PROTOCOL — CPPM WEEK 1 & 2

PROTOCOL — CPPM WEEK 1 & 2

This protocol documents the workshop material transmitted by Eddie Martinez across CPPM Week 1 and Week 2. It remains a documentary record of prompts, recurring working language and longer conversations rather than an interpretation of Eddie's practice.

1. PROMPTS / QUESTIONS

The workshop prompts included:

• Tallinn movement
• Japanese sign movement
• Nanakorobi-Yaoki — “Fall down seven times, stand up eight.”
• In Defence of the Sad, using Hando Runnel's poem as source material
• Slava Ukraini
• SOS
• Lascia ch'io pianga
• Monument
• Rinaldo music
• Seven Deadly Sins
• Imperfection / misfit
• Euphoria
• Rolling bodies
• Tableau / picture

These were different entry points into movement, image, affect, political language, music and personal association. The protocol function was to give performers material from which movement, images, states and responses could emerge. The prompts were not required to be converted into fixed symbolic readings.

2. RECURRING TOPICS & INSTRUCTIONS

Eddie repeatedly worked with the qualitative difference between the performative “I” and allowing the everyday self to shine through movement.

His recurring working language included:

• “The audience wants to see you.”
• “Don't act. React.”
• “Cut the drama.”
• “The drama will come on its own.”
• “Focus on the bare skeleton of the work.”
• “Breathe while moving.”
• “You have to go down and in in order to reach out and up.”
• “The phrasing.”
• “Genuine and authentic.”
• “Do your thing. Don't be presentational.”
• “Do I need this?”
• “Being real on stage — take them on your journey.”
• “Stay in the moment.”
• “Don't force it.”
• “Fulfil the movement.”

These were not isolated slogans. Eddie used them as recurring corrections in the studio. They continuously removed the performer's added presentational layer and redirected attention toward actual experience, breath, reaction, presence and completion of action.

“The audience wants to see you” did not mean autobiographical confession or psychological exposure. It meant that attention, effort, decision, uncertainty and relation to the material should remain perceptible. “Don't act. React.” asked the performer not to impose an emotional illustration before an event had affected them. “Cut the drama” meant removing added emotional emphasis, over-explanation and theatrical attitude so that the drama could emerge from the material itself.

“Breathe while moving”, “the phrasing” and “fulfil the movement” kept the body inside the action rather than allowing it to execute an image of movement and abandon the physical or emotional trajectory too early. “Do your thing. Don't be presentational” opposed the extra layer that says, “Look at me performing this.”

3. LONGER CONVERSATIONS WITH EDDIE

A. First day — setting the intention

During the two weeks Eddie wanted to meet not the performer version of the student, but the person doing the movement.

He observed that performers frequently begin anticipating the next action before the current action has landed. The work therefore asks students to stay where they are, live the current moment and not add more simply because they feel they should produce an effect.

Eddie explained that the audience can eventually feel: “I feel like I know this person.” This does not mean that the audience literally knows the performer or has received a biography. It means that they have followed a human being through an experience.

He also explained that remaining inside one emotional thread for a long period can be exhausting. He related this to the long duration of Pina Bausch's performances: duration requires the performer to remain available and connected to the thread rather than merely execute a sequence of external forms.

B. Creative process — getting lost in possibilities

A student asked about starting from something personal, trying variation after variation, becoming overwhelmed, losing the initial material and not knowing how to finish.

Eddie answered that this is normal. Trying many possibilities creates a pool of possibilities. Eventually, a decision has to be made. Time forces the decision. Certainty is not required; what is required is choice and commitment.

The process can therefore be stated as:

Experiment → possibility → choice → commitment.

Eddie also asked: Do I need the audience to understand exactly what I am trying to achieve? He warned against over-explaining. The artist does not need to hand over the whole story. A work can create conditions in which the audience enters, feels and interprets.

C. Robert / Bob Wilson & Pina Bausch

Eddie transmitted Robert Wilson's proposition that the role of the artist is to ask questions, not to define what things are.

His application was that a work should leave room for the audience to enter, feel and interpret. An artwork does not need to function as an answer or a complete explanation.

The discussion then turned to how one poses a question physically. Eddie's response was clear:

• You must have the question first.
• The body cannot pretend to be curious.
• A question is not a gesture.
• It is a state you are living through.

The performer should know why they are onstage without necessarily knowing what they must prove. Eddie identified this as “the Pina way”, rooted in staying open.

D. Eddie Martinez's living testimony / recollection

Eddie described the early Pina Bausch company as small and highly experimental. The process involved laughing, crying, running, speaking, improvising and trying many things.

He described Pina as interested in what each performer could do physically, emotionally and individually. He recalled works in which movement, raw emotion, repetition, vulnerability, ritual and theatricality could coexist.

He recalled men dancing in drag not simply for comedy but as a way of experiencing femininity differently. Pina was interested in transformation rather than decoration.

Eddie also recalled Pina collecting photographs, paper and small objects / figurines, and allowing a single image to become the seed for performance material. The source was not literally retold. It became feeling, state, movement and scene.

Finally, Eddie described Tanztheater as opening a field in which dance, speech, theatrical behaviour, silence and personal presence could coexist.

This testimony should be understood as Eddie Martinez's living transmission of a Pina Bausch / Tanztheater lineage. Eddie was the CPPM Guest Artist directly encountered; Pina Bausch was the artistic lineage transmitted through Eddie's lived experience.

RELATION TO EDDIE MARTINEZ'S CONCEPTUAL CHILDREN

This protocol is the primary documentary source for Eddie Martinez's children.

• THE PERSON, NOT THE PERFORMER VERSION ← first-day intention.
• DON'T ACT / CUT THE DRAMA ← recurring corrections.
• QUESTION AS LIVED STATE ← Pina discussion.
• OPEN PROMPTS ← workshop prompt list.
• BREATH / PHRASING / FULFIL MOVEMENT ← recurring corrections.
• PINA BAUSCH ← Eddie's testimony.
• POOL OF POSSIBILITIES ← creative-process conversation.
• AUDIENCE JOURNEY / OPEN MEANING ← audience and Wilson discussion.

These mappings remain inside the protocol Note and do not create additional Thoughts.