Post Show Evaluation
May 1st 2013.
We arrived at the site, the Grandstand with one hundred or so newspapers ready to ‘wrap’ our ‘space’ making it a place of symbolic meaning. We started to paper the room, we could see that we were covering and protecting the walls from it loneliness, making it warm and used once more. The taped horse was being shaped up and all was in progress. We had not covered the room entirely before but we felt it would be fine in the time we had. This turn out to be incorrect, we ran out of provision for sticking the newspaper the walls and it was taking much longer than we anticipated. But there was help, the T.A.N.K group was able to help us prepare the room and help to get ourselves covered in newspaper.
On reflection, the preparation for the performance took a lot of time, it left us little time to place props and set up our projection and prepare for the performance itself. But it kept us alert and not too relaxed and we had a second chance to prepare, which we prioritised in. The night before our group had discussed using a quote from the bible to help some up or performance, it was, ‘People come into this world with nothing, and when we die we leave with nothing’ Ecclesiastes 5vs 10-17((The Holy Bible, New Centry version, 2003: Thomas Nelson Inc)). It helped to show the Grand stand for what it was without a use, ‘nothing’ it has lost it purpose. It also helps to describe how we were first presented with the Grandstand and its empty shell, its echoing emptiness. We came to perform and we left with what we came with, leaving the Grandstand as it was. We also used the red lights that were on the walls in the Grandstand to ‘transform’ the space, to give its warmth back once more, with our piece aiding this, with a day at the races.
As we performed for the last time, we became completely immersed in the performance. It was receive better than expected with laughter from the crowd and their full attention to the meaning of the performance. We proved that ‘performers will blend fact and fiction and will shape real material that the will find in order to develop the creative project’ ((Govan,E, Nicholson,H and Normington,K. (2007). Making a Performance. London: Routledge. p.131)), our project was aimed to do this and I believe it did so.
We believe and I believe that we created a piece that spoke endless word for a silent building, the Grandstand. We showed that it was a building that once stood out when it had something to show, through horse racing. We ‘engaged directly with the meaning and history’ ((Allain, P and Harvie, J. (2006). The Routledge Companion to Theatre and Performance. New York: Routledge.p.149)), to show what it is and who it was. We wanted to create a performance that would ‘provoke performers and audiences to interact, through both looking and contact’ ((Allain, P and Harvie, J. (2006). The Routledge Companion to Theatre and Performance. New York: Routledge.p.149)). I believe we did this through our piece and now the Grandstand has be left to feel alone once again to enjoy its history.
Works Cited