Trio aim (high)

We need to get to this (aiming high):
'Spectatorship is not passivity that has been turned into activity. It s our normal situation. We learn and teach, we act and know as spectators who link what they see with what they have seen and told, done and dreamt. There is not privileged medium, as there is not privileged starting point. Everywhere there are starting points from which we learn something new, if we dismiss, firstly, the presupposition of the distance; secondly, the distribution of the roles; thirdly the borders between the territories. We have not to turn spectators into actors, We have to acknowledge that any spectator already is an actor of his own story and that the actor also is the spectator of the same kind of story. We have not to turn the ignorant into learned person,or, according to a mere scheme of overturn, make the student or the ignorant the master of his master'

By Jacqes Ranciere

artistic concept

This is part of the new proposal for the arts council and I think it really explains what we are trying to do and what we need to do next. We should keep it in mind and maybe re-read it when we feel kind of lost.

“green room” - artistic concept

At the core of this dance piece we question the roles of spectator and performer through an exploration of the act of watching. We are interested in the border between observing and taking part, the transition between watching and doing. Taking each audience member from a collective to an individual experience this piece is a literal exploration of the notion of the audience’s responsibility to create their own performance experience, as individuals and as a group.

The movement material and content of the piece we have started to develop during the previous research phases in London and Potsdam is closely connected to themes of intimacy and status/power-games within a small group. Set up as a series of sensory experiments for either the performer or an audience member we have so far used blindfolding and the use of masks, emphasising sensory experiences or allowing for elements of anonymity and theatricality to impact the audiences experience of content. As both the order of events and the duration of each spectator’s interaction are dependent on audience choice, the performers will work with a tight score of rules and cues to allow the movement material to dramaturgically develop throughout the piece.

Moving away from a traditionally representative performance format in a theatre setting with this piece, the “green room” is hosted in two small rooms – a performance room and a watching/waiting room. Two video cameras in the performance room connected to the watching room via a live video link. No more than two audience members at one time will be allowed in the performance space, the amount of time they wish to stay inside is up to their negotiation with the rest of the audience in the watching room.

Communicated verbally through a performing usher (dramaturge M. Hargreaves) and written instructions we will develop a set of interactive rules, a score for each spectator to enter the performance space, and tasks encouraging the audience to establish as a group in the watching room. The piece becomes alive in the interactive choices of each spectator within the rules and responsibilities we provide as a framework, a constant negotiation between the roles of performer and spectator. Therefore each performance must resolve in a unique conclusion, reflecting spectators and performers individual choices inside the performance room and the collective decisions made in the watching room. In the context of these artistic parameters, it is crucial for us to set up each research phase to involve audience members as part of a performance format and for detailed and personal feedback.

Within the performance format of “green room” there is clearly an underlying theme of modern surveillance culture and its effects on intimacy on our society. As much as these references should remain subtle and individual to each audience member’s perception, we will work with references to this theme through set design, costumes and lighting of the scenery and a general notion of inviting into a coherent and specifically manufactured world. For this we will employ historical literature on surveillance regimes and their impact on intimacy, i.e. as developed by the STASI in former East Germany or fictional literature such as George Orwell’s 1984.

Cindy Sherman’s film stills (1975-80) will also be an important inspiration to develop a design for the piece that inherits a sense of manufactured memory and careful attention to detail on focus, point of view and the observation between spectator and performer.