Devising: A Journey into the Unknown

I didn't plan to do a lot of devising as a director as I first started out. I was way more comfortable working on a script. However, over the last few years I've worked way more on devising than scripts and I'll definitely devise more in the future.

I first learned devising with practitioners at school. In the last module of my East 15 directing training we were lucky to have Gecko Theatre company for several weeks teaching us physical theatre which involves a lot of devising. After school, I also took devising class with Complicité, Told by An Idiot, and several other teachers. Then I joined other people's big and small devising projects. There are clown shows, a street dance project, devising scripts in some initial R&Ds, staging Shakespeare's sonates. Then I devised 2 solo shows in which I was the main writer. This year I've been devising shows with more friends in China. Yet none of those experiences are similar, each group I worked with had different energies and processes. There really isn't a template for devising. But it is really something that can break the boundaries and allow you to jump out of the box. It is not just working on a script or story, you can even question what is "a story" or whether it is needed in your piece. I find devising liberating.

However, I have to admit devising is also scary--as long as I'm devising there's always crucial questions I find myself have no answers for. As a director I'm expected to be the safety net, yet I often don’t know how many decisions the group should make together. How much writing should I do? How to balance between the lack of budget and the need for getting as many creatives in the room at the same time as possible? How many ideas do I need to have before I start devising with others? How much real life experience from the ensemble members should be used in a piece? Again from company to company, piece to piece these questions have different answers. And often because of the lack of funding, the situation itself changes, and I have to figure out and adjust my choices along the way. It was almost inevitable I'd be a bit stressed out everytime I led a devising process. The positive side of this though, is that every devising process has helped me to understand more about myself as a creator. I now know more about what I like and dislike and what’s needed to make myself protected but also stretched in each project.

Am I original? That’s another question I often hear in my mind. Let us admit it, it is hard to come up with fresh new ideas. I often find myself consciously or subconsciously stealing choreography or metaphors from others. In other cases, we use a lot of our own life experiences and I start to feel I'm not being inventive. To avoid these traps, I try to make my devising process a two way exploration: look inside myself and look outside into the world. Working with very different people, really giving them power and voices also prevent self-repeating.

Gradually it became clearer and clearer for me that, to unleash our creativity, the devising process needs to have some similar ingredients in each project--the commitment to make it happen, the mutual support of the ensemble, the spirit of play and finding joy, the willingness to take risks out of fun. It is scary when there's no script but you are facing a deadline to come up with something. But anxiety and fear can really sabotage the process and the outcome. For me, to learn to devise is to learn to play even under pressure.

One thing I found especially inspiring in my last devising process is that taking breaks and rehearsing less time sometimes make better results. I was devising a clown show with my friend in China. We were really unconfident because of several reasons, this is our first full length clown show, we didn't work together before, we didn't really have a director or outside eye in the rehearsal room. Also we only had 2-3 weeks together creating intensely rather than spreading things out over months. Because of these difficulties, we rehearsed like 6 hours a day, seven days a week in our first and second R&D. We were exhausted, lost and felt we were not funny at all. Needless to say, both of us felt like it was a mistake to make a clown show together. Until at one point we gave up. We decided to prioritize our own need for enjoyment for the rest of the time together--only 4 hours rehearsal a day and loads of time just to have fun and play. Some days we spent like 1 hour creating new materials but 3 hours just warming up and going through the foundations. Yet the process became a lot easier. The ideas, although not perfect, kept coming out of us.

Devising is a journey going into the unknown. Whether it is stress or joy, fear or excitement, it all comes from uncertainty. The pressure to be successful often makes us want to be in control of everything. Yet, devising needs one to let go of certainty and ride the tide. Maybe I should wrap this all up in one piece of advice to myself--whenever I doubt whether I'm creative enough to navigate through the unknown, I should question instead whether I'm playing enough in the process!