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Field NotesJanuary 2001 There’s no lake in Blue Lake. There used to be, but, it is now long gone without a trace. The most prominent thing in Blue Lake now is the Dell’Arte Company. And the impression they have left on the small rural town of 1,200 people, the surrounding Humboldt County, hundreds of former students and thousands of audience members throughout the United States and beyond is lasting. When you exit route 299 and pass the "Welcome to Blue Lake" sign, you notice the obligatory convenience store and gas station, a few restaurants and then the elementary school. Further on, at the center of the town, sits the beautifully renovated historic building where Dell’Arte resides. Across the street is the post office where residents collect their mail from the postmaster, Ernie Johnson, who greets everyone by first name. A small grocery store and the Logger Bar are on the other side of the theater. Up the road is Korbel, a company-owned town that was once inhabited only by people who worked at the local mill. Over the last 20 years, a once-vital logging industry has diminished in the area, but while Korbel is a shadow of what it once was, Blue Lake has weathered the significant transition. Blue Lake was once populated by workers in the logging industry. Many left town when the work did, but others have remained. While not as insulated as Korbel, Blue Lake is a close-knit and conservative town. The nearby town of Arcata, more like a small city, has a contrasting liberal population of 10,000, Humboldt State University and a full array of restaurants, shops and small businesses. Humboldt County’s geography is an outdoors-lover’s dream, boasting green forests and a Pacific shoreline. There was once a substantial fishing industry, which also has substantially diminished. A number of Native American populations remain cohesive in the region, along with generations of loggers and "urban runaways" who find peace in the area’s beauty and slow pace. There is a strong consciousness about environmental issues in the area, and the county takes advantage of promoting its natural resources through tourism. The Dell’Arte Company
The impulse to begin the company came from Jane Hill and her husband Carlo Mazzone-Clementi, an Italian actor/director/teacher with deep roots in the physical theater form of Commedia Dell’Arte. Mazzone-Clementi was passionate about bringing theater to "the people," and strongly believed that actors should be trained in the "nonverbal humanities." The company has developed a unique approach to creating theater through vigorous exploration of physical, audience-engaging styles and a highly collaborative process, and by questioning and celebrating the attitudes and beliefs of the people in and around Blue Lake. Dell’Arte’s community is more than the place where they create their art, it is the source of their art. Creating and performing original plays specifically for and about the people of their area has evolved their philosophy of "Theatre of Place." Imbedded in this philosophy is the idea that excellence in art can be achieved outside of the urban cultural centers. Dell’Arte also exemplifies the idea that theater artists can create work that is independent of the corporate formulaic mentality where product creation is driven by an analysis of the marketplace. Company members are keenly aware of their own presence as community members and have participated as members of city council, the chamber of commerce, the planning commission, arts council, and the PTA. The community has grown to trust Dell’Arte through these relationships and through the company’s reliability as collaborators and their history of follow-through. The company runs a school of physical theater that brings a remarkable international presence to rural Blue Lake. Students from all over the world come to the school to live and study the craft of making and performing physical theater. Along with that training, they receive a dose of rural American culture that they are sometimes unprepared for. One year students came fleeing into the theater for safety when they saw a group of men with guns walking down the street – a common occurrence in Blue Lake on hunting season’s opening day. Likewise, culture shock can be a two-way street. Another year, Blue Lakers experienced the almost unthinkable – a traffic jam – when some Dell’Arte students, European women not unfamiliar with public topless sunbathing, decided to enjoy that pastime on the porch roof of the Shamrock Hotel in downtown Blue Lake. Experiences like these temper student orientations at the school. Students are encouraged to participate in the life of Blue Lake. Volunteering at the local Grange can become one of many contexts where students encounter a "holistic educational approach, embracing the ideas of partnership, respect, endurance and flexibility." The school also brings in guest teachers from other countries, and presents other performers from around the world. It is not unusual to find locals who continue to receive mail and postcards from former students across the globe. In fact, because of the volume of international correspondence via Dell’Arte, the Blue Lake Post Office carries an unusual classification for a branch serving a community its size. Some audience members also take pride in the fact that through Dell’Arte’s international touring, a little bit of Blue Lake travels the world. The company has impacted Blue Lake in many indirect ways. The company’s Education Through Art (ETA) program is a regular part of the Blue Lake Elementary School curriculum and is now expanding into other local schools. Blue Lake Elementary students work in class with the Dell’Arte program at each grade level. Projects and lessons are geared toward performance and/or tied to a study unit. School officials have seen a change, since ETA’s inception, in the tendency of students to be more outgoing and comfortable with public presentation. Students seem to have become less cliquey and more welcoming with newcomers as well. Blue Lake Elementary’s principal also noticed a small but striking change in a group of youth over one summer at a recreational facility. He noticed a new playfulness in their interaction and saw them use humor to comment and provoke thought rather than just to mock or tease each other. He attributed this change to ETA. Behind company productions and the school’s pedagogy is the idea of "independent cultural production" – original work that grows from the uniqueness of the artist and the authenticity of the subject matter. Examples of this idea are cited by people who have attended the "Korbel" and "Scar Tissue" series, where local characters and issues are the subject of original stories that offer the community a new perspective on its own voices and points of view. The core ensemble creates original works such as these every year to 18 months and sometimes tours them nationally and internationally. Younger members of the company create an annual Christmas show and tour it to a regional audience of about 8,000. Other performers from the local area and around the world are presented throughout the year, especially during the company’s annual summer Mad River Festival, which attracts a local and tourist audience. The festival spans a number of weeks and has grown to include the three-day Humboldt Folklife Festival and an evening of Native American songs and stories from the region. The hands-on leadership of the artists is further emphasized by the board structure. A legal governing body of seven members, all of whom are past or present members of the ensemble, elects a board of directors that meets once a year. The company is led by a "Hub." Each member of the Hub has authority over different areas of company operation:. This Hub meets weekly and quarterly to discuss policy, long-range plans and actions. The administrative staff also meets weekly to keep communication flowing and to problem-solve. The Dell’Arte Model Dell’Arte is truly a model community-based theater company. The core members have sustained a relationship for almost a quarter-century, allowing a vision to take hold, grow and become a central part of a community’s nature and identity. They managed to build, by their presence and practice, a culture of trust, integrity and exploration in a climate of broken trust, tradition and isolation. The old, once dependable structures (the fishing and logging industries) that gave the area its identity have crumbled. During this decline, Dell’Arte has brought consciousness to the community’s painful transition away from its industrial economy and uncertain future. They have instigated dialogue and provided leadership and new viability to their town. The company is central to Blue Lake’s plans for revitalization because they have created a new economic and social vitality there. Dell’Arte sustains an environment of exploration and exchange. This dynamic happens on two levels: in the creation of new work devised out of community interaction and through teaching physical theater styles at the Dell’Arte school. I believe these two territories of exploration feed off of each other in particular by making ensemble members responsible for – and witness to – the ongoing inspiration of student theater makers. The School
It is already a feat to maintain an excellent training program. The audacity to attract international students to Blue Lake exemplifies the pioneering spirit of exploration at the heart of the company. Training in the "nonverbal humanities" allows students from many different cultures to look beyond their own experience and provides a fresh opening through which to experience people. By teaching various theater styles, the company validates cultural uniqueness and demonstrates how the necessity to communicate manifests itself in diverse ways. Students at the school also come to understand the performer’s responsibility to the audience in ways not usually emphasized in actor training. The connection between the actor and the audience, so important in the styles taught at the school (clown, commedia, melodrama), is a metaphor for the company’s continual exploration of relating to the community. I believe that the continual switch ensemble members make from creator to teacher and back to creator again allows the company to examine its practices and is something that all theater companies (with real vision) should do. The vitality young, curious students bring to the company each year is apparent. The Creation of Original Work At Dell’Arte, the ideas of "independent cultural production" and "Theatre of Place" have taken hold, and have advanced, in large part, through the actor-creator process. Why are the "nonverbal humanities" an important reference point for actors? Because human beings make up only a small part of life on earth. And the majority of life is expressed – its essential being is experienced – through movement. Our senses receive images, sounds, textures, tastes, smells and intuitions that make meaning with our experience before a word or phrase can be spoken or even thought. Dell’Arte trains actors to be flexible in their expressiveness, to tap into the language of gesture and action. They also teach and practice the art of reading the world. Dell’Arte is a place where actors become seers. More than interpret texts that are relevant to their community, they hear the voices and see the movements and understand the relationships that may go unnoticed. They can then create new stories that live in the imagination and awaken the community’s sensitivity to actions unrecognized. At Dell’Arte, acting becomes a verb that engages community before and after the performance as well as during it. Biography of site visitor Mark McKenna is artistic director and an ensemble member of Touchstone Theatre, in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. He is a graduate of the Lecoq International School of Theatre in Paris. He has taught theater classes at Lehigh University and the University of Pennsylvania, and the MFA Theatre Program at Towson State University. McKenna is active in the growth of the Network of Ensemble Theatres. He is a board member of Alliance for Building Communities, a regional community-development corporation. |
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