The Contours of Heaven brings together the forms of verbatim theatre, physical movement, and the use of live sound – coexisting to communicate the different strands of the story. Below, Ana shares more about each form.
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VERBATIM THEATRE
Verbatim theatre is a form of documented theatre in which a play is constructed from the exact words spoken by people interviewed about a particular event or topic. "When creating The Contours of Heaven, there was no conversation about the work needing to be verbatim. We had talked about how it would be built around trying to uplift the voices of these young people. But what became apparent was that the strength of their voices, and the way they communicated their experiences was amazing. Distilling the essence of each of those conversations, and then amplifying that essence in coalition with those other theatre forms became the dramaturgy. It wouldn’t have been achieved if we’d begun by thinking about it as a verbatim work from the beginning. Because there are so many assumptions and codes that come with verbatim as its own form. Because we’d never worked with verbatim theatre before, we don’t come with that background, so there has been no consciousness of making choices that honour the lineage or history of verbatim as a form." - Ana Scotney |
SOUNDSCAPE
Soundscape is a collection of sounds created either by the actors, instruments, recording, or digital methods. It creates the atmosphere of a scene and can be used as a component part, or as the main form of a live theatre experience. "Sound isn’t present through the entirety of The Contours of Heaven. Some of the sound components are more like songs. The main theme is called I Have To Leave You Behind. Other soundscapes are more about creating environmental sounds. Starting with human breath, and growing to become the sound of the ocean, looping to become the sound of the sea. It aims to explore how we hint at the geography by morphing through different sounds and songs – the ocean, a bird, the land." - Ana Scotney |
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PHYSICAL MOVEMENT
Physical theatre is a well-known genre of theatrical performance that encompasses storytelling primarily through physical movement. "The movement in The Contours of Heaven is linked to the sea. It is based on what we call ‘wave logic’. As we make the soundscape of the ocean at the beginning, we are also establishing a floor plan based on the movement of the ocean. A wave is so fragile when it comes to ground, and a lot of the momentum and force is from behind. And that relates to the rangatahi we are also representing through movement. Originally it was Marama Beamish (the original designer) who worked out that the movement and position on stage related to each of the characters and their level of vulnerability. Who is downstage and upstage is about the characters who have the mana or confidence to hold the authority of being further away. And who do we place in close proximity. The movement is also used to join the rangatahi. It holds the unique thread between each of them. So travelling through this place I never quickly switch into characters. It’s all low morphing into this character which we call Pou Toko Manawa which is the heart pillar inside the whare tupuna - the central pou. The central Manawa is this voiceless moving character that carries the work. The movement is transitional between the voices." - Ana Scotney |