Documentation – Page 2 – ________-Safe House-_________

In the dark we dream

Kayleigh Anne Brewster / May 12, 2013May 12, 2013 / Documentation, Home, Performance process, Rooms

As we continue through the creation process of our piece we seem to keep coming back to the concept of dreams. As we are performing in the master bedroom, I suppose it is unsurprising that we keep circling back to this subject. After all it is in our bedrooms that we sleep, and in so doing it is where we dream. It is said that “the strangeness of our night time narratives is actually an essential feature, as our memories are remixed and reshuffled, a mash-up tape made by the mind.” (lehrer, 2010) So if dreams are an essential feature in our lives then perhaps it is only natural that that we keep returning to the thought, because it is essential to the bedroom.

But how do we use dreams in our performance? We’ve had many ideas of how to go about this for example, having our dreams written on pieces of paper and then sticking them to the outside of the cupboard. Dreams are essential in the way that we grow, they help us commit necessary moments of our life to memory, and they help us work through emotional issues that we have. Therefore placing these fragments from our dreams on the outside of the cupboard would fit into our performance quite nicely. After putting one of the members of the audience to bed, in a childlike manner, and then forcing the voyeur to look at the image of a naked woman, bound in a cupboard would signify two extreme contrasts between childhood and adulthood.

Photo taken by Kayleigh Brewster

Therefore, by placing them in the cupboard door we could signify the process of growing up, the importance of dreams in that process and the connection between dreams and the bedroom. Placing the dream fragments there would also be significant as “according to Freud’s theory, dreams potentially communicated forbidden wishes and desires from the unconscious.” (Pick, 2004, 39) Whilst the naked body seems to be more frequent on the stage, the process of having that person naked, blindfolded, hand-cuffed and bound feels extremely taboo. Whilst books like 50 Shades of Grey written by E.L James or Sylvia Days Bared To You have brought other sexual practices to light, for example BDSM, the inclusion of these practices has given our piece a feeling of the ‘forbidden’ that fraud mentions.

In our performance the fact that the two female performers are hidden from view until a specific moment heightens the fact that what the ‘voyuer’ is watching something forbidden. When the ‘voyeur’ then realises the position that the two performers are in, that it connects with sexual practices that have only recently come to the forefront in literature heightens the link between fraud’s theory of forbidden desires in dreams, the visual aspects of having the dreams written out on the cupboard, and the vulnerable position of the performer in the cupboard.

However we decided we wanted to make the cupboard seem completely separate from the rest of the room in order to completely separate the aspects of adult and child, and to make the opening of the cupboard a more dramatic reveal. So, what if we could make the bedroom itself seem dream like, without the use of words or covering the cupboard? What if we take pictures drawn in a childlike manner and cover the walls with them? That would make the room seem something other than normal and would still link to the original set up of putting the child to bed. Also, we began to focus on what the ‘parent’ performer would be saying to the audience in member who was being put to bed. What If we could make the narrative that the ‘parent’ performer speaks to the audience member like a dream?

Photo taken by Kayleigh Brewster

Works cited:

Lehrer, Jonah (2010) Why We Need To Dream http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/19/why-we-need-to-dream/ (last accessed 12/4/2013)

edited by Daniel Pick and Lyndal Roper Hove (2004) Dreams and history : the interpretation of dreams from ancient Greece to modern psychoanalysisNew York: Brunner-Routledge

Waiting…

Hayley Misseldine / May 12, 2013 / Documentation, Home, Performance process, Research, Rooms

The waiting room – it is unique in itself concerning the other rooms in the house as it is not a room commonly associated with a home. My first impressions of it were not pleasant, its set up feels more corporate and judgemental somehow compared to any other room in the house.

The first thing I felt when I entered the room was a sense of foreboding, it reminds me of the waiting room at school, where sadly I frequented often, usually because I had done something bad, and was awaiting my punishment. Another memory it triggered was the waiting room at hospital, another place I had waited, where the outcome had not been a good one, it reminded me of the long hours I had sat waiting for news, hoping and even praying at one point that the news would be good. So to sit in this room alone, with all the bad memories stirring up inside me, forcing me to be painfully aware of not only my feelings, but the room itself, although not pleasant, was infact productive.

With these memories, I can distinctly remember analysing every aspect of whatever waiting room I was in. When you have nothing but time, and nowhere else you can go, you are practically forced to observe your surroundings in a more scrutinising way. This is the first thing I did when beginning the research process was to just sit in the waiting room and analyse everything. I used an exercise I found in Pearson’s Site – Specific Performance – ‘Pay attention to detail. Later: (a) eyes closed, mentally reimagine your visit; (b) from memory, draw a map of the place – include significant features….’ ((Pearson, Mike, (2010), Site-Specific Performance, Palgrave Macmillan, P.84))

This is the map I came up with that illustrates a portion of the room that I could directly see in non-peripheral vision. You can see its bareness, lacking all personality, what worried me most was how my room could possibly fit in with the rest, how it contributes to the house as a whole? “We identify so closely with our homes. They are so personal, so familiar and our relationships with them so intimate, that they become projections of ourselves. And any interference with them becomes unnerving and profoundly unsettling”. ((Heathcoate, Edwin, (2012) the Meaning of Home, London: Frances Lincoln Ltd, P.186)) After reading this quote, it struck me that the fact that my room was not conforming to the notion of home could be a good thing – it sticks out, and it gives me the opportunity to do something, offer up a different experience to an audience that the other rooms cannot.

People specific performance.

Jozey Wade / May 9, 2013May 12, 2013 / Documentation, Home, Performance process, Rooms, Uncategorized

Photo taken 01/02/2013 by Jozey Wade

When I first set foot in the bathroom of our house, back in January, I wrote in my many scribblings of notes (some of which can be seen below) that I was drawn to it because of the privacy, safety and solitude attached to it. I don’t think, on that first day, I could have possibly imagined the journey I would go on in that small room. Not only in relation to what I would learn about bathrooms, but also – and more importantly – about human nature, and even myself.

Photo taken 05/02/2013 by Jozey Wade

I spent a lot of time in the first stages of my process deliberating on what I could wear in the bath to cover my modesty and yet remain true to the site and performance. I did not want to wear clothes, just for the sake of being covered if t didn’t make any sense – of course, in the bath we are generally always naked. I came to the decision of being naked without much though of what it might mean for me and it was only once I started putting it into practice, particularly in front of others, that I began to find it difficult and feel uncomfortable about the prospect. “To be naked is to be deprived of our clothes and the word implies some of the embarrassment which most of us feel in that condition. The word nude, on the other hand, carries, in educated usage, no uncomfortable overtone.” ((Kountouriotis, P. (2009) ‘Nudity, nakedness, otherness and a “still difficult spectator”‘, Movement Research Performance Journal, (34), pp. 1-16.)) This is true. And at first, I felt like I was naked. Later on down the line, when I became accustomed to it, I then felt like I was nude. It has since occurred to me that what bothered me during those difficult few weeks of trying to be brave was not people judging my naked body, but people judging the fact that I was naked at all in front of them.

This is where it became interesting. People’s reactions to my performance in the bathroom were, initially, what worried me. However, it ended up being people’s reactions that made this piece so interesting and even important to me. In creating their participatory performance encounters, performance artist pair, Lone Twin are always “interested in considering what good could come from these encounters” ((Lavery, Carl & David Williams (2011) ‘Practising Participation A conversation with Lone Twin’, Performance
Research: A Journal of the Performing Arts, XVI(4), pp. 7-14)) and that really resonated with what I wanted from my performance. Rather than purely to shock people, I wanted them to feel reassured. I wanted them to come in, maybe expecting the worst based on what they saw, but then unexpectedly quite enjoy themselves and take something pleasant away from it. As Lone Twin said, “It’s good to dance with someone else, good to be friends with somebody else, good to walk with someone else” ((Lavery, Carl & David Williams (2011) ‘Practising Participation A conversation with Lone Twin’, Performance
Research: A Journal of the Performing Arts, XVI(4), pp. 7-14)) and that is what what performance was about – sharing.

Photo taken 05/02/2013 by Jozey Wade

Even though I set up the bathroom to be as inviting as possible, with candles, bubbles, music and all sorts of bath lotions, some audience members that joined my company, naturally, enjoyed it more and felt more comfortable than others. For a couple of people specifically, the idea of being in a bathroom with a naked girl, being asked to “give me a hand” washing my back, seemed to be quite painful. Perhaps it was to do with past experience in their lives, or perhaps – like me some way through this process – they had yet to see how such an experience could be anything but bizzare and uncomfortable. Despite the fact that there were these couple of people who didn’t respond as I hoped them to, it surprisingly didn’t take away from the performance for me. Seeing how different people reacted was part of what made it interesting. Seeing the people who I perhaps expected to be uncomfortable chatting away to me and really getting involved, as much as the people I expected to be comfortable, really struggling with being in there at all. In addition, it’s worth noting that, even the people who didn’t “get” as much from the experience (and this was, as I said, only a couple) were in no way judgmental or rude – on the contrary they only commented on how they thought I was brave and how they could not do such a thing themselves. As my final audience member put so eloquently during his visit – “It makes you realise that not that many people are actually dicks!” and this could not be more true.

Photo taken 08/02/2013 by Jozey Wade

I would be lying entirely if I said every aspect of this performance process has been enjoyable for me. It has been difficult. At times I’ve felt engaged and eager and at times it’s felt almost impossible. I think that is what has ended up making it such an important experience for me. It has opened doors, not just within the performance world, but also with regards to my own mentality. No performance I have ever done before has come close to affecting me in the way being in that bathroom has, and I could not be more glad that I pushed myself, and was pushed by Conan and my fellow performers, through the doubts and difficulties. The experience really taught me a great deal about trust, sharing and human interaction – as I hope it did for my audience members.

“Bye, Bye Bunny.”

Elizabeth Soper / May 8, 2013May 8, 2013 / Documentation, Home, Performance process, West Parade

“ We’ve always been interested in the idea of a speech, a formal utterance: the framing of something – ‘I have come to tell you this,’ or ‘I am about to tell you this.’” ((Williams, David and Carl Lavery (2011) Good Luck Everybody: Lone Twin: Journeys, Performances, Conversations, Wales: Cambrian Printers, p.203))

‘Hello, my name is Libby and I have been a white rabbit since the 19th of February, which is 76 days today! Welcome to the kitchen, can I get you a drink?’ This is how I began my performance; simple and direct. Because it is very simple: I dress as a rabbit and get filmed doing everyday normal tasks. Some people laugh at me, some people take photos. Some children stare at me, some children cry. I always get a reaction though, whatever it is.

The Safe House was a project that generated a lot of different audience reactions from the various activities and happenings that took place in each room. The outcome I very much wanted to achieve from my performance was to initially shock the audience, because, quite frankly, you wouldn’t expect a giant rabbit to burst into your living room every day! I wanted this mood to quickly change however when they entered the kitchen and realised; I am Libby who just so happens to be wearing a white rabbit costume, discussing my many adventures over a cup of tea and a bag of sweets.

Photo taken: 01/03/2013 – ‘The Impossible Tasks’

“On the other hand, there are signs that theatre can provide meaningful forms of audience participation and engagement.” ((Freshwater, Helen (2009) theatre and audience, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, p.76))

With my performance being conversational, in some respect, my audience had a role to play. Without their contribution, their questions and opinions, my performance wouldn’t be as enjoyable and therefore I wanted them to open up and relax in order to fully engage with my performance. Luckily, all of them did (some more than others) and mentioned how they enjoyed being in the space, even commenting that they didn’t want to leave!

Over the 76 days of being dressed as a rabbit, I have collected feedback and reactions from my different audiences through film and documentation. For my performance I wrote out some phrases (with my bunny hands), quoting my audience’s reactions and hung them on the wall. Over the performance period I carried on collecting and added to my list the ones I found the most interesting. ‘You’re a very lovely bunny’ and ‘When you came crashing in, it just shit me up!’ were two of my favourite!

Site specific performance has opened up a whole new world of theatre to me, a world that pushes boundaries and that exceeded all expectations I first had. It has been a challenging process, but one I will never forget and definitely carry on with in the future. My only regret is not completing all the impossible tasks I hoped to achieve, going through passport control being just one. Somehow I don’t think my bunny days are over just yet!

Final Performance

Lizzy Hayes / May 7, 2013May 9, 2013 / CCTV, Documentation, Performance process

How did we play with the power that our room gave us? We exploited it. We use the visual information that we could see to our advantage and took on authoritarian figures to fit the context. Due to the nature of our safe house a spy like persona was taken on by the actor welcoming the audience members to the house before they explored the house one room at a time. To solidify her role in the eyes of the audience the CCTV team adopted similar roles as “agents”, engaging with the audience over the phone, questioning them about their appearance and safety having only seen them over CCTV. While this role had little to do with our installation piece it gave us the opportunity to perform live on the night as well as supervise our installation and actually the ‘agent’ role fitted the supervisory role that we would have needed to be anyway.

I think what was particularly effective about our room was what our installation was able to show the audience: the space as it would be when once everyone had left and all the lights were turned out. Marita Sturken writes that “installation that deploys such technologies as video and computer devices delineate time” ((Erika Suderburg (2000) Space, Site, Intervention: situating installation art. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. P. 287 ))and I think that our piece can identify with that. The videos on the computer screens showed the space that they had just explored in a different time, in a different light, with different inhabitants and with a different purpose, and for me, that juxtaposition with the image of one screen showing live CCTV footage of the nine rooms in colour and fully inhabited was just what the piece needed.

Image by Lizzy Hayes 2013

Before the performance when the nerves set in I found myself more focused on what the audience would think of the live performance, not the installation, because in the live performance it would have been easy for something to go wrong. The improvised phone conversations were nerve racking at first as there was no way to rehearse that part of the performance. However due to the nature of the phone call it became easier to know what to say and how to say it as each member of the audience came through, making the questions I asked not only original, but more effective.
Prior to the performance I was concerned about how I would react if an audience member tried to address me, as the role I was playing was intended to act as the eyes of the room and only interact with the audience when asking them to leave. In the event no one did try to interact with me which I now think was a shame as I would have loved to take the character further and inform the audience that “I am not permitted to divulge that information at this time.”. However the fact that I remained un-distracted enabled me to observe the reactions and interactions to the installations that were occurring around the room. If the audience spoke to each other at all they did it in a whisper, which I think reflected the mood of the room. It was interesting to see that they perhaps feared the consequences of talking out loud in a room full of whispering voices. Only one pair discussed their experiences in the other rooms and this pair was the only pair who did not really acknowledge me at all.

The performance itself was both exciting and tiring. It was empowering to take on an authoritative role for the evening, yet daunting to have to improvise a phone conversation with someone that I could see but that could not see me. It was fascinating to see how the audience reacted to the months of planning various rooms had put into their performances and it was unbelievably exciting seeing everyone pull off their performances to such a high standard. It was also gratifying seeing how the audiences reacted to our installation and of course how they reacted to the live CCTV stream of the rest of the house.

Overall I think everyone involved in the project should be extremely proud of the work that they have produced. As a group and as individuals we have created a piece of work like nothing seen before and like nothing that will ever be seen again and it is an experience that none of us will ever forget.