Action Lab #1 Performed - Pushing Form Further And Lizard Boy The question we had to consider was - how can you collide this with another form? We were to think about how content dictates form. My text for the performance went as follows: Twinkle, twinkle little star sung a cappella and syncopated Film starts, breath I spoke, about, talked about, losing the power of speech recently. It was weird it was something I had forgotten about. How can you forget such a thing? Then I remember how many things I forget. And have forgotten. Breath, one long sigh When the image of my back in the mezzanine of FADS comes on to the scene, recite skinless poem: When I am skinless When my skin is so thin Thinner than membrane under eggshell Thinner than clingfilm glad warp cellophane Thinner than the skin between the layers of an onion Then I am fragile frail feeble Then I have no voice When poem finishes, 3 slow breaths and drill sound. Drill sound goes on for longer than is comfortable. Then final rendition of Twinkle, twinkle little star ………… Exploring the idea of “how it feels to give voice to voicelessness”, I feel am still tiptoeing around rather than 'digging deep'. I am not sure I am ready or willing to talk about Lizard Boy yet.
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Pushing Form Further (taught topic). Performing as the self performance
Reflecting on weeks 4 and 5 was challenging. Grappling with embarrassment and fear of failure has always been one of my challenges as a performer, one I share with most people with a heartbeat I suppose. In trying to create a safe space I had ended up with a bit of a mess. Mmmm. Structure. My bête noir. Why my novel is languishing in the drawer and why my life has had tendencies towards the chaotic. Mmmm. My usual anarchic response of scribbling frantically and throwing everything I have to hand at my storyline had resulted in a performance that lacked a really coherent structure. It had been useful as a reassurance that being experimental was the whole point of the lab but I was still ashamed that what I was producing was less than fabulous. For our next performance we were asked to think about performing a live event unfolding in real time, colliding it with other media. The primary focus should be on how we could perform the self. Jordan challenged us to dig deep. Mmmm. I decided to look into my past and chose a range of images and some video footage from Our Lady’s Psychiatric Hospital in County Clare which is now abandoned. I asked Sue Curnow, a friend with extensive experience as an actor, to talk to me about voice and recorded it. This recording I used as the soundtrack for a film which combined photos of the hospital itself, the statue commemorating the life of the hospital and the statue of the Virgin Mary in the grounds. I tried to post the first part of this blog yesterday at the beginning of the post below. My web design skills must be still somewhat lacking, or gremlins interfered, as it disappeared into the ether! My daughter, Rosa, appears just at the end of one section of the video footage so I checked with her if she was OK with me using it. She was but didn’t want to see the resulting video. We had shed tears and shared hugs when we had visited the derelict site of Our Lady’s. She had been there with me as a very small baby when I was a patient. I called the piece “Who we are/Where we are” and started with a direct address to the audience.
This is the text of my introduction: Hello, Kia Ora When the idea of this task was introduced, I freaked out a bit because voice can be problematic for me Once when I was very poorly I became selectively mute. Briefly. There was no physiological reason for me to stop speaking. I just did. (move from centre stage left to centre stage right) When I am skinless when my skin is so thin Thinner than membrane under eggshell than cling film gladwrap cellophane than the membrane between the layers of an onion Then I am fragile frail feeble Then I have no voice (play video of Our Lady Hospital with Sue Curnow’s voice over, chorusing with her from “we project ourselves”. When the video stops I carry on speaking Sue’s transcribed script bringing the recorded sound and content completely live into the space. Slowly I repeat key phrases) the voice identity our history our genetic make up we project ourselves making concrete (in our heads) tied up with who we are where we are It went OK. I was proud of making myself vulnerable and being brave. Less proud of the execution, but once again had to remind myself of the experimental nature of the space. |
Viv HarrisNotes from FADS sessions Archives
January 2020
QMUL Perf Lab
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