________-Safe House-__________ – Page 3 – Where living becomes a performance.

Observations from a Landing

Ellen Louise Pearson / May 12, 2013May 13, 2013 / Documentation, Home, Performance process, Research, Rooms, West Parade

Performance Process

First impressions

The house where we are doing our Site Specific performance and the home I grew up in have certain similarities so it was slightly unnerving walking up to the landing for the first time, as it felt strangely familiar, especially the layout of the upstairs rooms which sparked a lot of childhood memories.

Above: My landing observations. ((Pearson, Louise (2013) Landing Observations [Photograph]. ))

I spent some time exploring the landing in detail and recorded my observations from different positions in the room, intrigued to see how the changing perspectives influenced my perception of the space. I also quickly sketched the layout of the landing and added in ideas for performances that could be staged within this small area.

The thing that struck me most is that the landing is almost a non-place (it is not a room per se as it has no function other than as a place to pass through) which makes it feel terribly lonely. I toyed with idea of somehow making the landing into a real room, perhaps a room in miniature or like a small flat with bits from every room. This would give a purpose to the previously dead space whilst inverting the idea of what a landing should be.

The landing is also a gateway area for anyone walking up the stairs yet is not a place where people linger for long. Another idea could be to have a gatekeeper/guide at the top of the stairs who would direct the audience around the upstairs rooms or even give them a choice in where they want to go, by giving clues as to what is behind the closed doors.

I thought about using the nails in the walls to hang pictures or photographs to make the room more homely; these might be of our own or staged families. It would also be interesting to hang a mirror within a picture frame to encourage the audience to reflect on their own homes and families.

Above : Landing Panorama ((Pearson, Louise (2013) Landing Panorama [Photograph]. ))

The Landing

Leading on from my idea of turning the landing into a room, I decided to try decorating the space as if it was a living room to see firstly if there was enough space for any seating and secondly, to see whether it inspired any performance ideas. Luckily there was just enough room to create a make-shift sofa and chair though it did make moving around the landing awkward for the other performers.

I began to devise a narrative about the history of the house, as well as the etymology of words such as landing and stairs. I then considered the daily rituals which we perform without realising their significance. I was inspired by Edwin Heathcote’s The Meaning of Home (2012) where he talks about mini-rituals such as ‘opening the [front]door… welcomed in the sun and light of the new day’ ((Heathcote, E (2012) The Meaning of Home. London: Frances Lincoln. )) which led me to think about the daily rituals we all carry out, such as brushing our hair, which I know many people perform in the same order every day without thinking, and therefore ritualising it.

However, these ideas were short-lived as it felt wrong to try and disguise the landing as another room rather than explore its own features. I decided to scrap the living room idea, but I did still want to incorporate the rituals somehow.

Left: Chair ((Pearson, Louise (2013) Chair [Photograph]. ))
Right: Sofa side view ((Pearson, Louise (2013) Sofa side [Photograph]. ))

As a contrast to my first idea, I next removed all the extraneous objects from the landing and focused on the movement that occurs within the space and began creating a new performance concept. My plan was to get the audience to play a game, where they had to navigate around the landing only using parts of the floor which would never usually be stood on. In practise it was very difficult to explain the rules and aim of the game, especially in view of the small size of the landing, which would be very easy to cross.

I then began looking at ways of performing which required minimal movement; I played with the idea of rituals again, and sat in front of a mirror on the landing brushing my hair to see if it gave me any ideas. Performing different daily rituals came to mind, but unless I explained them, it didn’t make sense for me to be performing them on the landing; surely rituals such as brushing my hair would be done in the bedroom? So I turned to video art to see if that could produce the effect I wanted while not appearing out of place.

For the video I filmed half hour clips of myself performing a variety of ritualised activities, which I then played on my laptop but which could only be viewed through a mirror placed opposite it. The idea was that the video would become an installation piece set out so that when an audience member walks up the stairs they would first see themselves in the mirror and would then need to position themselves directly behind a monitor (which is playing my video) in order to see it through the mirror. I was inspired to display my video in this way by the film 33 x Around the Sun which is ‘a dreamlike journey into a world where nothing is quite what it seems’. ((Flamin (2005) 33 x Around the Sun, Available at: http://flamin.filmlondon.org.uk/showcase/assets/showcase_items/33_x_around_the_sun (Accessed: 9th May 2013). )) In one scene in a cafe, the beginning is filmed through a mirror, which is eventually revealed during the scene. The idea of not knowing whether a film clip is shot through a mirror or not fascinates me as it creates an Alice Through the Looking Glass perspective once it is revealed.

Above: An image from 33 x Around the Sun ((Hardwick, John (2005) Image of 33 x Around the Sun [Online]. Available at: http://flamin.filmlondon.org.uk/showcase/assets/showcase_items/33_x_around_the_sun (Accessed: 9th May 2013). ))

I was also inspired by Marina Abramovic’s The Artist is Present in which she sits unmoving across from a chair in which audience members may sit and share a moment of contemplation with her.

Above: Background information on Abramovic’s performance at MoMA. ((MoMAvideos (2010) Marina Abramović: Live at MoMA. Available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GD5PBK_Bto (Accessed: 9^th May 2013). ))

This inspired one clip of my rituals video in which I watch the camera for an extended period of time as a representation of daydreaming, where our eyes are often fixed on a distant point. Though the clips themselves worked well as an endurance piece of film, I believed they were too long for audience members to appreciate the aim of my piece. Consequently I cut my clips first down to 10 minute segments, then finally to a 12 minute complete video with 6 clips of around 2 minutes each, playing on an infinite loop. This meant that audience members who would only be on the landing for a short amount of time would be able to see at least two or three clips.

Stairs

My original idea for the stairs was to number each stair, and to have a fact on the wall which related to that number either to do with the house, the street or about our group of performers. Though this was interesting for some numbers, many of them were uninteresting facts merely acting as fillers.

I then moved on to researching stories involving stairs such as the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice and the Biblical stories of Jacob’s Ladder and when the Queen of Sheba visits Solomon. Though none of these ideas led to any final performance ideas, I did use some of their aspects in my video performance. In both the Biblical and Ancient Greek stories there is a lyre or harp involved which led to the inspiration of my clay model. I also took influence from the ‘don’t look back’ aspect of Orpheus’ story as well as the Biblical tale of Lott’s wife, both of whom ignored the warnings given and turned to look back. In the clip inspired by Marina Abramovic, at the end I turn to see what’s behind me as a subtle indicator to my research into these ancient stories.

Toilet Room

My original idea for the toilet room was to create an anonymous open canvas upon which audience members could leave their messages and memories of home. I also prepared a list of questions that I would ask the other performers, about their ideas or memories of home. Though this did work well as an idea, it would have been time-consuming for all of the performers so I decided to focus on creating an installation through all of my own work.

After reading Georges Perec’s An Attempt at Exhausting a Place in Paris I was inspired to do my own observations of everyday life, which I would then stick up all over the toilet room walls. In this way I would bring the outside world into the private area of the toilet room, subverting the inward-thinking nature of the room.

On the Street Where We Live

Ellen Louise Pearson / May 12, 2013May 13, 2013 / Home, Research, West Parade

House Research

The Street
The setting for our Site Specific performance is a house on West Parade, Lincoln, to the west of the city centre. It was built in 1932, the date proudly displayed on the house itself, but beyond that the history of the house is a mystery.

A trip to the Lincolnshire Archives reveals that as far back as 1842 West Parade was actually called Clay Lane, after the clay pits which were used during that era. Though the house does not lie on top of any of these pits, it may be worth experimenting with clay as part of the performance process as it relates to the street and the pits played an important part in the building boom of the 1870s and 1880s producing bricks and tiles which were used all over the country.

It transpires that the current job centre on the corner of West Parade and Orchard Street used to be the site of St Martin’s Church, which was built in c.1873. The vicars of the church lived in the vicarage which is still situated near to the house we are using, so a religious theme could be a performance route.

Above: St Martin’s Church ((Parkinson, Wendy (unknown) Lincoln St Martin New (original: Lincolnshire Echo) [Online] Available at: http://www.wparkinson.com/Churches/City%20photos/Lincoln%20St%20Martin%20new.jpg (Accessed: 25^th February 2013). ))

Another near neighbour, around the time our house was built, was the Oxford House Private School, Preparatory for Girls and Boys and run by Principal Miss Brunner. It may be worth researching the school as it was open from at least 1932-46. The idea of a private school within a house could be an interesting concept to explore.

In the 1946 Lincoln Directories there is finally a reference to our house. In the house next door there is a James Alfred Wright and in our house there is an Alfred Ernest Revill aged 66.

Alfred Ernest Revill

Above: 1911 Census record for Alfred Revill ((‘Alfred Revill’ (1911) Census return for Motherby Lane, Lincoln, Lincolnshire. Public Record Office: PRO RG14/19744, folio 51, p.3. Find My Past (2013) Available at: http://www.findmypast.co.uk (Accessed: 21^st February 2013). ))

Looking at the censuses I managed to discover some information on Alfred Revill. He was born in 1880 in South Collingham, Nottinghamshire. His parents were Matthew (age 35), a Groom, and Julia (age 25) and he was the second child of the six they had. Surprisingly, all his siblings lived into adulthood.

Alfred’s parents were born in Lincoln, although in the 1881 Census, they were living in Binbrook, Louth. ((‘Alfred Revill’ (1881) Census return for Binbrook, Louth, Lincolnshire. Public Record Office: PRO RG11/3264, folio 35, p.16. Find My Past (2013) Available at: http://www.findmypast.co.uk (Accessed: 21^st February 2013). )) By 1891 they had moved back to Lincoln and were registered at 8 Winnowsty Buildings, Winnowsty Lane. By this time (when Alfred was 11) all of his brothers and sisters had been born:

John J. Revill, born 1878
Alfred E. Revill, born 1880
Blanche M. Revill, born 1881
Elizabeth A. Revill, born 1883
Walter N. Revill, born 1886
George H. Revill, born 1888

The eldest son John, aged 13, was working as an Errand Boy while Alfred and the rest of his siblings (apart from toddler George) were listed as ‘Scholar’. ((‘Alfred Revill’ (1891) Census return for Winnowsty Lane, Lincoln, Lincolnshire. Public Record Office: PRO RG12/2594, folio 24, p.41. Find My Past (2013) Available at: http://www.findmypast.co.uk (Accessed: 21^st February 2013). ))

In the 1901 census, when Alfred was 21, all of his siblings, apart from Elizabeth, still appear to be living at home. They were now living at 6 Motherby Lane, which is just around the corner from West Parade. ((‘Alfred Revill’ (1901) Census return for Motherby Lane, Lincoln, Lincolnshire. Public Record Office: PRO RG13/3062, folio 152, p.44. Find My Past (2013) Available at: http://www.findmypast.co.uk (Accessed: 21^st February 2013). )) John is now a Journeyman Blacksmith, Alfred is a Coachman, Blanche is a General Servant, Walter is a Joiner’s Apprentice and George, now 13, is a Chemists Errand Boy. Elizabeth is listed working as a Domestic Servant in a house on West Parade.

Above: A Victorian Coachman ((Nanton, A.M. (1919) C. M. Wright, the Coachman, at kitchen entrance with Victoria and pair [Online]. Available at: http://www.mhs.mb.ca/docs/features/timelinks/imageref/ref0293.shtml (Accessed: 20th March 2013). ))

Ten years later, in the most recent census of 1911, only two of the children were still registered in the house with their parents. Alfred, now 31, was a Domestic Coachman like his father and George, now 23, was a Clerk in a Draft Office. Interestingly, there is another addition to this census; an 8 year old boy named Harold Starr who is registered as grandchild to Matthew Revill (Alfred’s father). ((‘Alfred Revill’ (1911) Census return for Motherby Lane, Lincoln, Lincolnshire. Public Record Office: PRO RG14/19744, folio 51, p.3. Find My Past (2013) Available at: http://www.findmypast.co.uk (Accessed: 21^st February 2013). )) After some more searching it transpires that Blanche was Harold’s mother, registered with her husband Thomas Starr (Iron Planer) and their younger son Robert at 22 Hungate, Lincoln. So why was their eldest son staying with his grandparents and uncles instead of at home? ((‘Blanche Starr’ (1911) Census return for Hungate, Lincoln, Lincolnshire. Public Record Office: PRO RG14/19744. Find My Past (2013) Available at: http://www.findmypast.co.uk (Accessed: 21^st February 2013). ))

The final piece of information I have found so far is a Marriage Certificate. In late 1925, in Lincoln, there was a marriage between Alfred E Revill and Mabel Atkinson. At the time Alfred would have been 45. ((‘Alfred E Revill’ (1925) Certified copy of marriage certificate for Alfred E Revill and Mabel Atkinson. Find My Past (2013) Available at: http://www.findmypast.co.uk (Accessed 21^st February 2013). )) The house was built some seven years after they were married. Whether they were the first occupants remains a mystery. All I can determine is that by 1946 Alfred was living there alone.

So it ends…

Kayleigh Anne Brewster / May 12, 2013 / Home, Performance process, West Parade

There were a variety of different feelings running through me as we were packing up the house after our last performance. It has most definitely been an experience that I doubt I’m going to forget. There have been many different challenges with creating this performance. After working in the bedroom, and working with the other students who chose the bedroom, I feel proud. Especially of Lauren and Lauren, who had the exceptionally hard challenge of pushing the boundaries of their personal comfort whilst in the cupboard. However, they did it and I think the reactions that we received from the audience members indicated that the risks were worth it.

During my performances with Lauren W the reactions of the audience members ranged dramatically. Lauren faced people sitting there refusing to meet her eyes, people speaking in response to the narrative, and people bursting into tears. I found myself faced with people uncomfortable and tense in their blindfold, with some people who were chatty and relaxed in response to my narrative, and some people who seemed like they might actually fall to sleep. The varied emotions that were shown by the audience members, I think, showed that the four of us had created a strong piece that had the ability to affect people.

The performance itself was an interesting experience because you had to be alert at all times, and yet you could relax as well. It was disconcerting to be in the middle of a performance, knowing there were audience members in the house somewhere, when suddenly your lecturer pops into your room in his quest to avoid the audience, or when you would quickly nip into another room to pass on a message or ask a question. To be so aware of where the audience is in the house, but to also know that they’re not aware of you yet, because they hadn’t entered the little world you had created in the house was strange. Those things added an extra dimension to the performance when the audience members went into the cctv room and were able to watch you in the in-between moments between audience members.

During the creation process we all had our individual rooms to work on, so it was interesting to realise at the end of the final night how the rooms all fit together. How the living room comments on tv, and the waste of life, were twisted when the audience entered the cctv room. How in the kitchen the rabbit, and the impossibility of their task, linked to the bedroom with its bedtime story and the “going through the rabbit hole” concept of the cupboard. It was nice to see that whilst each room had its own specific purpose, they linked to create a whole experience.

At the end of the night it was also strange to think about where we started, to think that during the very first session Lauren W and I were sat together in a cupboard writing about our first impressions and memories. It thent became a tentative idea, using video and installation, about the connotations that surround the bedroom. Until it finally became the piece we presented, where we offered two separate experiences using ourselves as installation, or using our own memories and experiences to fuel a bedtime narrative. Thinking back on it, there are a few things that I would do differently. I think I would now be able to expand the narrative I used, I think that I would, and should, have made even more of a distinction between how I treated the voyeur and the ‘child’ audience. After all, Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

I’ll protect you from the night

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

When writing the narrative for the audience member who would be put into bed we thought it would be good if we tried to make it somewhat dreamlike, and comforting. We want the audience member to be given a sense of security from the words that were spoken, and the tone. We want them to feel safe. So in order to do that we decided to base our narratives on the theme of safety, on thoughts of protecting someone, and so the two of us ended up basing our narratives on our younger siblings.

It’s said that “In a rapidly changing world, time and memory are key concerns for contemporary artists… our lives our punctuated by objects, feelings and ideas that are endlessly retrieved and re-used.” (de’oliveria 2010) So therefore it would make sense that Jake and I would use our own emotions and memories to fuel a narrative that designed specifically to make the audience members feel protected. The narrative that I’ve written on is based on experiences I had when my younger brother and I shared a bedroom, and the nightmares/terrors he used to experience.

“Many under[stand] caring as a sibling practice that was integrally related to practices shaped by their pre-determined position in the sibling birth order hierarchy.” (Edwards, 68, 2006) and in my case it was no different. I am 3 and a half years older then my brother, and that difference in our age made me protective of my brother. It was my job as an older to sister to make his life hell, but to also protect him from anyone or anything else.

My narrative was based on a time when we had first moved to Canada, we were in a different country, we didn’t have any friends other than each other to begin with; and Aaron didn’t like his room. He was only young back then, I think about three years old, maybe four. He didn’t like the sound that the wind would make against his window; it gave him nightmares that made him wake up screaming. So our mother decided that we would share a room with each other, during the day we would make each other crazy, annoying one another, but when it came to bedtime I would remember that Aaron didn’t like the night, hated what he thought was hiding in the dark. “The images and emotions associated with the dream may haunt us throughout the day, sometimes for years. Nightmares prompt us to seek others. Who prefers to be alone after a nightmare? The fear and sense of dread is so intense as to be palpable.” (McNamara 2008 P1) So I suppose its little wonder that no matter what fallouts we had during the day, when I saw how fearful he was after a nightmare I would try and comfort him. I told him that when I sang to him it was a spell of some kind, that it would protect him. I sang to him for years, when we lived in Canada, when we lived in Abingdon and then when we moved to Grantham. Actually the last memory I have of singing him to sleep was when we lived in Grantham, I’d just started High School and Aaron had just started a new primary school, and I think that he was nervous.

So, when writing my version of the narrative that the ‘parent’ performer would be saying I tried to think about all of these emotions, tried to base it on the how I felt as an older sibling trying to protect and comfort a younger one. It won’t be able to comfort everyone who is put into the bed, we’ve found that many find putting the blindfold on, and being in bed with someone else whilst you’re wearing a blindfold disconcerting. Unfortunately, we don’t want the people being placed in the bed to realise what is happening with regards to the cupboard, we want the two experiences to be as separated from each other as the can be. Some people who are put into the bed won’t be able to let go of the fear they have that’s the result of one of their senses being taken from them. They won’t be able to relax, or to listen to the words that are being whispered into their ears. But I’m hopeful that for those who embrace the experience they will be able to understand the emotions and memories that have gone into the narrative; that they will be able to feel the sincerity behind the words that are being spoken to them.

Works cited:

De Oliveira, Nicolas, Nicola Oxley, Michael Petry (2003) Installation Art in the new millennium London: Thomas & Hudson. Ltd

Edwards Rosalind, Lucy Hadfield, Helen Lucey, Melanie Mauthner (2010) Sibling Identity and Relationships: Sisters and Brothers Abingdon: Routledge

McNamara, Patrick (2008) Nightmares: the science and solution of those frightening visions during sleep USA: Praeger Publishers.

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