http://www.sixviewpoints.com/
The SSTEMS
The Six Viewpoints
The seed of the entire work of The Six Viewpoints is found in the simple act of standing in space. From this perspective the artist is invited to read and be educated by the lexicon of daily experience. The information of space, the experience of time, the familiarity of shapes, the qualities and rules of kinetics in movement, the ways of logics, that stories are formed and the states of being and emotional exchanges that constitute the process of communication between living creature. These are the six materials named in The Six Viewpoints that constitute basic deconstructed theater. Working directly with these materials the artist begins to learn of performance through the essential languages as an independent intelligence.
These materials or perceptual languages can be listed in any sequence. You see them listed below as an anagram, SSTEMS, as in stems or a strange way to spell systems. I have also included a practice for each of the materials taken from The Six Viewpoints Practice Workbook. This manual contains roughly sixty basic practices and forms the core of the instruction method for this work.
S: SPACE
Perceptual ability to see and feel physical relationship.
People have a natural ability to feel space. Because of this ability it is possible for the actor to speak to an audience through the path of their empathy for space.
Space Practice: walking and stopping in space
S: SHAPE
Perceptual ability to feel and see physical form.
Shape Practice: 1 -1 Shape
T: TIME
Perceptual ability to experience duration and
systems created to regulate duration.
The main difficulty with studying time as a basic language is in managing to be separated from the disciplines that we have acquired with this language. The following time practices are designed to bring you past what is already known and allow you to work in unknown time again. There is a vast dialogue in the known part of time, structures, measurements of time in hours, minutes, seconds, days, weeks, etc. You also find a great many common sayings about time which color our attitude:
Practice: Walking, Stopping, Time Awareness.
Benefit:
Adjusting to playing with time expands the actors ability to place emphasis, express nuance and keep everything alive on stage.
E: EMOTION
Perceptual ability to experience states of being
When I reduced emotion to its smallest common denominator I came up with a funny statement.
Emotion is the dog sniff dog world.
Why do emotions work as communicators? Because we follow them with a super fluid super, sensitive attention. They are a survival tools we can't turn them off. If you are allowed to watch a person enter a room and then exit 30 seconds later, probably you could give an fairly accurate list of what they were like. Stable, but slightly worried and not too secure with people but confident about their work, in fair health.
Practice: Presence Work
Benefit:
The performer starts to be able to surrender to the audience and to appreciate being watched. Their being becomes larger and stronger. They can make friends with the audience, which is profound. It is quite surprising how many performers do not really like the audience and are afraid of them, that they must protect themselves from the people they perform for.
M: MOVEMENT
Perceptual ability to experience and identify with kinetic sensation.
As you begin to look for the voice of movement be very cautious that you are not: adding exterior rhythm; organizing or formalizing the movement into designed shapes.
Practice: Kinetic Feedback/Doing what
the Body Wants.
News of a Difference
The Art of Difference
I encountered this concept in my study of seeking to experience finer and finer levels of reality, and to record and interact with this information, developing your senses and interacting with what you perceive.
This is a mental and physical practice that develops your senses and strengthens interaction with the surfaces of reality. This practice is a traditional tool for artists and scientists. In the Viewpoints work this conceptual frame is given a centrality that is radically non-traditional.
The Viewpoints use of News of a Difference, or the art of difference, encourages the artist to remain focused on perception as a source for creativity itself, rather than using observation simply as a refining tool.
Benefit.
This work will not create very beautiful movement. The practice is not designed to stimulate movement invention or creation. It is designed to strengthen the link between body, feeling and action.
S: STORY
Perceptual ability to see and understand logic systems as an arrangement of colleced information
In reality we are constantly involved in stories that we only partially understand and are constantly rationalizing our actions and the actions of others.
Story is a fascinating and difficult practice. Story is about systems of logic and need to be set forward carefully in order to be followed. Logic is a demanding mistress any mistake and the work is severely damaged. We are very careful with our stories, partly because they are a basic survival tool, partly because they are so difficult to change yet so hard to get straight. If we could not tell the story of those red berries on that bush that seemingly make you ill or kill you when you eat them many people would not have survived. In our world there is a story for everything, when we manage to change the story we change the world around us. It is a powerful tool in our lives. We want to know, we need to know and what we know influences us enormously in what we can do. We are all Sherlock Holmes by nature.
Solo Practice: Group Story Improvisation.
Group practice: Story World
This practice brings two strengths to the story language as follows:
In order to study The Six Viewpoints it is necessary to release traditional concepts of theater. This process is not as drastic as it sounds. It does not mean letting go of history, it simply means adding a change of perspective. The experience of entering The Six Viewpoints is entirely different from traditional theater training. Instead of beginning with the idea of making theater this approach begins with taking theater apart. To accomplish this task it is necessary to be practiced at deconstruction or separating the whole into its essential parts. The whole is broken down into its basic materials and their languages. This activity has to be done with great care and respect for the whole. It is essential to know where the seams lay so separating can be done with clarity otherwise the materials and their languages may be ruined making it impossible to deal with them in their integrity. It is like taking a shirt apart at the seams as opposed to simply cutting it into arbitrary section. When the material of space is located with clarity the artist can begin a dialogue with its languages discovering how to observe and participate with space.
Over the years of investigation a grounded articulation of these materials the philosophy of postmodernism has emerged along with many startling perspectives and revelations on: the nature of communication; the nature of learning, the nature of social structure, the nature of discourse, and the nature of negotiation. Interaction with these substantive issues joins this theory into a discourse on society and existence, fulfilling, as a true artistic theory should an accountability of its vision.
This work does not have a pre-existing idea of what theater is, how it should be created, what it should say or how it should say it. In entering this work the artist finds that they take possession of the stage and are anchored in its realities free of the opinions of others about how to make theater. In this undertaking the artist is challenged to develop self-guidance, the discipline of keeping focused and the ability to have perspective. To accomplish this requires a type of physical training that focuses on the body in great detail. This requires educating the mind and body to its function. Underlying training such as Alexander work, body Mind Centering, Contact Improvisation, Allen Wayne work, Hamilton Floor work educates the instrument in depth without culturing patterns of movement. This type of approach is essential in that it develops availability to sense rather than to produce.
The simplicity of The Six Viewpoints is based on one on one contact with the basic materials. This approach aligns itself with the eastern practices that rely on the student to find their own truth as part of the understanding encompassing all of life. In this work there is no teacher, no authority to pronounce achievement or failure beyond understanding that any part is a part of the whole.
The implications of this event called The Six Viewpoints, the strict and unique discipline it requires, the philosophical system that it creates, the humility and strength it imparts, the wisdom it councils, the openness it engenders, the negotiation it facilitates in its attitude, the equality it teaches, the joy of joining a greater whole, the profound relief that you are not required to choose but are invited to participate, the promise and knowledge that you are contributing just by being there in the dialogue have made it clear to many people why one would want to know this perspective on theater.
The SSTEMS
The Six Viewpoints
The seed of the entire work of The Six Viewpoints is found in the simple act of standing in space. From this perspective the artist is invited to read and be educated by the lexicon of daily experience. The information of space, the experience of time, the familiarity of shapes, the qualities and rules of kinetics in movement, the ways of logics, that stories are formed and the states of being and emotional exchanges that constitute the process of communication between living creature. These are the six materials named in The Six Viewpoints that constitute basic deconstructed theater. Working directly with these materials the artist begins to learn of performance through the essential languages as an independent intelligence.
These materials or perceptual languages can be listed in any sequence. You see them listed below as an anagram, SSTEMS, as in stems or a strange way to spell systems. I have also included a practice for each of the materials taken from The Six Viewpoints Practice Workbook. This manual contains roughly sixty basic practices and forms the core of the instruction method for this work.
S: SPACE
Perceptual ability to see and feel physical relationship.
People have a natural ability to feel space. Because of this ability it is possible for the actor to speak to an audience through the path of their empathy for space.
Space Practice: walking and stopping in space
- Group and solo practice
- The movement vocabulary is strictly limited to walking and stopping.
- Do not add movements beyond walking. Do not add shapes to the body beyond its simplest form of standing.
- Do not focus on the timing.
- Observe your spatial placement in relationship to the room and to the other performers. All paths, spatial formations and positions will become part of your performance vocabulary. Explore the dimensions of the floor, the distance between walls, the distance between people. A dialogue with space can be developed through the strict observation principle of this practice.
S: SHAPE
Perceptual ability to feel and see physical form.
Shape Practice: 1 -1 Shape
- Duet practice
- One performer moves into a shape with their body and holds the shape until the second performer can create their own shape. When the second shape has been formed the first performer is allowed to change to their next form. This procedure allows for an observation of both your own body and that of your partner. This practice is not so much about making a great "shape conversation" as it should be about observation. The relationship of the shapes is at first not very important. The focus should be on looking. In looking the performers should move their heads and really take enough time to get the new shape into their vision.
- Once the performers are able to see well they can allow their timing to move faster and finally over lap without the restrictions of move and stop.
T: TIME
Perceptual ability to experience duration and
systems created to regulate duration.
The main difficulty with studying time as a basic language is in managing to be separated from the disciplines that we have acquired with this language. The following time practices are designed to bring you past what is already known and allow you to work in unknown time again. There is a vast dialogue in the known part of time, structures, measurements of time in hours, minutes, seconds, days, weeks, etc. You also find a great many common sayings about time which color our attitude:
- There is never enough time in a day.
- Time waits for no man.
- Timing is everything.
- Time heals all.
- Time flies when you are having fun.
- Time on my hands.
- The right time.
- The wrong time.
- Time is precious.
Practice: Walking, Stopping, Time Awareness.
- Solo and group work.
- The movement vocabulary is walking and stopping and as with the first walk and stop for spatial practice, no other body movements should be used.
- Staying with the simple unarticulated body insures that the concentration can remain on time. The subject of this work is focusing on length of time standing, length of time walking, tempo of the walk and composing with these elements. This work cannot be rushed or forces into manifesting itself. In some strange way this work is most effective if it is approached with an almost sensual quality. Feeling time.
Benefit:
Adjusting to playing with time expands the actors ability to place emphasis, express nuance and keep everything alive on stage.
E: EMOTION
Perceptual ability to experience states of being
When I reduced emotion to its smallest common denominator I came up with a funny statement.
Emotion is the dog sniff dog world.
Why do emotions work as communicators? Because we follow them with a super fluid super, sensitive attention. They are a survival tools we can't turn them off. If you are allowed to watch a person enter a room and then exit 30 seconds later, probably you could give an fairly accurate list of what they were like. Stable, but slightly worried and not too secure with people but confident about their work, in fair health.
Practice: Presence Work
- Solo work
- Set a chair in the middle of the space. Sit a person in the chair. Watch them.
- This is done one person at a time and the minimum time they need to sit in the chair is five minutes. The longer they can be there the more profound the experience will be up to twenty minute. At about twenty minutes everyone is so exhausted by the emotional impact and richness that they loose the energy to concentrate.
- The performer should be instructed to: try to breath normally and to keep checking their breathing; to have normal eye and body movement; to have their thoughts flow in a normal manner. They should also practice neither avoid looking at the audience or looking at them too much in self defense.
- This practice is about allowing yourself be seen. You can move around in the space if you want but I have found that the chair and the activity of sitting help establish a vulnerability and normalcy to the event that standing and walking do not quite get at.
Benefit:
The performer starts to be able to surrender to the audience and to appreciate being watched. Their being becomes larger and stronger. They can make friends with the audience, which is profound. It is quite surprising how many performers do not really like the audience and are afraid of them, that they must protect themselves from the people they perform for.
M: MOVEMENT
Perceptual ability to experience and identify with kinetic sensation.
As you begin to look for the voice of movement be very cautious that you are not: adding exterior rhythm; organizing or formalizing the movement into designed shapes.
Practice: Kinetic Feedback/Doing what
the Body Wants.
News of a Difference
The Art of Difference
I encountered this concept in my study of seeking to experience finer and finer levels of reality, and to record and interact with this information, developing your senses and interacting with what you perceive.
This is a mental and physical practice that develops your senses and strengthens interaction with the surfaces of reality. This practice is a traditional tool for artists and scientists. In the Viewpoints work this conceptual frame is given a centrality that is radically non-traditional.
The Viewpoints use of News of a Difference, or the art of difference, encourages the artist to remain focused on perception as a source for creativity itself, rather than using observation simply as a refining tool.
- Solo work
- This practice derives movement from sensation.
- Standing in a studio, bring your concentration to the level of sensation in your body. Allow your body to move from sensation and to move to create sensation. Allow the sensory dialogue to flow in a "logical" stream and observe how the kinetic logic is set up. What is the vocabulary of this sensation?
Benefit.
This work will not create very beautiful movement. The practice is not designed to stimulate movement invention or creation. It is designed to strengthen the link between body, feeling and action.
S: STORY
Perceptual ability to see and understand logic systems as an arrangement of colleced information
In reality we are constantly involved in stories that we only partially understand and are constantly rationalizing our actions and the actions of others.
Story is a fascinating and difficult practice. Story is about systems of logic and need to be set forward carefully in order to be followed. Logic is a demanding mistress any mistake and the work is severely damaged. We are very careful with our stories, partly because they are a basic survival tool, partly because they are so difficult to change yet so hard to get straight. If we could not tell the story of those red berries on that bush that seemingly make you ill or kill you when you eat them many people would not have survived. In our world there is a story for everything, when we manage to change the story we change the world around us. It is a powerful tool in our lives. We want to know, we need to know and what we know influences us enormously in what we can do. We are all Sherlock Holmes by nature.
Solo Practice: Group Story Improvisation.
- Warm up with a solo with everyone working at the same time. Use story as a kind of forth dimension surfboard, allow the story to change at any time, go in any direction switch radically, end or evolve. Do not hold the story. Practice letting the story go and keep up with where it is going instead of controlling the story and holding it to a knowable progression.
Group practice: Story World
- Each participant is in control of the entire story.
- Each performer must justify all the other actions by other performers into their story. Avoid getting into any other story but your own. If you are totally confused or surprised or left without your story then bridge the moment with, "and then there was a pause". She rested and looked around. The wash cloth came to rest at the bottom of the sea. All time left him and he became a plastic ball. Do not make up these stories they should come into your mind and body on their own. You must work to open yourself to the story "grasshopper". Allow your story to change as many times as possible, do not seek out sequential logic or consistence but stay inside your story.
This practice brings two strengths to the story language as follows:
- developing individuation and independence
- promoting the ability to function in a multidimensional story environment
In order to study The Six Viewpoints it is necessary to release traditional concepts of theater. This process is not as drastic as it sounds. It does not mean letting go of history, it simply means adding a change of perspective. The experience of entering The Six Viewpoints is entirely different from traditional theater training. Instead of beginning with the idea of making theater this approach begins with taking theater apart. To accomplish this task it is necessary to be practiced at deconstruction or separating the whole into its essential parts. The whole is broken down into its basic materials and their languages. This activity has to be done with great care and respect for the whole. It is essential to know where the seams lay so separating can be done with clarity otherwise the materials and their languages may be ruined making it impossible to deal with them in their integrity. It is like taking a shirt apart at the seams as opposed to simply cutting it into arbitrary section. When the material of space is located with clarity the artist can begin a dialogue with its languages discovering how to observe and participate with space.
Over the years of investigation a grounded articulation of these materials the philosophy of postmodernism has emerged along with many startling perspectives and revelations on: the nature of communication; the nature of learning, the nature of social structure, the nature of discourse, and the nature of negotiation. Interaction with these substantive issues joins this theory into a discourse on society and existence, fulfilling, as a true artistic theory should an accountability of its vision.
This work does not have a pre-existing idea of what theater is, how it should be created, what it should say or how it should say it. In entering this work the artist finds that they take possession of the stage and are anchored in its realities free of the opinions of others about how to make theater. In this undertaking the artist is challenged to develop self-guidance, the discipline of keeping focused and the ability to have perspective. To accomplish this requires a type of physical training that focuses on the body in great detail. This requires educating the mind and body to its function. Underlying training such as Alexander work, body Mind Centering, Contact Improvisation, Allen Wayne work, Hamilton Floor work educates the instrument in depth without culturing patterns of movement. This type of approach is essential in that it develops availability to sense rather than to produce.
The simplicity of The Six Viewpoints is based on one on one contact with the basic materials. This approach aligns itself with the eastern practices that rely on the student to find their own truth as part of the understanding encompassing all of life. In this work there is no teacher, no authority to pronounce achievement or failure beyond understanding that any part is a part of the whole.
The implications of this event called The Six Viewpoints, the strict and unique discipline it requires, the philosophical system that it creates, the humility and strength it imparts, the wisdom it councils, the openness it engenders, the negotiation it facilitates in its attitude, the equality it teaches, the joy of joining a greater whole, the profound relief that you are not required to choose but are invited to participate, the promise and knowledge that you are contributing just by being there in the dialogue have made it clear to many people why one would want to know this perspective on theater.