Author Archives: Bethany Canham

Reflection Time

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After all the nerves, technical problems and sourcing stage weights, we ended a successful three hour performance on December 11th. Working up to the performance over the last nine weeks has been stressful but so enjoyable. Its opened my eyes to so many new things, to look at things in a completely different way and to ask myself more questions when I go to watch a performance/ installation or just in everyday life.

Everyone else’s stations seemed to have gone as well as mine did. With having a set time slot for each participant, meant that it would run smoothly. We made sure that none of the participants would see each other while they were doing the circuit of stations. This was beneficial because it gave the sense that they were the only person in the room and that we were only concentrating on them.

The way that we had set out the stations was very important because we wanted it to look neat but we also wanted it to effective to what was happening in each station. When the participant entered the room, there was a path which lead to a door way into the space.

The list as follows:

Station 1- The Welcome Table – This station was in the centre of the room with the other stations dotted around it. It was in the open space because I felt that it shouldn’t be closed off like the others were as it would ruin the concept of being welcoming and happy. This station was general chat about life, which could have lead to any other topic of conversation, whilst drinking from tea cups and eating cake. Before moving on to the other stations I gave the participant a little bit of information about what they were going to experience without giving too much away. I also gave them the option of a get out clause if they felt uncomfortable with anything along the journey. I then explained that if they did say they weren’t uncomfortable they may be asked why.

Station 2 – Anonymous computer chat – This station was the smallest out of the five because we wanted the space to be intimate like they were enclosed in their own private world. When on a social network site you’re usually on your own and it’s on a personal device which is why we wanted to make it as personal as possible.

Station 3 – The Human Body – Again we wanted this to be a personal enclosed space that felt comfortable for the participant in order for them to be able to open up and talk about parts of their bodies that they liked or disliked. This station was behind a curtain in a small alcove in Studio 1 (another reason not to use the flats).

Station 4 – Hugging – In the work in progress showing, there was a lot of debate about how the hugging would come across to a participant. There were comments along the lines of sexual meaning, however we didn’t want it to come across in this way. From this the decision was made that the hugging would be done stood up so people wouldn’t feel uncomfortable. This station was quite open with just one divide that blocked the view from the rest of the room. We felt like this station didn’t need to be small and enclosed because it was to try and make the participant feel more relaxed, maybe.

Station 5 – Screen Test/Live Stream – This was the last station because we wanted the participants to have time to reflect on the different experiences and issues that might have arose. From the participants point of view they were just sat reflecting, however they were actually being streamed live. We didn’t want to record it because it would become something different so we decided just have it as a live screen test instead as a one off.

The last ten weeks have been a massive rollercoaster of emotions, there’s been times where all we want to do is find out more about what we can work and other times we really struggled to find inspiration.

For me personally, my station was very difficult because it put me out of my comfort zone into something that I wasn’t familiar with and felt very nervous about. I find it very difficult to small talk with a stranger. There was a moment when I was sat in front of a participant and I suddenly got all flustered, my mouth went dry, my hands were sweaty and there wasn’t really much I could do about it. I relate it back to the Abramovic experience I had when I had to stare at another class member for a period of time, where there were points in that experience where I felt the same way.  Whereas with other participants I found it really easy to talk to them about what they had been up to and what they were looking forward to.

Overall, I have thoroughly enjoyed the experience and hopefully one day we can take our work into the public and do it for longer than three hours to really get down to those hidden secrets that people keep locked away.

My Station

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After working out what everyone else’s stations were, mine was the last to be found. With having a computer conversation with an anonymous person as the station after mine it need to be something light hearted and easy going because the rest of the journey might prove difficult for some participants because they delved deeper into human bodies, touching, hugging and anonymous conversations.

It was decided that I would be the first person the participant would meet when they first entered the studio, leaving me with the opportunity to welcome them in and have a normal chat with whatever that came up in a conversation.

After showing my station in the tech rehearsal, the feedback I was given meant that I had to be so much more over the top to get the participant to feel welcomed and comforted. The feedback was to have more things laid out on the table like tea, drinks, cake biscuits, flowers and a table cloth to make it look welcoming. Also with the way I had to be dressed was in important to being the first person in the performance. It really made me think about what I could do to improve my station and make it as good as the rest of the performance.

Decision Time

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What were we going to do for our performance?

We had so much to choose from but we all liked the idea of a durational and one on one performance. After looking at Marina Abramovic and Adrian Howells we decided that our best option was to create our own performance around different styles of one on one performances.

Adrian Howells is also known for his one on one performances. His work is based on touching and getting to know people through touching their bodies. One performance we looked at was a one on one performance where he would wash someone’s feet and then kiss them after. He would ask for permission to kiss their feet so he didn’t offend anyone. From the video we watched, he got a mixed response from his participants with one of them being reduced to tears. This was intriguing and I wanted to find out more. The other video we watched was Salon Adrienne where he would wear women’s clothes and would wash and dry their hair in their usual hair salon. Even though he was dressed as a woman, to me, he didn’t come across as woman because he was just acting as himself. He would have a general conversation with the women and he would touch on subject like ‘has this happened to you before’ or ‘do you find this an odd experience’. Asking those kinds of questions makes the participant really think about what is happening. One the more interesting things are that Adrian always gave his participants the option to opt out at any point. I think that giving someone the opportunity to say no if they feel uncomfortable is a vital point to your experiment. If you’re forcing someone into doing something they don’t want to do will become a completely different experience and you will get completely different results. However, if they do say no because they are uncomfortable then that opens the opportunity to ask them why they feel uncomfortable which could then spark a whole new conversation.

Using these two as influences we decided to create our own one on one performances. We came up with the idea to have different stations that the participant would experience. Our first initial idea was read every word and definition from the dictionary and that would be how long our performance would last. We really liked the idea of durational which fitted in with the dictionary idea and the previous experience of staring at someone for a period of time.

An idea arose about human intimacy and how it can be shown through different things in everyday life. For example social networking sites, people go on these sites and sometimes they don’t know who they are talking to, which brought up the question how far could you go when talking to a complete stranger, how much could you tell them. We wanted to do something similar to this in our performance.

Looking at human intimacy we thought of an idea on how a young child feels in their bed at night and the quilt is their safety blanket from the monsters under their bed or in their closet. From this we did our own experiment, in which we hugged one another for five minutes in different scenarios. The first one was sat next to each other and hugged, the second sat on the others lap and hugged, the third laying on a bed (on top of the covers) and did the same for five minutes and the final one was hugging under a quilt for five minutes. This became a point of interest that we wanted to carry on into our performance.

Another idea that was brought into conversation was the human body. Many people all over the world hate their bodies, inside and out. We discussed how we could do this for a station in our performance and we realised that insecurities was the main thing that we could look into. This was another option of the human intimacy that was mentioned earlier. One of the group members wanted to look more into this because of personal issue with his own body and how he has overcome or not the issues and everyday problems that occur. This was another point of interest that we wanted to carry forward.

We then watched a video that involved Andy Wahol’s work. The screen test to start with was a little weird because the participant sat in front of a camera when they thought they were there for an interview, when in actual fact they were taking part in a performance. The person running the performance has already pressed record when the participant arrives, once they are sat he/she tells them that they are just leaving the room and it will start when they return. After a period of time he/she returns and tells the participant is done. Recording someone doing nothing is actually really interesting because you get to see what they are like when they are completely relaxed in their own mind. This was another durational piece that caught our eye.

Four down, one more to find.

My Inspiration

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To start with I didn’t really have a clue what I was doing, I felt completely lost. I didn’t like the idea that I couldn’t control what I was studying and what I was reading about. I felt like I had too much to think about and I got completely confused. Only until the last few weeks of the module when we were putting our piece together was when I realised who much I liked it because of how much it challenged me to try new things and think about why we do what we do, and what is the meaning behind it.

One of the sessions right at the beginning of the module was inspired by Marina Abramovic and Ulay about Nightsea the durational one on one performance of which they stared at each other and were motionless for hours. We did our own version where we all sat opposite someone and stared into their eyes until we were told to stop. I have a problem with sitting still anyway so I found this really difficult. We didn’t have any sense of time so we had no idea how long we had been sat there for. Throughout this experience, I went through so many different mind sets from being bored, to being in excruciating pain. It felt like I was losing consciousness throughout which was a very weird feeling, with times that I would snap back into it and think ‘oh god, I am actually doing this’. Towards the end I felt numb, I felt like I had been plunged back into reality from a very strange dream that seemed so real. There were points that I was either breakdown and cry or walk out and not come back. I finally made it through to the end after what seemed a very long 1hr 45mins. We then all sat and talked about our different experiences after a short break where we listened to how other people got themselves through it. It was very interesting.

Abramovic and Ulay’s Nightsea Crossing was shown in a gallery in 1982 for 21 days over June, August and September. When I looked into this I found it very interesting that they did it in a gallery like a piece of art. They were asked questions in an interview about the work they were carrying out in the gallery. A seven hour durational piece between the hours of ‘10.00am until 5.00pm. The seven hours was also important because we wanted to avoid people seeing the beginning and end. When they come to the gallery we are already there, like any other piece. And when they got a 5.00, the gallery is closed and the guard comes and tell us it’s the end. The public only see one image’ (Nick &Kaye p183). I found this particularly interesting because they didn’t want the audience to see them come out of the zone they had put themselves in because it would have given away the illusion and it would become something completely different. Abramovic and Ulay were then asked ‘Did you state that you would be sitting motionless for the duration of the performance?’ (Nick & Kaye p 184) I found the response really inspiring:

‘No. So people are always waiting for something to happen. But when they finally come to realise that that’s the reality of the thing, they start making contact with the piece itself. In the Nightsea Crossing, after ten,fifteen, forty-eight hours, the whole space is charged with energy. And that energy affects you. To charge a space with energy needs a long time.’ (Abromavic. Nick & Kaye, p184)

People do this when they walk into a gallery and look at the paintings for a period of time and not realise how long they have been staring. I feel that if someone was stood watching someone just sit may be a little different because it’s actually a living person. It may take someone longer to work out the story or the reason why from Abromavic’s piece to an ordinary painting.

At this point, the whole idea of one on one performance’s became quite prominent. I found it really interesting and fascinating to read about a durational piece that was so simple but massively effective at the same time. I also felt the same way about one on one performance’s because from what I have learnt, you can get so much more out of a one on one performance than watching or participating in something that involves a group of people.

After we had done the staring exercise in class, it took me a few days to get over the initial shock of going through mixed emotions to then realise that I actually did like it and of how effective it was.

Nick Kaye & Kaye Nick. Art Into Theatre (Marina Abramovic) pp. 183 & 184. Routledge

First Impressions

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Right from the start of the project, Contemporary Experimental Performance was really had to get your head around. There was so much going on and so much to talk about that all the answers ended with an open question.

It took me a while to get used to the idea of not thinking about it too much and just going in with an open mind and just see what happened. After a while I got into it and started to understand that the whole reason behind it is to not get stressed over not getting one aspect of a ‘performance’.

The first lesson really made me think about what a performance is, how and when it is a performance. In the first instance I wasn’t too sure if I wanted to say my own opinion in fear that someone would tell me that I was wrong and that I didn’t understand. But from the discussions I came to realise that I could input my ideas on how I saw the work from my view.

Schechner’s explanation of ‘what is performance?’ made me think about how performing can come across in different ways.

‘In business, sports, and sex, “to perform” is to do something up to a standard – to succeed, to excel. In the arts, “to perform” is to put on a show, a play, a dance, a concert. In everyday life, “to perform” is to show off, to go to extremes, to underline an action for those who are watching. In the twenty-first century, people as never before live by means of performance.’

(Schechner. 2002, p28)

I found this particularly interesting because it explains how in different aspects of life, there is always a performance. I only really had a small idea about this and I didn’t really given it much thought until we had a detailed discussion about what it means to perform.

Another point that I also found interesting from this extract was the breakdown of the different types of performance.

‘”To perform” can also be in relation to:

  • Being
  • Doing
  • Showing doing
  • Explaining “showing doing”

(Schechner. 2002, p28)

Looking at performance through the four examples really got my mind thinking about how performing can change so dramatically over different aspects of everyday life and how they are perceived.

From being a young child I have always loved going to the theatre to watch performances, I also love films, anything that I can get into. But I have never thought about the underlying subtext of a story before the discussions in class. Every time I go to the theatre, even now, I go for the storyline, to see the amazing costumes and set design, but sometimes I can’t help thinking about putting into this context of showing doing and what a performance is. Is theatre performance for the audience entertainment? Of course it is, but many people probably wouldn’t look further than what they are watching and thinking about the deeper meaning of what it is to perform.

Restored behaviour was equally as interesting as what is a performance because it made me realise that we do do that in everyday life.

‘Restored behavior is the key process of every kind of performing, in everyday life, in healing, in ritual, in play, and in the arts.’  (Schechner. 2002, p34)

I find it so interesting to see what people do in everyday life. The smallest thing we do is classed as some sort of performance. Some people may disagree with this because it is everyone’s individual opinion.

Schechner, R. (2002) Performance Studies: An Introduction. ‘What is perfomance?’. pp.28 & 34. London: Routledge