Devised theatre – frequently called collective creation – is a method of theatre-making in which the script or (if it is a predominantly physical work) performance score originates from collaborative, often improvisatory work by a performing ensemble. The ensemble is typically made up of actors, but other categories of theatre practitioners may also be central to this process of generative collaboration, such as visual artists, composers, and choreographers; indeed, in many instances, the contributions of collaborating artists may transcend professional specialization. This process is similar to that of commedia dell'arte and street theatre. It also shares some common principles with improvisational theatre; however, in devising, improvisation is typically confined to the creation process: by the time a devised piece is presented to the public, it usually has a fixed, or partly fixed form. Historically, devised theatre is also strongly aligned with physical theatre, due at least in part to the fact that training in such physical performance forms as commedia, mime, and clown tends to produce an actor-creator with much to contribute to the creation of original work.
Devising methods
Devising methods vary: collaborating groups tend to develop distinct methodologies based upon the backgrounds and talents of their members. Work creation may, for instance, begin with an image, a plot, a theme, a character, historical documents, an entire novel or a single line as a point of departure; a devised work may be text based or entirely physical; it maybe politically engaged, purely aesthetic, a docudrama, a melodrama, a performative ritual, a fairytale; it may follow a linear narrative structure, or emerge from the aesthetics of montage or collage; it may be, indeed, entirely devoid of live performers (see Designers' Theatre). In short, devised theatre exists on a stylistic spectrum as broad as that of theatre generally, and devising methods must vary not only in relation to the group, but in relation to the nature (style, form, content, purpose) of the project.[1]
For this reason, devising methods are often associated with the companies in which they evolved, and devising training for theatre makers is often associated with particular directors and companies: for instance, Viewpoints and Suzuki (the core methods of the SITI company); techniques developed by Jerzy Grotowski; the physical and vocal training of the Gardzienice Center for Theatre Practices in Poland; Lecoq technique. A growing body of writing on devising process has emerged from the practical research of collectives (see for example, The Frantic Assembly Book of Devising Theatre,[2]Anne Bogart's The Viewpoints Book,[3] and Jacques Lecoq's The Moving Body: Teaching Creative Theatre[4]), and a number of theatre programs in the US and England have added devising courses, and in some cases, devising programs to their theatre curricula, leading to a widening circulation of devising techniques, and arguably a growing number (and prominence) of devising companies.[5][6]
Nonetheless, some frequently employed approaches and principles can be identified, especially: use of improvisation; reliance on physically expressive performance styles; a lengthy development process; a period of accrual and excess as a basis for a subsequent period of selection, editing and refining. The creative process may or may not involve a director (often functioning as a facilitator of group creativity at the outset, and an "outside eye" and editor later into the process), as well as a writer or writers working either alongside the creative ensemble in the rehearsal room, or collecting the material generated and turning it into a script subsequently.[7]
History
The history of collaboratively devised performance is as old as the theatre: we see prototypes of contemporary devising practice in ancient and modern mime, in circus arts and clowning, in commedia dell'arte; some cultural traditions, indeed, have always created performance through predominantly collectivist methods (theatre scholar and performance maker Nia Witherspoon, for instance, has argued that the very term "collective creation," with its implicit dichotomy of self vs. other, is inherently eurocentric).[8]
Theatre historians Kathryn Syssoyeva and Scott Proudfit have argued that the modern, European tradition of collective creation follows rapidly upon the emergence of directing as a profession, and unfolds in three overlapping waves (marked by distinctive processual, aesthetic, and political characteristics): 1900-1945, 1945-1985, and 1985 to the present.[9] Elements of collective devising appear in the work of European directors at least as early as 1905, beginning with early experiments facilitated by such directors and groups as Vsevolod Meyerhold[10] and Evgeny Vakhtangov[11] (Russia), Jacques Copeau and the Copiaus, and Michel Saint-Denis and the Compagnie des Quinze (France),[12] Reduta[13] (Poland), and Erwin Piscator (Germany).[14] The 1930s saw a proliferation of collective creation methods, influenced in part by the rise of the labor movement, and with it, workers' theatre in the US and Europe; World War II and the politics of the Cold War in capitalist states brought a temporary halt to that flowering.[15][16][17]
The rise of collective creation in theatrical performance between 1900 and the 70s at times paralleled, at times intersected with related developments in modern dance,[18] French mime (beginning with the pioneering work of Suzanne Bing and the Copiaus),[19] performance art[20] and documentary theatre.[21]
^Graham, Scott; Hoggett, Steven (2014). The Frantic Assembly book of devising theatre (Second ed.). Abingdon, Oxon. ISBN9781138777019. OCLC876833108.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
^Bogart, Anne (2005). The viewpoints book : a practical guide to viewpoints and composition. Landau, Tina. (1st ed.). New York: Theatre Communications Group. ISBN9781559362412. OCLC56733237.
^Lecoq, Jacques (2015). Moving body (le corps poetique) (Pod ed.). [Place of publication not identified]: Methuen. ISBN9781474261142. OCLC905955872.
^Proudfit, Scott; Mederos Syssoyeva, Kathryn (2013). "From Margin to Center: Collective Creation and Devising at the Turn of the Millennium". Collective Creation in Contemporary Performance. Palgrave MacMillan. pp. 28–30. ISBN978-1-137-331267.
^Bechtel, Roger (2013). "The Playwright and the Collective: Drama and Politics in British Devised Theatre". Collective Creation in Contemporary Performance. Palgrave MacMillan. ISBN978-1-137-33126-7.
^Witherspoon, Nia (2016). "(The Waters) Between Africa and America: Revelations in Process, Theatrical-Jazz, and Sharon Bridgforth's River see". Women, Collective Creation, and Devised Performance: The Rise of Women Theatre Artists in the 20th and 21st Century. Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 283–300. ISBN978-1137603272.
^Proudfit, Scott (2013). "From Margin to Center: Collective Creation and Devising at the Turn of the Millennium". Collective Creation in Contemporary Performance. Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 13, 23–34. ISBN978-1-137-33126-7.
^Medeors Syssoyeva, Kathryn (2013). "Revolution in the Theatre I: Meyerhold, Stanislavsky and Collective Creation, Russia, 1905". A History of Collective Creation. Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 37–58. ISBN978-1-137-33129-8.
^Malaev-Babel, Andrei (2012). Yevgeny Vakhtangov: A Critical Portrait. Routledge. ISBN9780415465878.
^Baldwin, Jane (2003). Michel Saint-Denis and the shaping of the modern actor. Westport, Conn.: Praeger. ISBN9780313305665. OCLC52269106.
^Salata, Kris (2013). "Reduta's Reorigination of Theatre: Radical Collectivity in Poland's Interwar Theatre Laboratory". A History of Collective Creation. Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 59–70. ISBN978-1-137-33129-8.
^Mederos Syssoyeva, Kathryn (2013). "From Monastic Cell to Communist Cell - Groups, Communes, and Collectives, 1900-1945". A History of Collective Creation. Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 13–36. ISBN978-1-137-33129-8.
^Baldwin, Jane (2016). "Raising the Curtain on Suzanne Bing's Life in the Theatre". Women, Collective Creation, and Devised Theatre. Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 29–50. ISBN978-1-137-55013-2.
^Goldberg, RoseLee (2011). Performance art : from futurism to the present. Goldberg, RoseLee., Goldberg, RoseLee. (3rd ed.). London: Thames & Hudson. ISBN9780500204047. OCLC711052003.
^Filewod, Alan D. (1987). Collective encounters : documentary theatre in English Canada. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. ISBN9780802066695. OCLC646704783.
Further reading
Bicat, Tina; Baldwin, Chris (2002). Devised and Collaborative Theatre. Crowood. ISBN1-86126-524-7.
Britton, John (2013). Encountering Ensemble. Methuen Drama. ISBN978-1408152003.
Barba, Eugenio and Nicola Savarese (1997). A Dictionary of Theatre Anthropology. Routledge.ISBN978-0415053082
Milling, Jane and Deirdre Hedding (2015). Devising Performance: A Critical History. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN978-1137426772
Radosavljević, Duška (2013). Theatre-Making: Interplay Between Text and Performance in the 21st Century. ISBN978-0-230-34310-8
Robinson, Davis (2015). A Practical guide to Ensemble Devising. Routledge. ISBN978-1137461551
Syssoyeva, Kathryn Mederos and Scott Proudfit, Ed. (2013). A History of Collective Creation. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN978-1137331298; Collective Creation in Contemporary Performance. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN978-1-137-331267.
Syssoyeva, Kathryn Mederos and Scott Proudfit, Ed. (2016). Women, Collective Creation and Devised Performance. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN978-1-137-60327-2.