Monthly Archives: May 2014

Creating a Space

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Masking Tape Construction Notes

Today during our session at the Grandstand, our lecturer asked us to create a space with masking tape, and then construct a tour of the space- modelling it on a room in the Grandstand building. We decided to focus on an unused bathroom, and above are the notes I made after the session describing what I had done. It reads:

“We were asked to create a space using masking tape and post it notes, and then describe a room in the Grandstand within that space. From this I started describing the toilets behind the kitchen as I had used them in a previous exercise, and I used post it notes to map out where the fittings were situated e.g. the toilets, the sinks, the doors. I then got Brad to become the mirror on the wall with a post it note on his forehead, and Tamsyn and Kent became doors that I moved when I guided the audience into the space. I was a tour guide of some toilets. I also stuck post its on the posts with words used to describe the space.”

This exercise was really interesting. It made me think about the recreation of space through different mediums as a performance, and how insignificant toilet spaces usually are; yet I was part of a tour of one, and its different elements were exposed in great detail when usually this kind of site is ignored.

What initially was just a part of the main room in the Grandstand was suddenly transformed with detail into an exact replica of the bathroom with masking tape. If someone had told me I would be doing that as a form of performance last year, I would have laughed, yet now this kind of creation of space really inspires me, and relates strongly to the Theatre/ Archaeology text: “…spaces are qualified by actions just as actions are qualified by spaces: architecture and events constantly transgress each other’s rules.” (Pearson and Shanks, 2001, p. 23). Constructing a masking tape bathroom in a space gives a purpose to that space, yet it has its own meaning before recreating a bathroom in it- the Grandstand’s many different rooms and spaces all have their own actions which are changed and explored through site specific performance.

Works Cited

Pearson, M. and Shanks, M. (2001) Theatre/ Archaology. Routledge.

Can a Space Be Tainted?

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Today the group visited the Lincolnshire archives, and among other interesting facts I discovered that the Grandstand could have potentially been used as a mortuary in World War Two- which sparked off a lot of ideas for our performance piece.

As we were shown around the archives and given information about the Grandstand’s history as an RAF training site, a thriving racecourse and its’ Expo in 1969, the thing that interested me the most was the contrast between all these roles- particularly that before being used as place where people placed bets and jockeys got weighed, dead bodies may have been laid in these rooms, and families may have come to say a final goodbye to their loved ones.

The idea of tainting a space became something I held onto throughout the visit, and I began to form links to the modern day too, and the Grandstand as it is now. The space has become a Community Centre over recent years, where children come to be looked after; yet, just 70 years ago that very same spot where a child may play with a toy, could have been the place where someone’s dead body was left until a family came.

We will never know if the site was used as a mortuary, but we can analyse how the space would have been viewed by people in the past, and now, if we knew for sure that it had. For me, before I knew it potentially could have been a mortuary, I looked at the Grandstand with a lot of nostalgia at its racecourse days, imagining men and women betting on horses and their reactions when theirs didn’t win. Now the image itself is tainted and so is the space.

The End…

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8th of May 2014

We completed 4 whole performances today with different amounts of audience members. The first performance contained 7 members, the second 5, the third 2 and the fourth 8. We found that the performances with the most audience members went smoother as all of the envelopes were used and the structure of the performance stayed in strong. All audience members were co-operative and really helped us make the best piece we could. Many of the participants said that they learnt a lot about the site that they did not know before and they felt like they were in the room for way more than 15 minutes. This is why we highlighted the passing of time so the time would seem to slow down.

There were some really nice moments within the performances. One particularly nice moment was when one participant was laughing hysterically and another was talking over the top. The juxtaposition of what they were doing was really effective. This is an example of how each performance was different. People read texts differently and paused at different moments. Some participants moved slower meaning things would over lap and others moved faster meaning there was a lot of silence. However, this meant that each performance was unique and this is something we really wanted to achieve. The performance really depended on the participants and therefore it only made sense that they could make it their own.

If we could perform again I would make sure that we had over 5 participants for each performance. Although we had back up plans for any number of audience members, the performance with more participants were more effective. As I said before the piece really relied on the audience members being engaged and active.Therefore, the performances with only two participants were weaker as we said most of the text and there was more silence.

This style of theatre has been very challenging and even overwhelming at times but i was very happy with our final piece and how it had grown through the process. Once you except that the performance will not be traditional and even the devising process is different it becomes a lot easier to work. When you look at Marc Auge’s work you can see how everyday behaviours can be performances in their own right and i think understanding this was a major point for us. Once this is understood you can start to build a piece of work that really reflects this. We also had to have an understanding of the different levels of audience that would be used within our piece. A lot of the time the audience were the focus of the performance and often this is the case with site specific work.

Here is the post performance video of us burying the time capsule at the grandstand.

 

All Dressed Up and Nowhere to Go

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Just a few photos showing the progression of the Foil Dress. Even though this is staying on a mannequin during the performance, this is one of the most important and charastistic features of our EXPO.Made from cotton, foil and cardboard I have made a dress from scratch that replicates the iconic dress shown at the EXPO 45 years ago.

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With only a couple of days until our performances, we have gathered everything we need to build our installation. It has been difficult to visualize our final product, as it had been a very gradual development due to the amount of material needed to create it. From banners, to food, from posters, to buntin, everything we have gathered for our installation is utterly infused with the original ideas for EXPO 69- resurrecting and developing its legacy with Lincolnshire.

Maybe we were all Horses once

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Transformation ProcessMy performance Narrative was designed on myths, legends and facts, designed so that for each paragraph I would have an action to complete, such as putting mud on myself or drawing on myself with chalk:

Have you ever wanted to be someone or something else? Have you ever wanted to have a bigger body, larger muscles, longer legs, a different nose, a new mouth, longer hair? but you can never quite grow it quick enough.

Is there anything you’d change about yourself and who you are, maybe different colour hair or eyes, perhaps you’d like to change the things you keep private… Any hair that grows in places you wish it didn’t.

Just Fragments of your personality that are twisted and not quite right, don’t you wish you could change?

I have, I spend everyday longing to be something else, I’ve spent years looking in a mirror wanting to be something else, craving to change. Seeing my faults and wanting them gone. Realising I’m not who I want to be.

I’ve always wanted to be a horse, something that stands the test of time. The Celts believed that people were carried to the next world on horseback, it was believed that they possess special powers. To become a Horse it’s important to understand human’s and horse’s souls, look in a mirror, it takes years of studying and self-perfection to realise the truth, admit your own faults, repent and start again. Born a new.

We can be so cruel to them though, did you know if a horse is to deep in mud it can get a disease called mud fever, the horse begins to lose hair and scab, think of it are any of those stables safe for horses, was this grandstand?

Similarly to us most of their speech is actually indirect body language or equine language, Most obvious to read is the horse’s overall body outline, also called his frame or topline. The topline of a horse is defined by the position of the horse’s head and neck, together with the upper curvature of a horse’s withers, back and loin. They raise their whole frame when excited, surely that isn’t much different to ourselves, at least they don’t lie to us.

Horse’s span the emotions of the person present with deep eyed accuracy. Then they make their own conclusions. Can you imagine it? A horse knows more about you in a minute than you’ll ever know about yourself.

They used to be sacred and now they’re just fodder. More horses died in the first year of the American Civil War than people. That’s all they are to us, slaves to do the jobs we don’t want to as we allow them to decay.

In Arthurian legend it was believed that some Horses would have magical bridles and if a knight found these horses they would transform into a beautiful woman. Can you imagine it, instant transformation, but can you imagine it the other way round, from horse into human.

They’re so intelligent, so healthy, galloping, trotting and cantering all serve vital functions in a healthy digestive system. Think how strong they are, why would you not want to be a horse?

It was once said that the horse represents the ‘mother within us’

Maybe we were all horses once decaying back to human form.

At the end of this narrative and the actions are complete I am left with a piece of live art, the transformation is complete.