Session 4: Performance and the city

Fishing exercise

For this exercise we got in to small groups and physically formed a tight cluster by standing close together with one person at the front. In this formation we walked around the room firstly being led by the person at the front, and then by others in the group who took the lead. While walking around we performed in ensemble, and all the group members copied the movements, sounds or gestures of the person who was leading. Some of the actions we explored were lunging, running, clapping and jumping.

My observations:

-The most effective way to perform ensemble in this way is to stay close together in a tight formation, and move at a steady place.

-It is important to go with impulses, when the actions are spontaneous the performance is much more effective than them being thought out beforehand. These spontaneous impulses sometimes triggered other members of the group to take the lead and react impulsively.

-We can explore characters when doing this. Being in this type of formation made me think of animal behaviour. We experimented with the movements of a group of chickens or mice.

After doing this exercise in small groups we experimented with it further by interacting with other groups in the class to create a performance. I noticed there was a type of call and response theme with this as both groups were reacting to the movements of one another to move forward with their own.

After the main part of the session we performed a short piece that we had been developing in our free time, and these took place in various spaces around the university such as in the stairwells, the lifts and corridors. It was interesting to see how people used different spaces to create a piece of contemporary performance and it really made me realise what an extremely wide variety of performance ideas there are for my own work.

Presentation

In groups we were given a practitioner or performance organisation to research and present our findings on.

Jérôme Bel

Jerome Bel was born in the South of France in 1964 and was a choreographer who studied experimental dance. His work was known for being controversial and his pieces were usually unconventional due to his use of props and objects. This minimalistic style of performance sometimes meant there was no movement whatsoever and this would sometimes receive mixed reviews from the audience. He also focused a great deal on the theme of every day life. One of his most well known performances was called "The show must go on" which was performed in 2001. This was one of his most controversial performances and while some members of the audience sang along to the songs and enjoyed it, others walked out in anger- confused by it's unconventional style. Bel was sued in Ireland in 2002 because of a piece he performed that was not considered a dance. Many of his performances featured nudity and one of the more extreme examples is when he showed a man urinating on stage.

Reading: Harvie, J (2009) ‘Theatre and the City’, Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan, pp. 1-10 and 45-61

This reading talks about the relationship between theatre and the city and why it is important in contemporary performances. It states that understanding theatre in relation to a city can make us understand the city better, and vice versa. One of the performances mentioned is "Small Metal Objects" which was performed in Stratford underground station. I found the description of this performance to be very relevant to the work we are doing in class because our university is based in the city of Stratford and this is where our performances will be. This performance involved the audience members using headsets because it was performed in a loud and busy environment. This does place some emphasis on the importance of dialogue in a performance, particularly when it is performed outside. However performances like these can make us understand how we live in a certain city or environment. The city of Stratford is well-known and iconic. I would like to consider basing my performance around every day life in Stratford, as I want the audience to understand the rich culture of it and get an insight in to how people live there.

Harvie goes on to discuss some of the benefits of performing in a city. He states that when we gather in a place or community, as audience members we might experience a sense of group identity. We feel part of something. In light of this we might look at performing in the city as not only an intregal part in the ever growing success of outdoor theatre, but also an important part of reaffirming our sense of community, and making us feel as if we belong.