Nuditate: The Final Performance

Nuditate [ Latin translation: Vulnerability]

Final Performance: Wednesday 11th December 2013

Duration: 4pm till 6pm

Where: Studio 1, Lincoln Performing Arts Center

Aim: Expose our own personal mental and physical vulnerabilities to a public audience.

Countdown Clock

I never thought I’d be happy for the countdown clock to read ‘0:00:00’. The performance was one of the hardest things, I have ever had to do as a performer. I did no think it would be as challenging as it was to have an audience listen to your thoughts. It is by far easier to be someone else, than to be yourself. To expose everything you are to a room full of people you know and strangers and for them to see your most inner insecurities.

My Thoughts and Feelings on what happened in the final piece.

We all started the performance dressed up. Hair done, black dresses, heels and makeup: at our most comfortable. Throughout the performance, we all took items of clothing off and dropped them where ever we were stood or sat at the time. At the beginning of the piece we were all darted around the middle of the room, by the end we had all retreated around the edge of the space, with no one even stepping anywhere near the middle. It was interesting to see that everyone in our group did this. I felt that if I was to move into the middle of the space I would draw even more attention to myself. But looking back I was too vulnerable at the time to do the simple task. Throughout the piece, I pushed all of my own personal goals and boundaries. I was my most vulnerable at the point when a question about my mental vulnerability came on. The exposure on the video a times got too much for me, at one point I could not take it so I shut my eyes and turned to face the back wall. Much to my surprise that when I opened my eyes, my group had formed a spontaneous wall around me.To protect me.

At various climaxes, you could feel the emotion charge the atmosphere in the space. It was an emotional rollercoaster: nervous, excitement, anxiety, scared, sad, happy, nervous, emotional, You’d then get an adrenaline rush after you took a piece of clothing off only to go back to feeling of nervousness. A lot like the fragmented video playing in the background, i felt throguh out the piece my thoughts were fragmented together. One minute I was laughing the next reduced to tears. This in reflection is what the audience must have felt too. The video was tailored in away to take you on your own personal jouney. To proke thought into the audiences minds. Showing we are more simular than at first we think.

What would I have done differently?

Reflecting back onto our whole process, I would have liked to focus more on mental vulnerability. Taking the time to really, think about ways to display the information. I would have also liked to have seen how the atmosphere would have been different if the performance was a one and one intimate piece.
There was a bit of speculation in saying our piece was a feminist piece. It never set out to be one, it was just how the group fell. If we were to do it again, I would love to and a male to the group. It would have changed the whole dynamic atmosphere. What I did find interesting was that , even though there were no male performers in our group. As soon as a male walked into the space, the atmosphere did change. I personally felt like inorder to take another piece of clothing off, I had too look away or forget they were even there.
Personally, I do not think I could have pushed myself even more. However if we were doing it for a longer amount of time, I feel I would have somehow done something completely radical and unlike myself. With more time I would have worked myself up to maybe even stare into the eyes of an audience member. There were times when I felt like I could not even look at them, when I wish I did.

Finally, I am very happy with our final product. It has grown so much from the first time we ever set eyes on the themes of vulnerability and exposure. I feel we have most definitely covered and approached these two key words with all our energu and mind. My personal aim at the beginning of the process was to see how far I could push myself and to not hold back. I feel like I achieved this, the more uncomfortable I felt, the more vulnerable and exposed I made myself by taking off another iteam of clothing or delving deeper into my emotional memories. I really wish the audience could have been in my shoes, for at least a moment during the whole piece. What we have created is something rather interesting and different. It almost makes me want to recreate it, but on a larger scale sometime in the future.

Your eyes can reveal almost anything about you.

During our experiences in experimenting, we found the eyes played a very important part, some audiences thought that by having our eyes closed, we looked more vulnerable, for us it was a way to keep safe, I felt as though if I couldn’t see them then they couldn’t see me either. It was during our performance we decided to keep our eyes open, closing them only at times we couldn’t bare to see the audiences reactions. I no for me I felt embarrassed, looking at myself on screen bring completely honest and truthful, hearing darker parts of my life, knowingly revealing them to the audience sometimes became to much at other times I would keep my eyes open and look directly at audience members, this was to gauge their reaction. At the end of the performance my eye contact became an act of defiance, throughout the experiments, the filming and the performance my vulnerability increased. As progressively I would reveal more of myself physically and mentally. Within the last few minutes I gained a bout of confidence and this is where I had the confidence to look people in the eye to defy and challenge.

Fig 1. Marina Abramović ‘ The Artist is Present’

Marina Abramović at the Museum of Modern Art performed ‘The Artist is Present’, a silent performance, where she invited audience members to sit opposite her and look into each others eyes and remain silent. This was something that inspired our experiments of having our eyes open or not, we decided it should be natural, not something that we made a group decision on so it became ‘part of the performance’, we decided that if we did what we felt was right then it was part of us showing our vulnerability.

Fig 1. Available from: http://www.theartfuldesperado.com/a-life-lesson-by-marina-abramovic-and-ulay/

My experience.

On the performance day, i had no idea how to feel about what was going to happen. Our performance couldn’t be rehearsed so what happened on the day was completely spontaneous. We had no idea how the audience where going to react, where they where going to sit and what was going to happen.

The performance space

we closed off the space in studio 1 to make the space quite intimate and small, at the opposite end of the entrance we put a sofa in the corner so the audience can sit and watch. Similarly, if the audience wanted to sit on the sofa they would have to cross the space, therefore travelling through the uncomfortable setting to get to the sofa. It was interesting to see who would cross that barrier and go sit on the sofa, and surprisingly only a few people crossed the space to sit on, two being the lecturers that assessed us. There were no rules to where the audience could be nothing was said to them and surprisingly the audience all gathered in a bunch near the entrance, could this be for safety?

The Performance

When the performance had started, the projection was going and we was all spread around the room, as we got further into the performance and items of clothing had been taken off i stayed clear of the middle of the room where the light and attention was going. I thought if i was to go in the middle of the space while the projection was going on all the attention would’ve been on me, and i didn’t like that and i thought i was exposed enough. It was interesting to see that all the girls in the performance and retreated to the side once the performance got more intense. It gave off the impression that the more the issues where brought to light to somehow get over, the more myself and the other performers wanted to get back to the edges merging into the audience to become safe. Additionally, this says something about vulnerability and exposure of the mind and body, it gives off the impression that sometimes people don’t get over there insecurities or get over the problems and issues that make yourself vulnerable.

During the performance i thought we have achieved what we wanted to achieve by showing the audience the mental and physical vulnerable state, by the use of media and live performance. Revealing what we revealed in the performance explored issues that are not really talked about in person and are normally hidden away for no one to hear. We wanted to create a performance where the audience couldn’t escape the exposure unless they left the performance space complexly, engaging the audience that way. There where no rules for the audience, they could sit wherever they wanted, react how they wanted and to show emotion however they wanted. During the performance, a hard issue was raised for one of the performers and one of the audience reacted and gave the performer a hug, the space was open for them to do what they want.

Photo Taken: 11/12/13 Credit: Livvie Milne.

During the performance i thought there was a quite voyeuristic feel to the performance as the audience was sitting in on us sharing some private personal memories and also taking close off and being exposed which is normally a private event. Getting undressed is something you do normally do in private, but to be undressing and to be looked upon can be voyeuristic but not necessarily in a sexual manor. We wanted to de-sexualise the body and the performance of taking clothes off when getting undressed. However this depends on what the audience thinks about the performers undressing, some audience members could take it as sexual.

I feel that the performance did go well, and we achieved what we wanted to achieve. It was a hard performance and i had no intention of going as far as i did with the whole nakedness i surprised myself a lot. During the performance i was the first person to take my dress off revealing my underwear, i felt exposed and quite overwhelmed with the experience parts of the performance when the projection was showing my experience about loss and how i lost my sister and Nan made me feel too exposed and made me want to put my clothes back on at least for a while. However, with the ongoing support of my friends and performers, i built up the courage to go to just pants and that was a big thing to do as i hate my body so much.

This performance could of passed as a feminist performance and it may of come across as feminist, but it wasn’t done intentionally. It was fortunate that we did have an all female cast, and the questions raised where about the body, sex and relationships but at the age we are these questions could of been relevant to the opposite sex as well.

Influences

One of the influences that aided our performance was Marina Abramović when she did the performance ‘The Artist is Present’. Sitting in a gallery for seven hours for three months inviting the audience to sit with her, while she looks at them. You could say this made Marina Abramović and/or the audience vulnerable, i feel that staring into someones eyes can reveal a lot about a person and the lives they leave. In, relation to our performance we was watching and observing the video and how the audience reacted towards this and how they reacted towards us. Another influence is Vanessa Beecroft, she is an artist that explores “women, often dressed in nothing but high heels, stand silent and still. Like passive witnesses to an era dominated by images of the female body” (Rumma Lia, Galleria, 2010) in relation to our performance she is exploring something that can be quite self indulgent, posing questions and making people think about society and body, which can make some people vulnerable.

What would i change about the performance?

If we where to do the performance again, i would love to have a male actor in, i feel it would give the performance a different dynamic. Also, i would like to get a more wide range of questions from people that aren’t our age and people that weren’t students as i feel that would also change the piece and more people would be able to relate to it. Overall, i am very happy with the piece presented on 11th December and i am very proud of my group.

Photo Taken: 11/12/13. Credit: Dan Hunt.

Rumma Lia, Galleria (2010) Vannessa Beecroft, Online: http://www.vogue.it/en/people-are-talking-about/focus-on/2010/02/vanessa-beecroft#ad-image1242 (accessed: 15th December 2013).

Its all in your mind

We enter this world vulnerable, clothe less and unknowing. Later in life it is wrong to be in this state. But why? There are places its okay to be naked: In the comfort of your bedroom, behind closed doors, on a nudist beach and in a tanning shop for example. Most of us have seen both a naked male and female. But to see a naked being in the supermarket, on the train, walking to the corner shop, it is wrong. What happens when you defy the laws of societies views on what is right and wrong. You take the normality of being naked to a unnatural setting, and what is the result? That is what we will find out.

It is all in our mind, the act of being naked is not actually a wrong one but we see it as wrong because someone once said it is.

What makes us feel vulnerable? Is it showing all our flaws? What makes us feel physically vulnerable and mentally vulnerable? is their a difference? Everything that we try to hide, that we usually mask is there for the everyone to see, to remove these layers of masks, how does it make us feel? We wanted to no what makes us feel most vulnerable, it took a while for us to conclude what it was that made us feel most vulnerable. It’s the truth, the truth makes us feel at our most vulnerable. Whether it is the truth of how we look, the truth of what we’ve done wrong, the truth about our lives etc.

Lets talk Nakedness

Would you get naked? As university drama students, getting naked was always going to be issue. From the very beginning of our process many people gave us negative comments, saying it was a clique and ask why would even consider do it. I must admit I had my preconceptions too at first however I feel in our performance, we showed them that getting ‘naked’ exposing our bodies and insecurities was so much more than what they first thought. It was down to personal choice how much we could expose ourselves with the essence of the piece needing us to be at our most vulnerable. We did not sexualise the body, in theory we wanted to desexualise it. The idea of this however will never be fully realised as we cannot control other people’s thoughts on the naked body. The way we presented ourselves, our body language and a very bare space I felt unsexualised the space. We did not highlight, the need for anyone in the audience to look at us specifically, and audience members could have gone the whole performance without even seeing anyone naked if they so wished. I was surprised how well both us as performers and the audience coped with baring all.

In relation to this, I have researched into artist Nic Green who created a performance called Trilogy (2010) in which she broke down the body. Although the goal of her piece was a response to feminism, woman in todays society and a political performance. A lot of what she did, relates to our performance. She desexualised the body by using an ‘unselfconscious committed style of performance’ in which ‘the nudity is rapidly normalised’. (Aston and Harris, 2013,p.107). Getting naked also ‘marked progressive empowerment'(Aston and Harris, 2013) the longer the body is seen the less sexual it becomes, as the naked self becomes more of a uniform. Our piece in a way reflected this, by own change in states throughout the piece. I personally felt empowered by the end of the piece, it was such a surreal experience.

Works Cited:

Aston, E and Harris, G. (2013) A Good Night Out for the Girls: Popular Feminisms in Contemporary Theatre and Performance. London: Palgrave Macmillian.