Conversation, participation and co-creation in the arts

SILENCIO. The co-creation of a New Music Theatre piece

Sef Hermans

‘No hay banda! There is no band! This is all an illusion…’ With these phrases a lone trumpeter walks through the audience onto a bare and deserted stage with seven empty stands, a ghost light and three rows of empty chairs. Everybody else is long gone from the stage. The setting is not much more than an abandoned theatre that reminds us of performances now past.

During the performance, the trumpeter encounters several ghosts from his life: colleagues, idols, teachers, lovers. He watches as his memories, dreams and desires pass by. Memories near forgotten, dreams unfulfilled and unresolved frustration manifest themselves, the hope for inner peace is abandoned. After the trumpeter and his art are forgotten, and all seems to become meaningless and without relevance, he gets the chance to discover who he really is, what art means to him, and how it brings him to the centre of himself. Out of the darkness and frustration emerges a portrait of an artist brought forth in a world of ambient contemporary music, electronic soundscapes and field recordings.

'No hay banda! There is no band!'

This is the setting of the sold-out premiere of the New Music Theatre work Silencio, a 50-minute-long solo performance for a trumpeter-actor, co-devised by composer and director Falk Hübner and trumpeter-actor and author of this article Sef Hermans. The performance took place at the Museo Universidad de Navarra, as part of the Cartografías de la Música, a music programme at the Museum of the University of Navarra (MUN) in Pamplona, Spain. The exposition hall of the museum, filled with paintings and two sculptures, became a black space, a secret society in which the piece unfolded.

In the 21st century, performance practice in New Music Theatre has heavily diversified.¹ The merging of multiple art forms in New Music Theatre has resulted in the expansion of the productions with the integration of multidisciplinary specialities by a range of artists who contribute elements of music, text, poetry, naturalistic theatre, performance art and dance. As well as performative aspects to include live video, live electronic sounds, lighting design, costumes and new media. As David Roesner states, these developments have led to the creation of a specific type of interdisciplinary performer: a theatrically oriented musician (actor/performer-musician) or a musically oriented musician-actor.² Oftentimes, performers in these productions work closely with the composer, director or stage designer during the rehearsal process, creating and altering material through a reflective collaborative exchange.

What does this mean in a practical sense for the theatrically oriented musician involved in New Music Theatre productions? In my own professional career as a trumpeter, I struggled to adapt to the new developments and expanding skill sets I encountered when participating in these multidisciplinary New Music Theatre performances. In order to cope with changing performative practices, I had to improvise and develop my skill sets on the spot. Therefore, I wanted to research multidisciplinary skill sets as a guideline or reference for performative problems I was encountering while participating in and creating New Music Theatre productions. What are these creative and performative skills and how do they specifically contribute to the outcome of co-devised New Music Theatre works? And more importantly, how can we deepen performative skill sets or develop a broader theoretical framework to cope and adapt to the ever-changing artistic landscape of New Music Theatre?

In order to find answers to these questions, Silencio was initiated in 2014 as a co-devised research project to outline my theatrical and physical limits as a musician-performer and, through research-through-practice, discover how these limits can be overcome and transformed into a refined and complete performance. In a broader context, to use the project as a test case to measure the extent to which the performer’s performative skill set contributes and drives the artistic production in a co-devised New Music Theatre production, and to consider the relation and synergy between the composer and performer-musician in a co-devised work.

Two strategies have been used in such productions: one begins with an improvisation by the performer-musician resulting in the creation of material that can be used as a basis for the final composition;³ the other strategy starts with the composer, who writes small fragments of music, text or rhythmic material that are then further developed through an often extensive collaborative rehearsal process.⁴ Both strategies result in the active participation of the performer-musician or musician-actor, whose specific skill set becomes the foundation of the work.

Falk states that when the instrumentalist steps out of the role of the traditional classical performative concept of the musician and ventures into the realm of theatrical performance, his/her personal relevance changes. His/her body language, stage presence and other performative skills become an integral part of the performance and thus the composer and or director has no choice but to work with these specific assets when shaping and directing the piece. Therefore, by working together the impact and skill assets of the musician have more impact on their performance than for example with the creation of a conventional classical piece for a symphony orchestra. In this context it is not uncommon for the musician to compose or contribute to the written material alongside the ‘main composer’ or director.⁵ The composer and musician/actor both bring initial sketches, inspirations and ideas to rehearsal that will then be developed and moulded together during the composition, arrangement and staging process. Moreover, this collaborative effort is not restricted to just the performer and composer, but will often include a range of contributors, including writers, stage designers, dramaturgs, and other types of artists.

Theorising our creative process

As we had a reflective model in mind, we were keen from the start to focus our collaboration around as clear a theoretical model as possible. However, finding a theoretical approach was not straightforward. An extensive literature review revealed that most of the music research in the area had focused on the creative processes of individual creators and their isolated perspective. There was little focus on the complicated processes that support collaborative creative thought and practice in music devising, and there has been a tendency to describe the creative product or the creator, not the different aspects that comprise the processes leading to a work’s creation.⁶

By writing a reflective case study based on the documentation of our rehearsal and development process, consisting of notes, sketches, scrapbooks, objects of material culture, photographs as well as video and audio recordings, we were able to generate data by ‘evidencing the research inquiry’⁷ enabling us to examine the creative process. Using this approach, we made a detailed timeline in which the major events in the development of the artistic process were visualised.

In order to get a better understanding of the processes at play, there are a number of theoretical models that can be used to tease out the different phases that occur during the creative process. One of the seminal pieces of research in the field, The Art of Thought by social psychologist and educationalist Graham Wallace,⁸ divides creative processes into four phases:

In the Preparation phase, the artist’s focus is on a certain theme, subject, idea or problem by associative thinking or discussing to solve the problem. The thoughts and ideas that emerge from this process create a sense of doubt. The problem and/or ideas get identified and possible solutions are investigated with the uses of all the skills available to the artists. In the second phase, Incubation, the artists do not actively think about the problem or idea but mental processing is activated on a subconscious level. Wallace describes this as the ‘ripening of an idea’. In this stage, more is accomplished through passive thinking than active thinking. During the third phase, Illumination, the solution or answer is realised through a flash, an epiphany or moment of insight presenting a solution to the consciousness. This is a phenomenon that cannot be controlled or pressured. The mind will reach this state by maturation of thought or letting the ideas ‘sink in’. The fourth phase, Verification, is the phase in which the answers to the problem or ideas get written down and worked out. Then using the combined knowledge and expertise, the creative team approaches and tests the solution or idea from several vantage points, ensuring its validity.

This model by Wallace was used as a template for a number of further studies. Arts educator Betty Edwards adds two extra phases to Wallace’s model in Drawing on the artist within.⁹ A pre-phase, or Phase 0 called Realisation describes the insight and formulation of the problem that triggers the creative process. Her second extra phase is called Saturation, placed in the template as Phase 1B; it represents the phase in which various research is done on the theme or problem and investigative or inspirational material is gathered. Emma Policastro¹⁰ adapts the original phase model to include an intermediate phase or phase 2B: Intuition, which integrates the intuitive senses of the creators to include having a pre-set intuitive concept of the final product. In Creativity,¹¹ psychologist Mihaly Czikszentmihalyi adds Evaluation of the previously discussed phases into Wallace’s phase model before the verification phase starts or as phase 3B.

Wallace’s model was adapted and nuanced according to other related research. However, in order to describe the creative process of Silencio and validate the different phases, we first had to identify the phases in the process of the co-development and identify sub-phases for each phase to facilitate the clarity of the process. This was done by connecting the events in our timeline to the corresponding phases of the creative process. Here the pre-phases include phase 0, 1 and 1B. The creative phase 2 and 2B, the editing phase, include phase 3 and 3B and the reviewing phase relates to phase 4.

By applying the main four phases of the Wallace model to the timeline a clear image is created of the non-linear form of the creative processes. As can be seen in Figure 1 which represents the creative work process that took place in 2016, the four phases reappear throughout the rehearsal process with varying sequences of succession. It was not uncommon for multiple phases to overlap or co-exist.¹² Recurrence does not mean the timeline presents no linear pattern. If you look at the four timelines from 2014 until 2018, the focus of the timelines shifts from pre-phases and creating in the beginning to more reviewing phases in the end. The balance of creating and editing phases also becomes evident. It is interesting to note that all four phases remained an active part of the co-development of the piece right up until its performance.

In order to clarify the creative incentives or task-dividers, and to identify the skill set and individual contributions that would occur during the creative process, we adapted the ingredient model developed by Daniela Moosmann in her book De toneelschrijver als theatermaker¹³ in which she studied the creative writing processes of a number of leading Dutch and Flemish theatre makers. The model describes the relation of the specific ingredients (such as gathered material, onstage improvisation and sources) and skill sets used in the process of creation and maps their relation and interaction with one another (see Figure 2). In the model, the Task environment relates to the aesthetic trajectory and context of content as it is envisioned and created. The Physical environment represents the actions that take place during rehearsals and meetings. Attention dividers signify the phases of the creative process and their relation to the ingredients and skill sets being used. It is this model that Falk and I customised to structure our creative process, adapting it to reflect the writing, musical and theatrical developmental processes of our New Music Theatre production.

The final version of this ingredient model was completed at the end of the development of Silencio and we incorporated the most important developmental aspects of our process in creating the piece. By evidencing the research inquiry we added our skill sets and a number of music and composition related ingredients that came up during the research.

The creation of Silencio was not only the object of our artistic research but also in itself a valid reflective product of this endeavour.

These additions not only included our experience as musician and composer, such as instrument control, knowledge of musical form and styles, but also abilities outside our traditional roles that were important for the development of this New Music Theatre piece. These skill sets included knowledge of microtonality, acting styles, performance art, video art and linguistic skills such as my fluidity in four languages – Spanish, English, Dutch and German – in the development of the piece. It also reflects the various sources from which we retrieved our inspiration and working material.

When this ingredient model is combined with the reoccurring phases of our timeline, the reflective nature of our creative process becomes clear. The non-linear developmental path is reflected in the different arrows showing how we explore our knowledge and material during the four phases of our creative process. The model reflects on the physical environment of the onstage rehearsals and meetings, leading to the adaptation, mutation or the deletion of previously developed ideas, only to repeat the entire cycle again for the next rehearsal session. The developed and selected material then becomes incorporated into the script, or in the section produced thus far. This analysis was complemented by a narrative diary kept during the preparation and onstage rehearsals. Similar narrative enquiry studies were adopted by Hlinka¹⁴ and Chaffin, Imreh and Crawford¹⁵ and helped to create objective distance between the creator and the process that occurred during the work and rehearsal sessions.

Thinking-through-practice

The initial stage of our collaboration was a series of meetings and conversations that took place in Utrecht and Rotterdam in the Netherlands during the summer of 2014. These first conversations were free in nature and we discussed our previous works, fascinations and aesthetic ideas relating to New Music Theatre. During the second meeting, we had collected a number of ideas and recordings. It became clear that our mutual fascination with David Lynch’s ‘Silencio scene’ in the movie Mullholland Drive (2001) and our associations related to silence would be the starting point of the development of what would become Silencio. We also discussed another main theme: the ghost light (ill. 3),¹⁶ silence as either an amplifier or definer of sound reinforcing the solitude and physicality of the trumpet player. After the initial meetings, Falk began the first phase of compositional development, writing a number of musical studies that reflected on the themes, poetry and art we had shared. Further inspiration would be gathered from the outcome of a number of onstage rehearsals, in which I had performed or improvised on this material. These musical studies would function as an integral part of the conception of the entire piece. Whenever Falk finished one of these musical studies, I would record it in Melbourne and offer feedback, asking him to tweak rhythms and notes or to be sensitive to the technical restraints of particular dramatic moments. Whenever I was back in the Netherlands we would rehearse and engage in onstage improvisations and discuss how these studies related to other theatrical aspects such as the set, text and sound effects.

What works in theory does not always reflect what works onstage and, although intellectual engagement with material is crucial, it must not act as the foundation of performance, an art of action. Many of our aesthetic decisions were made through ‘Thinking-Through-Practice’. Guitarist and artistic researcher Stefan Österjö describes this in his research as:

The kind of interpretation based on action and perception. It involves the physical interaction between a performer and his or her instrument and the inner listening of the composer; both of which are modes of thinking that do not require verbal ‘translation’. Instead they function through the ecological system of auditory perception.¹⁷

This means that many decisions are a direct result of informed intuition and do not require verbal or literary validation.¹⁸

In order to keep track of developments within our non-linear framework, I kept a diary, wrote notes during and a reflection after each meeting and rehearsal. This detailed account allowed me to reflect on discoveries and challenges after rehearsals. Later I would use the diary to create a timeline, deepening and visualising the practical application of the reoccurring phases of the creative process and the development of the work and performance.

In June and July 2015, the second round of rehearsal sessions took place. We had a number of musical studies and we began experimenting with stage setups. The rehearsals took place in a large rehearsal room at the University of the Arts in Utrecht, the Netherlands. The space was used to test a number of stage layouts. This period of experimentation led to the use of multiple, empty, stands. The stands created a sense of expectation, alluding to an ensemble that would never appear.

This was also the first rehearsal in which we discussed the visual aspect of the performance for the work. Falk proposed repurposing musical tools for visual ends. A camera panned a panorama of often ignored accessories of the trumpet such as mutes, mouth pieces and bottles of valve oils. Using a close-up, these practical objects of music-making became their own landscape (ill. 1, ill. 3). This concept did not come through a shock of inspiration but evolved over a number of rehearsals and video meetings.

The work had another key developmental moment in July 2015 when Falk introduced the poem Remainders by Lynley Edmeades. This six-verse poem became the textual foundation of Silencio and an essential building block of the performance. The performative concept gradually shifted from a New Music piece for trumpet player to a theatrical work, superseding traditional musical virtuosity. The aesthetic aim of the project became what composer and director Heiner Goebbels eloquently describes as:

(Music) Theatre as a ‘thing itself’, not as a representation or medium to make statements about reality, (…) the spectator is involved in a drama of experience rather than looking at a drama event in which psychologically motivated relationships are represented by characters on stage. This is a drama of perception, a drama of one’s senses, as in those quite powerful confrontations of all elements –stage, light music, words – in which the actor has to survive, rather than act. So the drama of the ‘media’ is actually a twofold drama here: a drama for the actor as well as for the perception of the audience.¹⁹

Even though the addition of spoken text in musical works is one of the most obvious ways to establish the musician as a theatrical performer,²⁰ it is also an efficient way to communicate a complementary meaning to the audience. Whenever I utter the words ‘About the lights themselves, he can say very little, almost nothing’ – the opening phrase of the poem Remainders – a clear image is evoked for the audience. In Remainders, the verses go through a methodical process of development. The sentence structure stays the same throughout all six verses, but with each verse a number of words, and later on sentences, are altered, completely changing the meaning of each verse. As the poem continues, the text becomes increasingly abstruse and often absurd, creating an extra dimension – comprehensibility becomes meaning.

During 2016, we continued to create new material and develop new themes. Falk wrote a whole series of studies and alterations after reflecting on the musical studies written in 2015, including a new song based on the poem Fuego Mudo by the Uruguayan poet and writer Mario Benedetti. I had translated the poem and sent it to Falk due to its seamless connection to the thematic content of Silencio. Falk wrote a musical study inspired by the poem. It would be performed as a song. During the previous rehearsal session, I had sung scales so he could assess the limits of my voice. The music of Fuego Mudo is written to explore the extent of my full vocal range. He also devised the soundscape for what we would call the heavy metal study. This study was composed and conceptualised to find the physical point of exhaustion while playing trumpet. A repetitive series of notes and intervals, synchronised to a soundscape, lasts for 5 minutes straight without giving the performer real time to breath or recuperate.

The last series of rehearsals began in July 2017, before recording the piece for submission as part of my PhD portfolio in September 2017. I was nervous about the outcome. Our gathered material seemed like a puzzle with pieces that didn’t quite fit together and we still had doubts about the material and dramatic arc of the work. The dramatic charge of the Remainders poem in relation to the studies and Fuego Mudo song was still ambiguous and had no coherent relation to the other composed studies and texts. By considering the set and rehearsing portions of the work in meticulous detail, we tried to recut the pieces to the proper shape and connect the gathered material to enhance dramatic flow. We wanted to mask the audience from our process – for them to experience the disorientation of illusion, not knowing what is pre-recorded or pre-planned. This open engagement with the identity of the work would widen and heighten planned and incidental soundscapes and further the effect of pre-recorded musical scenes. The work took its final shape on the day of the first video recording for my PhD portfolio in a small 1930’s theatre: De Avenue in Breda.

Between the recording of the piece in September 2017 and the premiere in March 2018, we continued to make changes to the work, specifically refining the ending, soundscapes and video-art. To bolster our intended atmosphere of solitude and illusion, we added a pre-recorded reading from the text of David Lynches’ Mulholland Drive Silencio scene and Remainders. In the last 10 minutes of the performance, the question of illusion becomes all-encompassing as the performer leaves the audience alone with the stage, and he too becomes a mix of pre-recording and off-stage effects. Is he still here performing? Was he ever here? ‘No hay banda! There is no band! This is all an illusion…'

Reflecting on the creation of Silencio

In creating Silencio within the emerging field of artistic research, the frontiers of research and artistic production are ambiguous and challenging. The creation of Silencio was not only the object of our artistic research but also in itself a valid reflective product of this endeavour.²¹

By co-devising the theatrical framework based on the ingre­dient model,²² we were able to contextualise the contributions that each of us brought to the creative process. By comparing the timelines of our creative process with this ingredient model which details different recurring stages, we gained important insights into the sequence of development from its initiation in 2014 to the first performance in 2018. Through these timelines, the ambiguous boundaries between the creative phases become clear, and it is easy to understand what creative stages occurred when and where. It also provides a clear map of the changing demands, and development of the specific skill sets that drive the practical development of the piece. Finally, it helped to establish when the main body of work became more stable and embedded in the creative process.

When Falk and I reflected on our research, we found that the roles of performer-musician and composer were dynamic and we constantly shifted between creating, performing and observing one’s own participation within the project. By analysing the reflective diaries and ‘evidencing of the research inquiry’ of the rehearsal sessions and video meetings, it became clear how and when the roles shifted between composer, researcher, instrumentalist and creative co-deviser. The protean role of creative leadership was especially prevalent in our analysis. For example, during one of the sessions Falk acted as the main creator, introducing new music studies and material he had gathered. Later in the rehearsal this shifted, and I would take the creative lead by integrating text through improvisation into Falk’s material. Our constantly shifting tasks (acting, playing trumpet, composing, staging, associative thinking), combined with the use of literary research or research-through-practice, created a balance between these roles, leading to a dynamic creative process.

On a personal and performative level, the creation of Silencio was one of the hardest and most confronting projects I have undertaken. By design, this piece pushed me to my musical and physical limits. Tailoring the score and physical acting demands to my strengths and extending them to the boundaries of my capabilities resulted in a constant challenge to further develop already present skill sets. Because of the onstage approach of our methodology, a large portion of my personal growth was due to direct feedback and instructions from my director and co-producer Falk. A major challenge was sustaining the concentration and focus necessary to perform a 40-minute-long solo work. The combination of long monologues, complicated music fragments and the physical nature of the piece forced me to cultivate a different form of stamina than normally acquired for a more conventional music performance. Memorising the performative material and navigating the quarter-tone language of the music was also challenging.²³

This research sought to solve performative problems that occur during the creative process. Even though no two creative processes are the same, this study was successful in mapping creative processes in a clear and academic manner that can easily be adapted for other projects. The structure of a well-defined theoretical framework, combined with self-reflective inquiry and the use of timelines, would be especially beneficial to similar endeavours.

It is my hope that our experiences and frameworks help to provide a clear methodological reference for other artists. It is an exciting, never-ending process. During our rehearsal period in June 2016, we found a fitting analogy for our endeavour: it is like carving a statue out of a piece of stone that is never finished. The continuous process of adding and cutting of material, introducing and dropping of new ideas is open-ended, always seeking a greater balance and articulation. You don’t know the creative work is completed until the audience applauds.

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Sef Hermans

is a trumpeter, researcher and lecturer and was affiliated with the VCA and MCM at the University of Melbourne as a lecturer of trumpet between 2013 and 2017. Currently he resides in Pamplona, Spain where he teaches Scenography and Creative Performative Processes at the Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura y Diseño (ETSAUN). He is a researcher and member of the Instituto Cultura y Sociedad (ICS), the research centre in humanities and social sciences of the University of Navarra, and a founding member of the Association of Performative Research Farout, curating performances and developing multidisciplinary art projects for the Museo Universidad de Navarra.

sefhermans83@gmail.com

Footnotes