As at this point in our process we have our initial ‘performance’ piece in mind (the taping around the bodies) we then decided to research into who’s bodies we were actually taping around, ‘Performance can function as both an innovative mode of enquiry and a research output’, this influenced myself to have a look on a family tree online software and find out who actually died in the disaster including Margaret. Margaret’s story had been our inspiration but we now wanted to join the facts together and ensure we knew as much information about the disaster as possible. I found a newspaper article from the LINCOLNSHIRE ECHO JUNE 1943 that had commented on the event,
‘Ten people were killed and 3 seriously injured when a plane crashed on houses in Highfield Avenue, Lincoln, early last night.
8 people – 5 members of the crew of the plane and 3 civilians were killed instantly and another member of the air crew and a child died later in hospital.
Civilians killed were Margaret Marriot age 11 of 25 Highfield Avenue, Mrs. J. Thacker of 24 Highfield Ave and Miss Gwendoline Whitby age 42 of Hykeham Road, Lincoln. Laurie Thacker aged 4 who was admitted to hospital with burns died during the night.
The 3 injured who are detained in hospital are Harry Bishop of Highfield Ave., his wife Mrs. Esme Bishop and Anthony Thacker aged 3 also of Highfield Ave.
At hospital today, it was stated that all 3 were suffering from burns and are seriously ill.
A number of other people were injured but not detained in hospital.
4 houses, 2 on each side of the road Number 22, 24, 25, and 27 were totally wrecked. One house No. 23 was set on fire and burned out. No.27 was unoccupied.
From the wreckage of No. 24 the bodies of Mrs. Thacker and Miss Whitby were recovered. Miss Whitby, a friend of Mrs. Thacker was visiting Mrs. Thacker to look after her children. Of Mrs. Thacker’s 4 children, only the 2 boys were in the house. The two girls were away from home.
At No. 25 Margaret was in the house alone doing her homework. Her parents were at their allottment. Mr & Mrs Scrimshaw and their two young children along with Mr. & Mrs. Bishop were at home at 22 Highfield Ave. Mr. & Mrs Scrimshaw were injured but no detained in hospital.’

As a total of ten people were killed all together we wanted to ensure ten bodies were taped around during our performance, however what we found interesting was the fact that three of the ten were children and as there is three people in our group it made more sense to focus on the children, especially seen as Margaret our main focus was a child and also the fact the grandstand is now used as a play group centre for children we believe will create a strange juxtaposition.

We then visited Lincoln life Museum to discover what life was like during the 1940’s, we found a popular nursery song that children sung during this period called ‘Miss Polly had a Dolly’

This song had lyrics such as ‘call the doctor quick, quick, quick’ which have connotations of illness, therefore we wanted to incorporate this into our performance. We are going to sing the song slowly in a low tone and emphasise words such as ‘sick’ ‘doctor’ and ‘quick’ which is a big difference to how the song is usually sang, high pitched, loud and cheery, this was ispired by Mike Pearsons idea to ‘involve dramaturgical structures that juxtapose text and narratives of different orders and in a variety of voices- personal, expert and popular.’ (Pearson, 2011)

Exploring senses had a huge input into the creation of our site specific performance, once we had decided to take the sense of sight away. We explored with blindfolds and tried to identify a body by touch. Guessing who’s body was laid on the floor by feeling their hair, hands and facial features was extremely interesting and made me think about the families who had visited the moutrey to identify the bodies of loved ones and how they may have also struggled in cases where bombs had caused injuries so brutal that faces became disfigured. This would have meant that these families would have had to try and identify the bodies using the rest of their senses if what they were seeing wasn’t useful in helping to identify.

After this had happened we decided to tape around a body the body that was laid on the floor (mine) as shown in the pictures below.

The marked out body made us think of a death/crime scene, we then added post-stick notes to the body labelling possible injuries people who were brought to the maurtey may have had. As Pearson stated that performance can ‘illuminate places that do not so easily reveal themselves but which have their own unique characteristics, qualities and attractions’ we believed that a performance with lots of bodies taped and post-stick notes of injuries would help an audience see the connection with the room as many people are unaware the grandstand had different purposes other than horse racing- ‘Performance can illuminate the historically and culturally diverse ways in which a particular landscape has been made, used, reused and interpreted; and help us make sense of the multiplicity that resonate from it’.

Pearson, M. (2011) why performance?

As in last week’s lesson we explored the moutrey room we decided to continue to look at the history from the Second World War when we visited Lincoln archives. At the archives we found information about a young girl named Mary Elaine Marriott who sadly passed away on the 11th June 1943 in her home whilst doing her homework. Her death was caused by a bombing planes wing tipping onto a telegraph pole; this caused an explosion and hit 3 houses on her street including hers. We found this story about Margret interesting as the grandstand was going to be or was a mourtrey during the second world war and therefore Margaret’s body would have been taken to the grandstand, which inspired us to think about creating a performance which could reflect Margret’s story, ‘both acheology and performance involve the documentation of practices and experiences’ (Pearson, 2001, p55).
After our visit to Lincoln Archives we were then able to write a response letter to the grandstand explaining what we had found out. As an ensemble we read our letters out and played with tones, volume and speed, we then walked around the room and listened to how it sounded. I felt that hearing all these voices speaking on top of each other created a busy and chaotic atmosphere. I also felt it sounded like prayers being read. As the main room that we use on a Friday morning is the room that was supposed to be a mourtrey i had an inspiration that our performance needed to be busy and have a lot going off in order to recreate the chaotic atmosphere that would have been in the grandstand during world war 2, ‘performance can enable integrations of academic research procedures and professional , aesthetic practices, in combinations of the creative and the scholarly’ (Pearson, 2011)

Pearson, M. Shanks, M. (2001) Theatre/Archaeology. Clondon; Routledge.

We are tenancy’s at the grandstand, and therefore we go to the site and think subjectively about it. If we were visiting on a one off occasion or passing by in a car we would think subjectively for example, what colour the building is, what material it is made out of ect. As we are visiting our site weekly it becomes personal to us and we begin to measure the space with our bodies and look deeper into the historical content of the building making the site our unique personal space. Willi Dorners ‘packed bodies in urban spaces’ inspired us to physically use our bodies to signify how many bodies would have been crushed into the room that was going to be used as a mourtrey during the Second World War. We created a small performance and at the end laid our bodies in the kitchen space which is a small area to create an overflowing atmosphere. Dorners performers also used their bodies to fill a small space but in public area. The juxtaposition would stand out hugely in public places as it is unusual to see such thing. ‘Play around with ideas. Very important- when you lose playfulness you lose inspiration. Stay playful. Set tasks. Find juxtapositions’ –(Dorner, 2005)

Dorner was also used as inspiration upon deciding to use furniture in the room to create a war zone. We then used our bodies to move around the chairs we had set out all over the room and automatically our bodies were moving in different ways than they would be if the chairs were not there. ‘Build a space- with chairs and tables plot journeys through the space and then move the chairs and tables and try to make the same journeys’ (Dorner, 2005)

Lecture 2, Powerpoint