Transfiguration

Olivier de Sagazan

 Painter, Sculptor and Performer.

Photo by L'echo de la Presqu'ile

Olivier de Sagazan is a transformation artist, this means that he incorporates painting, sculpting and performing in his performances.

His performances would be classed as Post-Dramatic performance as is isn't the conventional type of performance due to the cross over of the three different types of art.

The basic principle of Savagans' performance is the use of clay.

He uses clay and paint  to build layers on his face and body. This allows him to disfigure his body and change his appearance dramatically. In his videos you see him throw clay and paint on his face and he starts to shape it. He also puts the clay over his hair to create a completely different look to his body to create a performance about identity and trying to find who you are.

 'The human visage/hasn't yet found its face/ and that it behoves the painter to find it in its place.' (Artaud.A,2011)

In his performances he starts to destroy the layers and reveals his 'animalistic human who is seeking to understand his real nature.' (Channel Zero, 2016) 

His art work creates a sense that all humans have different sides to them, whether that be an animalistic side, a physical side and a spiritual side. His performance work allows the audience to see what being 'normal' could be if we as a race weren't so secretive about our primitive ways.

Savagans work is different to most of post dramatic work I have come across, it is a raw performance that doesn't hide the inner animal inside of everyone. His performances have got their own emotions, in some cases you could tell that he was sad, frustrated, relaxed, happy. The way he incorporates the three arts together creates a stunning piece of work to watch. His work is performance art, and in some ways it can answer the question what is performance art.

Performance in this case is a way to show people what could be, should be or has been. Performance art is a way of expressing an emotion, thought, physical problem and telling everyone about it. This performance piece for me does exactly that as its poignant message makes you think about your own self and how you can relate to such a strange yet effective performance.

Solo Performer

Hetain Patel 

Hetain Patel was born in Manchester but is of Asian decent. He is not known to follow the traditions of his culture and also feels that his identity should come from inside and not what he looks like on the outside. 

'I am interested in using my own body as a site of identity and interrogation' This quote from an interview suggests that he is questioning his own identity and trying to find himself by producing many different works of art. 

Hetain Patel crosses the boundaries of normal stereotypical performances, he combines art with theatre and live theatre meaning that digital media is also used within his performances. He has performed a variety of performances, including:

- Durational
- Photography
- Media
- Drama
- Visual Arts
- Live Art/Body Art

Patel doesn't consider himself as a performer but does as an artist. Patels' work is usually produced for theatres and galleries but have also appeared in private tours, Television and in local communal areas such as estates and public toilets.

As a young boy Patel was intrigued by Spider-Man and idolised Bruce Lee. Since then he has explored and performed in pieces that have been inspired by the stance of Spider-Man and the strength and skill of Bruce Lee. Patel believed that he was creating a cultural superhero cross over when he acted as Spider-Man in some of his performances.

Letter to Peter Parker 2015

Hetain Patel used his love for Spider-Man as a soul subject for his sculptural piece about Spider-Man.
Over the course of 4 months Patel wrote a thank you letter to 'Peter Parker' these letters where then transferred word for word onto a hand made Spider-Man costume that had been cast from Patels' body. The words from the letter then formed the costume.

Patel used his own upbringing as the main story for Spider-Man in order to relate Spider-Man to himself. Patel thanked Peter for covering the identity up with a mask, because this 'diverts the attention from his primary aim of disguising his skin colour' He also thanks Peter for the inspiration of self portrait photography as this inspired Patels' 'own existential practice of self portraiture'.










Patel used the crouching position that Spider-Man adopted in the films as a basis of the sculptures stance. The famous Spider-Man posture also ties to Patels' family physically to india as this is a native position.







During interviews Patel has said that he always starts with the same idea for a piece. He will start with a simple idea that branches off into different performances. Therefore his idea could be Bruce Lee, he would then create a media piece for this idea. Then he would start with Bruce Lee again and then create a Photography piece about it and so on. This meant that he could look at the same idea but with a fresh perspective and it meant that no piece would be the same even though the subject was the same.

Its Growing On Me 2008

This durational performance was about how different people are treated depending on how they look. Patels father was an immigrant from India in the 1960s and was treated differently because he was indian and looked like a stereotypical indian with a beard and moustache. Patel however has grown up in the UK and therefore has a Manchester accent, he is also mostly clean shaven, this means that he was treated like a british person. Patel then set out to do a durational piece of work that showed his change from himself into becoming more like his father. Patel completely shaved all the hair on his face and head and took a photo of himself everyday, at the same time, same place, same clothes for 4 months. He then showed the outcome with the use of a time lapsed video.

Patel noticed a considerable difference in how people treated him once he had grown his facial hair. He started to be considered more as an indian than a british person. He also was given discounts in indian shops. However as this was a dramatic change from what he originally looked like he was also given some negative reactions. For example he would start to be called a peodophile by random strangers from across the street. He wouldn't be able to drive his car without people making racist comments. This durational performance allowed him to live as two people and see how it changed the way people treated him in his natural form and him as his fathers form. 

Overview:

Patel is an artist who explores his true identity through the use of media, performance and art. He is open minded and his work shows what his attitudes and values are towards society in this day en age. Patel is intricate and believes in everything he does which makes him a great person to watch and interact with. He may not consider himself as a performer, but his work is Performance Art. 

Stanislavski

The basics of Stanislavski:

He was of Russian heritage and born in the 19th century, he came up with the theory of naturalistic acting.

Throughout Stanislavskis' career he spent a lot of time devising a type of acting that could either be classed as a system or method. He believed that good acting was natural acting, and wanted to find a connection between emotions and physical appearance. In this respect, audience members were told every detail, whereas with Bertolt Brecht we notice an opposing style of acting. Brechts' thoughts of Stanislavski was that the audience members 'hang up their brains with their hats in the cloakroom'.

 Throughout the rehearsal process up until the main performance Stanislavski worked of three methods and used these methods as the basis of acting.

Stanislavski thought that getting to know the piece of text you are working on in detail was the best way to start a production.

Step 1: Mining the text

Mining the text is all about four things,
- The first reading
- The text
- Mental Reconnaissance
- Given Circumstances

These four sections allow an actor to successfully engage in their performance text and understand the context and what the motives of their characters are.

'This moment of your first meeting with a part should be unforgettable... The loss of this moment is irreparable because a second reading no longer contains the element of surprise so potent in the realm of intuitive creativeness.' (Merlin.B, 2007, 57)

This quote explains the importance and highlights the speciality of the first reading as this is the first look into a character and in this first reading you bring your character to life for the first time and learn with the character as the reading goes forward.

The text is when you as an actor begin to add characteristics to a character. You begin to develop the voice and depth of your character bringing them to life, bringing them from the written word, to the spoken word.

Stanislavski started to move away from the conventional way of directing actors, instead of telling the actors exactly what they needed to do,  he started to meet up with the cast and allowed them to input ideas. He believed this method ensured that fresh ideas would be inputted and also it allowed the entirety of the cast to have a good understanding of the piece as they would dissect the text together.

The given circumstances is what stanislavski described as the body of a performance. This included:
- The story of the play
- The Who, What, When, Where, How
- The characters background
- The actors and directors interpretation
- Stage pictures
- Set details

All of the above help to bring a performance together. They create the main body of a great performance to enhance the quality of a performance. These different attributes of a performance can change the way a performance is watched or interpreted.

Step 2: Embodying the role

Embodying the role is bringing the character to life in practical rehearsals. This means that scripts are dropped and the actor is vulnerable but is free to do any action they please. The actor now has the opportunity to create a full body persona of their specific character and play with how their character acts in different situations.

Stanislavski believes that there is an action, then reaction, then decision and finally the next action.

This basic four step situation is how he believed method acting worked successfully. By creating this the actors knew what happened next but also had the freedom to act how they thought fit.

Stanislavski was concerned about the truth. He wanted each performance to be truthful and believable.

'He believed that a sense of truth marked the difference between craftsman and an artist' (Merlin.B, 2007, 115)

This shows that Stanislavski values the importance of truthful acting and that method acting is proper acting, meaning that this is he true way to act.

Step 3: Approaches to Rehearsal

The approach to rehearsal is how you operate with others during the rehearsal process. Rehearsing with others makes a performance more real as you then begin to feed of what the other persons character is, making the connection between characters stronger and more truthful. Allowing the audiences to fully understand the characters relationship with each other and what is happening in the scene.

Stanislavski is an iconic performer and his theories within the industry have been studied and practiced for many years. His work has inspired generations of performers as well as creating controversy with that of Brechts work. Stanislavski created a type of performance that was new and truthful that audiences liked, however as the times move on, the more informal way of performing has become popular and post dramatic art has increased in popularity.

All in all Stanislavskis method is a type of performance but it does not however, explain what performance is and it is not the definition of performance.