Keeping your gob open

If you're looking for something off the beaten entertainment track, you could do a lot worse than pop along to the YMCA on November 10 at 7 p.m. The work in question will be presented by British-German troupe the Gob Squad, under the aegis of the School of Visual Theatre, and goes by the tantalizing name of We Are Gob Squad and So Are You. Simon Will, a founding member of the company that has been around for some two decades now, intriguingly defines the show as “a lecture performance.” The title of the work implies that the patrons are not likely to get a frontally presented, passive evening for their hard-earned cash. “We Are Gob Squad And So Are You looks at our work in the last decades and specifically how we have involved people to become 'part of' what we do and what this means to us,” Will explains. “It has a very unusual format which we don't want to say too much about, so as to keep it a surprise,” he adds a mite surreptitiously. The company formed in 1994. “We met during a student exchange between Nottingham Trent University, Creative Arts BA, and Applied Theatre Science in Giessen [Germany],” recalls Will. “We started working together as students and never looked back.” It was clear from the outset that the Gob Squad was going to be anything but a conventional theater endeavor. That realization was party fueled by circumstance. “When we first started making work together, rehearsal and studio space was in very short supply,” Will explains. “We were fascinated by working outdoors and in non-theatrical spaces, so we very much gravitated towards making projects in houses, car parks, rooftops and shopping centers. In fact, for our first five years, we never made work in a theater, instead using the reality of these places as a kind of script and a setting for our work. This non-scripted more visual-art-based approach has remained our artistic direction.” I was not surprised to learn that the Gob Squad members largely came from unorthodox artistic domains. “Only one of us is a trained actor,” Will continues. “The others come from backgrounds in non-dramatic devised theater, visual art or performance art.” Hence the unusual amalgam of works that has accumulated over the past 22 years. Will says it was just a matter of going with the flow. “It felt normal and natural to mix everything up. The courses at both Nottingham Trent University and Giessen University were more centered towards performative approaches, so it was never the case that we had to move away from a theater base towards performance, rather a visual-art approach was a natural choice.” True to their laissez-faire philosophy, Will and his cohorts cull their raw materials from anywhere and everywhere. “The seeds of our ideas can often come from places and situations but also ongoing group discussions about what we find stimulating in the wider culture (visual art, film, music videos, theater, YouTube); what trends in the wider world we feel irritated or curious about. In recent times that includes loneliness, consumerism, the limits and possibilities of political activism, war/peace, robotics and AI, and which spaces or social situations we might like to inhabit with our art.” In addition to the wide spectrum of creative notions, the equilibrium between the disciplinary component parts of the group's offerings constantly ebbs and flows. “Over the years we have worked in so many different contexts and different ways that the roles of the languages we have developed shift around according to the thing we are working on,” notes Will. “We don't tend to let formal concerns inform a direction, rather a concept lends itself to a particular set-up and then we explore that set-up to build ideas – just as in our early work the places that we chose to work in were key collaborators in our process.” Given the broad range of artistic backdrops embraced the cast members, presumably the sources of inspiration are similarly spread. “There are seven us of in the group, with different backgrounds, ranging from dance, set design, art, acting and music,” Will says. “We all bring very different sources of inspiration to the table from writers, artists, dancers, thinkers, video makers. This wealth of sources is tapped into, depending on the project that we are working on.” That sounds like the perfect recipe for coming up not only with a non-standardized oeuvre, but also tailor- made to keep both performers and audiences firmly on their toes. That, says Will, is the secret to the group's longevity. “Since the beginning, two [members] have left, three have arrived, but even the three 'newer' members have been friends of the company since the 1990s. We keep going by setting ourselves new challenges. For example, last year we made our first opera project, [and] two years before that we challenged ourselves to make a dance piece.” That all sounds very lovely, inspiring and harmonious, but there is a cold hard reality to keeping the Gob Squad afloat and moving in the desired direction. “Working together as a group is not easy,' Will notes. “In fact it's very hard. But we are all committed to the idea of collective work and feel we make stronger work because of it.” The troupe's productions generally feature a generous dosage of music, which, says Will, not only provides extra entertainment value, but it also allows the players valuable room for maneuver. “We talk a lot within and outside of the work and tend to explain and rationalize many things. Music gives space for sensuous and emotional sculpting. It is also a common language and set of references we share with an audience, which we weave into our work.” While some of the Gob Squad's intent may sound a bit on the serious side, Will says that the cast and the paying customers alike always get plenty of laughs during the course of a performance. “Humor is extremely important to what we do. Humor is what we share as friends and what can bind an audience together. Humor helps people loosen up and engage with what we are presenting onstage. Humor opens the front door, so that pain and poetry can quietly sneak through the back door.” And, if you ever contemplate going to see the act again, and may be concerned that you might get pretty much of the same, fret not. According to Will there is absolutely no chance of that ever happening, partly due to the company members' “shortcomings.” “We are not trained actors and simply don't know how to reproduce the same evening night after night to perfection. Also, we are interested in making each performance unique and give the audience the feeling that their presence is a necessary part of the event. They made the effort to join us that night; it seems a waste to just give them the impression that they are watching something identical to the previous night's show. For all these reasons, we always allow some space for improvisation. Some shows are heavily improvised, others less so. Besides, it's more fun that way.” For tickets and more information: (02) 673-3435 and visualtheatre.co.il/he/performance/program

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The Berlin-based British-German Gob Squad troupe brings its left-field take on life to Jerusalem.

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