Devising and Ensemble Creation
Devising and Ensemble Creation tests how an ensemble makes new work from a stimulus and structures it dramaturgically. It rewards process evidence: research, improvisation, selection, composition, refinement and documentation of choices.
Core rules
- Start with a stimulus (image, article, object, song, verbatim testimony) and define the question it raises.
- Generate material through improvisation; record offers; select by relevance, not by who shouted loudest.
- Use composition tools: levels, spacing, repetition, canon, stillness, tempo, counterpoint, direct address.
- Give every section a dramatic function: establish, complicate, reveal, contrast, climax.
- Ensemble practice requires consent, boundaries, active listening and shared authorship.
- Edit ruthlessly: a devised piece is made in the cut.
Worked example
Stimulus: a newspaper report about a closed factory. Weak devising acts out redundancy as a skit. Stronger process: research the factory's shift whistle; improvise a repeated physical score of clocking in; layer three workers' testimonies; then fragment the whistle into a sound cue that interrupts a speech. Reasoning: the repeated action builds an image; the testimony supplies context; the interruption creates a dramaturgical turn rather than an illustration.
Traps
- Theme replacing story.
- Improvisation left unselected.
- Everyone speaking all the time.
- Ignoring safety and consent in contact work.
- Adding a message that the images already carry.