My Drama Blog

So, lots has happened since I blogged lots. We’ve hit a few bumps in the road and our idea has been through a few big transformations, but we expected that so thankfully there’s been no massive surprises. The main thing I’ve realised afetr our rehearsal today is how much we’ve had to learn to rely on each other. not only to pull our own weight, but to pool our resources and really work to communicate even the smallest ideas or things that might help.

Today it turned out the people of Lincoln aren’t as helpful as we might have hoped. Our new direction with the project requires us to get proper stories (whereas before it was just a collation of thoughts and feelings about Lincoln) that refer to a specific place, and very few people have contributed. It’s ok thoughh because we’ve all taken an active role and sent messages to everyone we know individually that lives in Lincoln or has resided here a while, and then sent a message to the tutors with a request (if you’re reading this, sorry!). I’m confident that we’ll get a decent response one way or another, it’s just down to our own perseverence.

I’ve also been reading about Site Specific performance. I’ll be honest, a lot of it is pretentious rubbish, and its difficult to sift through what’s trying to sound modern and intellectual, and what is  genuinely trying to get across the value of Site Specific Performance, but I’ve found this excerpt:

“The succession of outdoor performers since the late 1960’s has been exploring the world outside of the concrete restrictions of theatre buildings. They now have the imagination and practical experience to go into many different areas, not all of which could be described as ‘theatre’, but certainly containing a strong theatrical element.” (Bim Mason, 2005, p. 206)

(Mason, Bim, Street Theatre and Other Outdoor Performance, (2005), London: Routledge)

Well Lincoln University, this is my second attempt at this blog post, sort out your internet.

Rant aside, I wanted to come back and try and give a more specific direction to what I have in my mind with regards to what our performance should be.

We all know “free hugs” has been overdone and I’m not in a million years suggesting that should be our performance, merely that it runs in the same vein as what I want us to do. It breaks the barrier between performer and audience, it breaks through social ettiquette, and it leaves people smiling. They’re things I want to do.

Drama and performance should not be for performance’s sake. We shouldn’t create something to pass the course, to get the degree. We have an opportunity to change people’s opinions, and to perform something thought provoking. It’s stressing me out that we could do something amazing, but it’s not coming to me.

I just now had the idea of showcasing street art in the town centre or something. Banksy has caused massive controversy with his artwork. One one hand, it is by almost every definition a good piece of art. On the other, simply because of its location people are calling it graffiti and vandalism. I find it interesting that just the change of place can make these great, thought provoking works into condemned eyesores. This is a root of site specific performance to me. When something’s out of its regulated zone, does it change its essence? It brances of thousands of less obvious but equally important questions. Does art need to cost something to be worth anything? Is its popularity based on its audience? Does it being in an unusual place enhance its message?

I’ve looked at some books about local Lincoln history to look for stories that we can weave into our piece, here’s the outcome:

-In the 1830’s, there was a series of fires on farms around Lincolnshire which were put down to ‘Captain Swing’.

-In 1937, Harold Davidson, a reverend who was defrocked for having communication with prostitutes, tried his hand at lion taming and was consequently clawed to death.

-in 1922 at Lincoln station, four men were crushed or dragged to death by a train

(Gray, Adrian, (1993), Lincolnshire Headlines, Berkshire: Countryside Books)

-“Close to the [Greestone] stairs is a building that used to be a tithe barn and then a hospital. Today it is used by the University of Lincoln, but the fact that it was once a hospital may explain the recurrence  of a ghost of a young woman seen on the stairs.” (Stephen Wade 2011, p.60)

-“Satan sent an imp to Lincoln Cathedral to stir up some mayhem. The imp intended to wreck the angel choir, but when an angel made an appearance there was a scrap, and the nasty imp threw chunks of stone at the angel. In retaliation, the angel turned the imp to stone… and the imp is still there today.” (Stephen Wade 2011, p.73)

(Wade, Stephen, (2011), The A-Z of Curious Lincolnshire Strange Stories of Mysteries, Crimes and Eccentrics, Great Britain: The History Press)

These are the questions I want us to find a way to explore.

So I haven’t been on here in a while, but I’ve been very busy and lots has changed. First of all, I have a group- win! I’m with the delightful Kat, Casey, Frankie and Gary. Second of all, we have an idea!  I’ll outline it quickly for you.

We plan to go around popular venues in Lincoln with postcard sized pieces of card, and invite anyone to draw or write something that relates to either their view of Lincoln, or an experience they’ve had of Lincoln. We’ll then take a photo of the person holding their postcard and put that photo on a massive piece of canvas that will be be displayed somewhere like town or the Engine Shed. We’ll be filming the whole experience, and plan to show that aswell as some form of physical theatre along side it, probably in the Shed.

And that’s that. I do like this idea, it certainly sticks to what we were told to stick to- “In Lincoln, about Lincoln,”, I just can’t help but feel we need to develop it. It reminds me a little of postsecret (http://www.postsecret.com/) but tamer. We have agood idea, it just needs to expand.

The reason I haven’t posted in a while is cause I went to London for a few days. I’m not going to lie and say this was for research for site specific and that was the only reason, cause nothing could be further from the truth but London’s such a miassively cultured and inspirational place that it was easy to come back with a freshly motivated perspective towards this performance.

I want our performance to do more than have people say what they already know. I’m not saying we need to inspire people, or teach them, or surprise them. My only goal is to change their day. I’m reading a book at the moment that says “The future you have today isn’t the same as the future you had yesterday,” which quite succinctly says something I want to get across. Emily Dickinson also puts it across well “Forever is composed of nows,”> I want our performance to kick start the audience’s consciousness, to make them wake up if only for a few moments, and try and achieve something.

All speeches are trite now, it seems. You can read inspirational phrases on every cup, coaster and teacloth. Performance will always be a method of accessing people and taking them unaware, which is certainly what I want to achieve.

This being said, I haven’t spoken to the group yet, so bear with me. For the record, I do love our idea. I just think we’ve got a lot of potential both in a group and our limiatations to do something extraordinary.

So we’ve started the site specific performance module now, and as I understand we have to perform whatever we like, wherever we like, as long as it’s both inspired by and within the confines of Lincoln. Excellent.

The tutors seem pretty set on us finding the site first, so we’ve all been traipsing around Lincoln looking for obscure and history filled places that might be nice to perform in for a while. Surprisingly, there’s been a few. Some are worryingly obvious like the cathedral or the town centre- I don’t want to get marked down due to unoriginality, but they are great performance spaces. However, there are places such as the Arboretum, the sculpture park, Steep Hill etc. that are proper nice and a tad more obscure.

The only problem with choosing a site before anything else is that the performance has to have some relationship with the place. The performance needs to be enhanced by the place, which sounds super cheesy aswell as a tall order. Thankfully there’s an absolute ton of history in Lincoln, in many ways. You could go to its proper old history (Lincoln was conquered by the Romans in 48AD), or it’s more recent history, or its religious and culutural histories.

Regardless, there’s a lot of options and we have to find a way to tie everything together. It’s gonna be difficult, be it’ll be worth it.