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.

notes from marathon feedback 2nd Aug:

These are just a few thoughts I had noted down, hoping that they will be completed by dona and martins feedback notes and questions…

There is a notion of fake interactivity throughout all of the scenes, because we have set up the instructions too tightly. Some people felt they were doing us a service to complete the performance. This seemed to be only justified because we were engaged enough in the action to value this input. Others noted that when they had completed their tasks, they would have wanted to stay and watch or stay and play but didn’t have the chance to. Another key concern seemed entrance and exits for the spectators. This seems to stem from the fact that we drop everything we do when they enter and that most of the audience members felt we wanted them to leave at certain points. The moment just before the spectator takes of the blindfold is the most undefined and most uncomfortable place. This could be a good thing if worked with, but at the moment it just seems very unsatisfying at both ends.
Most spectators we spoke with expressed the wish to be more involved, given more freedom. This could happen through simpler, clearer instructions in an open time frame, so the spectator can choose if, when and how long they wish to be involved. This brings back logistic problems of timing and lengths of scenes but also encourages thinking again about the whole thing as one performance that people join in and drop out of rather than a series of scenes. One of the instructions that seemed to be clear and simple enough to channel the spectators awareness into detail, but also allow to give a good degree of freedom within the scene to them was the film a specific body part of a performer. This one seems to be giving and taking responsibility in a good balance.

A thought came up in the after-talks of the marathon was the idea of a third room that isn’t filmed, that gives the chance for people to disappear, things to happen unseen and hidden experiences to go back into the group. I’m not sure if or how this could be realised but would like to bring it up as an option to discuss next time we meet.

Another clear outcome of the feedback for me was the wish for a collective experience for the audience, something that brings their experiences and their questions together, some kind of conclusion or container. Including the watching/waiting room into this thought, and maybe for a second experiment the possibility to work with a closed, smaller group of spectators, I feel we have the possibility to connect their own actions and choices with those of others. I know we are far from completing a task like this, but working with a set up that allows the spectators to function as a group in the watching room (in terms of the choices they make about going in) and as individuals for both themselves and for that group in the performance room could be a next step. I think it is impossible to speak about real interactivity, intimacy and the idea of negotiating the story (dare I say it) with the audience if we don’t manage to find a way to allow, within our given framework, each performance to resolve in their own conclusion specific to the meeting of performers and audience of that specific evening.

the visibility of labour

These are mostly taken from Stephen Gill's Invisibility series which highlights how "high visibility" vests have become so ubiquitous in cities that they actually render the wearer unremarkable and invisible. I though of these because of a comment Selma made on our last night in Potsdam regarding the scene she and Oliver participated in. She spoke about how the operation of a physical task (pulling the table) in the same space as a unison energetic dance sequence focused her attention on how dance usually reveals or disguises the effort it requires in conjunction with the comparatively passive state of the spectator. She said that she couldn't see the dance sequence itself but what she could perceive was the varying visibilities of labour.

I'm still on my Trio A trip - and Rainer of course was explicitly looking at these issues within her work of the late 60s. She was investigating the difference between 'real' and 'apparent' energy - the actual physical expenditure as opposed to the technical presentation of energy - and how this opened a gap up between spectator and performer in their experience of dance. The requirement to expend some 'real' energy within the scenes we developed presents the opportunity for all concerned to revisit this gap and to refocus the eye not upon the effect of the dance sequence but on its execution, bringing back into visibility the physicality of the work.

We made it through eight hours. . .

dona quotes

week 1:

" this needs to be told through movement, otherwise we fail"

week 2:

"this week i don't really know what to write into the blog, basically we're just making the piece now"

1984 quote

'It was merely the substitute of one piece of nonsense for another. Most of the material that you were dealing with had no connection with anything in the real world, not even the kind of connection that is contained in a direct lie. Statistics were just as much a fantasy in their original version as in their rectified version. A great deal of the time you were expected to make them up out of your head.' (George Orwell, 1984)

technological reproducability

. . .the instant the criterion of authenticity ceases to be applicable to artistic production, the total function of art is reversed. Instead of being based on ritual, it begins to be based on another practice – politics. (Walter Benjamin)

"Morimura respods to and confounds links between his art and Sherman's in To My Little Sister: Cindy Sherman (1998), a remake of her Untitled #69 (1981). In Sherman's photograph from the series "Centerfolds", which employs the horizontal aesthetic of a magazine's double-page spread, she plays a dreamy and suggestive girl without a recognisable identity. Morimura however portrays Sherman herself - depicting her as she depicts the girl - and thus enables the dual elements of person and persona, reality and fantasy, original and variation to mingle" (Nicolas Bissaker in the latest issues of Sleek Magazine)