Bullets and other fallen things
Multimedia - Devised - Postdramatic Theater Performance
The Performance
The work is a Multimedia, Devised, Postdramatic Theatre Performance that explores concepts like sound, noise, memory, grief, and the body through a practical investigation into what is defined as, and what defines, the performative event. It examines how musical forms can be translated into theatrical structures.
Devising Process
Rehearsal was a blender. Lines from films, lyrics, thoughts, instinctive reactions, The Tempest, current events, philosophical / scientific texts, Caliban and the Witch, gossip, truths, songs, legal texts, captions, poems, spells, unrequited love, image descriptions, Blood and Guts in High School, memories, reels, lies.
The performance material emerged through an expansion of the concept of the musical jam as a rehearsal method, and of counterpoint / polyphony as a compositional tool.
Sound Installation
The performance took place at the theatre of the National Theatre Drama School. A sound installation was created with four speakers positioned at the corners of the space, dozens of microphones placed throughout the room, and contact microphones. All microphones were routed into a live sound-processing system that amplified / altered / reshaped the sounds of the space and the performers’ voices in real time.
Speech, its decomposition, its recomposition, silences, whispers, screams, objects, bodies — everything became material for the performers and musicians on stage.
My Contribution
I was involved from the initial conception of the idea and throughout the shaping of the work up to the performances, as an Artistic Collaborator. I participated actively in the “blender rehearsals” and in the performers’ exercises. Based on the material that emerged, we designed the sound installation and defined the goals of the sound design, which I implemented primarily through digital means operated in real time as live electronics.
Thus, in each performance, the operation of the sound installation and the treatment of spoken word were carried out live by me on stage as a musician.
Personal Note
Various aspects of this performance connected with my personal explorations: spoken word as material and as sound; its decomposition, digitally or through performative means; the relationship between speech, sound, memory, time, and the present moment.
Blurring the lines between what is traditionally accepted as performance arts versus music-making.
I mostly have created at my desk, through solitary processes. Here, creation was collective, involving direct collaboration with some pre-planning but primarily improvisation and experimentation. Reacting to the interventions of others, and then to a system that functioned in a feedback loop, reacting to those reactions. Sound design often became a structured game, which the performers explored while I developed it in response.
Finally, my desire to immerse myself in live electronic processing — especially of the human voice — found in this performance a field of immediate application and experimentation. It provided me with theoretical tools that I continue to explore, as well as practical digital tools that I developed for the needs of the performance and continue to evolve.
Credits
- Concept & Direction: Dina Koumouli
- Supervising Professor: Marilena Rassidaki
- Dramaturgy Consultant: Erie Kirjia
- Assistant Director: Ermioni Garramone
- Devising: Eleni Vlachou, Stauroula Gkropa, Anna Zviggou, Grigoris Sfakianakis
- Sound Design – Musicians on Stage – Live electronics: Manolis Kyzalas, Grigoris Sfakianakis, Dina Koumouli
- Artistic Collaborator: Manolis Kyzalas
- Poster Design – Printed Material: Dina Koumouli, Katifora Gouts
- On stage: Eleni Vlachou, Stauroula Gkropa, Anna Zviggou, Grigoris Sfakianakis, Irini Vouzaki
- Scenography: Dina Koumouli
- Costumes: Dina Koumouli