Caliban from The Tempest Zen Zen Zo Physical Theatre (c) S.Woods 2009

Caliban is a protagonist from Shakespeare's Tempest. He is an abandoned soul, part man, part monster and badly mistreated by his master Prospero.

In Zen Zen Zo's 2010 production of The Tempest, the Caliban becomes not one man but a chorus, forming dark, wild and rather creepy entity. The piece presented here is an introduction to the Caliban, sneaking into the performance space and performing an exultant but threatening dance. The staging of the production was promenade, the audience within the performance space, so in this instance the Caliban began by surrounding them, stamping feet on the wooded floor to create the rumbling that is augmented by the drums. Unseen cast and crew contribute to the soundscape by rubbing their rands together as the Caliban crawl on their stomachs through the audience, grabbing ankles, groaning their discomfort.

The recorded piece is augmented by live sounds, body slapping, hand rubbing, stomping and vocalisations, but the tone of the score presents quite well here. The instrumentation is sequenced samples plus my own voice and body percussion.

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