This was the first performance I would be producing with a week to prepare and a specific brief. A piece to be performed in front of my peer group and Jordan Tannahill, who I had yet to meet and was already a little in awe of. No pressure then. As well as conforming to the ‘create something with a beginning, middle and end’ brief I wanted to relish the idea of the FADS safe space. I wanted to share the feeling of joy I found in having a “black box” space to play in - its technical possibilities and giant screen as well as the performance area itself. I wanted to create a tour through the safe space that the Film and Drama Studio (FADS) provides for experimentation - with a few thrills thrown in. I was later to question the sensitivity of my personal audience barometer re ‘thrill’. This was because I recalled the moment in our first student led practice (SLP) when I freaked my fellow students out a bit. I had been trying to illustrate a change of tone or mood in an a capella song, and segued from a lyrical version of Let It Be into a very loud punk version without warning. Everyone had jumped - and not necessarily in a good way. Jordan Tannahill writes on p47 of Theatre for the Unimpressed, ‘There seemed to be something intuitive about asking a group of our friends to come together and bring this thing to life.’ And on the same page, ‘The opportunity for friends to gather together to hear each other say beautiful and strange words.’ Now although these comments are about the development and staging of All Our Happy Days Are Stupid, the concept worked for me. I wanted to make something to solidify the relationship that was growing between the Performance Lab members and to greet and welcome Jordan Tannahill into our working space. A bit auntie-ish, but why change the habits of a life time? (That provoked an instant aside from my inner critic making an apposite and overly sarcastic comment about “just how useful many of those habits are”. I ignore it) In addition to voice memos and an awful lot of wittering in my head I produce a rough handwritten script: My performance needs a kettle, an iron, handkerchiefs, a small portable record player and a selection of 7” vinyl singles. And hats. Not too complicated then.
We went upstairs to the next floor and entered FADS through “Technical Control”. I was still in the role of facilitator. Once I had developed the idea that space was the beginning of the magic we could all make here we moved to the first of the less gentle thrills. The technician’s caged ladder from the mezzanine to stage level. I offered the lift as an alternative to climbing down but everyone braved the ladder.
In terms of structure this is where it all got a bit messy. My intention had been to provide something gentle to thrill each of the five senses: tea for taste, a freshly ironed linen hankie for smell and touch, a selection of tunes to delight the ear and some mad hats to engage the eye. My purpose was to share tangible experiences that would open out the possibilities of the ways you could engage participants in the space. As I say - it all got a bit messy. Timing tea and ironing was more complicated than I had allowed for and my instructions/invitations lacked the clarity and elegance I would liked. Luckily my participants were game and as well as joining in the wearing of hats and choosing of tunes they were kind when it came to commenting later. The structure that I had intended to indicate a beginning (the technical capabilities of FADS upstairs in the mezzanine), followed by a middle on stage (exploring how we could thrill the senses in the performance space) and then an end in which we would all feel that the space was a supportive one to jump off and experiment, was weak. At least everyone looked fabulous in the hats.
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This week’s focus was playwriting, storytelling and adapting. Working through my own ideas before this session I had recorded some voice memos as an alternative to writing. In one labeled ‘Silver Swan’ I reference Spalding Gray. Swimming to Cambodia had such a profound effect on me when I first saw it. I had loved Jonathan Demme’s film Stop Making Sense, but Spalding Gray was influential on my young artist self in so many ways. Here was an actor using autobiographical material and being political in a really intelligent, humorous and engaging way. I almost wanted to be him. Swimming to Cambodia even had music by Laurie Anderson who was, and is still, a goddess. Having missed week 2 with Selina Thompson it was fascinating to watch the performances Bim and Monty had devised. Bim used a semi-Swimming to Cambodia desk as part of her set and took a naturalistic tale to superbly surreal extremes. Ladybirds haunted me for days. Monty had rehearsed a repetitive digging movement to a realistic soundtrack, synchronizing his movement in a very satisfying way. Following the nursery rhyme prompt I improvised a macabre version of the ‘Wind the Bobbin Up’. After feeding back Deborah produced some scripts for us to peruse. I snaffled a copy of The Future Show and here was another Spalding Gray reference. Exploring these texts Deborah described differing approaches to writing texts: ‘a play is an object in and of itself’, ‘a generalized imprint’. A performance text on the other hand is a ‘blueprint for you’.
Our homework, apart from reading the introduction to Jordan Tannahill’sTheatre of the Unimpressed, was to create something with a beginning a middle and an end. The aim would be to challenge the audience with what signifies these moments. When does the performance start? How do we know it has ended?
The challenges I faced doing this are the subject of the next blog. I’m finding writing about it super scary. At least I have plentiful notes. ![]() This could really annoy anyone who likes their lists consecutively constructed. But I’m leaping ahead to our first lab after reading week to keep this blog current. After the Action Lab #1 lizard boy experiment I decided to return to “skin” reassured by Joseph at LADA that autobiographical work was often a mark of Live Art. I had a chance to rehearse in FADS for a couple of hours on Wednesday afternoon and been able to mess around with what I could use as a set. At our check in (circle time but not quite) I admitted to being super anxious on the tube despite getting a seat. It had been frustrating because the success of my morning’s performance depended on being relaxed at the start. Luckily Dee led a great warm up that shook the heebi-jeebies out. The text/script/score I was working from: Hello This piece is called ‘recharging’. I need to move a couple of things before I start - I might ask for help with that in a moment. When I’ve dimmed the house lights I’m going to sing a couple of songs, show you a film and finish with a couple more songs. It’s lovely having a relatively intimate space. And an audience of friends. You will be familiar with the first song - however possibly not with the story behind it. My mum ran a nursery (play-centre) back in the days when regulations were a little looser. She would have twenty or more toddlers in her sole care. She loved small children, me less so. At naptime she would sing them to sleep. You get to close your eyes if you wish but you don’t have to. The film I would prefer you to have eyes open for. [house lights down] single spot Twinkle Frére Jacques Ain’t Necessarily So Film plays [This is the split screen film version of the piece ‘skin’ with live audio including the poem ‘skinless’] While the film plays I climb on the cabinet in front of the large TV screen and very slowly, over the 3 minute 30 sec duration of the film, I fold down into a semi-foetal position in front of the screen. When the drilling sound starts near the end of the film my breath becomes ragged and this is the only discernable movement. I then freeze when the drill stops. The screen goes from black to a single shot of the lighting rig and the audio is one verse of the syncopated version of ‘Twinkle twinkle little star’. End [I had thought after the recorded version of twinkle I might sing it again live and then segue into ‘Summertime’. But I didn’t. It felt better to unfold off the top of the cabinet and just say thanks.] …………………… I want to see if I can post this with the set photos embedded in the word doc, the construction of this website is as steep a learning curve as accepting that autobiographical work is OK! [I couldn't, but hey the drag and drop function for images seems to be OK] Will write about how the performance went in the next blog post. If I am feeling extremely brave I may even post a video of the split screen film. The ghost in the machine stole my post! The universe is telling me to be bold and try again anyway.
Looking back so much of what went on in our first session haunted me – in good ways and less happy-making: “No without an explanation.” “Don’t show all your teeth.” Great advice, but can I follow it? And why did I choose all male inspiration? Some of the other inspirational performances like ‘Boogie Wonderland’from Happy Feet made me grin, while Leonard Cohen’s How to Read Poetryis just brilliant and I will keep coming back to it to remind me not to posture! Felt a bit out of touch with the Avengers:Endgame reference. Decide it is natural to feel freaked out. Week 1 (26 Sep 2019)
The scarily accomplished Deborah Pearson started our first session with a check in, establishing a reassuring familiarity for me – both in our practice together and in the studio (FADS). A safe space to work already set up in the first few minutes. We shared some of our favourite inspirational things – writing key words on slips of paper and then choosing someone else’s to hear why it inspired. I still have the scraps of paper, there is a bizarre safety for me in keeping artefacts. I was slightly ashamed that I had unconsciously chosen three very male performances, Harvey Andrews ‘Unaccompanied’, the haka in Burnham and a dance duo from the States whose names I still can’t recall. This led later to me re-watching Nina Simone live. I want her courage as well as her talent. Her inspiration will have to be enough. The words that jump from my notes are revealing: shame, trust, archbitch of the universe, the grey lizard of doom and 'do the scary shit'. After working on our own personal manifestos we created one together (see SCRAPBOOK) and closed our session with a check out. Deb seemed much less scary, even if I was left worrying about showing my teeth. In the afternoon in SLP (student led practice) I had a chance to direct the other performance lab rats in preparation for a performance they would do in front of Selina Thompson. We started to connect as a group - but I did feel like everyone's eccentric great aunt. |
Viv HarrisNotes from FADS sessions Archives
January 2020
QMUL Perf Lab
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