In Govan’s Routes and Roots, Dudley Cocke describes how the Roadside Company engages their audience by “sharing and celebrating local music, and narratives of place often provided the starting point for devising a performance” (Govan, 2007, 137) and how this successfully engages “local audiences in performance-making” (Govan, 2007, 137). Therefore, by giving the audience something they can relate to and understand ultimately allows them to feel comfortable and more willing to participate in the performance. This is something important to think about when developing our own pieces of site specific performance.

Another important aspect to consider when approaching site specific performance is the historical background of a place. To fully understand the place in contemporary life, we need to research the historical aspects of the place. Marvin Carlson theorises that “places of public performance […] are marked by the traces of their other purposes and haunted by the ghosts of those who have used them in the past” (Govan, 2007, 139). By discovering the original ‘roots’ of a place, we are able to imagine the place as it once stood and in doing so, we have the advantage of re-creating or re-experiencing the past and merging it with the present. Pearson and Shanks elaborate on Carson’s theory with their own notion of “the host and the ghost” (Govan, 2007, 139) which they describe as “a negotiation between the contemporary and the historical in which ‘no single story is being told’”. (Govan, 2007, 139). Pearson and Shanks emphasise the importance of the past in relation to the present and how we go about performance-making with this in mind. This suggests that residual energy lies within each space and it is this same energy that gives the space meaning. For instance, a battlefield before the battle would have merely been a field.

Govan, (2007). Between Routes and Roots. Performance, Place and Diaspora. 136-143.

The world is formed and created through the changing of its surroundings over time. As well as the events that spark that inevitable change.How has technology formed the spaces around us? When walking down the Brayford waterfront I found myself trying to picture a street with no lights. What would happen if you took away the simplest form of technology from a busy plaza? How would this effect the surrounding businesses and the use of this walkway? This simple change would effect everything from normal working hours to the type of activity on the waterfront at night time. So with this is mind, the group began exploring the idea of showing a timeline of the Brayford waterfront through the involvement of technology over time. Originally, paintings were one of the only documentations of the image of an area, but today we take pictures on personal devices that we can access any time. In truth we carry around a documented trail of our life and never truly leave a place in the past as a memory, instead it is always present and part of daily life. The history of technology is documented in every form, starting with paintings and drawings, moving onto photographs in different quality’s, styles and colours and this gives us a trail to discover. A map of an area to follow and see how adding a steam train changed the landscape, how adding a road formed the layout, how wooden cargo boats have now become narrow boats. All these advancements created the Brayford we know today and in the near future will keep advancing. So what future creations will change the place we know so well and leave our images rendered old and redundant? A memory to be added to an ever changing timeline.

Bibliography

http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/uploads/monthly_03_2013/post-6843-0-87859500-1363115738.jpg

http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/uploads/monthly_06_2014/post-14654-0-00573500-1402604712.jpg

After being given the brief during Monday’s session, I immediately knew what I wanted to experiment and explore for the three minute piece. This was St Peter’s passage. During my previous investigations throughout the city, this particular passage remained significant in my mind. The initial discovery of this alley was astonishing because many a time I walked past its location without ever noticing its presence. That was quite odd. However, the most peculiar aspect of this location was the irony surrounding it. The fact that it is a passage, a place which leads to another, named after St Peter, the Saint who holds the keys to heaven, implies that this is a metaphorical gateway to heaven. On the contrary, the passage itself is dark and moody, it is scattered with beer cans, cigarette ends and a ragged sleeping bag. This enormous contrast to what the name of the alley infers is eccentric. Therefore, we wished to focus on this irony and portray a story of a homeless man who lives within the passage. To do this, we filmed the location at night and recorded a monologue written by us. By placing this on YouTube, we could create a QR code to place at the entrance of the passage. The audience members would then access this and the story would unveil before them, without them actually having to ascend down the alley (primarily for safety reasons). We believed that this would be atmospheric and create an experience in which the audience would associate the passage with the next time they walked past it. We also incorporated the notion of pervasive media within this video. Gaining influence from the play ‘I Wish I Was Lonely’ (Walker and Thorpe, 2015), we used the monologue to criticise society and how people are controlled by a phone instead of noticing their true surroundings, most notably that of ignoring homeless people and forming opinions of places which look dreary.

Bibliography

Walker, H. J. and Thorpe, C. (2015) I Wish I Was Lonely. [performance] Hannah Jane Walker and Chris Thorpe (dir.) Lincoln: Lincoln Performing Arts Centre, 11 February.

Advances in technology, particularly in mobile phones, has given society an unlimited access to pervasive media. The show I Wish I Was Lonely(Walker and Thorpe, 2015) reflected upon the many ways we now rely upon our mobile phones in our everyday lives. Although there are positive aspects to this new commitment such as the ability to remain in instant contact with our loved ones who may be miles away, there are also many negative repercussions. One quote from the performance I found particularly poignant was “I wish I missed you but you’re here in my pocket”(ibid). The idea that contemporary relationships actually suffer because of this instant communication had never even crossed my mind. We are now impatient to hear back from friends and anger when it takes them longer than ten minutes to reply to a text. This thought was merely emphasized when the performers posed the audience with a question “If I said I was going to smash your phone, would you leave?” (ibid). A rush of panic immediately crossed my mind having remembered that my phone case was broken and was still awaiting the delivery of its replacement, what would I do if it broke in that short length of time? Looking back I feel that my own panic was mirrored in the faces of other audience members, followed by a collected sigh of relief when the performers assured us that our phones were safe.

The post show discussion was particularly helpful in looking at the ratio between the number of performers and audience members. This will be one thing that is important to consider for my own site specific performance as too many performers could overwhelm an audience. Also the idea that when interacting with members of the public it is useful to decide on certain rules in order to ensure that we do not become a nuisance, especially as it is likely we will be inviting members of the public in from the street without any previous contact in our own performance.

Walker, H.J. and Thorpe, C. (2015) I Wish I Was Lonely [performance] Lincoln: Lincoln Performing Arts Centre, 11 February.

‘I wish I was Lonely’ performance explored the ways in which we our consumed in technology. Technology is depicted as a controlling force which determines the way we live our lives to a certain extent. They gave an example of what it really means to ‘miss’ someone. They raised questions and in turn our own questions were raised. How can we really miss someone if we are in constant contact with them through technology? Phone calls, texts, social media, skype, facetime. All these things constitute in keeping us constantly connected with one another. The performers emphasised the fact that before technology advanced, we were able to genuinely understand the concept of ‘missing’ someone. In my day and age, we can never really feel that depth of missing someone, because we have never or can ever experience that lack of contact.

The performers also explored the ways in which technology can connect us for the better. For example, the story of Sam was very compelling because it engaged the audience on a personal level. We tend to take fore-granted the fact that we have the power to call anyone we want, anytime we want and the Sam story emphasises the importance of the phone call as a way to connect. In this case, the matter of “just hearing a voice” (Thorpe and Walker, 2015) was the most important thing to Sam and this connection ultimately saved his life.

The performers involved the audience to the extent that the audience themselves were the performers. We were asked to keep our phones on and to answer any call we received. Dialogue between the performers would be interrupted and we were encouraged to answer the calls and act normal in order to have an authentic conversation. The performers described the advantages and disadvantages of this. They gave examples such as, the experience they had with a woman who had answered her phone and the audience and performers all believed that something terrible was happening, however this was not the case and this instant ended up being a very comical aspect of the performance.

The performers informed us of the difficulties of interacting and including the audience members. They emphasised the importance of creating “a way out” (Thorpe and Walker, 2015) for audience members who were unwilling or unconfident in participating. The performers also informed us that the key aspect of audience interaction is to avoid making the audience members feel uncomfortable by “respecting their decisions” (Thorpe and Walker, 2015). The advice they gave to us will certainly help me when it comes to thinking about audience interaction for my final site specific performance.

Walker, H. J. and Thorpe, C. (2015) I Wish I Was Lonely. [performance] Hannah Jane Walker and Chris Thorpe (dir.) Lincoln: Lincoln Performing Arts Centre, 11 February.