tnx santiago for your research and your ideas.
I always feel this production going through turning points :) wandering
along a small line.
What I mean is, that for me it is still not clear, what exactly the
meaning of the cyberchor will be.
I try to summon up some points here, with the help of function of the
greek chorus.
1.) presence
-> The use of our chorus to provide the cyberaudience a possibility of
being present
* see santiago's I)1.) the addresses will show WHERE they come from
(great idea! and genial if we can technically really do this)
* second this would stress a "greek element" of our play
2.) dramatic function
-> bringing the cyberaudience "on stage", does also mean to give this
chorus a dramatic function in the playscript. This could confer to *
either the plot, which is Homers Odyssey, his mourning ... OR * to the
"whole" concept, which is the _worldwide_ journey of our Odysseus and the
worldwide interest on his events.
* my lexicon says, that the function of the chorus (who changed during
the development of the greek tragedy of course) was :
singing and dancing on its place (the orchestra) between the Epeisodia;
- so what's a Epeisodia? (the great thing of a lexicon is that because of
the links the different parts seems to be mutually dependent :-)
A Epeisodion (~ entrance, scene) is a "part of the Tragedy between two
Stasima" - says Aristoteles.
A Stasima (~Standlied in german) kind of a "placed" song, because of the
location of the chorus (orchestra), so different to the Parodos (the song
at the beginning when the chorus walks in, after the prologue of the
actor)
* regarding the content of a play, the function is:
the chorus is spectator and commentator to the ongoing on the stage AND
included - more or less - as an actor; in the comedian of Aristophanes
the chorus also talks to the audience directly.
Later, during the 5th century, the chorus gets less important for the
context, the songs becomes the "Embolimons" (and additional song, as
Aristoteles again defines it, that stands in no combination to the
dramaturgy or the theme) in the comedy it becomes pure entr'acte music.
But regarding its dramatic function, it is said that often the chorus
influences the plot directly, often it has a clear _character_
(quoting Siegfried Melchinger, Das Theater der Tragoedie, here)
The chorus is described further as not the "voice of the poet" and not
the "voice of the audience", it has its place _between_ audience and the
hero.
It transports the emotion from the stage through music into the "mood of
the audience". So this could comment and stress the ongoing but also give
a glance on what probably could come next.
-> so the greek chorus was a LINK between audience and stage, in our case
it will be even more mixed up, because the cyberchor will be audience
itself but get the structure and the dramaturgy from our chorleader
(santiago)
2 functions here again: <bold>* </bold>the visualization of the
cyberaudience, the visualization of the people getting in touch with
_our_ Odysseus
* the comments on our story (see santiago's I)3. > a more suitable family
of sounds<<; and his III; see 5) later in this mail)
3) the movements
-> in our case the audience is invisible, so it can not be a "dancing"
chorus, means no bodies dancing;
The chorus in the japanese No theater, seems to be a good example for a
static chorus that is developed from the greek chorus: without movements
the function of this chorus is "the transport of emotions or reflections
to the audience that are triggered of ongoing on the stage" - which is
the same function as in the greek tragedie
(quoting Siegfried Melchinger again)
->anyone with experiences in No here?
The choreographie is described as an "individual" choreography. The
dancers follow known conventions of movements that express joy or
mourning. These conventions where known by the chorus AND by the audience
of course - actually I think these where conventions known and made by
all humans. So the movements of the individuals where put together into a
whole.
-> I like this because this would mean on the one hand that it does
matter WHO exactly is in our audience, where he/she comes from. Second we
have to presuppose that there are conventions that are known by all
participants. Once again music or sound seems perfect here.
4) structure
santiago wrote about the structure of the movements (which has probably
be expressed in our case in ways different to corporal movements - see 3)
)
Siegfried Melchinger writes, that the Stasimon was dramatic itself: "in
the crescendo or diminuendo or agitato of its structure"
the choreography tried to express the musical "evolutions" - thinking
basic problem, which Melchinger describes as the "tension between old and
new"
he also said that maybe the greek often used familiar tunes for these
songs and only changed the words (!?)
-> santiago's I)2. and III)5. Unfortunately I see no structure in our
play yet. (how many episodes, how long .....) But if this doesn' t matter
for you, I would say: Go for it!
5) sound
relating to santiago's III)4. and to former discussions we had here.
* The decision of which sound could be used is on the musicians now, no
doubt. I would only suggest to think of some examples of sound we had
here before (modem cry, sound of the sea, sound of the streets of the
cities we choose.....)
* The use of vocal pieces sounds good to me (hm, unfortunately I didn't
find anything about if they used musical instruments as well at some time
!??). I would suggest the "similes" and the "repetition" homer uses.
Maybe we could find some words and phrases that fit to every of our scene
(they have fear in every scene, odysseus has an idea in every scene, they
eat and drink and they have sex ....)
>>>So then all day long till set of sun
we sat feasting on abundant flesh and sweet wine <<<<<<<<<<<<
:-)
and - I like the idea of the homogeneity!!
I hope that I got the most things right here, some points need some
clarification for sure. The theme isn't easy, Santiago, you have support
on this from the University?
Uff, I hope my mail causes not total confusion.
ttl
Mon
------------------------------alles Theater--------------
Monika Wunderer wunderer@st1hobel.phl.univie.ac.at
++ 43 (1) 892 35 20
http://st1hobel.phl.univie.ac.at/~wunderer/
http://iguwnext.tuwien.ac.at/~oudeis/