One of my favorite creative processes is creating a character in the context of theater projects; this is where I truly get to live someone else's life, changing my identity, dreams, hopes, and fears.
Yes, in life we do change, but in our path, we find our identity and grow it, treasure it, and protect it as it is the most meaningful and precious part of us. We believe in our identity, the way we feel, our character, our dreams, and our hopes. If we lose it, even for a while, we believe that we lose our worth, our right to be. But what if you get to be someone else? What if someone else we would like more, or, heaven forbid, others would like it more too? Would you venture to the pit of your demons to unearth the new freedom, the new heights with its new perspectives?
Since childhood, I was fascinated with feeling like someone else and took any opportunity to live another life, through books and through films. I could live and experience things often impossible for Nicoleta, not that my life is boring, yet these experiences are what make it more fun.
The most immersive experience of someone else's life, except a well-written book, for sure, is the characters I work on and play in Improvisation Theater ZAO. Often, we choose a character for a project, and I have to develop it together with my trainer (Elena Cushnir). I get to experience another life for long enough that when I get out on the other end, it feels like a century-long journey through time, landscapes, events, and history. I end up collecting so many experiences, memories, and discoveries. And here is my secret: I get to keep the character in my heart like a best friend and borrow sometimes its feelings, dreams, and thoughts, and even its character when I need to.
Exercise: Breathe in, breathe out slowly…breathe two more times. Stand, and start moving your neck loosely, let it flow, let it be free to be in its own will, let it take hold of your body, and let it do for the first time in your life what it wants.
At first, it will not know what to do, but that’s okay. Let it do silly things, express its sadness or joy, or confusion through movement.
For now, just close your eyes and let it guide you as long as it wants. When you feel content, you can come back, take your time, no rush…
I started developing this character for the Carnival ON/OFF 2020. Because I live in the south of Spain, Elena thought it proper and amusing for me to work on Dulcinea (the love of Don Quijote;). Elena is a trickster, she makes the miracles of the modern carnival flow. I understood her power only after I finished this project. In a month, I went far and deep, I felt like I discovered and lived in a new universe, got to be someone else, which changed my perspective on life. Dulcinea is not an easy character for me or anyone because there is so little unearthed about her and so many misinterpretations, which meant that I could not adopt any of it. I had to dig deep to the roots of her existence and rediscover her. And that was the first time for me in my acting experience, I got to create from scratch my interpretation without leaning on artists before me, that was a first and a magical journey.
Being alive in medieval times was no easy task. Life was harsh, uncertain, and often cruel. In this world, the carnival became a rare and sacred escape—a brief suspension of the natural order where people could grasp what was usually out of reach: food, justice, love, joy.
Far from the sanitized, glittering parades we know today, medieval carnivals were wild, unruly eruptions of life—loud, crude, and sometimes violent. In a society shaped by hardship, joy emerged as something raw and defiant. People mocked kings and danced with death, turning the world upside down for just a moment, laughing not from safety, but in open defiance of danger. The fool became king, and the mighty were brought low. For a few mad days, the world belonged to the people.
In that madness, they forgot their burdens and rediscovered a primal freedom. But you and I, standing here in the comfort of the modern world, cannot say for sure we would enjoy that freedom in its original, untamed form.
Is there a thing as a modern carnival that preserved its core function without becoming an entertainment hoax?
Do we still need carnivals to help us survive the craziness of our reality? Do we still need to regain our natural freedom?
I guess by the end of the question, you came to the same answer as we did. Surely we do, even if real life today seems safer and less cruel, and less unfair. We still struggle in it, even sometimes without knowing it, gasping to regain our freedom and power.
You, I, every human is not what we seem to be. We are so much more. If you close your eyes, you can see that more, the infinity inside you, if I put you in a different environment, time and place you will become someone else, in fact the person we learn to recognize in ourselves is just an adaptation to context you are in, change the context will change the person. And one of the most powerful ways to see our infinity is to see that malleable, adaptable self, and there is no better place than a carnival.
Where you can release this infinity, the paradox, lose your “normal” form, and give yourself the freedom to be anything and nothing at the same time, yet in a place and context where you are safe and not perceived as crazy or a fool…
At the carnival, your paradox and your creativity are needed and expected? Wouldn't you venture to unleash it? What does that look like? That would be a question for you. There is no answer to this question because the answer is a journey. I will tell you my journey so you can imagine it.
The modern carnival is all about finding that spiritual freedom because the existential crisis we face today is deeply spiritual. We no longer experience fear of violence, starvation, or loss of physical freedom. However, in a modern society, our culture and way of life have become stagnant in many ways. We follow the path imposed by society, often feeling powerless in the face of this powerful machine. Kafka’s “The Trial” exemplifies this struggle, where reality and life feel unfair and incomprehensible, and one struggles to make sense of the unfolding events. It’s a stark contrast to our natural existence and nature. While there are similarities, there are also significant differences that make us feel powerless emotionally, unable to change the world to make sense of it. This is precisely what the ZAO carnival project aims to address. After years of working on methods, problems, and solutions, we’ve realized that playing a character within the scope of a specific project each year is crucial. We don’t exist in a vacuum; we address the problems we face right now and right here. Each carnival has its reality and topic, and within that metaphysical context, we choose characters that are best to study and develop, finding ways to interpret the questions and problems we pose for the carnival and discover answers and journeys that lead to catharsis, the main goal of the carnival. Regardless of their journey, each character experiences the ability to reach their catharsis in their way, which is the very essence of the carnival project of today.
As it is, Elena and I had to discuss for hours what Dulcinea means to the carnival, to the questions we want to answer in this Carnival Season.
We go with the root questions, and this is where you have to start when choosing your character for the project. It has to be planted deep in the core to pull the essence from the deepest stratum of human existence to feed it, so it can unearth meanings and questions that are most fruitful. The discussion is hours long. Here I will give you the outline to help you understand the general process.
In the beginning, we delve into the carnival concept for this year, exploring its philosophy. Elena then presents me with the project’s objectives, the questions it aims to address, and the mythology we’re working with. When I mention mythology, I’m not referring to the traditional Greek mythology, but rather to the central narrative of the carnival and the outcomes we aspire to achieve. Here are the three key questions I believe you should be aware of.
Can I Change the World?
As this is the most important question for any participant of the ZAO Carnival, we start with why Dulcinea is crucial for the journey in discovering this question for me and the Carnival in general.
As always, you start this discussion from the surface, telling what you know about this character and the mythology. How would this question sound to her? But remember, even if we discuss this, Dulcinea is already starting to grow in my mind. We will never be aware of these questions; they always come in another form, and most often as unformed urges and directions. But these questions are the content that later will have a structure, the content in its pure form, clear as light. Structure refracts and makes it play in beautiful colors and shapes.
Can I Express Myself Artistically?
Although this question takes you in the wrong direction at the start, let me correct your course. Forget the more “professional” meaning that we title people. Artistically, meaning emotionally, as our right to breathe and exist, as our birthright to love and be loved, can you shape yourself as a flute and sing your song? We all need to communicate as a social instinct, and art and artistic expression are a communication language that opens the flow and helps others to connect to us, not just intellectually but on deeper human levels.
So can I Express Myself Artistically as Dulcinea? What does that question mean for her?
What Is the Dulcinea Myth?
We all know many myths. Why? Because they are not just stories; they are stories that are most useful for us to make sense of this chaos called “reality.” Through myths, we outline what type of people there are, what they do, what results from these actions, and how they cope with problems we might encounter. So we remember these myths because they are easy for our brain to visualize and be used as a reference “social alphabet,” so to speak. So if you can create a myth character and a story attached to it with its lessons to learn, it catches on, and people carry it on for future reference.
For us, the task was to create the myth of Dulcinea, which had to become the backbone of my character.
I will leave these three main questions for now; otherwise, the article will never end.
But here is a shortlist of other possible questions you can ask about your character:
The point is to ask as many questions and leave no stone unturned.
For the next session, I have homework to do. I have to find all the answers and possible hard evidence about her. I need to reconstruct her flesh and bones to her place, the people she interacted with, the town, everything. For example, I watched all the theater recordings of plays related to her, opened the first translation of Don Quixote, and read the whole thing, highlighting all the references to her. Wiki articles about the masterpiece, the writer, the places this story references, and the time it references, major historical events of this time, culture, music, and dress…
And all that to construct a reality in my head as detailed as possible.
This is the analytical part of the work with the character, and usually, it takes months to build up the knowledge, step by step, digging all the pieces of the puzzle to have the most complete picture of the character as I can. I love this part, it fires my curiosity, and it feeds more and more questions. This would never end, actually, but it’s time to move to the next stage.
The meditative part of building the character is fun on its own. It starts with a discussion on what I have dug about the character, which usually fires me up. In the middle of the session, Elena closes her eyes and starts the meditative process, where I know that from now on, I will have to take these reconstructions and make her live in me.
As part of the meditative process, I am doing several sessions, where I clear, focus, and tune my body and mind to prepare for work in creating the character. It resembles meditation and many other mindful modern practices, which are adapted and used to fast-track me so I can put aside my Nicoleta reality and start working with Dulcinea.
After I am well “warmed up”, I start recreating Dulcinea inside me layer by layer, from deepest instinctive layers to her emotions, physical movement, her temperament, character, hopes, and dreams. All that was put in my mind now has to take its place and move my body as Dulcinea. I discover Dulcinea inside me and reconstruct her. I have to do this for several sessions so I can have enough experience with her to move to the next level.
Next, I have mixed sessions with continuing to work with her embodiment at the same time, I need to analyze her layer by layer. I need to construct her in time and space, her will, her dreams, her struggles. Together with Elena, we dig deep into New Dulcinea I experience to form her story, but it’s not a classical theater storytelling; it’s the improvisation part, letting Dulcinea live outside the narrative.
As we dig deeper into Dulcinea, trying to find in her the most hidden forces that move her forward, we are plotting to challenge her so she can reach her potential as she is a Carnival character, and all Carnival characters have to reach their catharsis, no matter what. Where will she find her infinity, her power, her artistic communication? Where will she discover her paradox?
Dulcinea and the Sea
As we discovered, the challenge has to be her equal, and there is no one on Earth equal to her power; no one could challenge her as well as the sea…
You see, the trick is that she rarely confronted the sea; her reality is the sky and scourged red earth; she is the woman of the earth. And we wanted to know how confronting something as powerful as the sea would challenge her.
I will refrain from telling you what story I discovered during my experience while playing Dulcinea.
Exercise: Forget everything I told you until now… Breathe in, breathe out slowly… Look for the equanimity point in you, search for silence, where it is located; now close your eyes and slowly and gently expand it…
Now watch for your Dulcinea story…
Tell me, what did you see, what you felt happened to her, how did she reach her catharsis?
You can also check out ZAO Theater Website
Isolation and loneliness is a modern problem, it makes us vulnerable to stress and depression making our life a nightmare. While doing improvisations in theater, I learned that connection is a skill, and it can be taught.
