Performance process – Page 4 – ________-Safe House-_________

How do you build a dream without all of the pieces?

Tom Briggs / May 12, 2013May 13, 2013 / Performance process

My performance has been concerned with the masculine, the need for a man to escape to an inner sanctum, and regards what he does when he is in there. For many the shed is not only a physical environment of distractions but is also a place where the imagination is allowed to thrive unhindered by the complexities of reality. The question that I’ve been attempting to tackle has been, for quite some time now, ‘How do you build a dream, without having all the pieces?’ because, of course, there are always pieces missing. In this case the pieces are literally missing from the jigsaw some have been lost in the mess of the shed, others taken by audience members seeking a souvenir and more were probably never there in the first place, it occurs to me now that jigsaws are an excellent metaphor for aspirations, we all have them, or at least think we do, but how many people realise them? How many people have the patience and how many have all the pieces? So we have to learn to do without. It could be said that making the best you can with the pieces you still have is the best any man can do in life. In the other shed the missing piece is veracity, because this is that other bastion of dreaming, sheer fantasy, finding within 10 yards of your shed an incredible hoard of artefacts and antiques of unknown worth, and being the only one capable exposing their true importance.

Takne by Tiffany Thompson, 01/05/2013 — Takne by Tiffany Thompson, 01 May 2013

In a speech given in 1994 Tim Etchells sets the criteria for successful performance art, he does so with a series of questions that the artist must confront. “Will I carry this event with me tomorrow? Will it haunt me, will it change you, will it change me, will it change things?” (( Etchells, Tim (1999) Certain Fragments, Abingdon: Routledge. P. 49 )) .

Firstly and most superficially it did change things, in the most direct way it translated the ordinary momentarily into the extraordinary, the roll of wallpaper masquerading as part of an ancient 1:1 scale map of the Atlantic ocean. Along with over a hundred items in the extensive collections of misunderstood treasures and artefacts, these became part of a new history that I have dreamt in the last few months. The jigsaw became a metaphor for the dreams that all men have, as well as a particularly stylish suit.

Taken by Jozey Wade 1/3/2013 — Taken by Jozey Wade, 1 March 2013.

Did it change you (meaning the performer)? It certainly did, it gave me an appreciation for a journey without end, it did not matter that at the end of 16 hours the suit of jigsaw pieces would never be complete, it was the journey, and the people that had contributed, mostly in the form of pieces glued in unreachable places, but also in company, laughs and even in a name with which to take my product to market, ‘Jigzeys’. The Process of building something with a completely unique logic of its own, and of having to repeatedly explain that logic, allowed me to engage with parts of masculinity that I might normally have avoided.

Did it change me? (the audience member) and to lesser extent will it haunt me?/will I remember this? These questions are more difficult as they can only rely on speaking to members of the audience afterwards. Some said they had a new appreciation for the phrase ‘one man’s junk is another man’s treasure’, but as I performer I hope they saw the nature of the ambitious and unending projects and did not pity me but were able to see the underlying idealism, I still believe, and this may appear to be heavy handed metaphor, that idealism and enthusiasm are the key to realising dreams in the long run even if it only piece by piece.

Which brings us back comfortably to dreams, how do you build a dream without having all the pieces? Well in one sense you don’t, the dream as aspiration will always require more, some are and have always been unachievable. But in another sense dreams are also daydreams and escape and the value of them should not be underestimated, they allow us to keep our idealism intact, though can be shed just as easily as a suit made of jigsaw pieces, which, as any man who has spent considerable in a shed can tell you, is easier than it looks after a little practice.

And of course in some ways the performance/dream isn’t over so if you see someone walking down Lincoln high-street wearing a jigsaw, perhaps it’s me on my way to model my product for some boutiques, or perhaps it will have already caught on.

Talking Through Tactility

Samuel Mant / May 10, 2013May 10, 2013 / Performance process, Research, Rooms

Everywhere we explore, we explore with our eyes (that is, those of us lucky enough to have eyes). As humans, our primary sense is sight and we define the world around us through vision – everything has to be seen to be believed, after all. Our reliance on visual interaction is doubly apparent when our ability to see is impaired – every single human being has been scared in or by the dark, partly due to the intrinsic fear of the unknown (which our eyes abate by making it known) and also in part due to our inability to see.

What can we do when sight is denied to us? One of the first instinctive reactions is to thrust out one’s arms and use a bizarre shuffling gait to move around. We try to feel the world around us and it is that instinct, that reaction that I want to examine.

Our eyes deny us the opportunity and motive for tactile exploration – basic human reliance on sight does away with the need to feel the world around you. But how do we cope when we must explore a place physically? What happens when you only know somewhere by touch.

In the house, in the little ante-room beside the living room, I posed myself these two questions. Blindfolding myself with my scarf, I set about discovering the space with a new pair of eyes – my hands. I was inspired, in no small part, by the work of Mark Wayman, who’s work centres around the idea of the disembodied narrative – as the South London gallery’s website describes it, ‘Monologues, describing the surfaces and architectural features of the room in minute and accurate detail, are delivered by Wayman from hidden or obscured locations within it.’ While this does key in to some of my performative ideas that are brewing (or rather, since this post has been delayed for a while, have already come to fruition), my main inspiration comes from his one-off performance wherein he took a small audience round a secluded garden while blindfolded and described the space in minute detail, entirely from memory.

Mark Wayman describing the minutiae of the garden.

I have attempted this within my little ante-room, with favourable results. Once I was free from the yoke of sight, I could (after a fashion) quite easily explore the space, learning the size of things, the room in which I had to move, the texture of different parts of the walls, different parts of the floor. If I stood still, I could become aware of the draft from the little portcullis over near the floor. The heat (or lack thereof) that denoted certain areas was fascinating; with my hands I could judge a thermal map of the room, finding places where the chill was especially strong, the wall directly opposite the draft. Even in the darkness of the blind, the size, shape and layout of this room became as clear to me as it would be if I used my eyes. While blind, I could become part of a space – so intrinsically linked with the proximity of knowledge (for when tactility is your main means of discovery, being close to your surroundings is inevitably) that I could almost become a feature of it. In performance, I want to be part of this space, not merely some inhabitant of it.

REFERENCES:

http://www.liveartwork.com/dvd/current%20issue3.htm (Picture, accessed 22/03/13)

http://www.southlondongallery.org/page/mark-wayman-shifter (Quotation, accessed 22/03/13)

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.