has had an excellent effect for Natalie's Leda, becoming part of her performance and interpretation, giving her an ethereal glide in retention of flight and myth along with the realistic human psychology of coping with a violation - flight of poetic myth even in the piece's affirming human love and capacity over the divine.

From activation of the power of the words to conscious blocking of the imagination, Natalie has created multi-level access to Anne's poetry, ready to place - in the bare space of a conference hall - feathers in the air, a ringing in her Leda's ears, the bizarre divine egg in Leda's womb.

Natalie Cutcher as Leda

Natalie Cutcher is currently pursuing acting in the DC metro area.  She has previously been seen collaborating with Faction of Fools, Kennedy Center's Page-to-Stage Festival, Source Festival, Washington Rogues, Arts Alive, and Empty Chair Theatre Company.  While earning her BA from Muhlenberg College she had the opportunity to study Commedia dell'Arte and clowning abroad in Italy as well as perform locally.  She is happily a member of the Ford's Theatre team by day.

Theory and Technique of the Idyll

Over the past couple of months, on the way towards March 20th's Idylls showcase for Happenings at the Harman, the technique of the Idyll for performance has sharpened in definitiveness.  This development has occurred during conceptual meetings, as well as in rehearsal - part of our practice and process - and not least in relation to a workshop I gave in January at Bloombars (which had the additional bonus of bringing new excellent performers in on the project).

The techniques continue to evolve simply due to gained experience over time, from continuous honing of the theory and vision as expressed here in this blog ("A Shared Imagining" as an interpretation of the nature of the poetry performance form of the Idyll), and through steady application of ideas found in the introduction of my book Idylls for a Bare Stage - that introduction now appearing as an essay titled "Imagination and Performance" in the performance journal Nerve Lantern #6   (officially available on March 18th).  

More and more, we have begun to rehearse consciously on multiple levels of imagination.  I'll give more details and specifics on how we've stylized the performances in relation to imagination - how we actually conduct blocking in the realm of the imaginary - when I post specifically on the Harman show.

Meanwhile next week, on Friday March 8th, for Towson University's 5th annual Geo-aesthetics Conference, we're presenting a program titled A Shared Imagining: Beyond Self-Enclosure in Performance through the theory and technique of the Idyll, featuring performances by Stephen Mead and Natalie Briggs Cutcher.

I hope to post a profile of Natalie in time for the conference.  She'll be performing Anne Ashbaugh's Leda.

And Stephen is with us once again, doing the Street Merchant from my Idyll of the Arabian Nights.
 


Stephen's complete bio can be found where he's profiled elsewhere on the site, and his more recent appearances in the Washington DC area include All's Well that Ends Well for the Maryland Shakespeare Festival, Romeo and Juliet for Vpstart Crow Theatre Company, and Medieval StoryLand, a hit at the 2012 Capital Fringe Festival;  he is also as an entertainer at local hotels, and has performed programs of his Dickens recitations including his one man show version of A Christmas Carol to acclaim at venues in DC and Virginia.  With the Idylls and SiGiLPAL, he's on his way to Happenings at the Harman, while Murder on the Bare Stage (see October entry) will go to CapFringe in summer 2013.

 

Stephen Mead as the Street Merchant

Here's some further context about the upcoming Geo-aesthetics Conference presentation (providing a number of indications relevant to the techniques in question)...

When the conference's Call for Abstracts came to my attention, I couldn't help but notice how much the wording of the call, and its concepts, corresponded to our structural sense of what we were doing through performance of the Idylls, including what's explored on this blog, under its title.  

So, I'm posting the call here, as well as a version of my abstract answering that call, for another angle on the uses and intent behind the Idyll form conceived of as "A Shared Imagining."

Call for Abstracts

Fifth Annual Geo-aesthetics Conference

March 8-9, 2013

Geo-aesthetics and World Peace

The International Association for the Study of Environment, Space, and Place will sponsor the Fifth Geo-aesthetics Conference at Towson University. The conference is co-sponsored by the Department of Philosophy and the Department of Art at Towson University. 

In the light of the rise of modern subjectivism, one should not be surprised to find out that aesthetic experience has increasingly fallen under the reign of subjectivism. The construction of the individual as a self-enclosed entity has led to the restriction of aesthetic experience to such an enclosure. Accordingly, for many of us, aesthetic experience is a matter of inwardness. It is a matter for what is private. This location has become a refuge where one finds solace or inner peace. This circumscription of aesthetic experience has severed a deeper relation the individual has with others. The encounter with other individuals is often an encounter with other isolated beings. Consequently, aesthetic experience appears foreign to the experience of the common bond that human beings ought to have with one another. The more individuals exclusively cultivate inner peace, the more they become estranged from experiencing the common bond they have with other human beings and, hence, from a truly authentic peace. Since, for us, “to be” is to be “in-the-world”, genuine peace can only be cultivated in an aesthetic experience that is rooted in-the-world and that embraces the bond that all human beings have with one another. The conference seeks to bring together those who are interested in sharing their views on this matter. Since the world is essentially sensuous, participants will share with each other their sense of sensuous rootedness in-the-world and also on how this rootedness bears on world peace. Presentations that seek to affirm or reclaim the sensuous as the site for the generation, preservation, and promotion of the world peace are welcome. 
...

Presentations of art works, musical performances, poetry readings, and theatrical performances are encouraged.   

A Shared Imagining: Beyond Self-Enclosure in Performance

abstract for a seminar/performance presentation by Magus Magnus

To this day millions still sing along with John Lennon’s “Imagine,” even as we’re more likely to come across bumper stickers which read “Visualize Whirled Peas” rather than “Visualize World Peace.”  Thus, there is some acknowledgement that the practice of extending the inner world outwardly, en masse – through imagination and conscious visualization – has a part in healing the earth and humanity. 

...through years of engagement with the poetic performance form of the Idyll, a practice has emerged which encourages people in becoming conscious and purposeful in creation of an open bond between themselves as performers (or speakers of any kind) and their audience, as opposed to retaining the usual self-enclosure of “delivery” – the practice comes out of interpreting the Idyll, from its roots in Theocritus, as a “shared imagining.”  Participation in the theory and techniques of the Idyll helps hone approaches to performance and text in which boundaries between artist and audience are dissolved in strengthened awareness of a common bond.  Also, the seminar will include – or could consist solely of – performances demonstrating such an approach, bringing the audience into full consciousness of a communal mental space, often experienced as an “evolutionary” sense of multiplicity in the relational possibilities of self with others. Much of the content of this presentation is an entry into ideas formulated in the introduction of Magus Magnus’ book Idylls for a Bare Stage (twentythreebooks, 2011, Towson); forthcoming at about the time of the conference, the book introduction will be republished as an essay titled “Imagination and Performance” in the journal Nerve Lantern: Axon of Performance Literature.

Indeed, the seminar will consist almost solely of Natalie's and Stephen's performance, with brief outlining of the shared imaging concept, towards bringing our audience to a consciousness of their engagement in this shared imagining - something only possible in live theater and, at this level of conscious practice, something unique to the poetic performance form of the Idyll.

 

Performer Profile: Rachel Morrissey, and SAGP panel "Fear and Anger"

As mentioned in the last post, I'll be coming up to New York this weekend to participate in a panel on "Fear and Anger" at the Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy conference. 

I'll be staying with friends Rob and Jayne Zweig.  Rob is author of the memoir Return to Naples and Professor of English at CUNY's Borough of Manhattan Community College.  The two performers profiled earlier this week, Kimberly Mikec and Genna Davidson, will stay with Rachel Morrissey, who will play "Leda" on October 22nd, as well as on November 20th at the Athenaeum.


Rachel Morrissey in "Leda" by Anne Ashbaugh

Rachel Morrissey - "Leda" in Anne Ashbaugh's soliloquy

      Included in the book Idylls for a Bare Stage is an introduction discussing the technique I developed over time in working with actors to perform the pieces effectively, to engage "the poetic" and packed language while falling neither into the cliches of poetic "wispiness" nor into the rhetorical bombast of theatricality.  A new - or, old-new - theory of acting and theatre emerged, based on the form of the Idyll itself, yet also relevant and useful to any poetic, or packed, monologue.

     So, in developing the acting theory and techniques along with developing the Idylls for production, I've also developed affinitive works for production.

      Anne Ashbaugh - the host of SAGP's "Fear and Anger" panel - and I met through Furniture Press publisher Christophe Casamassima, and we quickly discovered coincidental interests.  It wasn't too much of a surprise when in response to a discussion about my pursuit of an acting technique for the Idylls, she told me of a poetic soliloquy on Leda she'd just completed - of course, such synchronicity was only natural!  And her soliloquy was/is perfect for our purposes.

     For her to prepare for the part, I asked Rachel to research and get comfortable with her choice of one or two depictions of Leda and the Swan from paintings throughout the ages - she ended up with a vast collection found online, and was comfortable with it all (which is saying much, if you've seen the direction some of these images can take).  She doesn't stint in commitment to delving into the meaning of this story.  Rachel finds her her way into the vast roiling mixture of emotion and implications in Ashbaugh's quick tight piece, resonating and rolling through the multiple levels with which Leda has to take her fate, and new knowledge:  the bestial, the carnal, the human (of human love), and the divine.

     Rachel Morrissey is an actress and storyteller, member of The Actors' Center of Washington D.C., who has recently moved to Manhattan to study as a graduate student in the Media Studies department of The New School.



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Along with presenting performances of two idylls and one soliloquy at the SAGP's panel, I'll be talking on Heraclitus' Doctrine of Strife - with "fear and anger" taken as elements of the world dynamism - from my book, Heraclitean Pride.

Heraclitean Pride

http://furniturepressbooks.com/books/magnuspride/

2pm. Saturday October 22nd, at Fordham University, Lincoln Center Campus,
60th St, & Columbus Avenue.  (Panel attendees need to register to get a badge in order to move around the SAGP conference, but it's free to do so).


Rachel Morrissey will also appear as Leda on November 20th at the Athenaeum, and present as well another monologue relevant to the Idylls approach.