Maker’s Diary: More Interest

Had more interested performers today, which is great, I have e-mailed all of them some details. This is what I have sent out:

SIREN SONG-Re Worked

Premise

It is HER party; hats, food and drink but SHE never appears. The performers will play games and give speeches endlessly for 6 hours, like they are stuck in a time warp, destined to repeat them selves over and over but with nothing ever being the same twice. Through, games, tasks and repetition, the audience and performers will work together to piece together HER, to generate the missing SHE; endless possibilities will play out and be generated over a 6 hour period. Who is She, What is your relationship with HER?

Outline

This will be a durational piece of work that will last approx 6 hours. The audience will be able to come and go as they please, moving freely through the space. There will also be a diary booth that the performers will take individual audience members into throughout in order to record their thoughts about their experience.

The work will consist of 2 overriding structures that will marshal the activity of both the performers and the audience. The structure will last for approx 2 hours and will be repeated 3 times.

Much of this will be developed through a devising process, so it is difficult to be particularly specific at this stage about the structures that will marshal this work.

There will be two main things going on: Speeches and Games. I am hoping that there will be many speeches and 3 games. I have already decided on two games but everything else will have to be discovered through the devising process.

The games that I have already taking a liking too are: pass the parcel and truth or tape.

Pass the Parcel- There will be objects hidden in each layer, things such as keys, etc. Each object will have a little tag attached with a question on it asking the winner to tell us something about how the object relates to her. So for example they key might have a tag that says ‘tell us about when she gave this back to him’ and the winner of that layer will have to do exactly that!

Truth or Tape- this is just like truth or dare, in stead of a dare the participants of the game will be able to pull a tape out of a bag and play it. The tapes will have many different things on them, all about HER life or taken from her life. So it could be a phone message, a piece of dialogue etc. If they choose truth then they will have to tell us something about her.

Process

These are the things that we will need to achieve or generate during the process:

-To generate new game that will create material about HER.

-To generate more speeches (see the attached document for an example of what we are going to create)

-To generate material for the tapes.

-To generate an overriding rule/game/task that marshals all of our activity.

These are the things that the performers will need to think about:

-their relationship to HER and the other performers/their performance presence.

-their relationship to the audience in performance and in the booth.

-generating a process diary/blog


Time Scale

The performance will be on the 22nd October 07 in the Arts centre.
Rehearsals will start towards the end of September and will be scheduled according to performer’s availability. I am also working on getting us a showing outside of the university either in Bristol or in the Railway, Winchester.

The attached speech was as follows:

SHE: The woman wears Vivienne Westwood's Boudoir perfume for the night time and Chloe Narcissus for during the day.
The woman has long nails, real ones and often paints them black.
She loves Midnight Cowboy.
She likes things to have a place, a home.
She likes to make lists but never sticks to them.
She uses a fountain pen to do all her personal correspondence.
She keeps everything anyone ever gave her.
She keeps her dreams on her sleeve right next to her heart.
She writes magical fantasy stories for her nephews about cats, faerie and goblins.
She has to keep a diary diligently because she is so forgetful.
She has hundreds of shoes but only ever wears 2 pairs.
She has small fingers and all her rings are just slightly too big.
She values honesty and loyalty in her friends
She hates to stay in one place for too long.
She smokes long cigarettes but when she’s out she smokes black ones.
She always has a pen and note book in her bag incase inspiration hits.
When she is alone at home she likes to sing to 80's hair rock at the top of voice.
She hardly ever cries.
She collects things.
She can't sleep.
She loves strawberries with black pepper.
She spoils her kitten too much.
She misses the sea.
She's brave and ferocious.
She is very disciplined and makes herself do things that she does not want to do.
She always sees the bigger picture but is fascinated by the details.
She sometimes forgets to laugh.
She makes mistakes but knows that is okay.
She always talks too much.
She laughs when her brother burps her name.
She wears her heart on her sleeve right next to her dreams.
She always falls hard.
She’s never wrong.
She eats pizza with a knife and fork.
She can keep a secret.
She cries when she listens to her favorite sad songs.
She loves spring.
She sometimes lets the phone ring and ring without picking it up.
She’s never late.
She loves to feel heavy rain on her naked skin.
She gets turned on by the stink of her man.
She often feels alone.
She always checks the handle twice to make sure that the door is really locked.
She has hundreds of pairs of shoes but only ever wears the same two pairs.
She has a broken heart.
She is scared of the dark.
She takes a gleeful delight in the sight of her own blood.
She hardly ever cries.
She wishes she was an only child.
She knows that just because you have his cock in your mouth does not necessarily mean that you have his heart.
She collects things.
She never throws anything out.
She always weeps on her birthday.
She often wishes that she could just vanish.
She is selfish.
She appreciates Jazz and has an affection for the pre-Raphaelite masters.
She has to suck ice lollies because biting them makes her whole body shudder.
She is powerless when he takes up his words; the special ones that he knows make her weak.
She thinks in the dark.
She keeps her memories in a heart shaped box, deep inside her chest.
The smell of Malibu makes her vomit.
She likes things to have a place, a home.
She picks at her feet.
She always misplaces her keys.
She likes to make lists but never sticks to them.
She knows he knows how to tame her too well.
She has a fondness for old things.
She needs to be held tightly.
She makes mistakes but knows that it is okay.
She loves without restraint.
She misses the sea.
She doesn’t have a home.