Complicité

Complicité is an international touring theatre company. Founded in 1983 by Annabel Arden, Fiona Gordon, Marcello Magni and Simon McBurney, the company is now led by Artistic Director Simon McBurney OBE with Executive Director Susie Newbery and Senior Creative Producer Tim Bell. Between 1993 and 2018 all of the company's work was produced by Judith Dimant. 

The word Complicité doesn't haven't a direct translation however here is the story behind it. Jacques Lecoq began as an athlete. He travelled Europe exploring the masks and comedy of commedia dell'arte  and Greek theatre, especially how the chorus spoke directly to the audience. After these experiences Lecoq returned to Paris opening up the L'École Internationale de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq . His teaching became a kind of research. Research into the perfection of his style. The principles he came up with were disponsibilité, le jeu and Complicité , which roughly translate to openness, play and shared creativity respectively. Some of the students who became teachers themselves banded together naming themselves theatre de Complicité. Complicité takes many techniques from the Jacque Lecoq school in Paris, for example the seven levels of tension are crucial when devising as they can transform your piece and make you think about your character more. 

More recently Simon McBurney has played a huge role in shaping the company's style — he's deeply interested in how theatre can explore memory, imagination, and the ways we perceive reality.

Complicité workshop:

On Wednesday the 10th of September we were lucky enough to have Bronya from Complicité to come and and personally give us a workshop style lesson on Complicité exercises and techniques - all thanks to the wonderful Miss Kirk and Miss Hill of course. 

We started with a game where we all sat in chairs in a circle and we would say "the sun shines on me when..." and everyone who agree sat up and switched chairs with others. We did the same with "The something rains on me when...". It made me realise that there was stories even in the starter games we played, relationships formed which weas really interesting to see.  but then we switched to being silent and swapping with someone who you make a silent agreement with. From this we found a pattern of long pauses followed by a rush of people swapping. Bronya Compared this to a piece of theatre, long dull acting followed by a rush of tension a then back to nothing.  This obviously made me think about our piece an wondering whether we have fallen into the same trap. 

In the last exercise we were given an image related to our piece and we were asked three questions about it. Who was in the photo? What are the places in the photo? What are the tension levels in the photo? The important thing is to not limit yourself to what is obviously on the page as a lot of amazing ideas we came up with when trying this exercise out with 'Man's search for Meaning' weren't directly mentioned in the book! At the end she mentioned that Complicité often start their shows quite unremarkably, for example in neumonic. This is a very Complicité technique and we will include it in our piece. 

My Character - the ways to improve your character in a complicate style (at least the ones I learnt) are as follows: seven levels of tension (internal and eternal), link your character to a certain animal (could be due to their physicality or personality or both), where do they lead themselves from/ where do they hold their tension and linking your character to an element. We gave this a try an was actually very fun to play around with how the different elements would move. 

Techniques and other exercises:

• Props - when using an object use it at least three times in ways which you wouldn't normally. 
• Bamboo Sticks - This was an exercises which I did and dint like. I think it brought the relationship between the two holding the sticks to the light rather then the stick itself. 
• Walking - We have done this many times before however this time we were made to watch the other group and pick out things we found interesting. This really made me aware of exactly what I was doing at all times and also what others were doing. Little patterns etc. 
• Chorus - 'Complicité doesn't typically use a Greek-style chorus but employs an ensemble or chorus-like group of performers for crucial functions like representing the collective, providing a multifaceted perspective, creating unified visual and movement elements, and establishing a sense of shared humanity or a generalized "everywoman" or "everyman" figure within their productions. This ensemble serves to create a collective voice or presence that interacts with the narrative, rather than a traditional commentator on the action.' I was nun too sure the exact reason for the chorus being such a crucial part of a Complicité piece however this is the google answer. Enjoy!