Month: March 2016

In the morning, I met up with my group members to discuss and reflect on out ideas. We decided we ill  be doing an installation piece (Not per formative) based around the audiences romance life’s. We’ll be discussing with the audience about their relationships, and how certain areas in Lincoln may bring back certain memories relating to their relationship. We have concentrated on involving visual art such as, a washing line with images of the couples hanging, posted notes describing how certain areas of Lincoln remind them of their partner, creating paintings to express how they feel about their partner and a placard advertising our aims towards the audience.

In the session with Steve, we began with a 4-5 minute  video explaining “What is live art” by Joshua Sofaer, with him standing on a busy street in London. He describes live art in the sense that the actor “chooses to make work directly in front of the audience”. An interesting point he makes is that when a site specific performance is taking place “the city itself becomes a gallery”.  Towards the end of the video, there is a comic aspect where he turns around and there’s a large hole in his trousers showing his bum. Next Steve told us he wants to arrange schedules for each group, for rehearsals, meetings and tutorials.

Steve sent each group out to explore the city center, for performance ideas. This was really helpful as we came across some interesting areas for the performance.  We’ve considered setting the performance near a building close to speaker’s corner because it in a busy section of the high street, giving us to opportunity to appeal to a wide range of audience members.. Also we have looked at the old train station, which now is a cooking utilities store called Lakeland. The station became particularly interesting when we met an Old couple, explaining the history behind the station. Considering our performance is based around relationships, we used to opportunity to ask about their relationship (E.G, how they met, how long there we’re together). It was really interesting, because the station was a significant factor to there relationship when they were younger, as the man traveled on the train everyday to visit her in Newark. After this, we headed back to meet classroom to reflect on each groups ideas.

 

This is one location we considered using for our performance. We considered having a washing line hung from lamppost, to the other.

Below are images of the old train station, situated inside the Lakeland store.

 

Here is an image of the building we’re considering to use for our performance.

We are thinking about placing the washing line idea, hanging images and information of the couples around the pillars.

 

Psycho-geography. Palimpsest. Rhizome. Scriptotheropy.

Words, actions and basically, things I had never heard of until a month ago when I encountered this module. Who knew that pretending not to see and looking away when someone trips over in public or realising that you’re walking in the wrong direction so you pretend that someone rung you on your phone to go the correct way are actual recognised ‘things’? I always knew about anthropology but it never occurred to me that these everyday occurrences and social norms (known as tacit agreements) are actually a gateway into viewing how humans interact and ultimately, live.

I never thought that within a drama course there would be so much emphasis on psychology, sociology and anthropology. Site Specific performance has made me think about everyday life in a completely different way.  In some ways, a lot like Erving Goffman’s own thoughts who believed that ‘normal’ life was a lot like a spectacle which is explored throughout his first and most famous book, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (1959) which I am currently reading. This idea of people, constantly performing is not however, a new idea by any stretch: Shakespeare himself did in fact famously write in As You Like It that:

“All the world’s a stage,

And all the men and women merely players”

Furthermore, this idea of people constantly performing without realising is also a continued study with figures such as Richard Schechner still writing about it to this day. I am more vigilant, looking up instead of down on my phone constantly or ignoring the outside world with my headphones in. It’s interesting to people watch, to see how different people interact with each other and what can happen within the public space.

So, what does all this mean? What does the relevance of Goffman’s, Schechner’s and even Shakespeare’s theories have to do with doing a performance within the city? Well in short, our idea!

Mine, Joe, Lucy and Emma’s idea is less about the actual city and more about the people that are part of it. Within Mike Pearson’s book Site Specific Performance (2010):

“Dartington artist and academic Sue Palmer comments ‘…it’s not just about a place, but the people who normally inhabit and use that place. For it wouldn’t exist without them.” (8, 2010,).

This is exactly what our group are wanting to really encourage. We wanted to look into the ideas of authenticity and communication. Within the workshop session, we went into the city to our chosen site which is a small gathering of benches in the middle of the high street overlooking the canal. We decided to eavesdrop at people’s conversations and try to gather as much verbatim material as we physically could. There aren’t many (if any!) full conversations that we recorded or heard. It was mainly just small sentences or parts of long sentences that we managed to hear before they walked away. Some of my personal favourites were:

“Oh there’s swans there. Massive aint it?” …. “Yeah it’s a bloody nightmare innit!” … “He’s letting me have it for 8 quid. Y’know, it’s been going for the past 8 years, int doing too bad”

We got some strange looks and people in neighbouring cafes soon began to realise what we were up too. We even got asked outright what on earth we were doing. In its own way, just us sat there in such close proximity manically scribbling down people’s conversations was a performance in itself as people who noticed what we were doing, watched and became an unintentional audience drawn in by our strange behaviour.

We plan to go into the same space on a number of days this week separately or in pairs and get some more conversations recorded. Then, we are going to write up a script using the snippets of conversations we have gathered. We are then planning to go back to the same space and recording different people to read parts of our script so we have an even wider range of people within the space. This is to create palimpsest (layers) of the performance. The last layer of the performance will be on performance day where we intend to mime over the top of the recordings that we had collected through the previous weeks.

I’m feeling really confident about our piece especially as we have so much theory to back it up with.

Until next week!

Holly M

Whilst looking for a location for our performance we stopped outside Lakeland further down the high street. Noticing that the building looked like it could’ve been a court, we went into the shop to investigate. We were informed that it was in fact the location of the old train station, and within Lakeland was an original timetable from the station. (Pictured below.) A member of staff within the shop explained that it continued on through to Argos and that they had some original photos in the store.

We moved on to Argos to look at these photos, and whilst doing so an elderly couple approached us telling us that they remembered when the station was originally there. The gentleman of the pair explained that he took the train from Lincoln to Newark to see the woman who is now his wife. They have been together for 47 years, 48 later this year. This story gave us confirmation that our theme of romance would create an interesting and captivating performance. It also confirmed that couples will be willing to tell us their stories, and that it won’t just be our peers that want to take part.

Today I decided to spend the majority of the lesson at my site, Speakers Corner, observing the buildings and the public that filled it. Six pages of notes and roughly three hours later, I found my observations to be pretty dull and ordinary. I was hoping that as I sat there I would be overwhelmed with a great sense of community but the people who filled the site, merely used it cut through to another place or to quickly make use as the benches and ATM machines. The Speakers Corner felt more like a transition through places and personally I found this to be quiet sad, seeing as nearly a century ago this site was the home to one of the suffragettes rallies in Lincoln.

I find it hard to believe that this site was once filled with protesters and the public is now virtually empty, even during its busiest period. This has me wondering whether Lincoln, as a society, has lost its care for a public voice or lost its confident to break the norms of how to behave in public and use its voice. I wonder this as the site remained fairly quiet all day, other than the background noise of traffic and if anyone disturbed this silence; for example a mother telling off her child, the looks of disgust and annoyance received by the public were by the many. As Dr Helen Pankhurst, Emily Wilding Davison’s great granddaughter suggests, if Emily Wilding Davision was still alive today than she, and possibly the rest of the suffragettes, would fight for; “Increasing the numbers of female voters”, A more diverse Government”, “Ending Violence against women”, “the growth of the pornography industry worldwide”, “the rape culture that blames the victim” (Pankhurst, 2013).  I’ve decided I want my final performance to highlight these issues and to encourage the public to use their voice and use this space. However, unlike Emily Wilding Davison and the Suffragettes, I’ve decided to take a less obvious and violent approach to my performance, which may not even class as a protest. After a discussion with my class, I’ve decided to spend my performance walking in and around the site, each time speaking about these issues. I want my performance to be simple but creates a sense of unease about the public, as I will be breaking the norms of public behavior and I hope that eventually they come to the realization that I will be performing/protesting.

My next step is to go back and visit the site at night (with a large group) to see how the behavior and atmosphere changes and compare this to the daytime. I’m also going to start researching the points raised by Dr Helen Pankhurts and start building my script around this research, as well as also contacting the university’s Woman’s officer and various groups to ensure my scripts won’t offend anyone or cause any backlash.

 

References:

Pankhurst, D. (2013). Feminism: what would the suffragettes be fighting for today?. [online] Telegraph.co.uk. Available at: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens-politics/9825131/Feminism-what-would-the-suffragettes-be-fighting-for-today.html [Accessed 3 Mar. 2016].

Lincoln

This week was the first week that our group had been able to meet as a whole due to a variety of absences and prior engagements. We took this opportunity to have a meeting prior to the seminar, something which will now occur every week. During this meeting we brought together all the ideas we have had and decided upon the theme of romance and the relationships of the people in Lincoln. At this stage the way in which this would be done was still undecided, these decision was made following our research within the city.

At the beginning of the seminar the class had a brief talk with Steven during which we explored the idea of Live Art through a video by Joshua Sofaer, called ‘What is Live Art?‘. In this video Joshua explains that Live Art “comes into being at the actual moment of encounter between the artist and spectator”. (Joshua Sofaer, 2011.). Having watched this we decided that we wanted our piece to do just that, but not only will the piece be created for the audience, we wanted the audience to help us create it.

Following this discussion a meeting with Steven was arranged for later in the afternoon, until this meeting our group went out into our site to see what we could observe to help us determine a location and how we wanted to approach the theme of love within the site. After visiting a variety of places up and down the city we decided upon an empty building on Speakers Corner, photos of which are attached. This was decided upon due to the fact we could decorate it by both sticking things to the glass walls and hanging things from the poles surrounding it, transforming it from an empty building into a large display of romance.

Having this location meant we now began to think about our performance. From the beginning we have much preferred the idea of an installation piece as opposed to a performance that involves us acting. After speaking to a couple in Argos, an interaction which I have included on a separate blog post, it was decided that getting personal stories from the couples to use as part of our piece was best. This would include photos of the couples. Their stories, including the date they met and a favourite location they have in Lincoln will be written down. Both the photos and stories will be used to decorate the building as well as variety of items you associate with romance such as flowers.

After speaking to Steven during our meeting in the city, it has been decided that research needs to be done into Speakers Corner, as he explained that it is too significant a location to use without the history behind it. As well as  this he asked how we are going to obtain the information from the couples in a way that entices them to take part and view our performance. We have decided to obtain these stories both on the day and during the weeks beforehand. Some of these will be gathered online, but most of the stories will be obtained through talking to couples in the city. Having stories and photos already on display on the day of our performance will make other couples more likely to give us their stories because they’ll see that they’re not the only ones taking part. As well as this we have taken inspiration from ‘Slightly Cloudy Chance of Rain’ , in particular the part of their performance in which they take bottles of urine from the roadside and replace them with other items. Using this idea we will swap a flower, something that people give to each other as a sign of love, for a couples’ story and a photo. This will be done both on the day, and in the weeks prior so that we can rehearse this interaction and see if it works, as well as obtain more stories before the performance.

(Photos of the building at Speakers Corner)

References

Joshua Sofaer (2011) What is Live Art? [online video] Available from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOUxv4Do01g [Accessed 2nd March 2016].