My introduction to Site – Specific

As a performer, Site-specific was a very challenging and hard concept for me, to understand, ‘although the search for a practicable, encompassing definition of site-specific performance has long claimed scholarly attention, it remains slippery’ (Pearson, 2010, p.7). To learn and understand how to perform without acting was difficult. My overall performance process was slow for this reason, however near the end of the module I started to grasp the concept more and found it to be more enjoyable.

My site-specific piece was performed outside, in a durational piece of three hours, at the Lincoln Grandstand. It consisted of a lot of movement and as it was outside we had to take the weather into consideration. We performed on Thursday 8^th May to a limited audience. This was as a result of the sites location but this had no effect on our piece as we did not need audience participation, as our performance was more visual. It did, however, happen that the audience walked around by our group as we lay on the floor.

Over the course we studied the performances of many performers and got inspiration from their work. This helped guide our group toward our final piece. Our idea for our final piece originated from a workshop in which we looked at Bodies of Urban Spaces and many site-specific theorists’ ideas of what makes a performance site-specific, such as Elliot, Govan, Nicholson, Normington and Turner.

The process to get to my final performance was very long, as our group’s final performance idea was constantly changing; however we had a good concept in the end which seemed to work. We made the audience think about the Grandstand in a new way, ‘as site of cultural intervention and innovation, performance is a place of experiment, claim, conflict, negotiation, transgression: a place where preconceptions, expectations and critical faculties may be dislocated and confounded’ (Pearson, 2010, p.141). Through our performance we changed the audience’s perceptions of the site.

 

The Site – First Thoughts

Upon arriving at Lincoln Grandstand I was taken aback by the difference between the front and the back of the building. The front of the grandstand, where the stairs are visible, was dreary and dull. The wooden steps had been left to rot and the paint was clearly cracking. However the back of the building, with its two levels and windows, could have been mistaken for a large house or even a small hotel.

The area was very isolated considering it is joint to a busy road, as the houses and shops disappear as you approach the site. It is found opposite a field where horses are allowed to roam; partially giving the public an insight into what the grandstand would have been like when it was used to watch the horse racing. The only sign that the area has not been totally abandoned is the car park next to it, and the golf course and stables behind it. The locks on the metal gates preventing access to the stairs make it harder for the outside of the grandstand to be used to its full potential, which further isolated the site.

 

First performance

Sometimes when creating a performance within a space you can alter the image the audience had of it, “…people had a real familiarity with the space that was being worked with yet they were invited to experience the environment from a new perspective due to the performance that was enacted within it” (Govan, Nicholson and Normington, 2007, p.120). This can be for the better or for the worse or even just to make an audience aware of the potential the space had or has. My first performance piece at the site was created in a group. We took the idea of the races and had a character each who was reporting on the race, we did this to link back to the history of the Grandstand as a racecourse. We had planned to perform this piece in the stables but unfortunately that area was out of bounds so we instead performed on stairs that look out onto the main road. Looking back on this piece I was acting and not performing in the site. This is something I needed to develop for my final piece.

 

Starting Idea

During one of our earlier site visits, using the inspiration of Will Dorner’s Bodies in Urban Spaces (which our tutor showed us in our seminar), we found hidden spaces around the Grandstand and put them on show by forming our bodies to them.

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Figures in a Turnstile from Webley (2014)

 

The picture I captured above shows three performers using their bodies to fill the space of an old metal turnstile. This created a layer effect which we then decided to use in our next task; which was to re-create a shape we made outside, in a space inside the Grandstand. We choose to use a space which consisted of a small area with lots of stacked chairs. The use of chairs worked to our advantage to help reproduce the layers of the shape, we previously made, by changing the height of them.

We were then tasked with creating a piece from the spaces we had used inside the building. We made our piece to focus on a lively place becoming an abandoned place. We wanted to depict a place going from popular to unnoticeable. It was, however, interpreted differently by our tutor, who felt it was almost like destruction had occurred and we were then piecing it back together. He felt it linked back to the idea that the Grandstand was considered to be a possible mortuary in World War II. Upon hearing this feedback, we ran with that idea and decided to further it, taking our shoes off and dotting them around the floor by the chairs. This meant, during the performance, we had to retrieve the shoes. One of our group members also suggested that the three performers that were stacking the chairs could try and form shapes in each others spaces until they ended up in the space they should be in. In running with the mortuary theme, this could have been seen as soldiers putting their lives back together (putting shoes on and stacking the chairs), then trying to find their way home (forming shapes in the wrong spaces) and finally finding their way home (the shape that is formed at the end).

 

The Inspiration for development

Having learnt the Grandstand might have been a mortuary, we ventured to the Archives, in Lincoln, to delve further into the history of the site. Whilst at the Archives we discovered a detailed plan showing the layout for the mortuary within the Grandstand, as shown below.

Mortuary plan from Webley (2014)

Although we knew the building could have been a mortuary, seeing the plan really made me think about the space and the layout of the Grandstand. It showed the kitchen as being the viewing room and the mortuary in the main part of the building. This made the mortuary seem real even though we still don’t know if it ever happened.

 

Developing our starting Idea

As a big group of students liked the mortuary idea, we decided to develop it. This was achieved by incorporating text. On post-it notes we wrote down sayings to do with death, sadness and the war. This allowed us to focus on the destruction the soldiers and their families went through during World War II. The destruction could also be a metaphor for how, if the Grandstand was used as a mortuary, the family friendly image it once had would be destroyed.

Our performance involved the performers walking through chairs that are knocked over as if something has ruined the site. The performers then slowly, and when they felt like doing so, lied down on the floor. This represented the victims of the war and highlighted the area as a place where bodies could have been. Then one-by-one the performers rose up and collected their shoes and found a post-it note which they then read out. Once they had done this, the performer proceeded to stand in front of the audience and stared at them without emotion. Once all the performers were lined up they read out their post-it note again and put it on the post. They then walked into the kitchen and lay down on the floor (one-by-one) where I covered them, from the waist up, with their coats. Then another performer brought the audience into the kitchen and in this tiny cramped room the faces of the ‘bodies’ (the performers on the floor) were revealed whilst the audience were being asked if they recognised anyone. We used the kitchen in this performance because , according to the mortuary plan, it would have been the viewing room.

We wanted the audience to feel a part of the piece, that is why we made them feel like they were involuntarily in a room identifying bodies, similar to how the families of the World War II victim’s would have felt, “…the work is constructed so that the performers interact with the people who inhabit a particular place” (Govan, Nicholson and Normington, 2007, p.122). By having the audience crammed into a small room and showing them faces of people, as if they were dead, it caused the Grandstand to be seen as a dark place rather than the happy one it is depicted, through the brightly painted walls. It also allowed the audience to feel closer to the performers and therefore more apart of the piece.

 

Finding our group Idea

After developing a starting idea as fairly big groups, we split off into smaller ones. So after forming a group of four, we decided that we very much liked the idea of the Grandstand during the War time and the mortuary plans. In keeping with these themes we came up with many ideas. One of these included making a tank and obstacle course out of the objects around the Grandstand, as seen in the picture below. We did this because we wanted to incorporate the modern Grandstand with the older version of the site.

Making objects out of objects from Webley (2014)

These ideas then lead our group to decide to relocate our piece to behind the Grandstand and split it into three parts. We decided we would start off on the ground and use the starting idea that we had in the bigger group and lay amongst chairs and put our shoes around us. This would reinforce the Grandstand in the war and represent the fallen soldiers. We would then climb around the fencing and have the audience complete an obstacle course. This was an idea we had to incorporate the type of training the soldiers may have done when they were building the trenches at the Grandstand. Then our group would have the audience fly paper planes into a chalk drawn landing circle, which again was taking the war theme and creating a representation of the part the Grandstand played in it. We then planned to put the performance in reverse and do the piece three times in three hours. However reflecting upon this idea it would have been overly complex and not that effective. It may also have become tedious for the audience and unpredictable weather may have caused problems.

 

Forming our Final Idea

During one of our final rehearsals at the grandstand, upon hearing feedback from a tutor, we decided to focus on one aspect of our performance and removed the other parts to make the piece less complex. This left us with a piece that focused solely on mortuaries. The idea involved our group lying amongst shoes and talking about mortuaries using texts we had found. I recited the Abstract from a piece of text I found, “Emergencies that cause the deaths of large numbers of people can result from major accidents, natural disasters or acts of hostility. While what has happened cannot be undone…” ((Elliot, 2011, p.430) this is a small extract of the text I spoke). The text explained about emergency mortuaries and how they are planned. This was a relevant text for the Grandstand as it is a possible reality of what might have happened at the site. This final idea explored the site and what it could have been.

The following quote, by Cathy Turner, best describes how my performance at the grandstand was relevant to the site, ‘If the dramaturg attempts to sketch a “map”, perhaps this will always be in pragmatic and tentative relation to the territory of the performance event’ (Turner, 2010, p.150). We as performers created a ‘map’ or what could have been seen as a ‘timeline’ of the Grandstand’s history by showing glimpses into it’s past through our pieces. For example, our group settled on portraying the mortuary that may have been at the Grandstand, in our performance, and this was done in a serious manner but our ideas were based on the facts we know about the site and are not true portrayals. They were our interpretations of the knowledge we had of the Grandstand. We brought the history of the site to life.

 

Final Idea

When looking at our piece, it was brought to our attention that the Grandstand is used as a Mosque now and so people would remove their shoes outside the building before entering. So we decided to place the shoes outside the front of the Grandstand and walk them through to the back of the building during our piece.

Drop off Point from Webley (2014)

Outside the front of the grandstand there is a designated ‘drop off point’ which we felt would be a great starting place for the shoes (as shown in the picture above), as it is like the shoes have been ‘dropped off’ and as the shoes represent the bodies of the mortuary it gives a metaphorical insight into what the grandstand might have been like as a mortuary. After completing our final rehearsal it became clear more shoes were needed to have our desired effect. The picture below shows just some of the shoes we managed to collect for our final piece.

Shoe Collection from Webley (2014)

Most of the shoes came about through donations and charity shops. However some were purchased. The collection of shoes really enhanced the experience for our audience members and helped our piece drastically.

 

My evaluation of my final performance

My final performance was performed for the duration of two and half hours. Dressed in funeral attire we transported the shoes from the drop off point to the back of the Grandstand. Then we proceeded to lie amongst them whilst reciting texts we had memorised. After a period of time we rose up and then took the shoes back to the drop off zone but this time we paired them off and lined them up neatly. This allowed our group to show the Grandstand’s use as a Mosque as well as its possible use as a mortuary.

Due to not having the right amount of shoes till the performance day, the timings of our final performance were different to those we had planned. Our performance was split into three parts, an hour performance for each section, however the first part ended up taking an hour and a half and so the second part was shortened down to half an hour. This worked in our favour as the weather was unpredictable on the day and it had been raining, so an hour lying on the floor would have made the performance difficult because of health reasons. The timings of the final piece were a weakness of our performance. If we could have altered the piece, to make the timings better, we could have taken two shoes at a time round to the back of the Grandstand.

Unfortunately, as a result of the location of our site and the weather the audience numbers were very limited. Our piece did not have audience participation but the audience did engage with our piece. When we were lying on the floor reciting our memorised texts, the audience proceeded to walk around us to hear what each individual was saying.  When lying amongst the shoes, we seemed to get a good response.

Our final performance helped me visualise how the Grandstand had developed over the years. From the shoes being spread out to represent that of a mortuary, to the shoes being lined up in pairs representing that of a Mosque (as seen in the picture below), the Grandstand’s history unravelled in front of my eyes.

A Body without a Home from Webley (2014)

One skill I have learnt from site-specific is how to perform without acting. I struggled with this greatly as I find the best part of performing is becoming a character. However performing at a site does involve just as much concentration as being a character. Although you are yourself you have to really concentrate on what you are doing to create a successful piece.

Word Count: 2842

Work Cited:

Elliot, A. 2011, ‘Abstract’, ‘Mortuary provision in emergencies causing mass fatalities’, Journal of Business Continuity and Emergency Planning, 5, 1, Business source Complete, EBSCOhost, p.430-439, [accessed] 17 April 2014.

Govan E., Nicholson H. and Normington K., 2007, ‘The Place of the Artist’ Making a Performance, Oxon: Routledge, p.120-135

Pearson, Mike (2010) Site Specific Performance, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Turner, C. (2010) ‘Mis-Guidance and Spatial Planning: Dramaturgies of Public Space’, Contemporary Theatre Review, Vol. 20(2), Routledge, P.149-161

Webley, T. (2014) Drop off Point

Webley, T. (2014) Figures in a Turnstile

Webley, T. (2014) Making objects out of objects

Webley, T. (2014) A Body without a Home

Webley, T. (2014) Mortuary plan, PLAN courtesy of the Lincoln Archives

Webley, T. (2014) Shoe Collection

Will Dorner (2008) Bodies in Urban Spaces, USA