Rules and Regs: Yokohama 2013

A perspective of the performance space today that tickles me mad with excitement

Matthew Morris

13^th January, 2013

A late post but the first writing for R&R

So far I have contained my curiosity and sat with the Rules unopened for a couple of days. I’m neither anxious nor expectant of what lies within them however I have wanted to observe my patience and listen for the moment to respond. At present there are two parts of my curiosity, the first being how will I be guided by the Rules that are given and to follow them to release me into my practice at the given moment. And secondly am I bold or brave enough to challenge them to braking point, to stretch and bend them so as to exercise my boundaries and interrogate their purpose. My only hope is that I honor and contribute bountifully as those who have experienced R&R in the past.

I was excited a few weeks ago when I asked Seth a question relating to the studio space in Yokohama and his reply was ‘one of the rules may be to not work in a studio or familiar place of practice’. I was immediately hooked!

I’m nearing the end of a summer vacation here in South Africa where loosely my mind and body has lain in a soft haze of eternal blue skies and horizons and the call of exotic birds awaken me from sleep every morning. It is the same as any other morning today however a step closer to my return to the Northern Hemisphere and R&R. Today I will open the electronic envelope and read the rules.

WOW!!!! I love the immediacy that struck me upon reading the few words and then I laughed. The seeming simplicity of the action it evokes is powerful and I want to get up and dance NOW. I think the rules will resonate within me for a while so I am happy for the time to arrive.

Matthew Morris

Well … we’ve been here a few days. Starting to get a handle on how to shop, cook, sleep, wash etc.

Highlight so far has been the vending machines which serve HOT cans. On literally every street, there’s a choice of ‘smoked coffee for real men’, ‘premium coffee with a radiant-like beauty’ for the ladies and ‘a health fizzy drink, increasing the vitality of men going all-out every day’, presumably for those who’ve run out of Viagra.

Work-wise, been spending the first few days exchanging written ideas via a ‘collaborative notebook’, adding to each other’s starting points. Quite fruitful.

Visited the space for the first time today. It’s a proper theatre space with raked seating! Rather intimidating. http://www.kaat.jp/en/about/

Tomorrow we’ll start trying things out, physically, in the studio.

Rebecca French

Notes before reading The Rules
Sunday 13 January, 11.46am
I hope they will make me laugh – both with recognition and with horror!

Notes after reading The Rules
Sunday 13 January 11.53am
Ha ha. Well the first one made me laugh out loud. Perhaps I’ll attack Andrew with a knife.
And then the remaining three seem quite appropriate to our intentions for the residency. One question for us is how we make work that doesn’t require both of us to be present for all of the process and all of the presentation. So those questions of balance, and also being there while perhaps not actually being there are apposite.
And then as we’ve previously always made site-based work, ‘being here, in this place’ has been very important.
And then, what might ‘a stage’ mean for us and how might we find that in Japan … oooh, very very exciting. Must go off now and start to pack.
Thanks Seth. See you at Heathrow.

Rebecca French

Before I see the rules I hope they will:

• Contradict some habits in our practice

• Tie the R&R artists into a collaborative experience

• Encourage me to explore a little bit of the other side of the world as well as our practices

• I’m also looking forward to testing the rules and breaking them. What is the point of a rule if you do nothing but stick to it, what do you learn about that rule about how far you can go til it snaps.

First impressions of the Rules:

• Ok, so there are the Rules but where are the Regulations!

• I can work with those.

Andrew Mottershead