The art of devising theatre
Last week, Jithendra Seneviratne and Julianna Rusakiewicz, co-founders of the New York based Basic Engineering Collective (BEC), staged their first workshop in Sri Lanka. It also marked another first – their debut as a team. The duo designing an ambitious programme packed with tons of improvisation, which pushed actors to explore their craft and instill in them the confidence to invent and innovate performances.
The duo: Jithendra Seneviratne and Julianna Rusakiewicz
Fourteen people were signed up for the workshop, allowing the organisers to keep the coaching process intimate, a requirement when dealing with a relatively challenging new technique. “Since our approach to building performance art was new to all the participants, I think the most challenging aspect of the workshop was getting participants on board with the idea of building all their material as they went along, instead of pre-planning,” Jithendra told the Mirror Magazine, adding “it was very rewarding when they grasped the idea and started improvising.”
Currently the Business Manager at a theatre company based in Manhattan, Jithendra has an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College, NY. He is an actor and also works in technical theatre and production, having served as lighting designer and electrician for numerous productions, including that of Master Electrician for The Mt. Washington Valley Theatre Company. Julianna is best known for her work in multidisciplinary experimental theatre and media arts. She has a BA and an MFA and received the Frank Wadsworth award for Production of the Year. Her work as a lighting designer has been on display at La Mama and Under St. Marks and her most recent work, ‘Tell Them Nothing,’ was performed at Theaterlab (New York). She currently teaches Media and Performing Arts in the New York City public school system.
The workshop they designed together was split into different open sessions, each of which began with exploring an entirely new element of devising theatre, while drawing from the previous one. Elaborating, Jithendra explains that for example, day two was dedicated to building movement with text, incorporating the text created from exercises on day one and so on. Every session had participants incorporating text, movement and spatial elements in to improvisational exercises that built mini-performance pieces. “The idea was that participants could see an end result for every exercise, and understand the process of building a bigger performance piece,” he says.
Jithendra and Julianna enjoyed keeping things unpredictable – in one case, participants were given instructions on how to use a drill as the text for a particular exercise. They say they wanted to encourage their protégées to trust their gut instincts: “We constantly stressed the importance of just experimenting in the moment and trusting instincts, as opposed to discussing at length how a piece should pan out.”
The duo, who are also married, have been working together for a while now. Jithendra attributes their success to how accommodating they are of each other’s ideas – “probably a winning formula in any relationship!” This time around, they split up their tasks: Julianna led much of the improvisational exercises, while Jithendra led the sessions on technical and historical aspects of the devised theatre.
Those of you who watched Ruvin de Silva’s directorial debut ‘After Class’ in February last year may remember Jithendra as the playwright. Though he wasn’t able to make the actual production, he says pictures taken at the event reassured him that Mind Adventures had stayed true to his vision for staging. “I have also had the pleasure of seeing many of the actors on stage before, and the casting choices seemed appropriate.”
Now the two are hoping to make their workshop an annual BEC event. “When we return next year, we hope to do something a little more advanced, and would dearly like to have some returning participants.” They’re also hoping to stage another performance from all that new learning – only this time, the public will be invited.