I am back, rolling

I have officially graduated from my MA degree in Theatre: Visual Language of Performance with a distinction! My final show, Blind Trust, went really well and I am working on taking it to another venue now.
For the past month I have been looking into creative and job opportunities (the two not always go together really, but then again, that's another creative aspect of it all) and have been lucky to have a nice break from an exhausting, but indeed very productive, year. I have started going to some dance workshops at the Place,  something I hadn't had much time for during my MA year. 
Also, I recently discovered that luna parks, which have always had some kind of a 'sad and out-of-date stuck in the eighties' feeling attached to them, are beginning to involve our senses on a more personal level. A few quid to spend 10 minutes in a plastic sphere on your own, in an open field...It was a thrill!

It's called 'zorbing', and seems to be a new sport activity in fast expansion. It may only look like a simple hobby, but if you actually decide to move in a certain pattern with that ball, it does take the energy and skills!

'Secret Service' at Le Volcan

I am finally able to attend one of Felix Ruckert's performances. It's Secret Service, the piece I actually got to know his company with. It's part of a small festival in Le Havre, France, at Le Volcan.

Le Volcan is a big, chimney-like structure, that resembles a volcanic mountain, as its name suggests. Only it's entirely white and is the most popular venue in Le Havre that offers a rich program of theatre, performance and music.

Strangely, I feel the excitement prior to a performance one is presenting rather than attending. I know that this piace includes no visual input, so I will not be just waiting for something to happen in visual terms. Even after having read a lot on this piece and Ruckert's work in general, I suppose it's about the personal experience and all the theory doesn't really matter now.

The foyer has been transformed into a waiting room and people are reading through the informational sheet on the performance while sipping their fruit juices. I take my number and join the crowd as I wait for my turn to come up. I am already aware that Secret Service is divided into two parts: the first is about haptic experience and is more open to interaction, while at the same time participants are being led and manipulated by performers. On the other hand, the second part concentrates on pain and pleasure and it takes part after a break following part one. This part involves the participant having most of his skin exposed, in order to have more acute sensations. The main element is that all participants are blindfolded for the whole duration of both parts. Seeing strictly prohibited.

Number 8 is on the screen and I go in. We are seated in another small waiting room, with lower lighting. We are welcomed and soon blindfolded, one by one, as we are assured we can interrupt the experience in case we didn't feel comfortable or awkward. A pair of hands take me and and from there onwards I rely on my senses of touch, smell and hearing, on my physical balance and sense of orientation. My feet are heavy on the floor as somebody massages my legs swiftly, preparing me for sightless movement. It doesn't take me too long getting used to the fact that I can not see. I begin to perceive other bodies moving withing the space, even if I hardly have an actual contact with them and after a while it's possible to distinguish the few performers that are interacting with me by their smell, skin texture, weight or style of movement. I find myself walking and changing directions, running till I have no breath left, dancing, playing hide and seek and I even manage to hold somebody on my legs while lying down on my back. Performers are really good at manipulating me and yet I feel my body is free, maybe due to the fact that I am so cautious with it. Every little movement is thought and planned at first, but after a while I feel more confident to move around and it's amazing how complete the experience is given that language and visual input, the most widely used in every day life, are completely eliminated. It seems normal to talk with my body, move with my ears and see with my skin. It's over before I know it, a pair of hands lead me back to where I was blindfolded in the first place. I am back sitting on the sofa and I feel a cool glass placed in my hands. 'Here, have some water'. Before I know it my blindfold has been taken off. I drink the water and stick around for a few more minutes. On my way out I pop a couple of grapes in my mouth and I am again in the foyer.

There are more people waiting to go to part one, and some of them are probably here for part two. As I come out their eyes are on me, probably hoping to understand more about the performance, maybe they are just comparing faces that come out of the performative space, or maybe I simply find it unusual to look at or be looked at right after Secret Service part one. Strangely enough I feel uneasy walking towards them, as I am still adjusting my seeing-moving balance and involuntarily letting go of my haptic/auditory receptive instincts. Walking feels somehow very artificial now that i can compare ti with the space around me. But I start realising why people are actually looking. It's the only way of gathering information, especially from somebody they don't know. But now, to me, seeing is still quite irrelevant. I feel empty looking at them. I cannot smell them or touch them, or feel the way they breathe. My other senses have developed so quickly over the past forty-five minutes (which seemed much shorter) that I actually find it difficult to simply go back to relying on my eyes and shutting down my other tools for perception.

The intimacy of the first part made it feel like a very personal experience, even though audience members were in the same space at the same time. The fact that we would never see that space and the people who interacted with us probably freed us from the preconceptions of worrying how we would look in the others' eyes. Even though performers could actually see participants, it didn't really matter, because eye contact, which is what makes us the most conscious of how somebody else is, was not part of it. Being impossible to judge by the looks of somebody, we got used to recognising everyone through using our other senses in a more acute way.

Unable to see absolutely anything, at the same time, triggered a lot of visual input, which was obviuosly a response of the brain to what the other senses were sending out to it. This may as well mean that seeing with your skin, nose and ears, became just like seeing with your eyes. The very same mechanism was adopted by the human body, only it became evident through experience. Were we provided the luxury of using our eyes, the visual input would have overwhelmed and suppressed any other sense, which, in the case of blindfolding, was able to recreate reality through personal interpretation, making reference to past memories. Although it is true to say that any kind of input, be it visual, auditory, haptic or olfactory affects how we perceive and interpret, since vision is our principle means for perception, we tend to not only trust it most, but consequently share experience with others based upon it, for example describing something by how it looks. This is why I think that the perception brought about by the other senses, rather than vision, tends to be more personal, due its high indescribability.

Soon it's my turn for the second part. The procedure is more or less the same, except from the fact that before I get blindfolded I am asked whether I want to be handcuffed too. I am aware that this part does require the participant to be more submissive and concentrates on pain and pleasure, but it feels strange to set another restriction: movement. Fortunately I have a few minutes to decide, while the other two participants who have come in with me readily accept to be handcuffed. It actually made a big difference that they were there and I am sure that different participants would have influenced me in another way, according to how many went for it or not. The assistant sees that I am hesitant and assures me I can do whatever I want, just as in the first part, letting me know that the handcuffs remain for the whole duration of the piece (I didn't miss asking that little detail). In the end I go for it, after all it's probably the only time I can put myself in this situation without any possible negative results. It's voluntary, it's a game and it can stop whenever I wish. Actually, the perfect opportunity to get yourself handcuffed.

Again, a pair of hands takes me into an invisible space and my hands are clipped above my head, so that I am almost completely immobile. I can only perceive slight movements around me and am expecting something to happen. I start hearing some kind of whipping noises and am ready for a hit coming from any direction. However, it's first a tickle on my back. I am certain that it's going to turn into something harsher as I can hear has already happened to somebody else. And when it does, I can hardly hold my laughter. Somehow, as I knew what was about to happen, the actual happening of it didn't really have much significance at first on a physical level. The performer 'hitting' me also started laughing. With the little movement I was entitled to I start moving and trying to escape the whips and I get some smacks on my feet for that. I experience some horrible pinching around my waist and I am almost sure it's a needle. And here I dare to ask whether is so (and now that I think about it of course it was impossible)...'No, it goes like this' as I get another one on my stomach and I realise it's a peg. It stays there and I have no way of getting it off even though I try flexing and contracting my stomach muscles to get it off. It stays there and I also get one that closes my nose. Here I manage to reach with my hands and take it off, but realise that I was not supposed to as the performer behind me laughs along with me and grabs the peg from my hands. I recognise his laughter from part one. He is one of the strongest guys.

I keep on picturing how I look, something I was not worried about in the first part. The restrictions and the fact that I am being exposed in this way makes me feel awkward. I want to be able to do something about it. While the first part was more interactive, this one tests the participant's feelings of pleasure and pain. My legs are tight together with a rope, then gently untied. By now, performers have probably realised I need a break. My hands are freed at last, and I can feel the blood flowing back to the tips of my fingers. I am covered with a blanket and held and hugged for a long time before I am taken back to where I started.

This was definitely the more difficult part to participate in, because it carried a certain deal of psychological involvement, whereas in part one, reactions tended to be more spontaneous. In part two one was confronted with pain, and for as much as one is resistant, when pain doesn't have a well-defined reason, the way one reacts to it or resists it may change drastically. Probably this is the reason why I got tired of it at some point, I felt trapped in it and there was not a set goal for it. It was a test of pain and pleasure offered, but its anonymity and setting (a safe performative environment) made it hard to realise one's limits of pain. Of course, pleasure is another story. While with pain one is inclined to set his limits according to what the pain brings him eventually, except from if one sees pain as pure pleasure, is that pleasure is enough to feel satisfied with and not ask yourself whether it is going to bring you something because it already makes you feel good.

Another point to be made here, regarding pain, is that not seeing what and how it was inflicted, made it feel much stronger and real than what it really was. I must say that after the performance I hadn't even a suggestion of any kind of pressure on my body, considering the fact that I bruise way too easily. This also suggests that the performers were very well trained in order to be able to give strong sensations when they were not really so significant. Thus, the 'make-believe' effect was not only given by the fact that we were blindfolded but also by the training and preparations of the performers.

What is unique about Secret Service is that it is neither about performers nor about participants. The complex communication created between the two lays in its foundations, making the ephemirality of performance evident each time it takes place. It does, at the same time, hold a clear distinction between the two, making it possible for haptic interaction that is allowed to develop following a certain pattern, thus setting the limits of what can or cannot happen. Further, it makes dance and movement accessible to audiences that may not normally choose a dance performance to a theatre piece for example, or a rock concert. While body language alone, especially as employed by contemporary dancers and choreographers is abstract and thus open for broad interpretation, spoken language is more direct and therefore less abstract. This is why dance often has a specific dance audience, which often has some sort of a dance/movement background. Secret Service however, takes away the visual from dance, preventing an interpretation based on what is seen, so making dance acccessible to anyone through the immediacy of touch.

There are very few performances that have stayed with me for a long time once thay are over, and from talking to people I have found that this is very common. As Tim Etchells has said, if a performance doesn't touch you in any way, your mind going back to it every now and then, then it is not worth it. While this may be considered a very total point of view, which merits another chapter here, Secret Service is definitely one of those worth it. Moreover, its audience circumference is far greater than many other works which have a more specific target, yet remaining truthful to dance theatre and audience participation, beautifully making the sense of touch its main element at the same time.

 

Space Space Space

Third and last term is kicking off! And it's time to present one of my pieces in a space outside school. I had been meaning to do that since presenting my first piece last December. However, I had realised how hard it is to find a venue in London that will not charge you a high price, making it really difficult for a full-time MA student who would not exactly be described as rich and economically independent (speaking for myself of course!)
Even big festivals like The Fringe in Edinburgh charge you for every single thing, from the hiring of a space to any minimal technical assistance, and this advantage is reserved to the selected artists and groups. Looking at the costs one wonders whether it's worth it to even apply.
It is no doubt a must to get out there, so in my current hunt for a venue, I do hope to get lucky. My advantage is that having more than one piece to choose from, I am flexible with spaces and have even thought of doing it outdoors. Problem is, outdoors is a synonymus to bad weather these days...
Let's see

Singing and dancing along (A look at participation in a Rembetiko concert)

Going back home to the sunny island of Cyprus, for as much work as I had to do in such a short period of time, I had to go and listen to a live music performance of Rembetiko. 'The Mediterranean Blues', a common description for this style of music, which is still much appreciated in the countries where it was born, gives rise not simply to concerts in laid back restaurants and cafés but to a quickly spreading audience participation.

Rembetiko developed in the 1920s and 1930s in the port cities of Greece, among communities uprooted from Asia Minor in the population exchanges after the Treaty of Lausanne. This mixture of Oriental classical music, Greek folk music and Western urban environment created a unique style. With its “limping” rhythm and lyrics about depression, drugs, prison, death and unrequited love, Rembetiko became the expression of the outcast. Banned in Greece by the dictator Metaxas and in Turkey by Ataturk, Rembetiko is now been rediscovered, shared and celebrated by many from both countries.

The three performers were sitting on a table like ordinary clients, with their food and drinks in front of them. Tuning in instruments as if it were the most natural thing, they started off by playing a few familiar songs. Very soon, more people started arriving while some of them whould sing along in a low voice. The musicians nodded with satisfaction at anyone brave enough to join in even if omitting some of the lyrics. The clapping of hands that follow the rhythm of tunes is an alternative for those who are too lazy to sing, however, it requires quite an amount of experience as the uneven rhythms can often fool you. Some would also make requests for a song to the musicians by singing the first lines, and by the end of the night everyone was singing and dancing, having made contact with at least one other table of people besides the one occupied by the musicians.

Scene from Kostas Ferris' film Rembetiko

I believe that music is an art that reaches its spectator/listener with an immediacy that no other does and it has, thanks to this immediacy, managed to preserve audience participation as one of it elements-something other performative arts have lost throughout time. Audience participation in this case however is not only triggered by the music itself but by the casual setting (an unpretencious and friendly restaurant). Although it is true to say that all spectators here were out for a treat and were therefore pre-disposed to joining in and contributing to the performance, also given their backgorund and traditions, the dynamics of audience-performer influence is evident and undoubtedly has its roots with the very first musicians of Rembetiko.

After its official ban, the Mediterranean Blues had to be practiced in secret, which made

the sense of community created within those gatherings even stronger. People met and all participated in something that was not legal; whether musicians or not, they were all transgressors in the eyes of the state and on this common grounds the gap between performer and spectator never even had the time to form. This is why singing along with the musicians and singers is welcomed, as Rembetiko is about sharing.

The style of making Rembetiko and participating in it has preserved its original meaning, and although it is obviously not banned today and is no longer considered the expression of an outcast's life, musicians and audience come together not only to celebrate the Blues of the Mediterranean but to be part of a community.

Audience-Actor Ratio 1-200

You Me Bum Bum Train takes a single spectator for a wheelchair ride, on a journey of different scenarios that are made up of no less than two hundred actors and performers. A 40-minute adrenaline session gives spectators a condensed taste of real life situations (some less 'real life' maybe)- from going to the dentist, assisting a bull fight and being famous to becoming a translator of a language you don't even know!

Role reversal takes another dimension here, as spectators are not simply becoming actors through the interaction with other performers. The presence of such a large number of performers for a single spectator shows the attention given to each participant, clearly concentrated on the personal experience of spectators. They are cured, adored, provoked, put under examination by the performers. Hence, the strong impact on spectators, who describe it as one of the most powerful experiences in their lives. I wouldn't blame them, despite the fact that You Me Bum Bum Train is not real life. But how many times do we happen to have 200 people there for us, constantly creating an imput for interaction?

The concentration of different situations in which the spectator is put inevitably wakes up their senses, which is another reason why I find this participatory performance so interesting.

A story told through sensorial experience (I Fiori del Te' by gruppo LIS)

Few years back I participated in an itinerary performance, the rituality of which involved its spectators by engaging their senses of touch and smell apart from vision. I Fiori del Te' (which means 'The Tea Flowers' in Italian) was presented as part of an annual art festival, Fabbrica Europa. Since my work has evolved around sensory experience and audience participation, I recall this piece quite vividly and haven't happened to see anything like it ever since.

Gruppo Lis took its spectators on a journey that illustrated the Japanese ritual of tea through letting them explore their sensorial perception and thus making the delicate story somehow more accessible and real. Each participant was separately greeted by a performer with a hug and led into another chamber. The dark atmosphere suggested from the beginning that vision was not the only sense that was to be explored and used in this performance. One by one, audience members assembled in a dimly lit chamber and were seated on the floor. As the performers began to recite part of the story, people were given little knives and before we realised we were all engaged in peeling potatoes together. The lack of light made it a highly sensorial task, which brough together everyone in the room, including the performers.

The sense of touch and manuality were explored individually although by using the same elements audience members became part of a community. The simple manual task emerged spectators in the rituality that is attached to the growth and preparation of tea in the Orient.

The itinerary nature of the performance made spectators feel more participative as we were led to new rooms, each with different settings as every time another episode of the story unfolded. The performative actions, which concentrated on the visual perception of spectators, blended with moments of haptic experience, triggered by the settings and objects within the spaces. As single moments were marked by different places, it became clear that each episode contained its own ritual, whether it included visual, auditory or haptic involvement.

Barefoot, participants were conducted to a path of warm earth in order to reach the chamber where the story came to an end. The act of walking itself was transformed into a sensual experience, leading the audience into the conclusive act of the performance.

I Fiori del Te' made its spectators part of the performance by physically making them aware of the rituality that is contained within the Eastern tradition of tea. The theme of the performance perfectly matched its sensory elements, thus making the piece a very special event that hovered between theatre, performance and ritual.

Lab Two Report. We all have a responsibility

Right...Not too sure what the layout of a proper lab report (that is not a physics or chemistry lab) should be like. So here is the feedback sheet I gave out to spectators after the performance. Those were the main questions discussed, although the talk was very open and different opinions regarding various aspects of the work were shared.

The primary question I was addressing was the audience space. All spectators had been facing a different direction, and I was happy with the result, as everyone had encountered some kind of difficulty in understanding where to look. Some had felt embarassed to move around in order not to make noise, others were in a place where the two main screens where an action took place were clearly visible at the same time, while somebody felt like 'being all over the place'. It was less than a 10 minute performance, and some complained of a neck pain... Well, tough, it's up to you how you treat your neck!
I must be honest, very few people gave constructive comments, provided that those labs were meant for constructive discussion, testing ideas and hopefully finding out what works and what doesn't. No doubt I had fun receiving silly  comments from people who were simply maybe too tired or not in the mood, and as much as I may be considerate of my fellow workers' opinions, I shall remain concentrated on the comments I found constructive and therefore useful for my work.


I felt it is necessary to stress this point exactly because my work starts with the audience and their role. I recognise the complexity of spectatorship and my research aims at reflecting the spectators' complexity in terms of vision, auditory interpretation, physical space. I have a responsibility for what I do and how it is interpreted, but in this case the audience had a responsibility of giving constructive comment and they did not.


Fair enough, the following can be deducted from the more active members of audience:


1.Sitting arrangement was interesting, even if it created limits. To make audience members freer to move chairs the use of chairs of stools (with no back) can be used. Also, why not stools with wheels?
Why was the audience seated? Technical problems (lights and video screen couldn't be fixed high enough, so everyone's shadow would have been cast on the screens)


2. Visuals in different places were interesting because it gave a choice. This is what it was meant to do, although some felt that they couldn't see everything. But in the way we interpret do we actually see everything? What is everything?
The piece dealt with a curious case of a visual interpretation disorder. Maybe I was actually able to transmit the notion of a visual disorder.


3. The dialogue sequence (possible thanks to a collaboration with Lauren and Jeanne) was for some very good, as it enriched the piece. Others felt it was confusing. Those are two very different statements. Not because the latter implies that the speech performance was not a very good idea, but because they are of different nature. One has to do with structure of the piece and the other interprets one aspect of it. Well the two voices were really one person that had two minds: a visual and an emotional one. It is impossible not to mix them up!
I think that technically Lauren and Jeanne did a very good job. Of course time was as usually a problem and they didn't have enough time to rehearse (and of course for an ongoing project I would feel obliged to pay them!). However, from experience, voice work develops over time, and especially when working with always the same people, a certain rhythm develops, where the beat and time of words flows according to unknown rules.


4. The domino sequence. Managed to get some interpretations, although a few people found it was not necessary to attribute any meaning to it, as visually and sound wise they created a good effect. For another they marked the beginning and the end of the piece, which they accidentally did! They did mark two different interpretations of vision. To another they carried the weights of trauma, fate and reflection. I guess it was a chain reaction I wanted to include for its marking sound, that has to do with a rhythm in time. Visually a chain reaction shows how one thing leads to another and another again, which does have to do with the complex neurological system of vision and emotions.


5. Light stripes. Somebody recalled a similar effect from my first piece (What you see is what you get?). Am I developing a style here? The overhead projector was the best option for this, as darks are stark dark and lights are shining. A video may be endlessly versatile in the sequences of lines, but the darks are still projected black light, which does reveal what is in front of it. 
However, I would like to do some further video testing. 
The sequence appeared to be interesting in the beginning, when my body was not yet fully visible. Once I was fully visible, although the dark stripes hid some parts, one could make up even what was not seen. This was a very good comment. It is really difficult to know what actually people see when I am performing. I did film myself to see the effect and asked somebody to do a few movements with the light sequence, but it is different live and when you are in it! Since the whole point of this part had to do with seeing parts of a whole and never the whole thing, a more interesting light sequence will be tested soon despite the fact that a projection sends out more light. I will look into it, portakabin here I come!


6.Would people come to see my next work? Not many answered this, so I guess they didn't get time, didn't feel comfortable with it or just didn't want to say 'no'. A funny one was 'not unless it's free'! This was hilarious, honesty appreciated. But then again...I must remain faithful to analysing and responding. If I work towards encouraging an active audience, I must be an active performer and an active receiver of feedback. We all go to concerts, exhibitions and events that are free. It's a way of seeing more without spending much, and especially for students this is a big advantage. However, if I saw singer X for free a couple of months ago and found him utterly boring and unoriginal, I would definitely not go to see him again, even if it's for free. Why would I waste my time? I think this answer has to do more with the relation that the spectator has with money, and had nothing to do with the way my performance was presented and its structure.


Well, there goes a performance lab report. If it may not be of any use to anyone, it certainly has been good for me to gather a few reflections.


Some pictures from the show, kindly offered by Dun Yu:

Lab Two - A Self Interview

What do I hope to achieve?

I want to create a space for the audience, where they feel free to turn around and look in different directions. I will be using different elements within the piece, which can be viewed from different angles, thus providing a choice of different visual as well as auditory imput.

I want to find find out how safe the audience feels with being in the middle of a performance space, which is an audience arrangement I want to use for the Interim Show.

Further, it is important for me to get feedback on the reception and interpretation of the signifiers within the work, which draws inspiration from a curious case of a neurological disorder described by Oliver Sacks.

Why do I want to achieve this?

In my previous work I looked for different ways of making audience discover and see through unconventional ways of lighting and stage design, which inevitably involved audiences' participation through their use of other senses such as touch and smell. This research has taken me further into questioning audience participation and its mechanisms. Although this piece is not of direct audience participation, it will examine the physical settings for audience involvement, which is an integral part of the project for the Interim Show in April.

What research questions am I asking?

I will be addressing mainly practical questions that regard the audience engagement. I would like to see how they can interpret and interact within a space that is not designed for a conventional audience. Furthermore, I am experimenting with live dialogue, which is something I hadn't employed in my past two performance pieces.

Note: My original idea was to invite the audience to join in the dialogue, but I decided this is not a good idea (at least at this point) as spectators may feel intimidated. I don't like hearing my own voice, and knowing that I am not the only one, why should I push the audience into something like that? For me audience participation must be a natural reaction only triggered by performative elements. 

Rider Spoke - an intimate talk anonymous

Recently I visited a couple of times the Live Art Development Agency. A cosy little library, which contains an amazing number of DVDs, books, magazines and other pubblications. I spent two days mostly watching DVDs that document the work of various artists who work in the field.

Although I didn't find any video documentation of the work of Richard Foreman, Richard Schechner and The Wooster Group, whose work I have only read about so far, I found the library very useful for getting to know performance artists and experimental theatre companies operating in the UK.


I watched a video that documents the piece Rider Spoke by the artists' group Blast Theory. It was of much interest to me due to their approach to audience participation. Rider Spoke sends out its participants on bicycles around the city with a specially deviced digital map. They are to find a hiding place where they can verbally answer questions about their personal life and emotions on a recording device, while the venues are indicated on their digital screen.

The video documentation I had access to was from Rider Spoke at the Barbican in 2007. While it contained technical explanations of the technology involved and practical issues, it gave you a taste of the participants' voice recordings, letting you in each private little world made of words. 


While the piece offes its participants freedom and self-sufficiency, they embark on a journey unsure of what is to come next. Their orienteering skills are put to the test and they are asked to answer personal questions while cycling around or stopping at a certain spot, which could have been just visited by another participant. It may be said that the participants are the sole protagonists of this work and although their stories are revealed in a collection and released as documentation material, the participants are on their own and the project is about their personal way of interpreting reality given a certain setting (the city). Audience is not a collective organism here but rather a moving body of individuals who visit the same places all at different times. 


Rider Spoke wants the audience to talk about themselves in an intimate manner, and there is no better way of doing that than letting each participant wander around on their own. Participants are confronted with their own thoughts and feelings, which becomes all easier to do in the absence of a rigid and predefined space and a spectator/actor who is there, eager to hear it all. 

Stirring up reactions

As I have been developing some ideas on creating a participatory performance, I came to realise that a chain reaction mechanism could be a good way to imagine how active responses may be triggered within an audience, transforming them into a wave that follows a certain pattern. A pattern where one thing naturally leads to another, simply demonstrating the way things go, so well illustarted by Swiss artists Fischly and Weiss in one of their most celebrated works 'The Way Things Go'.

It's all in your camera... Click!

Yesterday the Chinese New Year was celebrated in London, one week after its real arrival last week. Trafalgar Square and China Town were bustling with crowds, apparently eager to see the numerous executions of the lion dance, the dragon's swirling movements, the various artists and their tricks. Since I don't know when I will have the opportunity to visit China and see these traditions in a more authentic environment  I figured out it would be a good idea to go and see.

Some years ago I saw a traditional shadow puppet theatre from Bali and was amazed at the energy and movement that Asian performers are able to transmit through puppets and the subtle effects created by their colourful costumes. It was the first time that I saw what Chinese call 'The Lion dance', which is generally performed by two people, one being the head and upper body of the animal and the second animating its back paws. Although there were many interpretations around China Town, I think that the one presented in Trafalgar Square was the best. The performers were two young brothers, who were clearly very skilled. The doll moved with dexterity, jumping around on the wooden polls and whenever it turned around, making its stomach visible, you could spot the performers and see how they moved to animate the lion. The expressivity of the lion was not only given by the fast and diverse moves, but also by some little details on its head, which permitted winking and ear movement. 

Being a big event, it was obviously very hard to see everything live, so a big screen allowed most people to see what was going on stage, though omitting the brightness and texture of the real colours. The audience. It was the saddest audience I ever saw. I just couldn't figure out why they were there. Oh yes, to take pictures. I must admit that the ladies presenting the event were not very good at getting the crowds excited, but on such events people are ususally there to have fun together; shouting at the top of your voice and clapping hands is a normal reaction one would expect. There were no reactions whatsoever, I found myself  clapping and saying 'Kung hei fat choi' along with a few more people, while everyone else was looking at their digital cameras' screens. Not something new, of course, but I was still shocked at how people seemed so indifferent and couldn't help wondering whether their impressions are formed solely on the digital reproduction of the images or also on the 3D, live effect. 

Somebody standing in front of me was filming for around ten minutes and then spend the remaining time of the performance watching his footage, claiming it was so much better than what was showing on the big screen. But what was better about it? It's funny, if somebody found themselves there without a camera, would they be able to prove they were really there?

Clothes are a girl's (and a boy's) best friend!

My project to be presented tomorrow started as a two week collection of clothes. I sent emails, put up posters around school and was quite positive about people filling up my pretty handmade container! No chance though. The idea of performing in audience's clothes started looking like a much harder task than what I had previously expected. 

Involving spectators this time will be through using on stage something theirs: a piece of clothing, of any kind, any size, any colour. The Analysis of Performance Art (A Guide to its Theory and Practice) by Anthony Howell gave me material to ponder on and develop on the theme of clothing. For a contemporary dancer/performer what usually matters is being comfy in order to move freely and show your natural body, without any excessive embellishments. So although  I have always taken some care of choosing what to wear on stage, especially when performing with others, it felt more like choosing what to wear before going out rather than preparing for a show. But being aware of how different clothes may affect our movements, I wanted to go for creating a piece that is based on clothes. How do we choose our clothes? By apperance? By feel? By price? We are so visually bombarded with fashion catwalks, although some very artistic, they always end up presenting the same models with the same walk, the same face. So we can all look the same, but do clothes feel the same on all of us? 

In a city like London, where second hand clothing and flee markets are places visited on a regualr basis by almost everyone (especially Art students), I thought it wouldn't be difficult to fill up a basket with clothes: it was a way of creating some curiosity in spectators and ensuring that they do come to see the performance. But the basket was empty after almost two weeks of being at the entrance of college, despite all statements on my poster assuring that clothes will be taken care of and returned. Well it made me aware of how much people are jealous of their clothes; the difference between a Brick Lane vintage shop and my project at this stage is purely economic. I bet if I was giving ten quid to people for their clothes I would have collected some good garments!


Well to make a long story short, I had to change my tactics. When creating the flyer for the actual performance, I decided to tell people that they must bring a piece of clothing on the actual performance. It may be considered as their ticket to the twenty minute show. No clothes - No entry! I am curious to see who shows up tomorrow.

Live wins

I am extremely satisfied with the outcome of two weeks of hard work for my performance 'What you see is what you get?'. I presented it yesterday at the observatory of the college. It was designed for a limited number of people, so I did it twice, which was a good way of testing my audience.


My interest was in involving the audience in a non intrusive manner, and yet make them question their way of seeing and looking at things, putting under careful examintation their vision and other senses, such as smell, touch and taste. That is why I decided on using no lighting whatsoever, handing everyone a small torch in the beginning of the performance, when everyone was sitting in stark darkness (it did take a while to make sure there were not streaming lights from outside or all the equipment used for the piece) not really sure of what was to happen next.

It was great doing the performance twice, because audiences responded differently, changing slightly the timing of what is seen and when, which was a clear demonstration of the autopoietic feedback loop (the exchange that happens between performer and audience). Also, audiences varied slightly in number, which changed the amount of lighting avilable:less people equals less torches.


It was clear to me that I was taking a risk giving around all these torches and letting people play with them, but it is also true that I had a very sensible audience. It was interesting to be influenced by the light from the flashlights they used and yet maintain the rhythm I had previously worked on and calculated also keeping to the soundtrack that was created especially for this performance.


What I find most stunning about working with the dark, as opposed to light, is that the other senses are induced to work more, and the audience is put in a position of finding out what the best way to 'see' is. In my effort of putting together some video clips of the documentation of the performance, I find that it is extremely hard to understand what the piece was about. If one was not there, it is almost impossible to understand what happened on stage and how it evolved. Although I am sorry not to have a good recording of it, I realise that the impossibility to document it properly means that it is a piece that makes sense when performed live, and since live comes before mediatized for me, both as the performer and director of the piece, I am very happy with the final result. I got some very valuable feedback from spectators and would definitely like to present the piece again, and why not in another venue.

Showing not in Little Britain

It's been an intense Friday at Wimbledon College today, happily concluded by a nice get together at the nearby pub. Got to say that British pubs can be quite dull and sad, but if you are with the right company they start looking almost cosy and inviting. 

Today we had the lecture theatre booked for the afternoon to use as a performance and exhibiting space, where to show our work to anybody who is around and willing to walk in and have a chat. I found that a great idea and was looking forward to it. It got most of us working really hard to be able to put something up on time, and it was great seeing everybody experimenting and bringing things in.

As regards to my piece I was quite unsure what type of work I should propose. So far I have been reading and writing a lot, accompanied by some sketches and photographs. Exhibiting these would be really lame, as they are just some elements that support my research, but are not quite right to present as a 'sample' of my work. As my interest has shifted from the 'visual' to the 'non visual' or more pricisely to the 'not seen', I asked myself which direction do i take next? Is blindness a theme that I want to use in my work, or is it that certain condition which obliges individuals to use their other senses to the fullest that I want to suggest to the audience? This is why I first thought of a slide show storyboard for a small part of Orhan Pamuk's 'My name is red'. But while sketching I realised it was not the right thing. So if I was to take my 'blind' ideas further, i need to put it into practice. I decided to blindfold myself for an hour or two and 'explore' the works of my colleagues using my other senses, considering essential dialogue. I spent a while to find a simple ribbon to use for the blindfold, so as not to look like a performer who's on about showing something off. It was really to be part of my research. 

While everyone was preparing their work to be taken upsatairs, in my effort of not looking around too much before my 'perception exploring', I was doing some experiments with a small torch, trying to create only a small dot of light. I tryed putting on 'blinds' on the glass bit of it, with tiny holes, but the effect was still that of the diffusing light that a torch normally has. That's until I got Esteban to have a look and he suggested I make a long cone, attach it to the torch and then block it with a 'blind'. Great, it worked! But the torch didn't look like a flashlight anymore, it was half a meter long and looked like a small kalashnikov. Looking through the small hole on the blind with the light on, it created a really nice tunnel effect, so I made a black paper container for it, through which people can look. It wasn't gonna take long, and it was something I could show as well. While finishing it off, I was surprised by my colleagues who announced that we don't have the space which had been booked for us. Quite literally we had been kicked out, and for this kind of school and standards that is unacceptable.

Where things went from there is something I will go back to in another post. Good thing was we had a new group meeting to discuss our priorities and needs as students who are part of Wimbledon College. For as much as this country has hit us with a culture shock, it's good to know where we stand.

This is where the magic happens! And it's a miracle as well, just picture nearly 16 of us there making performance in that space...

Ant

While writing 'insignificant' for the picture of the previous post, while not having space to fit it the whole word on one line I had to take a second one for 'ant' and just realised that an ant does have to do with insignificance. Not that ants are insignificant to our world, but for their size, they are (and probably would feel, if they could feel like us) quite insignificant, as opposed to the sizes and dimensions of our (in/human) world.

Some like it blind

Last Friday Amanda Beech gave a lecture on neutrality at Wimbledon College of Art. She discussed on different theories and philosophers, such as Theodor Adorno and Maurice Blanchot. Amanda started off by talking about the tragic story of Oedipus, arguing that in this case knowledge and innocence are closely associated with power and violence.  Of course hadn't Oedipus come to learn the truth about his parents and what he had done without knowing, he wouldn't have blinded himself. 

The image that was before us for quite a while was the figure (of Oedipus) with its hands tense and eyes bleeding, obviously just as he blinded himself. 

What struck me most about Oedipus was his choice of punishing himself. One would generally expect that the worst punishment that one chooses, after realising the terrible things they have done is to end their life.  But Oedipus chooses to continue living, and suffering for his past actions, living in eternal darkness, unable to see the external world.


This reminded me, although in different perspective, of Orhan Pamuk's great masterpiece 'My name is Red', which tells the story of a misterious murder in a  circle of Ottoman miniaturists of the 16th century. Apart from the fact that the novel is written in a an elaborate manner, keeping the reader always in suspence, it contains a great deal of insight on the philosophy of life of those artists. In their attention for the mastery of minute details, their excellent vision was of vital importance, especially as young apprentices. As they grew older and therefore more experienced in their specific field of drawing or colouring it was expected that with time, they would slowly become blind due to the 'exhaustion' of the eye. Not only was that a sign of great mastery, but it was considered a blessing from God (Allah) who granted those who had served him faithfully all their life the gift of seeing the world through His eyes, far from the earthly  beauties we see with our eyes, but in the eternal world of darkness.


I found it amazing that artists, whose eye sight was so vital, embarked on a  journey that was to take it away form them, and that was considered the most precious reward. Some would deliberately blind themsleves  after a long career as miniaturists, and they would still continue drawing and painting, as by that time they had mastered the art so well they could do it without even looking.  To produce visual Art they no longer need to be able to see the outside world, but the darkness that not many are entitled to in the world of the living.

See- Saw -Seen

Any performance, for as much as it can be based on verbal interaction, or any work af Art, whether we are perofrming or watching, it requires first and foremost our ability to see. As simple as it may seem, we need our eyesight.  I have been terrified at the thought of losing my sight; what would happen then?  Would I still be able to create something which is meant to be seen and experienced as visual?  Everything around us is visual.  And yet the lastest film by Spanish director Pedro Almadovar, 'Los Abrazos rotos' (Broken embraces) tells the tragic story of a film director who kept on writing scripts, despite the loss of his eyesight in a car accident.  Not to ruin you a night at the cinema, but the most striking thing about it is that he edits his best film ever as a blind man.  Yes, his visual masterpiece of cinema is something he would never see.  But would it have been his masterpiece if the shooting hadn't taken place when he could still see?

Live vs Mediatized

Which one was to be my fist book from the 'essential' list this term? Got quite a few of them at home, they are all brand new, with beautiful covers and almost all of them have the word 'performance' in their title, so it's really my perfect reading. My eye fell on Paul Auslander's 'LIVENESS Performance in a mediatized culture'. 'Liveness' suggested something playful and yet the cover of the book is almost austere: a dark theatre, with its traditional red seats, all empty. Impossible to say if that is before or after a performance, but it was certainly a great book to examine some aspects of the mechanism and development of performance in the contemporary world.

As performance artists, although we perennially co-exist with the digital reality, of today, when it comes to creating a piece we use digital technology as a tool to get the desired effects, rather than recognising it as an integrated element of the whole. The audience is mainly made up of people who grew up watching tv programs, go regularly to the cinema, or at least if they don't, they download movies and all kinds of software form the internet. They look at a medium of three hundred ads a day, according to recent statistics, they meet friends and relatives online every day and many of them skype their partner on the other end of the world before going to sleep; then wake up with a morning tv program, the radio, jogging with their ipod and checking emails. Well we are certainly going beyond this with technology nowadays, but that is not the point. It is simply clear that we are all part of a complex mediatized network that has kept on developing since the arrival of television. Our everyday use of technology is no longer simply a tool for our jobs, it's not even just a necessity. It's part of our existence and I would dare to consider that we are loving it, despite complaining of this 'digital world that's going faster and faster'.  Undoubtedly, we very well know we cannot survive without it.

So if this is our audience, how can we expect it to understand the 'magic' of theatre? I always thought that was the difference between any mediatized event (from tv recorded programs to global live events being transmitted online) and live performance. The presence of an actor and his direct and physical relationship to the audience is still considered by many the principle characteristic of live performance, that makes it so unique. But can we accept this view, given the mediatized world which we live in? Can we really expect the audience to 'feel' the magic of theatre or live performance, without taking into consideration their visual, psychological and structural surroundings, their broad perception of relationships and comunication?

It can be argued that the physical presence of the audience as a whole, as a collective group that is present at one single event, is another trait that renders live performance such a unique experience. And I would gladly agree to that, but it is also true that we have in mediatized performances we have the same audiences as in live performance.  Auslander is right in saying that 'mediatized performance makes just as effective a focal point for the gathering of a social group as live performance'. There is certainly a difference between the two, but not necessarily one of quality or originality. Further, we are able to discuss a mediatized piece in real time while generally at the theatre comments and thoughts are shared after the performance is over, which obviously takes away of the authenticity of the performance as comments are based on something that has already vanished and referring to what is already gone would mean reframing it in some way, paraphrasing it.

Going back to the relationship spectator- performer, we must recognise that theatre or any other kind of performance is made up of two elements: the actor and the spectator. If we go to see a live performance don't we expect to get more than seeing it on television for example?  Blau argues, very reasonably in my opinion, that the very experience of live performance creates a desire for community, which can be hardly satisfied given that performance is founded on difference and separation. For as much as the barrier between spectator and performer is narrowing in contemporary experimental theatre and performance, as long as we are talking about performance, there will always be those two 'opposites': the one who performs and the one who watches. Auslander takes Blau's argument further, stating that while we are unable to satisfy our longing for community between actor and audience in live performance, we tend to feel more comfortable and socially integrated within the audience in the case of mediatized performance.

Nothing is going to substitute going to the theatre, just as nothing will replace the commodity of enjoying a recorded performance at home in the company of friends or watching a live transmission of an event on a massive screen in a crowded city square. But we'd better get used to considering those two different options, both of which offer unique possibilities of perception, only in different ways. 

Me? A Blogger? Why?

I guess most people open a blog when they feel a certain urge to broaden even further their ways of sharing information, exchanging ideas, meeting new people, showing off with something, pretending to be someone else. I once followed, for a short while, a couple of blogs, enjoyed the daily newsfeed, but as I wasn't a blogger and couldn't comment on the articles published, my acquintance with them ended very quickly. I didn't have a good enough reason to start my own blog at the time, and I certainly didn't feel comfortable writing something that everyone could see.

Well, today I have a good reason to 'open' this blog: I am back to school and I need my journal. Yes, we all had journals at school, only this time the journey I am embarking on is MA VLP, and times have no doubt changed since I went to high school and wrote little notes in paper journals. Well with this blog not only will I save lots of paper but put my ideas forward to be shared, critiqued and commented on.

VLP stands for Visual Language of Performance.