Warwick Group 1 (Adam, Dev, Meseret)

1) Response to Group A (Helsinki). Keyword: Litsedeistvo.

N.b. This response is directly rooted to one of our keyword's: Pakarnnatam.

We were intrigued by your image of Hilary Clinton's many 'changing faces'. We wanted to apply our keyword, Pakarnnatam, to this set of images.

Pakarnnatam is concerned with transition, 'change' and with 'movement'. A metamorphosis of one character in to another. A metamorphosis which stems from one actor playing multiple roles.

What Pakarnnatam does, essentially, is reveal the transition itself between each component of many 'changing faces'.

If, like Hilary, we all have many 'faces', many 'social masks', what Pakarnnatam does is draw our attention to the reality of this, it makes the differences and transitional periods between our 'changing faces' tangible: through, primarily, movement and gesture. Something we can see, hear and almost touch.

This also brings into consideration the sociological, psychological and cultural make-up of an individual. Through pakarnnatam, the actor can experience sociological, psychological and cultural changes as he embodies the identity of another character. Does this not mirror the sociological and psychological (and to a much lesser extent, cultural) forces shaping an individual at each of his/her many 'changing faces'?

As in Pakarnnatam, like many theatrical forms, the circumstances informing the actor (e.g. the script) come to define gesture, movement and expression. In short, the whole body. The circumstances come to define the actor's 'changing faces'/performing multiple identities. This is the same for us in real life. Our contemporary circumstances, politically, sociologicaly etc. come to inform and manipulate our identities.

And one more point, again which Pakarnnatam can help elaborate upon. It is not just our 'face' which is changing. It is our whole body and mind. And not only this. But our whole identity. We understand that 'face' works synechdochally as a part to refer to the whole. But this detracts from the importance of body and mind in establishing the change between these changing identities.


Please refer to the link below. You will see the transitions from animal states (n.b. the state of an elephant) to the neutral state of an actor and in to character states.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJhQ4EjQuVQ&feature=related