Talent: We Haz It

The following was started August 17th, but completed today . . .

So . . . I did this thing. Just helping some friends, really. Back in June. I didn't write about it. But it invaded my every thought for a while there, so it was weird to not write about it. I sort of wrote around it a bit (see

6/25/09

) and contented myself with the knowledge that someday I would be allowed to write about it. The trouble was, I wouldn't know when exactly, until it happened. In fact, as I begin this post, I don't know when it "happened," or in fact

what

happened to allow me to publish about it, but I hope and hope and hope that what happened was something along the lines of my friends blowing away the competition and their lives changing for the better, forever and ever.

Anyway: such are the promises of TV.

America's Got Talent

is not my favorite show. In fact, that's putting it rather mildly. I put it mildly, however, because the show has provided Friends Zoe and Dave -- of

Paradizo Dance

fame -- with a tremendous platform for their unique work. Dave and Zoe have combined Dave's background in competitive salsa with Zoe's in modern dance and circus skills to create stunning, fairly stunt-oriented choreography, the likes of which no one has ever really seen before. I met Zoe through Kate

Magram

while working together in

Kirkos

, was there for one of her first collaborations with Dave, in

Cirque Boom

's

Madness & Joy!

, and thereafter shared an apartment with Zoe in 2006. They're great people; you may remember my write-up of their incredible wedding last October (see

9/15/08

). For all that, I never saw us working together. Their emphasis is so on dance, and mine on theatre, that the commonalities seemed few and unlikely to bring us together.

So thank you,

America's Got Talent

, for scaring Dave and Zoe enough to ask for feedback from this crazy clown. To be specific, I worked with Paradizo Dance for a total of six hours, over three days. We would have worked more, but I had to be off to Italy, and those two . . . well. Those of you who think

I

keep busy have no idea. Really. They're pretty amazing offstage as well as on. So what on earth would compel them to ask me for help? I mean, Zoe can lift Dave off the ground, and Dave can practically balance Zoe on his fingers! ("Come on!", I often find myself involuntarily shouting in disbelief when I watch one of their acts.) Well, turning in several unique acts over the course of a summer television season requires one to stretch one's versatility a bit, and one such stretch that they wanted to perform was into the area of stage comedy.

I'm going to assume at this point that I'm not posting this until the season has ended, for them, or in its entirety (for me, the latter will coincide with the former, regardless). As I'm writing, I have no way of knowing how their comic act went, or if they even had a chance to perform it -- though all signs I have now indicate that they will. In fact, I don't know a thing about the act itself. It will be as much a surprise to me as to the rest of the viewing audience. When I left their process, we had established a lot, but choreographed very little, and one of my imperatives to them was to throw out anything we "established" when it ceased to work for them. I know they were working with other people on this particular piece, and I hope they consulted someone else as they were actually building it. Most of my time, you see, was spent workshopping with them on how we collaborate to create a narrative, physical comedy.

It's one of my favorite subjects, it's what

Zuppa del Giorno

is all about, and somehow I'd never had the opportunity to explore it the way I did with Zoe and Dave. Here were two people with tons of performance experience, tons of physical ability, and even a little theatre background, but very little experience with physical comedy. I had a really excellent time working to explain ideas that make comedy work for me, as well as working to refine a functional dynamic in which they could collaborate to create something unlike anything else they've ever made. We were thinking on our feet, and discussing big ideas, and man -- I'd love to do it again.

* * *

Well: Hell. America,

what is wrong with you?

I'm kidding, of course. It was an awful disappointment to witness my friends voted off the show last night, but I'm not bitter about it. (Okay, I'm only mildly bitter about it. [Okay, I burned all my Hasselhoff CDs.]) There's a lot I could write about the contributing factors to the elimination, but it's all a little pointless, and I have to remind myself that

Paradizo Dance

got a pretty wonderful second prize in all this -- the kind of exposure that changes their professional position for the better.

America's Got Talent

was never going to change the fact that they're incredibly entertaining and talented performers, win or "lose," and I just hope they are walking away from it with chins held high. They did a magnificent job, and the whole thing was more a fortunate accident than it was their ultimate goal, anyway.

Not that a cool million and headlining in Vegas would have been unwelcome, of course. But anyway.

There's a small but persistent part of me that feels really, really terrible and anxious that I may have steered them wrong. Logically, I know that the work was out of my influence for two months before they performed it and we only worked on ideas and a few beats of choreography. I certainly can't claim any credit for their work! I also know that what they ended up performing was beautifully done, and that the judgment of the audience was as much a matter of taste as of anything objective. Still, I have this little bit within; it is kissing cousins with my general sense of responsibility, and makes me want to take it all on myself. I would like to say to America: "America, blame me for all the parts you didn't like. Let's give these crazy kids another chance!" And so, America, if I have your ear, there you have it.

It's not my place of course to go into any detail here about what I did and didn't see from our time working together in the piece. That's a private discussion that Zoe and Dave and I will have sometime soon (I hope!). Regardless of the outcome, I loved working with them, especially on this kind of thing. I hope we get to do it again someday, whatever the context. Even if we don't, I have no doubt that Dave and Zoe will continue to succeed more and more in what they do best: Creating breath-taking choreography and performing it with love, together.

Oh yeah, and Piers Morgan: What. Ever. Dude. Zoe lifting Dave is flash -- the two of them holding up one another is the heart of their act.

Threes . . .

{A brief note from the Aviarist: Started this back in June, prior to being consumed by

In Bocca al Lupo

, so do forgive the lack of timeliness. There are still some ideas here I like. Anyway...}

All my theories about the nature of humor aside, they're not just for comedy

{Threes, that is.}

.

This post is inspired in part, of course, by the strange coincidence (in every sense of that word) of the recent celebrity deaths. Personally, I tend to perceive a desire for meaning where others might perceive an actual meaning, or pattern. Does this biscuit resemble a face to you? Yes, it does, but I believe that's because our most necessary and long-established pattern recognition ability is related to human faces, not because your biscuit is trying to tell you something. However, even I am given pause by the phenomenon of triple demises, or even just triple serious injuries. Maybe we're looking for a pattern to something that's very frightening for us, to make it somehow more rational, and pinpoint a supposed "end" of such a cycle. I don't know. But I know I have more trouble embracing that rationale for times such as those.

For the record, I'm not torn up about any of our recently departed entertainers. I usually am not when it comes to celebrities. Jim Henson was a big blow, and I continue to mourn in my own little way Jeff Buckley and Elliott Smith. But on the whole, I react to celebrity demise with a "how sad," not any profound catharsis. I did not, after all, know them, no matter how well I know their work.

In our work as Zuppa del Giorno, I and my comrades-in-comedy are always searching for and instructing others in "the comic three." We express this a number of different ways: set-up, narrative and punch-line; catch, wind-up and release; introduction, suspension and delivery. Typically, the real tricky beat for performers -- especially those unaccustomed to any stylized acting -- is the middle one. This is totally understandable in this context. It's the least concrete part, of indeterminate length, and it often functions in mysterious ways when it comes to a joke in particular. Is it exposition, important detail for later use, or is it in fact a misdirection that makes some sort of punchline or payoff possible? There's another set of basic terms we use to describe a progression of three: beginning, middle and end.

I can't say for certain what it is about threes that make them so generally comprehensive for we humans. Why is it that a three -- a beginning, middle and end -- should make sense to us on such a basic level? Why not a five, or a two? For the most part, I'm content to accept it as a fact. However, an idea occurred to me while I was mulling over for the umpteenth time this week what I find an interesting supposition. Maybe even a draft of an explanation. It has to do with how we, as individuals, perceive time. Maybe it's because we can't ever completely reconcile the past, present and future. Maybe it has to do with our relationship to reality as we understand it.

{Insert fart joke here.}

Now look: As much as my syntax and unabashed love for the layered parenthetical may argue against it, I am not a fan of pretentious theory. We can expound all day on reality, and perception, and philosophy, and phlah phlah phlah. I'll love it. Hell yeah, abstraction. Bring it. So long as it stays in the realm of discussion, and doesn't wander into realms of authority because, brothers'n'sisters, we just don't know. We don't. What we have are ideas, and ideas are exciting things. But let's keep our pants on, 'cause there's a time and a place. (And the naked philosophy party starts at my place at 9:00, Friday.) My idea, then, is something like this:

We all have distinct relationships with our pasts, or memories, and our futures, or dreams. We try to live in the present, most of us, because that's where it's at, man. Yet we're tugged, one way and another. The past seems to offer us answers, if only we can understand it well enough, the future to offer us hope for change. When you come right down to it, this paradigm makes up such an encompassing framework for our perception at large that it's extremely difficult to escape. When we speak about it in greater absolutes, it is a unifying experience for literally everyone alive today, regardless of culture or credo: we are born, we live, and we die. It's the great commonality, and so that rhythm translates across any border. It's the music of comedy. As for why students of comedy seem to have the most trouble with the middle bit, well, isn;t that the same in life, too?

Sure, yes, okay -- I acknowledge that this could be a rather backwards deduction, fitting reality to a three because threes are there. I could be seeing faces in biscuits here. But it's an intriguing idea to me, nonetheless. Plus, it makes me laugh.

Laughter Builds

I've been doing a bit of work lately that has required me to articulate some work I'm accustomed to doing instinctively. Specifically, building comic structure.

[

Big, protracted, pet-peevy sidenote:

I do not understand the need for the word "comedic." It's very existence irritates me. There's probably some very specific, distinct reasoning behind its use, and I'd love for somebody to explain it to me, but even given a reasoned explanation I'll probably continue to literally cringe every time I hear it. Do we hear "tragedic"? No; we hear "tragic." Comic. Comic comic COMIC!]

So -- building comic structure. At some later date I'll address what's gotten me started so specifically on this subject, but it also looks to be useful work in preparation for our new curriculum for

In Bocca al Lupo

.

Friend Heather

and I have had to modify our lesson plans owing to two factors: 1) having students enrolled who have taken our workshops previously, and 2) having master classes with Italian actors who can certainly offer more insightful training in commedia dell'arte than we can. When we took a look at what we could offer that was new, relevant and supportive of the lessons others would be teaching, techniques for building comic (COMIC!) structures and sequencing came out at the top of the list.

It's funny (See what I did there?): This is the sort of thing that's generally considered to be a talent or instinct, similar to singing, or mathematics. We tend to equate the ability to construct comedy to one's sense of humor -- an intangible mix of givens and environmental influences that somehow result in one person "being funny," and another, not so much. AND we tend to equate "having a sense of humor" with being funny, which is right off. After all, you can be completely incapable of telling a joke or pulling off a fall, yet still enjoy a fine appreciation of others' comedy. In other words, we are adrift in a mire of assumptions and generality when it comes to the larger subject of humor. Sure, there are comic prodigies, just as there are mathematical ones. The fact is, however, that building comic structure is an ability, a skill, and it can be learned and honed.

But how do you teach that?

I've put together a lot of theories, and some are more tested than others. Certainly the bulk of the work we've done in Zuppa del Giorno has given me experience to draw from, both in the form of what's helpful to building a comic story, and what's more of a "what not to do" lesson. We have developed many exercises and guiding principles in our work that apply to this more-general challenge, and we are lacking in some areas due to the specificity of our work. We're never focused solely on "making something funny"; rather the emphasis is on "making a contemporary commedia dell'arte story," or "making a new story in the style of silent film." This is an interesting point to notice in and of itself -- that once the techniques are ingrained, you need a specific focus in order to use them effectively. Breaking down the techniques themselves, however, takes some new, encompassing thoughts and actions. The danger here is in over-generalizing.

To my mind, the ultimate goal is to offer to the students as many useful ways as possible to get them in a mode in which they are excited to build the story. When that enthusiasm sets in("enthusiasm" is a better word for it), creating a comedy becomes more about communication and the collaboration than it is about fear or getting it "right." This can be said of any collaborative effort, but I find it particularly essential to comic storytelling. For all my perceived poo-pooing of the role of instinct in developing comedy, there is a very distinctive feeling that overcomes us when we really hook into a fruitful collaboration, and the better taste of that we can offer the students the better they'll understand what to aim for and how to guide themselves in future efforts. Teaching that is the way to teach them to fish for themselves, rather than simply slapping a fish down on the table.

Of course, there's more to it than that, especially if you're aiming for (as we are) teaching how to build

good

comedy. There's the rhythm, and the notion of threes, and contrast, and reversal of expectation, and separation of beats, and the logical absurdity (thank you, Gary C. Hopper) . . . and a bunch more, I'm sure. There is, in other words, no shortage of theory and technique to be instructed and applied, which is very good for us. But the thing to focus on in on, it seems to me, is the

build

. Find the

build

, and the comedy follows.

Unwanted Knowledge

I've returned to my research of corpses, which seems to be endlessly fascinating to me. (This return is in the hopes of generating new [more gooder] material for

my play-in-progress,

Hereafter

.) I think the fascination stems from the fact that so much of the research is a discovery of items I never even had a hint of before. No one knows, because no one wants to know. I've always had an appreciation for the taboo--in some of the dullest senses--but this is the first time it's struck me as a pointed preoccupation. I love learning about things I ought not to.

Actually, it's not quite true that I've never before tapped this appetite for the occult. As an elementary school student, I almost single-handedly kept the library out of its stock of books on monsters and mythological creatures. It was embarrassing, I remember, but a thrill. The strange is thrilling. Erotic, too, in a way. Remember playing doctor, or sneaking looks at pictorial nudity? No? Just me? Alrighty then...

I feel I'm at a curious stage of writing, too. It reminds me of a couple of my first serious attempts at creative writing. A short story and a short play, written years apart, they both started out as one thing in my mind and were drastically different by the end, largely through the application of heart, of earnest meaning. These were improvements to the work, hands-down, but in both cases I was initially resistant. "No, I'm not trying to make

that

, I'm trying to make

this

." Someday I'll learn that it's more about whatever it is I'm making, and what it wants to ultimately be. In the case of

Hereafter

, this self-made conflict has to do with whether it's a play about what happens to our bodies after we die and how funny that can be, or if it's about how we process the idea of death itself. The latter is, naturally, winning out in terms of dominant content.

It's curious how creative work gets started, and where it can go from there. The ideas that energize our start-up can eventually hinder the process, and the emotions we discover in the process itself may end up being more significant. Well: If not more significant, than more directing, at least. Yet my research today has done more to motivate me to rework the play than anything else in recent memory. In particular, I was learning about the embalming process, and it was really firing up some ideas that I want to get on paper . . . er, screen. Which is ew; very ew. Still, it's fascinating. I didn't know, for example, that you should never investigate the lower end of the coffin in an open-casket funeral. Why? Because sometimes morticians remove the major inner organs and seal them in a plastic bag that gets deposited at the corpse's feet.

YEAH. LIKE THAT. YOU'RE WELCOME.

I also had a wonderful conversation about

Hereafter

and the subjects it addresses with a friend yesterday, which invariably motivates more writing. So that's the order of business this weekend, while

Wife Megan

is away selling swag -- writing more interesting tidbits about the verities of death. Maybe the things I have to share with you are unwanted. Or maybe, it's all just fascinating, and I'm saving people the trouble of admitting it.

Coulrophobia: A Voice of Dissent

Now, I don't agree entirely with the below, but it made me laugh:

"

People Who Claim to Be Afraid of Clowns

"These people (and they are numerous) are attempting to cultivate a cute quirk, but they are really just aping a cute quirk cultivated by thousands of cute-quirk-cultivators before them in a giant, gross, boring feedback loop. Yes, clowns can be mildly creepy. But come on. Among the many things that are scarier than clowns: fire, earthquakes, a guy with a knife, riding the bus, colon cancer, falling down the stairs (it could happen at any time!), rapists, people who just kind of look a little rapey and are standing too close to you in line at 7-Eleven, Marlo from

The Wire

, influenza, and scissors." -- Lindy West @ the Stranger

[

http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/the-different-kinds-ofpeople-that-there-are/Content?oid=1206006

] The whole article is generally hilarious and true, though with coarse language by the consumption of which some of our less-jaded readers may be forever altered.

See my (potentially wasted) ruminations on coulrophobia heres: 1/28/08 & 7/18/08.

Post script: The above image may take some figuring to associate with this topic, but fans of horror fiction and 80s miniseries should be all set.