Final blog submission – Second to Last.

Site specific had to start off by getting all of us introduced to what the meaning of what site specific actually is. Researching through the Site-Specific Performance by Mike Pearson book there is a definition by Patrice Pavis saying;

“This term refers to a staging and performance conceived on the basis of a place in the real world (ergo, outside the established theatre). A large part of the work has to do with researching a place, often an unusual one that is imbued with history or permeated with atmosphere…” (Pavis, 1998, 337-8)
The site chosen was the Grandstand which is located in Lincolnshire. I am from Lincoln and did not realise the true history of the Grandstand. People who do not know the Grandstand think it was used for just racing events which I did too; until we found out that they once wanted to turn it into a mortuary. The site was also used as a military camp and when researching on google and past blogs from other people outside of Lincoln I came across one explaining the world war two time;
“World War 2 marked the beginning of the end for Lincoln, as the track became a military camp. The Lincolnshire moved to Pontefract between 1942 and 1945, and although the first post war race run at its home attracted over 38,000 spectators, racing never fully re-established itself.” (IanS, 2013)

Progress started with a visit to the Archives in Lincoln, getting some extra research and also the Lincolnshire Life museum. The museum showed us that the track was used to build aircrafts; the aircrafts would be pulled from one end of Lincoln to the other. We also saw the blueprints for the mortuary and photos from the old war times. I liked knowing new things about the Grandstand but I was always interested in doing something about the horses and researching at the Archives was the best place to get information. I got to look at old betting books and jockey’s weights and researched when they closed the races which was 1964. They only had the second to last day recorded down in a betting book. Using the research from the Archives I looked online and found;

“In 1963 the Levy Board included Lincoln on its list of 12 courses from which it intended to remove its subsidy. The local council would not step in, and the following year Henry Brooke, the Home Secretary and final arbiter of the Levy Board proposals accepted them and signed the death knell for racing in Lincoln.” (Archives, 2014)

Researching made me see that the Grandstand was just gave up on, horse racing was such an important part and people from Lincoln and outside loved to come and watch. Going to the Lincoln Life museum I found out that they still had the end of the racing pole there, this pole was used for the end of the track. But what most people didn’t know about the racing is they tried to bring jump racing into the event, it never really brought as much attraction as the racing in 1843 but also finding out that the bookies help to secure a name in racing history through its handicap races in Lincoln. After using all the information about the Grandstand and outside research the idea was, why can’t we bring back the past with the present?

History within the site:

When starting to think about what is wanted one has to think about the information we already know. The information known is the Grandstand, racing began in 1773 but had already been around for 200 years in 1597 it had been recorded by the city registers. Then the races were moved to Doncaster in 1964. The grandstand attracted royalty such as, James 1st and George 1st. In 1916 the RAF Waddington set it up as a training station, the World War recruits gathered in the trenches behind the Grandstand for training. In 1770 when Eclipse won the cup is when the last meeting took place until 1773 when they did a three day meeting with one of the days having a race which created 200 more years of racing on the site. 1843 is when the jump racing was introduced but was not popular enough to keep going on at the site, this is also the year when the bookies made a secure name in history for the Handicap. In 1980 they used the history of the trenches and changed it into a golf course and then completely changed into the Carholme Golf Course. Using the information of what is known one should then look into how to use what we know;

“Site-specific performance can be especially powerful as a vehicle for remembering and forming a community for at least two reasons. First, its location can work as a potent mnemonic trigger, helping to evoke specific past times related to the place and time of performance and facilitating a negotiation between the meanings of those times.” (Pearson, 2010, 9) (From ibid., p. 42))

When researching the Site-Specific Performance book and coming across this quote it makes one understand that the history within the site is very important. Using the sites past times the first ideas was to look and use all the history of the war, planes, horses, etc and practice a piece in lesson. The history of the racing and the horses inspired me more than any other because it is what made the Grandstand and what people miss and remember about the site. Horses are still on the site today and put in the fields facing opposite the Grandstand entrance but they are not used for racing. The Grandstand used to have weighing rooms for the jockey’s and they would always get weighed two weeks before a race.

If the Grandstand was known for horse racing and the popular events why not bring it back to the site for one day? The last race to be recorded was on the 16^th March 1964 but the last ever race was the following day 17^th March, there was no recorded in the betting books at the Archives. Summer meetings was meant to take place on 20^th May, 21^st May, 16^th September and 17^th September 18^th but as the Grandstand closed before this it never took place.

Learning to use the body in a space:
Before starting research about the Grandstands horse racing and the history behind the racing should be try and practice the other parts of the history within the site. One of the first practical lessons, as a group using the Site-Specific Performance book using the statement;

“notable or overlooked landscape features (e.g. paths, gates, stiles, dykes and walls, flagstone steps, sheep pens, cattle grid, shooting butts, bus shelters, bothies, scarecrows, gang-huts). Such folk geographies of things-in-places would focus on narratives, tales, memories and material remains of the not-too-distant past”. (Pearson, 2010, 14-15 (From Lorimer, 2009))

Using our bodies around the site was unusual, bodies had to be fitted into the certain of the site from outside.

(Lincoln Grandstand – Charlie Hewitt and Charlotte Martin. Below, Charlotte Martin, Charlie Hewitt and Callum West. Exploring using the body.)

Using the ideas from the outside decisions were made to take this back inside and redesign the piece inside using chairs

“By referring to this body of work, one need not return to notions of either site or self as fixed or finite entities. One need not imply an unproblematic notion of a located self, or a resolution of the tension between conceptual and ‘real’ sites. One need not to make an absolute distinction between material and human objects. (Pearson, 2010, 11 (From ibid.)

One of the second practical lessons I worked with a group where we tried to show the side of the mortuary by placing chairs all over the front room. Throwing our shoes so they landed in completely random places and places ourselves on the floor. Carrying this on my group individual one after another stood up finding their shoes and putting them back on. Showing we were lost like the children, parents and elderly would have been. Then showing signs of how the mortuary would have been the group and I walked into the kitchen, lay down and got coats placed over the representation of dead bodies. This was carried on for two weeks trying to explore the history of what the Grandstand could have been.

Researched history put into practice:

After two weeks of trying something new the horse racing couldn’t be missed out of rehearsal time anymore. Getting a group together and preparing all the research to create something new each week.

The real research came from visiting the Archives when finding information out such as;

“The Carholme, 1914. The military were in occupation of the stables and buildings at the racecourse during the First World War. Horse racing had been carried on at the Carholme since the 18^th century and the famous and long established Lincolnshire handicap was held in March of each year. (Archives, 2014)

Using this information made the group and I realised the importance of the horse racing and decided at the start to use the history found within the site. At the start creation was made through using the horses names found at the Archives in old betting books, creating a race track on the floor with cello tape and writing horse’s names on pieces of paper with jockey’s weights underneath them. Progressing this the following week was with the use of stones, after watching videos in lesson and seeing that someone used rice to represent the population of places and people, the idea of using stones to represent weights came from this. It was not until two weeks before the performance the idea of using pound coins came into practice. The coins represent weights but also represent betting, using money and putting it out when performing gave a sense of bets in the old days. (Lincoln Grandstand – Starting process)

This was part of the beginning of our progress, starting out with stones and placing named horses on pieces of paper. The times of the races were recorded from the second to last day ever in Lincoln racehorse history, the last day was not recorded or any record found.

Racing back to the Grandstand:

Knowing there is a beginning to the progress already made one has to start thinking how to make an end. Times were scheduled already by recorded betting books. Starting at 1:50pm and ending at 4:25. Even though the race itself has a beginning and an end it would not seem enough for it just to show stones and names of horses.

‘Performance exists in and through time. It is usually scheduled, of certain duration, with beginning and end to its parenthesis. As a time-based art, it demonstrates its nature by playing with time: slowing down, speeding up, attenuating and intensifying norms of social practice, in combinations of simultaneous, sequential, folded, suspended and discontinuous activity’ (Pearson, 2010, 159)

The start begins with 1964 the last time to have races at the site too May 8^th 2014 with 60 years of history in between the time scale, how could we use this?  In rehearsals looking at work by Mike Pearson Why Performance? Groups had to start asking what they want from their audience, do they want them to get involved? Or watching/viewing your piece? Or even being a part of the piece? The group and I decided to get the audience involved but also something for them to view. After weeks of setting up horse names and weights as a group the idea of bringing an old event back to site was put into place. Decisions were made to have a live race on the day this would hopefully make the audience use their imagination and feel like they are at the old Lincolnshire Handicap races. One lesson we had to use our senses around the site, so why not make the audience use theirs? Listening to the commentary from the television, Callum West would start by approaching the audience asking if they would like to join in on the race and then calling the winner of the race. Using their vision to see the old race names and jockey’s weights also with a little imagery of how the Grandstand use to look and how it has changed. This was to affect the audience so they could see the change of the Grandstand and how it’s lost everything it use to stand for.
After putting this idea into progress we practiced with setting up both sides like being at the bookies. No live bets are aloud at the Grandstand anymore so knowing this decision were made to make them gifts from the Grandstand to the audience. Chester races were presented on the 8^th May which made this convenient for us to use as a live race on the day. But because it was an actual event Sky Sports could not provide horse’s names or how many was racing until the day before the event. Site specific is all about taking risk and dealing with it, one problem was using wood to put the horse names on. The 1964 side put the names of horses and the weights of the jockey’s, the present side 2014 put the names of the horses and the bets. Only being able to use a certain amount of wood became difficult as we did not have enough for both sides, we solved this by shortening down the 1964 side it still had all the horses that raced that day and what event but just with less that actually raced on the day. Another problem was the amount of pound coins thinking £120 would be enough turned into too little, solution was to use just £1 coins on the last races. Another was the Chester race only showed on ITV for three races the solution was using the internet on a laptop to call the last races. Because the extension lead would not work on the television where it was first placed, the television ended up being moved onto a table near the door. This actually made it better as the audience could watch the race whilst others got the betting gifts of Callum and observed the 1964 part. The race times had time difference of only ten minutes but the third race on both sides was at 3:15pm which was the main race on both events. Throughout the times Callum called races on his side whilst I set out the weights of the jockey’s on my side. Horse racing newspapers were placed underneath the wood on both sides, the past side was all made to look old, the other side was the racing newspapers from that day with the bets on them, horses names and events taking place. Callum turned wood over on his side when races were over and placed the winning plank on top so at the end you could see all the winners. The past side ended 20 minutes before the present due to race times.

(Final performance – Lincoln Grandstand, Second to Last. Left: Start of the performance Right: The final look after the races. Winners: First race – Noble Misson. Second race – Orchestra. Third race – Legend Rising. Fourth race  – Ballymore Castle. Last race – The Hooded Claw.)

Performance Evaluation:

The final performance attracted the right kind of audience, people loved getting involved in having ‘a day back at the races.’ On the present side it had in total 52 names which all got taken by audience members. Audience members got involved with gather around the television or listening to Callum call out the winners names, audience members cheered if they won or grunted if they lost exactly like it would be at the races. They made a bet and then would observe the past side, looking at the weights and looking at the photo to then make their way to the television for the racing.

Process when being in group with Callum West was always focused on the idea around horses it started with only wanting to use its history and stick to that, until the new idea of bringing a live race back to the Grandstand came into practice and made the piece work. What worked so well was having a past and present part to the piece, the piece would not have worked as well if it was only either the past or present on its own. The idea worked so well because people who knew about the Grandstand knew about the horse racing but they might not of had a chance to ever experience it so it was like bringing the past back for a day, whilst having past horse racing names next to it and using wooden boards and old looking newspaper to have an authentic feeling about it.
Personally to improve the 1964 side I would improve by placing more photos of what the Grandstand use to look like and some of the information found at the Archives to give more of an authentic feeling. If it was possible to perform this again it would be better to have a race that’s on the television all the way through as one weakness was losing the audience when it changed to the laptop, people didn’t want to stand around listening to nothing but the strength was they always came back to find out if they was a winner or not.
Working in a non-traditional venue was different and challenging because the venue already has history behind it your research has to be correct, using the history was hard as well as we couldn’t play a character we had to stay as ourselves throughout the performance and take risk instead of being scripted. Because my piece was set up at certain times I could view others performances to be supportive but it was like you was in a bubble, one minute your performing your piece and the next minute you’re an audience member for other people. The overall understanding of site specific was challenging as one is coming out of a comfort zone of being scripted or improvised in a theatre to being on a site and using past or present history to represent the place chosen.

Bibliography

Archives (2014) Questions and referencing. [interview] interviewed by Archives, 14 February.

IanS (2013) Lost racecourse 6 – Lincoln and the Lincolnshire Handicap. [online] London: geezgeez. Available from http://www.geegeez.co.uk/lost-racecourse-6-lincoln-and-the-lincolnshire-handicap/ [Assessed 6 May 2014].

Pavis, P., Carlson, M. and Shantz, C. (1998). Dictionary of the theatre. 1st ed. Toronto, Ont.: University of Toronto Press.

Pearson, M. (2010) Site-Specific Performance. London: Palgrave Macmillan

Pinchbeck, M. (2014) Why performance? By Mike Pearson. [seminar] SEMINAR B-MB1012, University of Lincoln, 24 February.