Beginning our second session, we had previously received an invitation with some individual and selective tasks to experiment with in our own time, but also some to complete within the Usher Gallery, the tasks were taken from Carl Lavery’s list of instructions of performance in cities. (Lavery, 2005, 233.)
Before meeting at the gallery, I chose to take a walk at night and get lost in the city of Lincoln as my two chosen tasks from the list we were set from Lavery’s instructions. I was prepared to observe the performance’s of people walking the city streets, however was surprised to find that it was completely desolate and quiet. Finding myself alone in an unfamiliar area didn’t make me feel uneasy as I would have expected, instead it made me feel peaceful and I felt that I could focus and study my surroundings in precise detail, something that people never normally have the chance to do.
At one point I found myself stood outside a homely, traditional pub. I was on the outside looking in. On the outside it was cold, dark and desolate; however from the inside I could hear chatter and laughter and the contrast of atmosphere began to make me feel uncomfortably like an outsider. It made me realise that space and sound can have an enormous impact on how one feels within a situation, and so this could easily occur during a site specific performance.
During my time at the Usher Gallery, it was an individual period to engage in personal tasks. The task I occupied myself with was finding an object in the collection that reminded me of my Grandmother, then telling the story of why it relates to my grandmother, and the actual story of that object. Whilst focusing on this task, I felt that every object I looked at was being considered in a new light. What did it mean to me? Could I relate this to something in my life/past? This also made me contemplate how an audience would perceive a performance they are walking in to without knowing what to expect. As human beings we all prepare ourselves for tasks in different ways and although some people may be open minded to seeing something innovative and out of the ordinary, others may be much more closed minded.
“Audience experiences the performance in a state of preparedness which derives from past experiences and the way in which they have chosen to order them and accord them significance.” – (Pearson and Shanks, 2001, 64)
Once back in the studio, we took the time to reflect upon the tasks we had taken part in and also think of a title to possibly create stimulus for a performance. The title I derived from my late night walk in Lincoln was: ‘Appreciation in Silence’. Using a piece of string passed around the circle of classmates, linking titles together, we realised that our idea’s somehow all intertwined together one way or another. I found that my title linked closely to Yasmin’s title: ‘Ignorance’. When discussing our experiences of completing the tasks, we conversed about the idea of personification of buildings, and how an audience would react when faced with putting characteristics to a building. Is it possible for somebody to look past the dreary image of a deserted building and think about what lies underneath, and what the story behind it is.
Works Cited:
- Bennett, B. (2008) Floodlit Cathedral and Brayford Pool at night. [Online] Lincoln. Available from: http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/681355 [Accessed 21 February 2014].
- Lavery, C. (2005) Teaching Performance Studies: 25 instructions for performance in cities. Studies in Theatre and Performance, 25 (3) 233.
- Pearson, M and Shanks, M. (2001) Theatre/Archeology. London: Routledge.