When: 03/03/08, 7-9pm
Where: Treasury Gardens, East Melbourne (relocated from Tivoli Arcade, off Bourke St. Mall)
Who: Stuart Bowden, Renae Fomiatti, Benedict Hardie (provocateur), Tristan Meecham, Anne-Louise Sarks, Alix Stirling

Report:
* Relocated from Tivoli Arcade. More research required on this space. When do shops close? When are breakdancers present?
* Moved to Treasury Gardens. Location included flat grassy areas, trees, paths, and a dry, stone-bed pond.
* A brief preliminary discussion occurred. I outlined my motivations and intentions. We would investigate physical generation of theatre (image, character, narrative, anything) as a possible alternative method of devising theatre, which would hopefully avoid the traditional pitfalls of a more intellectual/conceptual approach. There would be no restrictions on style, so long as the body was physically engaged at all times. I was more interested in the creative physical experience than the products of the work.
* I facilitated a warm-up. Intended to be fun, and creatively activating. I mostly invented the games. I called them: “inversion/spinal extension experience”, “meteorites”, “the foot/leg challenge”, “hand-waving”, “lift-offs” and “dance moves”.
* Solo pieces: Participants were randomly allotted thematic offerings (love, fear, shame, loneliness, strength, and desire) and asked to generate short physical, theatrical responses in approximatiely five minutes. Halfway through the generative period they were randomly alloted physical restrictions/qualifications to apply to their work (”only one part of you”, “all but one part of you”, “in a dream”, “in a teller queue”, “encrusted in ice”, “emperor mercy plea”). These solo pieces were then shared with the group.
* Duo pieces: participants paired, and were randomly allotted titles (”An ode to your body as sexy/strong”, “An ode to your body’s anxiety”, “An ode to your body right now”). The pairs then discussed their provocations and shared anecdotes relating to the theme. They generated duo pieces in around 7 minutes. These were shared with the group.
* The decision was made to end the physical component of the session due to lack of light.
* The group was informed that trio pieces would have been to follow. They would be allotted the provocations “An expression/offering of love”, and “represent the person(s) you love”. They would have had ten minutes for discussion and physical generation. These were intended to be slightly larger in scale.
* Brief reflections of the session followed as the group left Treasury Gardens.

Some subjective reflections:
* I was pleased and incredibly grateful for everyone’s enthusiastic participation in the session. It felt fueled by a hunger and a joy at what we were doing about it.
* The work generated was memorable and dynamic. Discussion moved on the the potency and poignancy possible with physical images in theatre (Castilucci’s “Brussels” was referred to). Work of this nature seemed an effective way to access the physical creativity of artists and generate richly informed, occasionally abstract, highly captivating theatre. Either as raw theatrical materials, or as stimulation to convert into other forms of story-telling.
* The work was heavily influenced by the physical environment. I had originally intended to investigate more purely the body in a clear and simple space, but the gardens proved a seductive creative landscape…
* We talked about possibly conducting the early sessions of throwing room in a wide variety of spaces, mostly public. I encourage other participants to consider this strongly in their own provocations.
* I left the evening feeling buoyed, but aware of how much more throwing room could (should) be. I was as much interested in the material of this session as I was with getting the whole thing on its feet. The sooner we learn how to breathe life in to throwing room, the sooner we will come to demand more of it, ourselves and eachother. throwing room has begun. But for it to be not merely worth its while, but a potent force in all our lives, we have to remember that we call the shots, and we will only be pushed as far as we push ourselves. A major thing happened in this session - throwing room was started. But now we no longer have that alibi. What will come next?
* Wonderful.