This is the current risk assessment...not used to having to do these myself..
Risk Assessment
High Heel Shoes- Doing physically demanding performative activities, such as dancing and physical theatre.
Control Measures-The performers will rehearse and practice ways of performing in their high heeled shoes, so that they are completely familiar and skilled with them.
Chairs- The audience will be invited to play a game of musical chairs and the performers will have to lift and arrange chairs.
Control Measures- The audience will not be allowed to move the chairs, only the performers will do that. The performers will rehearse different ways of moving the chairs so that the legs are never in the air or very far off the ground. The audience will be given strict instructions not to push or shove during the game and this will be policed by the performers
Wheel Barrow- One of the performers will have to bring on a wheelbarrow full of small props.
Control Measures- We will ensure that the performer's path is completely clear of obstacles and that the weight in the wheelbarrow is evenly distributed. We will ensure that the wheel barrow once in position is well lit and not in the path of the performers or audience.
Costume Rail- Two of the performers will wheel on a costume rail.
Control Measures- The costume rail will be on castors so that it is easily manoeuvrable. It will be brought into the performance space by two performers, one at each end. It will be securely fixed together to ensure that it can bear the correct amount of weight.
Chalk- The audience will be given a piece of chalk each with which to write on the floor.
Control Measures- The chalk will be collected back from the audience once they have used it, to ensure that none is left in the performance space and therefore will not present a tripping or slipping hazard. The chalk will be cleaned up before the next part of the performance begins.
The audience will be advised not to eat the chalk.
Blocks- The performers will have to step up onto and down from 3 small wooden blocks, barefoot and in high heels.
Control Measures- The performers will rehearse and devise ways of getting up onto the blocks that will involve supporting each others weight and providing balance to each other.
Costumes- The costumes will be taken off and hung on the curtain rail.
Control Measures- The costumes will be removed from the performers and placed on coat hangers on the costume rail, so that they do not pose a tripping or fire hazard.
Undressing- The performers will have to remove their costumes during the performance.
Control Measures- The performers will rehearse removing their clothing so that they are familiar and skilled with their costumes. This will minimise the risk of tripping or falling.
Tuesday, 17 April 2007
Makers Diary
The Ground Works application is posted! Now we just have to keep fingers crossed and hope.
I am going to be getting my head around the risk assessment for the show today...if I get it done I will post it on later.
I am going to be getting my head around the risk assessment for the show today...if I get it done I will post it on later.
Sunday, 15 April 2007
Reflective Participant: SPILL trip Day two
Toady I saw Forced Entertainment's And On The Thousandth Night. I had such a good time I really enjoyed it. It was a 6hr durational performance and I am so proud of myself for only taking two very short 10 minute breaks the whole time.
I am not gonna go into all the details but it was great. I saw Synne, she was there to see the work too.
Ok there is just one thing that really struck me and that was how frustrated at points I felt...I wanted to play the game too, i wanted to make up stories, interrupt, I wanted to play and it was frustrating that I couldn't...this is something that I am hoping to address in my own piece of work. seeing this really helped me to think about the idea of participation and game playing. Hmmm...well my time is nearly up in here and I want to go to bed now....I love Piccadilly at night..so vibrant and exciting.
I am not gonna go into all the details but it was great. I saw Synne, she was there to see the work too.
Ok there is just one thing that really struck me and that was how frustrated at points I felt...I wanted to play the game too, i wanted to make up stories, interrupt, I wanted to play and it was frustrating that I couldn't...this is something that I am hoping to address in my own piece of work. seeing this really helped me to think about the idea of participation and game playing. Hmmm...well my time is nearly up in here and I want to go to bed now....I love Piccadilly at night..so vibrant and exciting.
Saturday, 14 April 2007
Reflective Participant: London SPILL Trip Day One
I am in LONDON....its pretty late and I am sat in some random internet cafe in the middle of Piccadilly near where I am staying....my head is just spinning...two things today.I had a meeting with Kirsty and I saw Trans Act.
OMG it is so hot...I can't believe it...too hot....ok time is limited, so I will chat very quickly about the meeting and then the show...
Meeting:
They sat, cold diet cokes in hand, the grass warm and moist underneath them..two good friends smiling, laughing and enjoying the heat of the day. we talked about all kinds of things but mostly about the show, my thoughts, feelings what i hoped, what I’ve got and want I want...its hard to really put it into words, we have been friends for so long and we know each other so well that our conversations are hard to chart and we follow each others thread with deft skill. She will mail me some pics when I get back from London.
The Show:
It was in the tube station underground...cool and dark but strangely frightening.
I won't make an in depth analysis right now, instead I will just mention some of the things that really struck me.
She used red and green, very much in the same way that I have in the past and how I intend to in Siren Song. It was all about the audience, small and intimate. We saw the processes of performance...laid bare, laid open and questioned...normally I would have said that it was performance art but some of the processes of theatre making were specifically part of the make up of the work and were the objects of performance.
Oh, I am well tired now and need my bed
OMG it is so hot...I can't believe it...too hot....ok time is limited, so I will chat very quickly about the meeting and then the show...
Meeting:
They sat, cold diet cokes in hand, the grass warm and moist underneath them..two good friends smiling, laughing and enjoying the heat of the day. we talked about all kinds of things but mostly about the show, my thoughts, feelings what i hoped, what I’ve got and want I want...its hard to really put it into words, we have been friends for so long and we know each other so well that our conversations are hard to chart and we follow each others thread with deft skill. She will mail me some pics when I get back from London.
The Show:
It was in the tube station underground...cool and dark but strangely frightening.
I won't make an in depth analysis right now, instead I will just mention some of the things that really struck me.
She used red and green, very much in the same way that I have in the past and how I intend to in Siren Song. It was all about the audience, small and intimate. We saw the processes of performance...laid bare, laid open and questioned...normally I would have said that it was performance art but some of the processes of theatre making were specifically part of the make up of the work and were the objects of performance.
Oh, I am well tired now and need my bed
Tuesday, 10 April 2007
Reflective practitioner: Vex and Siren Song
These artistic aims were discussed and set down in 1995, when VEX was first founded by my partner, Nigel Tuttle and myself. They are the principles that underpin all of the artistic activity that the group undertakes. I want to discuss and consider those policies in relation to my research concerns and Siren Song in 3 Parts.
Vertical Exchange is not interested in operating within the codes and conventions of drama per se but instead the group is concerned with bringing the ‘mundane’ and ‘everyday’ practices into a performative arena in order to explore themes, issues and topics that interest the group but that we hope will also have wider significance and interest. I am interested in looking at domesticity, the female body, fetishized female images, tasks, social rituals and the notion of the party-public and private space. Nigel is interested in mythology, organised religion and their rituals and narrative structures.
VEX operates and develops ‘postdramatic’ and ‘non-literary’ performances strategies. This is significant for my research because if the contract between the performers and audience is to be shifted, then as I have previously suggested, the Cartesian relationships and divides of the theatre and more specifically the modern drama cannot accommodate the exploding of the liminal space that this shift appears to require. By employing pomo, postdramatic and performance based techniques the contract, the relationship between work – performer – audience can be re-imagined.
In this way, Siren Song, as well as being the PaR activity of my PhD, is also the next step in VEX’s experiments with form and function. The artistic aims and research aims have to be one and the same, the objective for the practice to be understood as research means that the objective of both elements has to be singular. That is not to say that each and every decision taken along the way during the making of Siren song will be exercised and conceptualised, such as decisions on the colour of the paint for the boxes, however, all of those decisions will be made with the intention of fulfilling the master creative and research objectives.
My research is concerned with participatory performance and finding ways of understanding what it means to be participatory and how this affects the role of the audience. From my research to date, and the performative experiments that I have undertaken through VEX, I have started to outline what I understand to be the varying degrees of collaboration and participation. These are only provisional but serve as a useful starting point for both the practice and more traditional research activity.
The Basic Thesis
I believe that all Western theatrical audiences are collaborative and that this understanding of that position is essential in order to designate an event as theatre. I believe that theatre requires the audience to take up this role in order to fulfil its aesthetic, social and cultural function. It is the audience’s role as collaborator that marks out theatre from the other visual art disciplines such as film, television and art.
I believe that the commonly used terms to discuss and conceptualise the audience like reader and spectator are deeply problematic and do not account for the phenomenological experience specific to and that make up the theatrical event. These widely used terms do not full account for the phenomenon of presence and liveness that is manifest at any theatrical event.
I believe that certain Western contemporary theatrical practices which could be understood as participatory explode the liminal space and create a democratic space, where performers and audience exist in the same role; the performer/audience divide is eliminated and both exist in this democratic space as creators. This new space blurs the traditional separation of the roles of performer and audience to create a new space and demands the re-thinking of those roles and their wider theoretical and aesthetic implications.
Consuming Collaborator
In most mainstream theatre, I believe that the audience can be understood as a consuming collaborator. The audiences’ presence is required in order to make up the theatrical event. The audience does not read at the theatrical event, they experience it; they are phenomenological embedded into the very make up of the theatrical event. Placing the audience in the role of reader or spectator implies a certain level of objectivity that I want to suggest is problematic when one is implicated in the event at such a fundamental level. The audience is an essential ingredient for theatre to be manifest as such and thus it is difficult to then suggest that they can step aside and repress or deny their phenomenological involvement.
Although they are an element that makes up the theatrical event, they have no control or creative input into the artistic element of the event. They have no creative control and their presence, material and cerebral, does not fundamentally affect the artistic intentions or output. They collaborate in the event as consumers of the artistic activity of performers/practitioners/directors/artists. They are collaborators at the event but not in the creative processes that happen before the event. The role of consuming collaborator is not a passive one; the act of consuming requires activity and choice, the audience do not simply receive the event.
The audience is part of the event and makes choices during that event that affects their experience of that event. During the theatre event, even the most Cartesian, the audience has a plenitude of choices on offer; however, these choices do not directly affect the actual work itself. There is still a separation that exists, marking the difference between creator and audience. The consuming collaborator completes the meaning but they do not create it. The performers offer up the work and the audience choose how and what they experience and ultimately what that experience means to them. The audience takes part in the event and collaborate in bringing it into being but they have no control over the event that they are completing. The audience is given a false position of power; they are implicated in bringing the theatre event into being but cannot share in the responsibility for it fully as they have no real power over their relationship with the creative work itself.
Participatory Theatre
Participatory theatre is manifest when the audience/Performer divide is crossed or breeched in some way. It is when the liminal space is problematised and destabilised by a change in the audiences’ role of consuming collaborator. It can be understood as a theatrical event where the audience is asked to step across the liminal space and partake in the event in such a way that they are involved in the event in a way that their presence takes on a role which requires them to do more than make up the theatrical event. Participation is when the audience is required to become involved with either/or the construction/presentation of the work itself. Participation in this way does not automatically imply that the audience is granted creatorly powers or even performer status, there are different types of participation and each has its own implications on the audience’s role.
Creatorly Participants
In much contemporary work, some of which might be understood to fall within the category of Postdramatic, the audience is required to shift their role from consuming collaborator to that of a creatorly participant (although the audience is always a collaborator at the level by which they are necessary to complete the theatrical event). In much contemporary Western work since the early nineteen eighties, (Forced Entertainment, Lone Twin, Imitating the Dog etc), the audience is not required to actually participate on a material level, they often remain seated in the usual Cartesian stage/auditorium divide, however, they are required to participate cerebrally. They are required to take a more fundamental role in the construction of the work than that of the consuming collaborator. Rather than simply applying choice in their relationship to the work, they are required to participate in the construction of the work. Some of the creative responsibility is passed over to the audience, not only do they have to complete the meaning of the event but they also have the responsibility of making it. The work leaves holes, gaps and spaces that the audience are invited to fill; they have to construct and complete the work, which is not offered to them as a whole. The audience has to cross the liminal space cerebrally and creatively contribute to the work. They are responsible for mediating their own relationship to the fragments on offer and enact their own creative involvement with what is partially offered.
This type of work problematises the audience/performer divide and implicates the audience at the production level; it opens the door to the creative processes of the event that usually hidden and out of bounds to the audience. They are given more control of their relationship with the work and thus more control over the experience that they are part of. The role of creatorly participation, as with the role of consuming collaborator does not impact on the material event itself or the material experience of others; it is private and personal participation.
Although this type of work highlights its creative processes, devolving some of the creative responsibility to the audience, it does not fully relinquish the relationships that it lays bare. It challenges the traditional divides and relationships that they produce from within those devices themselves; this type of work never fully breaks free from that which it seeks to challenge. This in turn means that the audience never fully break away from their traditional role either. This work never fully democratises the audience but tantalisingly reveals the possibility for a radical shift in the audience’s role. It reveals the possibility of exploding liminal space and hints at the possibility for empowering the audience as equal creative forces putting them in the same role as the performer.
Active Material Collaborator
Physical participation does not necessarily infer that the audience had been given any creative responsibility. In theatrical events such as the Pantomime and Cabaret, I want to suggest that the audience’s role is fundamentally similar to that of the consuming collaborator. Although the active material collaborator affects the material experience of the audience and the ‘presentation’ of the creative work, I want to suggest that typically they have no creative control or input. I further want to suggest that this type of participation is built into the work and is used as a dramaturgical device and is as much a part of the mis-en-scene as the lighting and set. The audience participation is used to complete the manifestation of the work not to generate or create it. The audience have the choice whether or not to be involved in the action but they have no freedom to participate in the creative processes as by this stage it is already complete. This type of participation draws attention to the processes of looking and the audience/performer relationship but makes not steps towards altering or undermining it, if any thing this level of participation strengthens the separation.
Material Creatorly Participant
I want to suggest that in some particular new and experimental work, the audience is being asked to partake in the theatrical event at the fundamental level of creative production and that I believe that this work poses radical implications for the role of the audience in Western contemporary theatre. In this new work, the work itself is not manifest as such until the audiences’ participation has occurred. The audience are required to generate the work. The work is not partial in the way that much of Forced Entertainment work is but it is actually non-existent until the actually event when both audience and performer work together to create it. The audience’s participation directly generates the work and thus also directly affects the other audience members material experience of the work that they are creating. In such work, it is no longer a private participation but a public and ensemble affair.
This level of participation completely explodes the liminal space and creates a new space that is democratises; a creative coalescent tract replaces liminal space. The audience become responsible for all aspects of the theatrical event and share this responsibility with the performers. In such work, their role is no longer fixed but fluid and dynamic both audience and performers shifting between roles in a constant, negotiated flux. The audience becomes a material creatorly participatory force and it becomes difficult to separate out the traditional roles of the theatrical event. The audience no longer consumes but creates.
VEX’s work to date, falls within the category of putting its audience ion the role of the ‘creatorly participant’ and to some extent we have also made attempts to place the audience in the role of the ‘material creatorly participant’. Our artistic policy clearly articulates a desire to achieve the latter of the two. My research also aims to locate and explicate the audience in the role of the ‘material creatorly participant’. So it is clear that my artistic and scholarly objectives are one and the same.
Thus I am going to need to develop performance strategies that seek to locate the audience in the role of creatorly participant. I intend to do this by:
-Looking at my past projects and experiments with VEX, to seek out elements that have been successful on previous occasions at locating the audience in the role.
-Looking at the work of other practitioners within this arena of performance to identify and explicate effective strategies and devices that they apply to their participatory work.
-Use a lab style work shop rehearsal structure to devise and explore participatory strategies.
-Through scholarly activity, reading, attending conferences, presenting research to my peers and the wider academic community to gain feedback and perspective on the work, as well as attending talks, lectures and seminars.
Working in this way and as part of a research project, places just as much importance on the process as it does on the final product.
Part One: undressing-dressing down
I want to expose all of the mechanics of the process, so costume changes, scene changes and everything else will be done in the full view of the audience, nothing hidden. I want the space to start empty and the performers to set up the space as part of the mis en scene itself. I think that this will be a useful strategy of puncturing the illusion right from the start and will set up the space and relationship with the audience right from the word go. It will force the audience to consider their gaze, the construction of narrative, illusion and performance space and in turn will I hope, make them think about their role as the audience. I do not really know yet exactly how the undressing and dressing will take place, or the inscriptions but I do know what the aim for this section of the work is; that is to introduce and set up for the audience the themes, topics and issues that we want to discuss and explore with them. Unlike in Playback theatre, I do not want the audience’s participation to be haphazard and random, instead I want to engage them in a very distinct and particular discussion- the idea of woman and trauma, woman and body. I want this section to set up the contract, the presentational style and the theme of the piece. I am hoping it will give the performers a chance to really develop their performance personas in relation to the themes. It is an easing in of the audience to the idea of collaboration and participation.
Part Two-telling tales-telling it like it is.
This section is where the audience are first asked to participate in a creatorly fashion. Once we have set down the themes, we will open up the floor to allow them to come and devise with us, to play with us and to share their ideas and thoughts with us. I am not really too sure yet on exactly how this will take place, this is something that we need to explore in the devising process. I do not want to pressure the audience or force their hand; I want to offer them a well marshalled and comfortable environment in which to take up their creative role. It is all about choice, games and play. I am hoping that by setting up the themes, issues and an aesthetic in part one; we will set up the conditions under which the audience can participate. I think there is a strange freedom and comfort in rules. My hope is that the first section will put the audience in the right frame of mind to be creative and mindful of the subject matter and thus inspire them to want to participate.
Part Three-Playing-with you
This final section is another opportunity for the audience to participate, to make choices, to play with us. It is a gift to them for playing with us and a thank you for their ideas. We will be saying, ‘hey, thanks for that…here are some ideas that we have had too…do you wanna see them?’.
Everything that we will devise is done in order to attempt to put the audience in the role of the creatorly participant. I really need to have a think about the ways in which I might be able to record and document those experiences
Vertical Exchange is not interested in operating within the codes and conventions of drama per se but instead the group is concerned with bringing the ‘mundane’ and ‘everyday’ practices into a performative arena in order to explore themes, issues and topics that interest the group but that we hope will also have wider significance and interest. I am interested in looking at domesticity, the female body, fetishized female images, tasks, social rituals and the notion of the party-public and private space. Nigel is interested in mythology, organised religion and their rituals and narrative structures.
VEX operates and develops ‘postdramatic’ and ‘non-literary’ performances strategies. This is significant for my research because if the contract between the performers and audience is to be shifted, then as I have previously suggested, the Cartesian relationships and divides of the theatre and more specifically the modern drama cannot accommodate the exploding of the liminal space that this shift appears to require. By employing pomo, postdramatic and performance based techniques the contract, the relationship between work – performer – audience can be re-imagined.
In this way, Siren Song, as well as being the PaR activity of my PhD, is also the next step in VEX’s experiments with form and function. The artistic aims and research aims have to be one and the same, the objective for the practice to be understood as research means that the objective of both elements has to be singular. That is not to say that each and every decision taken along the way during the making of Siren song will be exercised and conceptualised, such as decisions on the colour of the paint for the boxes, however, all of those decisions will be made with the intention of fulfilling the master creative and research objectives.
My research is concerned with participatory performance and finding ways of understanding what it means to be participatory and how this affects the role of the audience. From my research to date, and the performative experiments that I have undertaken through VEX, I have started to outline what I understand to be the varying degrees of collaboration and participation. These are only provisional but serve as a useful starting point for both the practice and more traditional research activity.
The Basic Thesis
I believe that all Western theatrical audiences are collaborative and that this understanding of that position is essential in order to designate an event as theatre. I believe that theatre requires the audience to take up this role in order to fulfil its aesthetic, social and cultural function. It is the audience’s role as collaborator that marks out theatre from the other visual art disciplines such as film, television and art.
I believe that the commonly used terms to discuss and conceptualise the audience like reader and spectator are deeply problematic and do not account for the phenomenological experience specific to and that make up the theatrical event. These widely used terms do not full account for the phenomenon of presence and liveness that is manifest at any theatrical event.
I believe that certain Western contemporary theatrical practices which could be understood as participatory explode the liminal space and create a democratic space, where performers and audience exist in the same role; the performer/audience divide is eliminated and both exist in this democratic space as creators. This new space blurs the traditional separation of the roles of performer and audience to create a new space and demands the re-thinking of those roles and their wider theoretical and aesthetic implications.
Consuming Collaborator
In most mainstream theatre, I believe that the audience can be understood as a consuming collaborator. The audiences’ presence is required in order to make up the theatrical event. The audience does not read at the theatrical event, they experience it; they are phenomenological embedded into the very make up of the theatrical event. Placing the audience in the role of reader or spectator implies a certain level of objectivity that I want to suggest is problematic when one is implicated in the event at such a fundamental level. The audience is an essential ingredient for theatre to be manifest as such and thus it is difficult to then suggest that they can step aside and repress or deny their phenomenological involvement.
Although they are an element that makes up the theatrical event, they have no control or creative input into the artistic element of the event. They have no creative control and their presence, material and cerebral, does not fundamentally affect the artistic intentions or output. They collaborate in the event as consumers of the artistic activity of performers/practitioners/directors/artists. They are collaborators at the event but not in the creative processes that happen before the event. The role of consuming collaborator is not a passive one; the act of consuming requires activity and choice, the audience do not simply receive the event.
The audience is part of the event and makes choices during that event that affects their experience of that event. During the theatre event, even the most Cartesian, the audience has a plenitude of choices on offer; however, these choices do not directly affect the actual work itself. There is still a separation that exists, marking the difference between creator and audience. The consuming collaborator completes the meaning but they do not create it. The performers offer up the work and the audience choose how and what they experience and ultimately what that experience means to them. The audience takes part in the event and collaborate in bringing it into being but they have no control over the event that they are completing. The audience is given a false position of power; they are implicated in bringing the theatre event into being but cannot share in the responsibility for it fully as they have no real power over their relationship with the creative work itself.
Participatory Theatre
Participatory theatre is manifest when the audience/Performer divide is crossed or breeched in some way. It is when the liminal space is problematised and destabilised by a change in the audiences’ role of consuming collaborator. It can be understood as a theatrical event where the audience is asked to step across the liminal space and partake in the event in such a way that they are involved in the event in a way that their presence takes on a role which requires them to do more than make up the theatrical event. Participation is when the audience is required to become involved with either/or the construction/presentation of the work itself. Participation in this way does not automatically imply that the audience is granted creatorly powers or even performer status, there are different types of participation and each has its own implications on the audience’s role.
Creatorly Participants
In much contemporary work, some of which might be understood to fall within the category of Postdramatic, the audience is required to shift their role from consuming collaborator to that of a creatorly participant (although the audience is always a collaborator at the level by which they are necessary to complete the theatrical event). In much contemporary Western work since the early nineteen eighties, (Forced Entertainment, Lone Twin, Imitating the Dog etc), the audience is not required to actually participate on a material level, they often remain seated in the usual Cartesian stage/auditorium divide, however, they are required to participate cerebrally. They are required to take a more fundamental role in the construction of the work than that of the consuming collaborator. Rather than simply applying choice in their relationship to the work, they are required to participate in the construction of the work. Some of the creative responsibility is passed over to the audience, not only do they have to complete the meaning of the event but they also have the responsibility of making it. The work leaves holes, gaps and spaces that the audience are invited to fill; they have to construct and complete the work, which is not offered to them as a whole. The audience has to cross the liminal space cerebrally and creatively contribute to the work. They are responsible for mediating their own relationship to the fragments on offer and enact their own creative involvement with what is partially offered.
This type of work problematises the audience/performer divide and implicates the audience at the production level; it opens the door to the creative processes of the event that usually hidden and out of bounds to the audience. They are given more control of their relationship with the work and thus more control over the experience that they are part of. The role of creatorly participation, as with the role of consuming collaborator does not impact on the material event itself or the material experience of others; it is private and personal participation.
Although this type of work highlights its creative processes, devolving some of the creative responsibility to the audience, it does not fully relinquish the relationships that it lays bare. It challenges the traditional divides and relationships that they produce from within those devices themselves; this type of work never fully breaks free from that which it seeks to challenge. This in turn means that the audience never fully break away from their traditional role either. This work never fully democratises the audience but tantalisingly reveals the possibility for a radical shift in the audience’s role. It reveals the possibility of exploding liminal space and hints at the possibility for empowering the audience as equal creative forces putting them in the same role as the performer.
Active Material Collaborator
Physical participation does not necessarily infer that the audience had been given any creative responsibility. In theatrical events such as the Pantomime and Cabaret, I want to suggest that the audience’s role is fundamentally similar to that of the consuming collaborator. Although the active material collaborator affects the material experience of the audience and the ‘presentation’ of the creative work, I want to suggest that typically they have no creative control or input. I further want to suggest that this type of participation is built into the work and is used as a dramaturgical device and is as much a part of the mis-en-scene as the lighting and set. The audience participation is used to complete the manifestation of the work not to generate or create it. The audience have the choice whether or not to be involved in the action but they have no freedom to participate in the creative processes as by this stage it is already complete. This type of participation draws attention to the processes of looking and the audience/performer relationship but makes not steps towards altering or undermining it, if any thing this level of participation strengthens the separation.
Material Creatorly Participant
I want to suggest that in some particular new and experimental work, the audience is being asked to partake in the theatrical event at the fundamental level of creative production and that I believe that this work poses radical implications for the role of the audience in Western contemporary theatre. In this new work, the work itself is not manifest as such until the audiences’ participation has occurred. The audience are required to generate the work. The work is not partial in the way that much of Forced Entertainment work is but it is actually non-existent until the actually event when both audience and performer work together to create it. The audience’s participation directly generates the work and thus also directly affects the other audience members material experience of the work that they are creating. In such work, it is no longer a private participation but a public and ensemble affair.
This level of participation completely explodes the liminal space and creates a new space that is democratises; a creative coalescent tract replaces liminal space. The audience become responsible for all aspects of the theatrical event and share this responsibility with the performers. In such work, their role is no longer fixed but fluid and dynamic both audience and performers shifting between roles in a constant, negotiated flux. The audience becomes a material creatorly participatory force and it becomes difficult to separate out the traditional roles of the theatrical event. The audience no longer consumes but creates.
VEX’s work to date, falls within the category of putting its audience ion the role of the ‘creatorly participant’ and to some extent we have also made attempts to place the audience in the role of the ‘material creatorly participant’. Our artistic policy clearly articulates a desire to achieve the latter of the two. My research also aims to locate and explicate the audience in the role of the ‘material creatorly participant’. So it is clear that my artistic and scholarly objectives are one and the same.
Thus I am going to need to develop performance strategies that seek to locate the audience in the role of creatorly participant. I intend to do this by:
-Looking at my past projects and experiments with VEX, to seek out elements that have been successful on previous occasions at locating the audience in the role.
-Looking at the work of other practitioners within this arena of performance to identify and explicate effective strategies and devices that they apply to their participatory work.
-Use a lab style work shop rehearsal structure to devise and explore participatory strategies.
-Through scholarly activity, reading, attending conferences, presenting research to my peers and the wider academic community to gain feedback and perspective on the work, as well as attending talks, lectures and seminars.
Working in this way and as part of a research project, places just as much importance on the process as it does on the final product.
Part One: undressing-dressing down
I want to expose all of the mechanics of the process, so costume changes, scene changes and everything else will be done in the full view of the audience, nothing hidden. I want the space to start empty and the performers to set up the space as part of the mis en scene itself. I think that this will be a useful strategy of puncturing the illusion right from the start and will set up the space and relationship with the audience right from the word go. It will force the audience to consider their gaze, the construction of narrative, illusion and performance space and in turn will I hope, make them think about their role as the audience. I do not really know yet exactly how the undressing and dressing will take place, or the inscriptions but I do know what the aim for this section of the work is; that is to introduce and set up for the audience the themes, topics and issues that we want to discuss and explore with them. Unlike in Playback theatre, I do not want the audience’s participation to be haphazard and random, instead I want to engage them in a very distinct and particular discussion- the idea of woman and trauma, woman and body. I want this section to set up the contract, the presentational style and the theme of the piece. I am hoping it will give the performers a chance to really develop their performance personas in relation to the themes. It is an easing in of the audience to the idea of collaboration and participation.
Part Two-telling tales-telling it like it is.
This section is where the audience are first asked to participate in a creatorly fashion. Once we have set down the themes, we will open up the floor to allow them to come and devise with us, to play with us and to share their ideas and thoughts with us. I am not really too sure yet on exactly how this will take place, this is something that we need to explore in the devising process. I do not want to pressure the audience or force their hand; I want to offer them a well marshalled and comfortable environment in which to take up their creative role. It is all about choice, games and play. I am hoping that by setting up the themes, issues and an aesthetic in part one; we will set up the conditions under which the audience can participate. I think there is a strange freedom and comfort in rules. My hope is that the first section will put the audience in the right frame of mind to be creative and mindful of the subject matter and thus inspire them to want to participate.
Part Three-Playing-with you
This final section is another opportunity for the audience to participate, to make choices, to play with us. It is a gift to them for playing with us and a thank you for their ideas. We will be saying, ‘hey, thanks for that…here are some ideas that we have had too…do you wanna see them?’.
Everything that we will devise is done in order to attempt to put the audience in the role of the creatorly participant. I really need to have a think about the ways in which I might be able to record and document those experiences
Makers Diary: Siren Song Outline
This is work I have done on the outline of the piece itself...
SIREN SONG..In 3 Parts
SYNOPSIS
Siren Song, is a devised theatre project that seeks to explore the concepts of woman and trauma. It will examine the audience's experiences of what these concepts mean to and for them through a task-driven, participatory aesthetic. Blending some of the principles of Playback theatre and a postmodernist performance ethic to generate a unique and provocative theatre intervention. The performance will be entirely driven by tasks and games that will ensure a completely different performance and experience each time it is performed.
OUTLINE
Part One: Undressing-dressing down.
Soundscape 1 starts to play.
The 3 performers will enter with a costume rail and a wheelbarrow full of their props, (red high heel shoes, a small wooden model house, a pot of chalk & a portable stereo player).
They will layout the props.
They will introduce themselves.
They will all undress and hang their clothes on the costume rail, each performer will inscribe HER, SHE or HIM on their flesh with a kohl pencil.
Part Two: Telling Tales-like it is.
Soundscape 2 starts to play.
Performers will explain the task to the audience and hand out the chalk.
Performers will put the question to the audience.
Audience will be invited to respond and to inscribe their responses on the floor of the performance space.
The performers will respond to the audience's inscriptions by devising a scenario on the spot utilising the audience responses.
The audience will be invited to offer feedback and to make changes to the devised scenario-they will have the chance to choose the shoes, lighting, sound etc.
The scenario will be performed again by the performers adjusted according to the audience's feedback and choices.
Part Three: Playing- with you.
The performers will invite the audience to a game of musical chairs.
The performers will arrange the chairs according to the number of players and ask each audience member to take a number card, (there will be cards numbered from 1 through to 4).
The audience will pick the CD that they play the game to.
The winner of the game of musical chairs will be holding a number card. The numbers on the card correspond to 4 pre-prepared scenes or scenarios. The number on the card will identify which the scene the performers will present.
The performers will present the chosen scenario.
RUNNING TIME
This will be approx 1 hour and 30 minutes with a post-show discussion lasting approx 30 minutes. So the total running time will be: 2 Hours.
SIREN SONG..In 3 Parts
SYNOPSIS
Siren Song, is a devised theatre project that seeks to explore the concepts of woman and trauma. It will examine the audience's experiences of what these concepts mean to and for them through a task-driven, participatory aesthetic. Blending some of the principles of Playback theatre and a postmodernist performance ethic to generate a unique and provocative theatre intervention. The performance will be entirely driven by tasks and games that will ensure a completely different performance and experience each time it is performed.
OUTLINE
Part One: Undressing-dressing down.
Soundscape 1 starts to play.
The 3 performers will enter with a costume rail and a wheelbarrow full of their props, (red high heel shoes, a small wooden model house, a pot of chalk & a portable stereo player).
They will layout the props.
They will introduce themselves.
They will all undress and hang their clothes on the costume rail, each performer will inscribe HER, SHE or HIM on their flesh with a kohl pencil.
Part Two: Telling Tales-like it is.
Soundscape 2 starts to play.
Performers will explain the task to the audience and hand out the chalk.
Performers will put the question to the audience.
Audience will be invited to respond and to inscribe their responses on the floor of the performance space.
The performers will respond to the audience's inscriptions by devising a scenario on the spot utilising the audience responses.
The audience will be invited to offer feedback and to make changes to the devised scenario-they will have the chance to choose the shoes, lighting, sound etc.
The scenario will be performed again by the performers adjusted according to the audience's feedback and choices.
Part Three: Playing- with you.
The performers will invite the audience to a game of musical chairs.
The performers will arrange the chairs according to the number of players and ask each audience member to take a number card, (there will be cards numbered from 1 through to 4).
The audience will pick the CD that they play the game to.
The winner of the game of musical chairs will be holding a number card. The numbers on the card correspond to 4 pre-prepared scenes or scenarios. The number on the card will identify which the scene the performers will present.
The performers will present the chosen scenario.
RUNNING TIME
This will be approx 1 hour and 30 minutes with a post-show discussion lasting approx 30 minutes. So the total running time will be: 2 Hours.
Makers Diary: About VEX
This is the work i have done for groundworks about the company. I will also be able to use some of it for the programme...marketing etc.
Vertical Exchange Performance Group
Devising as a way of life
The Company
Vertical Exchange was founded by Joanna Bucknall BA MA and Nigel Tuttle in 2005. Joanna is the Performance Artistic Director of the performance group; she has a background in theatre performance and drama and is responsible for the performative aspects of the company. Nigel is the Media Artistic Director; he has a background in video production and is responsible for the video and media aspects of the company. Joanna and Nigel collaborate to produce a range of different projects, from installations to devised theatre works. Joanna and Nigel are the only permanent members of VEX and they work with a range of performers, artists and creative practitioners for each project that they undertake.
Some of the Usual Suspects
Joe Harris is a frequent collaborator and has been involved with sound production and design for several VEX projects. He has a background in video and music production and is currently studying an undergraduate degree at Anglian Ruskin University.
Lorraine Bucknall is a frequent collaborator and has been involved with costume design and production for all of the VEX projects to date. Lorraine has a background as a seamstress and make-up artist but she also has extensive experience and qualifications in various craft disciplines.
Artistic Policy
We make work that aims to explore the contemporary experience and all the intricate moments that our lives present. Our aim is to create art works that are challenging and engaging, that manifest as cultural interventions and ask poignant questions about our lives and existence. We are committed to exercising difficult questions through art in provocative ways, pushing the boundaries of performance both aesthetically and culturally.
VEX is committed to a collaborative practice in both the way we make the work and the ways in which the work is encountered by the audience. Our aim is to produce performance work that involves its audiences at a fundamental level. By employing experimental and compelling performance devices we hope to offer the audience a truly participatory experience. Our works seek to explode the liminal space and offer our audiences the role of creative participant.
Our working practice is collaborative and we like to involve practitioners from a plethora of other fields and disciplines. This, we believe, gives us the freedom to follow lots of performative forms and ensures that new and fresh ideas are always being brought to the creative table.
Past Projects
THEATRE
Attempts on Her Life
VEX collaborated with Whizz Kids Theatre Academy to mount a production of Attempts on Her Life by Martin Crimp, for the Welwyn Garden City Youth Drama Festival 2004. It was performed at the Barn Theatre on 19/5/04. We were placed third in the competition.
Benches
Was written and directed by Joanna Bucknall and mounted as a live event in collaboration with Whizz Kids Theatre Academy & Jonathan Harris. It was performed as part of the Urban Tales Festival in 2004. It ran over 3 nights at the Balcony Theatre, Cambridge from the 6/12/04-8/12/04.
The Woman Who Swallowed the Moon
Was a devised, task and text driven piece of experimental theatre developed and directed by Joanna Bucknall in conjunction with the Whizz Kids Theatre Academy for the for the Welwyn Garden City Youth Drama Festival 2005. It was performed at the Barn Theatre on 17/5/05. The judge refused to consider our submission, as she asserted that it was not theatre; even though we had abided by all of the rules and regulations that inform the festival. Hence, we were not placed. It was later performed at the Balcony Theatre on the 19/5/05.
With You in Mind
Was VEX'S first independent theatre project. It was a site specific performance installation based around tasks and games. It was devised by Caila Carr, Harriet Keevil, Mark Finbow and Vicky Trower. The concept and direction was designed by Joanna Bucknall and the sound production was designed and recorded by Nigel Tuttle. Texts were written by Joanna and Nigel. It was performed at the Barbican, Plymouth as part of their THEATRE2DO Festival on 15/07/05 in the toilets of the theatre.
FILM
To Some Bodies Whoever
Was written by Joanna, shot, directed and edited by Nigel in 2005. It is an experimental short film that takes inspiration from film noir and the dogmatic mode of film-making.
Bargain
Is currently in the pre-production stages and is scheduled to be shot late June 07.
Vertical Exchange Performance Group
Devising as a way of life
The Company
Vertical Exchange was founded by Joanna Bucknall BA MA and Nigel Tuttle in 2005. Joanna is the Performance Artistic Director of the performance group; she has a background in theatre performance and drama and is responsible for the performative aspects of the company. Nigel is the Media Artistic Director; he has a background in video production and is responsible for the video and media aspects of the company. Joanna and Nigel collaborate to produce a range of different projects, from installations to devised theatre works. Joanna and Nigel are the only permanent members of VEX and they work with a range of performers, artists and creative practitioners for each project that they undertake.
Some of the Usual Suspects
Joe Harris is a frequent collaborator and has been involved with sound production and design for several VEX projects. He has a background in video and music production and is currently studying an undergraduate degree at Anglian Ruskin University.
Lorraine Bucknall is a frequent collaborator and has been involved with costume design and production for all of the VEX projects to date. Lorraine has a background as a seamstress and make-up artist but she also has extensive experience and qualifications in various craft disciplines.
Artistic Policy
We make work that aims to explore the contemporary experience and all the intricate moments that our lives present. Our aim is to create art works that are challenging and engaging, that manifest as cultural interventions and ask poignant questions about our lives and existence. We are committed to exercising difficult questions through art in provocative ways, pushing the boundaries of performance both aesthetically and culturally.
VEX is committed to a collaborative practice in both the way we make the work and the ways in which the work is encountered by the audience. Our aim is to produce performance work that involves its audiences at a fundamental level. By employing experimental and compelling performance devices we hope to offer the audience a truly participatory experience. Our works seek to explode the liminal space and offer our audiences the role of creative participant.
Our working practice is collaborative and we like to involve practitioners from a plethora of other fields and disciplines. This, we believe, gives us the freedom to follow lots of performative forms and ensures that new and fresh ideas are always being brought to the creative table.
Past Projects
THEATRE
Attempts on Her Life
VEX collaborated with Whizz Kids Theatre Academy to mount a production of Attempts on Her Life by Martin Crimp, for the Welwyn Garden City Youth Drama Festival 2004. It was performed at the Barn Theatre on 19/5/04. We were placed third in the competition.
Benches
Was written and directed by Joanna Bucknall and mounted as a live event in collaboration with Whizz Kids Theatre Academy & Jonathan Harris. It was performed as part of the Urban Tales Festival in 2004. It ran over 3 nights at the Balcony Theatre, Cambridge from the 6/12/04-8/12/04.
The Woman Who Swallowed the Moon
Was a devised, task and text driven piece of experimental theatre developed and directed by Joanna Bucknall in conjunction with the Whizz Kids Theatre Academy for the for the Welwyn Garden City Youth Drama Festival 2005. It was performed at the Barn Theatre on 17/5/05. The judge refused to consider our submission, as she asserted that it was not theatre; even though we had abided by all of the rules and regulations that inform the festival. Hence, we were not placed. It was later performed at the Balcony Theatre on the 19/5/05.
With You in Mind
Was VEX'S first independent theatre project. It was a site specific performance installation based around tasks and games. It was devised by Caila Carr, Harriet Keevil, Mark Finbow and Vicky Trower. The concept and direction was designed by Joanna Bucknall and the sound production was designed and recorded by Nigel Tuttle. Texts were written by Joanna and Nigel. It was performed at the Barbican, Plymouth as part of their THEATRE2DO Festival on 15/07/05 in the toilets of the theatre.
FILM
To Some Bodies Whoever
Was written by Joanna, shot, directed and edited by Nigel in 2005. It is an experimental short film that takes inspiration from film noir and the dogmatic mode of film-making.
Bargain
Is currently in the pre-production stages and is scheduled to be shot late June 07.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
