Month: November 2013

Performance Ideas.

Our performance has changed so many times, discussing whether we wanted it to be purely focused audience and their experiences, thoughts and reactions on vulerability and exposure, or did we want to do it so it was more personal to us as a group. We tried different experiments to aid our performance and to somehow help us in what direction we wanted to go in. One of the elements of our performance that we was sure on is that we wanted it to be durational.

One of the ideas we had for the performance was to exhibit our past experiments in one studio, but i felt it was was too performancy. I wanted something personal, breaking down barriers between the audience and performer but also breaking down personal barriers for myself.

The idea of the piece being durational and actually having something coutning down in the performance was to show the audience that something, whether it be big or small, but something will happen in the 2 hours we have in the space, and it is their own choice whether to stay throughout or go and come back. Edward Scheer states that “Duration often refers to the actual time that it takes to do things” (2012, pg. 1) i agree with this statement allthough, the time it takes us to get undressed in the space to make ourselves vulnerable can take a while. Additionally, Scheer also states “shaping of it to effect a particular experience for the viewer or the audience”( 21012, pg. 1) by making the performance durational also give the piece a chance to develop physically and emotionally the longer the performance will go on the more vulnerable we become as performers and spectators.

In relation to our performance we are hoping to have a projection of a countdown clock that will be counting down from roughly 2hours, which will give the performance a sense of movement and will tell the audience that something will happen in the space.

 

 

Scheer, Edward (2012)Introduction: The end of spatiality or the meaning of duration, Performance Research: A Journal of the Performing Arts, 17(5), pg.1-3.

Secrets

“I thought about how there are two types of secrets: the kind you want to keep in, and the kind you don’t dare to let out.”  – Ally Carter

Exploring the idea of vulnerability, I decided to conduct an experiment which would explore our mental vulnerability.

The experiment I wished to carry out consisted of me writing four of my secrets and stories that nobody knows onto paper, they would be face down so people could not see them, unless they wished to trade. I introduced my experiment as follows:

“Here I have four pieces of paper they have on them either a secret or a story, you can read one of your choice if you write on this paper a secret of your own. If you never tell mine I will never tell yours I will read it fold it and then shred it so it will remain a secret only we share. We draw straws if I pull the short straw you read my secret first, if you pull the  short straw then you will write me a secret first”

I would then hold out the straws until one of us had pulled the short straw, this instantly gauged a reaction, as there was the uncertainty of whoever’s secret was shared first there was the possibility they would not receive a secret in return. However everybody was fair and secrets were always exchanged. The following was said about my experiment:

‘I’ve never told anybody what I have just told you, I feel a lot better, it’s so weird we hardly no each other and you now no more about me than most’
‘I can’t believe i’m crying that really hit a nerve’
‘ I feel really wary that I have shared this, I won’t tell anyone what I’ve read please don’t tell anyone what I’ve wrote, I can’t believe I’ve just done that’

This made me realise how vulnerable and fragile people can be, I had the ability to provoke reactions from instances from my past, likewise they certainly got reactions from me. Not only did I feel vulnerable as people knew things about me I would never normally share, but suddenly I had thirty secrets I had been trusted to keep. I was trusted not to judge, not to comment, not to criticise and not to share.

Changing ideas and influences…

After each experiment, my concept about our final piece is evolving and changing. The one thing that remains constant is the notion of Vulnerability and Exposure and the portrayal of these within my piece. However the representations of these words are causing a grey area within the performance. Through this performance, i want to achieve much more using the human body than just the physicality of the form; i want to communicate the artist’s ideas and feelings through the canvas. The piece will create a mental and physical exploration of vulnerability, the physical element of the vulnerability will be shown through the live element of the performance.

The physical live element 

Through the Live element of the installation, I want to show the naked human body in all of our states of vulnerability, commenting upon individual vulnerabilities. Through the removal of clothes throughout the two hours i want to show  to the audience that the experience broke down the performer, therefore upon leaving we are still six women thrown together with many varying vulnerabilities. But most importantly after the piece we are still broken. One element that was discussed was the idea of de-objectifying the body, Judith Butler and Gender Trouble became key when discussing the role of gender within performance. Within the book it states that if the appearance of “being” a gender is an effect of culturally influenced acts, then there exists no solid, universal gender. Through the practice of performance, the gender “woman” (like the gender “man”) remains contingent and open to interpretation and “re-signification.” She calls for gender trouble, for people to trouble the categories of gender through performance. In essence within our performance, much like Judith Butler and Nick Green in Body Politics we want to use the body to create ourselves as subjects and not objects as Judith explains, “we, ‘women,’ must become subjects and not objects” (Butler, 1990, p. 48)

The pre-recorded element 

The prerecorded elements on the projection will highlight the mental side of vulnerability, the nuance of the film was used to help create an emotional connection, making the audience experience happiness and sadness within a short space of time. The projection will help to create an emotional connection between audience and performer due to the intimate nature of the questions and answers. Through these two combining elements, the piece is moving away from representing documentation as art, and towards a simple, minimalistic installation on vulnerability focusing upon the audience’s reaction, and subsequently the audience  and actors reactions within the space. Through this final installation performance, i want my work to encourage spectators to reflect, to think and to feel. The way this will be achieved is not only dictated by the image, but by reflecting on it through the spectators own experiences and feelings.

The experiment which created this element was one in which we answered questions which made the person feel mentally vulnerable and exposed. Many of these questions were asked by 18-25 year old students which caused the theme to by body and sex orientated,  for example:

 

  • Tell a personal story?
  • Have you ever had an eating disorder? What were your feelings during this period?
  • Explain your first sexual experience?

 

It was during the technical run through that the group realised how significant this experiment was due to the exposure we felt whilst the questions were being shown, it also allowed a structured vocal element within the piece that highlighted our vulnerability. In essence i wanted the video to show ‘Our lineage in random form’  (Etchells and Phelan, 1999, p.19.)

mental vulnerability 3 mental vulnerability 2 mental vulnerability chloe to camera

 

 

Works cited

Butler, J. 1990. Gender trouble. New York London: Routledge

Etchells, T. and Phelan, P. 1999. Certain Fragments. London: Routledge

 

What would you say to them if they were here now?

As our group want to explore vulnerability on society intimacy is an element which can take its place in our performance as you can become vulnerable when exposing intimacy. What makes a performance intimate? This is a question asked by many performers. Can an intimate performance happen with a big audience? There are many ways to explore intimacy in performance, and this is exactly what we did in one of the workshops at university.

The questions explored when exploring the notion of intimacy in performance, does it give the performance a sense of honesty? Are the audience more honest when it’s just a one to one performance? I chose to do a one to one performance in the workshop exploring loss; this is a subject very close to my heart as I have been through loss a lot since I was very young and find this subject very intimate for me. Letting people know into my mind when exploring loss and letting them know how I experience it.  Maria Chatzichichristodoulou and Rachel Zerihan describe intimacy as,

“Intimacy enables two sentient beings, who feel comfortable enough with each other on an emotional and/or physical level, to reveal something about themselves and connect in some form of meaningful exchange”
(2012, p. 1).
Taking this into account I devised a one to one performance with 5 minute slots. Before I started the performance I asked the spectator to think about this question through out the performance, “if you were to see a relative that died now, what would you say to them?”  In front of me I had two pieces of paper which had numbers on it, all the audience had to do was choose one and I would describe in detail how one of my relatives died in detail and what I would say to them if they were here now. The two people I chose to talk about in my performance was my little sister that died and my nana, two very close people who died very differently, one from cancer and one from meningitis. Letting the audience into my mind left me feeling very vulnerable, letting them see me breakdown I feel was quite intimate.  Relating back to what Chatzichichristodoulou and Zerihan said “to reveal something about themselves and connect in some form of meaningful exchange” (2012, p.1) I asked the spectator to write down what they would say to a certain relative if they where here now and told them they could take it away or let me read. 50% of the people that came took it away and the other let me read it. The audiences reaction to my performance was different every time, some cried, some just stared and some showed emotion towards me and wanted to hug me. I feel I got an honest reaction from everyone cause I had such a variety of reactions.

This experience really helped me in relation to my group’s performance as it; let me explore vulnerability and intimacy in a different way. Instead of exploring intimacy of the body I exposed my mind to other people, some who I didn’t know well enough to tell. This made my relationships closer to the people who heard.

 

Chatzichichristodoulou, Maria and Zerihan, Rachel (2012) Intimacy Across Visceral and Digital Performance, New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

We Invite an Audience

For our second experiment, we invited an audience to join us in looking at peoples perceptions of self. The group exposed themselves at varying stages of nakedness and drew on themselves the changes they would make to their body if they could create a perfect version of their form. We then stood in a line, with our eyes closed, and asked the ‘audience’ to graduate down the line, drawing on the changes they would make to each person. The most interesting thing we found was that everyone stuck to the pre drawn lines of each person when making their changes, and later described that choice as reluctance to offend people. Despite the additions being completely anonymous, the audience explained that they felt a sense of exposure and empathy when asked to complete the task, and felt they would be judged on their decisions. This relates to the sense of shame mentioned in an earlier blog, and a quote from Brené Browns’ speech entitled The Power of Vulnerability;

‘…shame is really easily understood as the fear of disconnection: Is there something

about me that, if other people know it or see it, that I won’t be worthy of connection?’ (TED 2011)

The group linked this idea with our notion of vulnerability, in that the most basic reason people feel vulnerable is because they are ashamed of themselves, and afraid of other people’s perception of them. We therefore found it interesting that the audience experienced this same apprehension of honesty or exposure when asked to complete a set task. This furthered our interest in the relationship between the performer and the audience, and has also increased our curiosity in the ability to make the audience empathise with us as performers, to the extent that they can fully experience the same emotions (vulnerability, shame etc.) as the group.

TED (2011) The Power of Vulnerability [online video] available from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCvmsMzlF7o  [accessed 31 October 2013].