Category: Experimentation

Time to develop ideas

Shellie-Ann Barrowcliffe / / Development, Experimentation, People, Public Responses

After discussion we decided that we wanted to use another space in The Collection, the education room that looks out onto the Café. This was because we thought it would be good as it was an example of how the two buildings could be together yet they are apart. It was also another thing to do with our research and how children mimic what they see in society and in cafes. Children notice things that adults don’t. We decided it would be a good idea for some members of the group to have a tea party up in the education room, acting like children and using a child’s tea set. We experimented trying out lots of things whilst the rest of the group sat in the café and suggested to us afterwards what worked and didn’t work. Throughout this process we felt it was more natural for us to start as children but by the end become business women who were professional. Whilst we were doing this in the education room, the rest of the group aimed to create an exhibition down in the café and present all of the things that people might not notice but we had noticed over the past few weeks. After experimenting with this exhibition idea it was clear that it needed to be pushed even further as it just wasn’t working but again we had to take into account that it was still as business…
This was beginning to not seem a great place after all.

We showed our performance ideas so far to the rest of the groups and received great feedback for the tea party in the education room and got told things such as

“once you watch your intrigued that you need to keep watching to see what happens next”
“it’s a really good idea”
“it works well, maybe make more of it”

This was really positive for us as we wasn’t sure if it was going to make an impact or not. Most importantly we wasn’t sure if we could be seen clearly enough but it seemed to work ok, this wasn’t the same for the café however as the idea we hadn’t didn’t really work well and so needed to be rethought. As well as this exhibition we had the other three group members in the café talking to themselves using a verbatim script that had been creating through listening to peoples conversations. This seemed to get lost so we discussed our whole idea and decided to see what the effect would be if we took this outside. We weren’t sure if this would work as we were taking it out of its original setting, out of the café atmosphere and outside. So taking this outside and trying it out it felt like something was missing, it lacked energy and needed something to back it up. Still wanting to keep the education room idea we discussed whether there was a way that we could link outside and the education room. In the end it was suggested that maybe we could attempt to create our own exhibition outside and portraying our version of the important things in the café.
Our ideas included:

• Having the three people sat at their own individual table talking to themselves, one would portray ‘the reader’ another ‘the working man’ and the third would portray ‘the family man’ as these are the three characteristics that we picked up on most throughout our research.
• Taking pictures and creating a framed piece up on the wall of the café, and showing how it changes throughout the day.
• Having the sentences we had heard wrote in chalk down the stairs to create something different
• Using the placard idea from inside and seeing how that worked.

Feeling Lost…

Shellie-Ann Barrowcliffe / / Development, Experimentation, People

At this current moment in time I feel as though we have a lot of great ideas but are not really making any progress. I understand that the whole process of creating a site specific performance is in my opinion not an easy thing to do or get your head around. ‘Site Specific work has to deal with, embrace and
cohabit with existing factors…’ ((Persighetti. 2000. p,12)) and it is at this moment of our process where we have these ideas but putting them into practice seems difficult and just isn’t seeming possible. I am not sure if it is our location with it also being a business so we can’t interrupt there working day or if we are just not pushing our ideas far enough. I am currently feeling lost about our development and where to go next because so far we haven’t made any definite decisions about our direction and maybe this is our next thing to do.

To make a firm choice as to which direction we are going to go and then experiment and push ideas further. Figuring out where our piece should head will be easier once we have looked at the feedback from the surveys we created as ‘a large part of the work has to do with researching a place’ ((Pavis, P (1998). Dictionary of the Theatre: Terms, Concepts, and
Analysis. London: University of Toronto pp337—8)). We have been doing a lot of research over the time we have been at The Collection, listening to people conversations and figuring out why they are here, looking at how people interact with each other and where people tended to sit. For example if they were on their own then they would often sit in the alcoves.

Our Mime Endurance Trial…..of brushing teeth!!

Stephanie Jackson / / Development, Experimentation, Possessed Time

 

In todays workshop, our group put into practise our ideas on the structure and timing of our piece. The opening section of our performance will consist of us going about our daily routine, of waking up, brushing our teeth, washing our face and eating breakfast. We have chosen a simple movement that represents each of these acts, however we are doing each action for 15 minutes. This will dehumanise a simple every day action, and the audience will not be expecting us to maintain such simple movements over a durational period. As we are going to be using our bodies to portray an action, and due to the duration of our piece, it is important to research into physical theatre and mime traditions. Simon Murray and John Keefe write:

‘the physical actions of the body still remain those of the everyday body. These may be stylised or contorted or otherwise heightened but the body remains the same somatic, corporeal ‘thing’ that it can only be.  The actions are mimetic of the everyday but outside the everyday or habitual.’

(Murray Simon, Keefe John, Physical Theatres: A Critical Introduction,Taylor and Francis 2007)

 

The reason we have chosen to mime is because we feel that it fits more with the aesthetics of the space. We can’t justify having real props such as toothbrushes and doing it for real, because it would too out of place. During the sections when we mime eating, the reason for us not having real plates and cutlery is that the Gallery is filled with household crockery. They are meant for practical use but they are kept behind glass for display only.  Our mime is demonstrating the essence of the action we are portraying without the materialistic element, because the material objects are prevented from our use by the glass cabinets in the Gallery.

So would our mime work and would it be effective? The only way to find out was to practically do it.

With each of us focusing and remaining in silence, with only the sound of a ticking clock to accompany us, we began to mime brushing our teeth. We each did different speeds, but maintained timing with the clock. This required so much concentration and perseverance on our part as performers, as within a few minutes our arms began to ache and the repetitive nature became quite mentally challenging to keep going.

After 15 minutes of non stop repetitive mime, an alarm dictated us to change into our next movement of face washing. This was equally as challenging and required mental strength and endurance to keep us motivated and focused. We received comments afterwards from our fellow students who had watched us. They remarked on how effective it was and the energy that the repetitive nature evoked in the room.  We learnt as performers how a subtle movement can become enlarged and surreal just by repeating it, and the endurance and skill that is required to keep up a mime like that.  I think we need to develop this further and perhaps experiment with different actions in the space, as the space itself can change the way an action is perceived. Will our mime be more effective if we all stood in a line, or at different levels within our space? Do we face into the cabinets or to our audience? These are questions which will become answerable as we develop our work further.

 

Works Cited

Murray Simon, Keefe John, Physical Theatres: A Critical Introduction, (Taylor and Francis 2007)

 

 

 

The Construction Process

Lacey Cole / / Cultural Terrorists, Development, Experimentation

Having attempted our first go at creating a sculptural model using polystyrene, and failing miserably, we decided to go in search of other materials. We researched the types of material commonly used for smaller scale models, such as very thin wood known as balsa wood. However, due to the size we want to attempt, balsa wood was too flimsy and brittle. We eventually ended up in B&Q, and found a product known as ‘Selitac’, thin foam sheets with metallic covering that clip together to form boxes.  After buying the Selitac boards we realised it was an extremely useful material for the type of sculpture we are making. It is very easy to carve and does not flake easily like the polystyrene we experimented with previously. It is also similar to a material known as ‘grey board’ which had a considered as it is a well known modelling material with a thin layer of foam. The tools we are using to carve the sculpture are scalpels, we researched into many different tools such as craft knives and Stanley knives but we decided the scalpels were the best and cheapest option, mainly because they have a smaller and more precise blade making it easier to work with.

We have decided to make the sculpture as large as possible in order to make it stand out, we decided rather than making our Big Ben half-heartedly we wanted to make an impact in the gallery so not only people watching our performance will be shocked but the passers-by will also be intrigued. Whilst carving the sculpture we have decided to make slots in the material so it is easier to put the sculpture together. In addition to making the performance smoother and faster, this will also increase the impact upon our audience as we will (hopefully) have managed to create a impressive sculpture and place it in the Usher gallery in a small amount of time. So far with the material we have made the base of the Big Ben and it is coming together nicely and staying stable. The photos below are from the first time we have carved the material and how the sculpture has started to come together.

 

image_1363009375965718 image_1363009418311943 image_1363009410448553

 

Author: Lacey Cole

 

“Life is a work of art…”

Tom Baines / / Concealed Illusions, Development, Experimentation, Research

Upon arriving at our final idea, our group are now starting to begin questioning the integrate details of our piece.  How will the audience react? How will we lead the audience to the piece? What will our integral roles be? Mike Pearson sums up our creative process at this time by saying “Performance involves an activity, an audience and a place, then creative opportunities reside in the multiple creative articulations of us, them and there.” (2010, P19). From this we need to identify and narrow down our key ideas to finalise our project.

This said, our idea has taken shape over the last week.  We have explored more into the concept of masking. As stated by Sam, about the idealisation of many paintings to create a more perfected visual. From this we decided to have ourselves masked but on reflection, we thought that conventional theatre mask would make our site specific performance more theatrical. So we decided to develop the idea of masking but not in a literal sense.

An idea was suggested within our group by Kirsty to have a half make up; have one side what would be deemed as ‘perfect’ and the other side make up free and then during the performance the make-up would be blurred and smudged together to overlap the two showing the idealisation.

 

I then saw this image:

 

 

What if the ‘perfected’ side of the make-up was an idealised face or rather a painting of our own face?

 

Our project is constantly evolving. We had dual projections in both galleries we have now decided to just have the one, above the picture in the Usher gallery. The projection will consist of a video which will subliminally inform the audience of the idealised creativity of painters, and the difference between modern day art and historical art.

 

This idea was later scrapped as our performance was changing it didn’t fit in with the main theme. We steered away from paintings coming to life and concentrated more on idealisation. Not to mention that very soon we were to uncover that the Brayford painting was to disappear…

 

 

Works Cited

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