Following on from my last discussion of attempting to restore the Grand Stand, our group have been focused on giving the site back its lost voice. 240 years of activity now lies silent and we want to bring it back to life. After spending a few hours inside the site – going from the waiting room, to the weighing room and to the kitchen – we were able to take in its present existence and what it felt like in the current bare space. We discussed where in this space we could inhabit, where we could create “a restoration of the absent present” ((Pearson M. (2010) Site-Specific Performance, London: Palgrave Macmillan, p. 46)), what should still be alive. While those interested in Woman of War took the waiting room, we decided that we’d be the ones to guide the audience throughout their journey of the Grand Stand, through the use of a sound system. They will break up each of the groups live and/ or installation pieces and will then prompt the audience to move to the next section of the performance.
At the Lincolnshire Archives a copy of what appears to be a tannoy broadcast was found. From this we were able to take parts of the text to be recorded and announced through our speakers. For example, ‘Welcome ladies and gentleman to the second seasonal race for the Lincoln Handicap, day 3’. We want it to be spoken in the same style of voice a race broadcaster would speak, quite fast, this gives the impression that we are at a day at the races. Here there is a potential have audience participation; there is around 15 different horses in a race, perhaps each person is given a horse name on a sticky label that they must wear. If each group’s pieces only want a few members of the audience to witness it at a time then if a few spectators have the same horse’s name it may be instructed over the speaker that it is their turn to move. An idea which can possibly be developed to help with the journey of the performance. However not only do we want the speaker to act as an instructional device to help move spectators on, we want it to convey emotions. Perhaps of how the jockey’s felt being weighed in the weighing room and the anticipation of waiting to go out and race in the waiting room. Research needs to be undertaken of past jockey interviews in newspapers and online to find authentic quotes and thoughts from these people. We also want to broadcast the issue of betting at the race course and the gambling problems that may be connected. By using emotional monologues the audience are able to imagine the people that stepped onto the Grand Stand and how they personally felt.
We want the space to appear as if it’s lived in, revive life back to the lifeless. Several of Jerzy Grotowski’s productions “created a sense of a living environment through utilising a mode of witnessing” ((Govan E. et al. (2007) Making a Performance: Devising Histories and Contemporary Practices, Routledge: London and New York, p. 114)), so it is important we build a relationship between actor and spectator so they are engrossed in the ‘living environment’. The construction of this lived in space is also utilised by the British performance company Reckless Sleepers. In 2003 they created a performance called the Last Supper which was concerned with literally eating your words. Part of their research process was reading biographies and the requests for last meals from the prisoners on death row. From this the audience were invited to dine with them while the performers spoke the last words of the famous, not so famous, criminals and victims etc. Some of the audience members would receive a silver platter that would contain one of the last suppers. Lyn Gardner observes that the show “gives voice to the voiceless” ((Gardner L. (2004) ‘The Last Supper’, Guardian, 19 November)) as these last words are documented from those who are now dead. The past now inhabits the present space by re-enacting the last words, an effect we want to create with the past thoughts from those who stepped inside and outside the Grand Stand. Yi-Fu Tuan states that “the building or architectural complex now stands as an environment capable of affecting the people who live in it” ((Tuan Y. (1977) Space and Place: The Perspective of Experience, London: Edward Arnold, p. 102)), which will hopefully be the spectators who get involved with our piece. We want them to hopefully re-live the past, not necessarily be moved by it, but by gaining the knowledge of the past they have a greater understanding of what the site used to be. Also they may be affected by how bare the Grand Stand is at present day and how much it has lost.