Workshopping with Cameron Rhodes

“Close your eyes. Put your feet hip-width apart, loosen your knees. There is a string pulling up through your spine, out of the top of your head. Now scan your body, how you feel, no judging, wherever you are right now is right, you are going to use this, breathe... “

This is how our workshop with Cameron Rhodes kicked off this afternoon. It strikes me how the lessons for setting up a good performance also make some pretty good lessons for navigating the maze of life – the theme of our show. It’s the perfect way to begin and I am ready to soak up as much as I can from this performance expert, an accomplished actor in his own right, who usually works with groups like the Auckland Theatre Company.

At this point it is 2 o’clock on Sunday afternoon and we have already finished a complete run-through of the entire show with all 7 poets, 4 dancers and 3 musicians. I am totally amped for opening night on October 14th. I can’t wait to take to the stage with the dancers and musicians for real. At one point it’s just me and Georgia Geisen, one of the dancers, performing really closely together. This is something I have always wanted to get to do, so I am like a little kid waiting for Christmas at the moment.

We’re down to polishing the last details now. It feels like such a long time in some ways, since starting the project in June. But when I stop to think, it seems amazing that we have succeeded in writing, scripting, choreographing and learning an entire theatre show that combines so many elements and so many people in such a short period.  I suppose time is relative that way. Today was the perfect point to have someone come in with fresh eyes.  

Once the workshop was underway, Cameron took us through a bunch of killer new warm-up and vocal exercises and then gave us the opportunity to perform, receive a bit of feedback and ask heaps of questions. I learned so much, some things that I think I’d always known on an intuitive level but hadn’t fully realised, such as ‘vowels carry the emotion of the word.’ And the idea that an audience doesn’t just hear or see a performance, they receive it. This was a fantastic session and each one of us came away with a bunch of tools that amped our performances up another level, whether it was a vocal exercise to help with projection, a new idea for delivery or a way of releasing nerves. For me, the message was loud and clear – I must trust myself more. And it is okay to be soft more often. Again, the lessons resonate on a deeper level. Art mimics life.

It is 6:30 in the evening on Sunday now and it is raining. Yet I am still energised from today’s session. When the giant film screen lifts up, the first guitar notes peel across the stage and Simone Kaho rocks out the opening piece for the show, you will understand why. It’s going to be magic.

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Miriam Barr has been performing with The Literatti since 2006. Her poetry has been published in Landfall, PoetryNZ, JAAM and other such places. She has a Master’s degree in psychology and works as a mental-health promoter by day. She is one of the coordinators of Poetry Live, a weekly poetry open mic night that has been running in Auckland for 31 years – just slightly longer than Miriam has been alive.

reTHiNK Possible Worlds is a multimedia theatre experience that brings poetry, performance, dance, art,  music and film together to reframe the human condition.  The show opens at 8pm at Galatos on October 14th, continues with a Matinee at 1 pm on Saturday the 15th and closes with a 5pm show that evening.  Book tickets online at www.theliteratti.com. Limited tickets available at the door.