Aikido on stage
by John Nelles
Photo: David Cooper
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I'll never forget the swords glistening in the forest light, two figures standing motionless, sweat beading on their foreheads, waiting for the attack. With a hair-raising scream the samurai rushes forward and cuts down in shomen. The bandit, slipping to the side, eludes the attack, grabs the samurai's wrist, and twists his hand, disarming him. He swings the samurai into the waving bamboo grove. He turns and approaches the bushes, sword held high. Only his breath can be heard, then the whisper of the blade cutting the air and a sudden groan from the man, now dead in the bushes... The forest sounds come back, and the bandit moves off into the darkness. |
"OK, let's do it again," I say, "and watch your distance on the first cut." And so we start again, rehearsing the first of several fights I'm directing for the Shaw Festival's production of Rashomon.
Whether it's a hand-to-hand bar fight, or a Renaissance rapier and dagger fight between Mercutio and Tybalt, I always have some aikido mixed into it. Since I began my study of aikido, I have found it fits perfectly with the work I do as a fight director and stage combat instructor, and I use it often.
Stage Combat is the art of making staged fight sequences for film, television, and the theatre look real and exciting, while ensuring the safety of the combatants and audience.
On stage we portray adversaries who are out to hurt or kill their opponents. Fights almost always come at the climax of a play, when words no longer work, and the conflict, which is the essence of drama, becomes physical. How do we make these almost operatic life and death struggles look real enough so the audience can believe them and be excited and thrilled by them; yet make them safe so that the actors can repeat them every night? That's where the Fight Director comes into play.
The bottom line in all this work is safety, for actors and audience. The actors, though playing adversaries, must work to protect and help each other execute the fights safely, while retaining the dramatic qualities I mentioned above. There must be no chance of the audience being injured, whether it be from a broken blade or prop flying out into the house. The audience also wants to believe that the stories, characters, and fights are real, but the moment they believe that the actor is in danger or injured, they stop caring about the story and worry about the actor. It's a fine line. If it's poorly acted and staged, the audience doesn't get involved, and if it's too real, they get scared and don't follow the story. And if something goes flying off stage, we are dealing with lawsuits flying back at the theatre.
Everything you see in a fight sequence on stage is—and must
be—choreographed, for safety's sake. Nothing is left to chance. This is what
makes acting them so tricky. The actors must fight as their characters would fight,
according to the script, following the choreography precisely. Often this is done
with lines of text, in costumes which may or may not be well suited to movement,
with bright lights in their eyes, in front of an audience, all the while safely
avoiding each other. They must make it look as though this is all happening for
the first time, that the weapons are razor sharp and that they are trying to kill
or inflict some serious damage. If the most brilliant choreography in the world
isn't well acted, it's boring—like watching acrobatic aerobics.
Samurai (Nigel S. Williams) and bandit (Jim Mezon) clash in Rashomon
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I usually get very little time to work with the actors, who often haven't picked up a sword since theatre school, if at all. Within two weeks, they have to appear not just as a competent fencer, but the legendary Cyrano, or Hamlet. I may get very limited access to the actual set, which may not be designed with space for fighting in mind, and the director may have worked the fight out completely or not have any definite ideas about what they want. These are the inherent challenges that I love. I am an actor and often get to be in the show, as well as do the fights. That's when it's really exciting for me. When it all comes together, it's a terrific feeling. |
In the dojo, uke attacks with commitment to help nage learn, but nage applies the technique so as not to injure uke. We work in a non-violent way. This is, perhaps, one of the most important points I take to the theatre. We may play adversaries, but as actors, we are colleagues and try to ensure each other's safety. Balance is another important point. In the dojo, when uke feels their balance being lost, they go along and try to regain it, with a roll or breakfall. Nage remains sensitive; they don't slam uke, but guide them down, executing the technique to the point where uke taps and not beyond. On stage, it is meant to look as though "uke" is off balance and "nage" is helping them get to the ground safely. Whenever possible, the "uke" simulates this loss of balance with an appropriate reaction—vocal and physical—and good acting. The audience will believe "uke's" been thrown to the ground with full force.
Let me give you an example. Let's say, uke rushes toward nage, trying to grab his lapels. Nage reaches up inside uke's arms and grabs uke's shoulders, then lifts his right foot, places it on uke's stomach and sits down on his left leg, going down to the floor, as if to pitch uke over his head. In real life, uke would go flying, but here he steps forward and next to nage with his left leg, then "throws" himself over nage, into either a roll or a kind of fall. So, although it appears uke's weight is supported by nage, he really is in control. Nage has simply moved out of the way. This takes teamwork and timing. Aikido training helps an actor to learn where the other person's balance is and where it's going. In Rashomon, there are several fights. Essentially, it is about a notorious bandit who meets a samurai and his wife on a road in the jungle. He decides he must have her, and tricks the samurai into leaving in search of some loot hidden in the forest. The bandit jumps the samurai, ties him up and rapes his wife. The wife then convinces the bandit to kill her husband, so they can run away together. The play is about the trial of the bandit. As each witness is called, including the ghost of the murdered samurai, we see a different version of the story. What the play really deals with is the perception of truth. We have the same kind of situation in a fight, where we are faced with different versions of events and see the characters from different perspectives.
I had worked with the director, Neil Munro, on several shows before, so we knew each others' styles. Neil is terrific to work with. He starts out with a clear idea about the story of the fight, its important moments, and some preliminary blocking, then lets me put the fight together and direct its sequences.
This was the first time I had the luxury of sending the principal actors for a two-week crash course in samurai sword style and choreographing the whole fight, before moving into rehearsals with the full company. The set was a huge mountain, with a working stream, trees and lots of rocks and paths to climb on. It was a very difficult and dangerous set to work on, and even though I got to see it before it was finished, there was no time for major changes. There was little level ground and not much room to get a good foothold or swing a sword. The actors all had good movement backgrounds, some had sword experience—but not with a katana.
So, we set to work. We did a lot of kokyu dosa and basic tenkan movements to get the feeling of moving together, finding our balance and thinking the same way about our movement. We started with bokken suburi to get the feel for the movement of the sword and continued with some kumitachi sequences. Later, while we were choreographing the fight, the actors wanted to use these sequences rather than learning completely new movements, and so, with time, I worked them in.
We also decided, while keeping the overall fight the same, to give the audience a different perspective on the actors with each new sequence, so that the spectators can see the action through a different character's eyes. This made the fight easier for the actors, as they only had to learn variations on the same choreography, versus two totally different ones. I try to create a fight that is exciting but simple enough to learn quickly, so it looks as though the actors are comfortable and really good with the sword. Otherwise, a really complicated fight is tough to do well—and safely. This is the climax, and if you lose the audience with a boring or incompetent fight, you've lost them for good.
We had to find replica swords for the actors: a katana for the samurai, and something a little older, like a tachi, for the bandit. The old films often used bamboo swords with polished tin on them—that's how they can go so fast—but we used martial arts swords. The transition from the bokken to the katanas took some time. It is important for the actors to learn to push their sword past the other actor and not fully into their sword, so that both can stay in control. Once they became comfortable with the weight and feel of the swords, we played with the speed of the attacks and the strategy of each character. The bandit took advantage of the terrain and his own animal-like, self-taught style, while the samurai was much more formal and composed, very subtle in his movements. We used a lot of acting here, instead of complicated katas. The actors were terrific and rose to the challenge. I was really pleased with the work they accomplished in such a short time.
In aikido, the winner/loser, attacker/victim polarity turns into a harmonizing of energy and direction. This is where aikido has been so valuable to my work: the characters live in those polarized worlds, but the actors are working together to protect and transfer the energy between them. One could call the actors "operator" and "co-operator" or, as a play on the phrase "Acting is reacting," they are "actor" and "reactor".
Aikido has become an integral part of my life and my work, and it fits very well into the art of stage combat. It has given me another way to work with actors safely and effectively. It has also brought me a wholly different view on movement and conflict resolution, teaching me that there are always choices and many paths to meet the challenges we find on the stage and in the street.
If you would like to learn more about stage combat, I invite you to visit the
Fight Directors Canada National Workshop here in Toronto next summer, or give me
a call for information.
John Nelles is a professional actor, teacher, and Certified
Fight Director. He is the Shaw Festival Fight Director and has taught and
directed stage fighting for thirteen years in the US and Canada. He lives in
Toronto with his wife, Kate, and is a member of Shugyo Dojo.
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