Month: May 2013

Post Performance Analysis

Jordan Benjamin Holland / / Personal Posts

In the months leading up to the premiere of Safe Bet, the performance was “always in-process, changing, growing, and moving through time.” ((Bial, Henry et al (2004) The Performance Studies Reader, ed. Henry Bial, New York: Routledge.)) Part of this was also true of the performance itself.

At the beginning of the premiere of Safe Bet I was greeting members of the audience as they arrived and gathering them onto the stone steps where they would begin their journey through the performance. Once the audience were all gathered at the start, they were ignored by me, which is currently how the Lincoln Grandstand is treated. It is simply rented out for it’s space, but is ignored when nobody is using it. This was to bring the audience into the present time which the Lincoln Grandstand is in.

The audience were then led into the weighing room of the Lincoln Grandstand. Upon their entry I was one of two people who gave the audience betting slips. This was to regress the audience from the present time into the past, when the Lincoln Grandstand was used for horse racing. Once the audience were all seated, they were further regressed into the past as I addressed the audience from the perspective of an Army officer in 1914. The members of the audience were now taking on the role of Army recruits during the First World War. This style of interactive performance was received well by the audience, they laughed and participated with no hesitation.

I then gave the members of the audience in my group the bags of dirt, asked them to follow me to begin their first trench exercise and led them outside to the ‘trench’. The audience did not follow me closely, but rather remained at a small distance. This could be due to the status of my character in relation to theirs, or it could be due to a feeling of uncertainty within the audience. If I was to perform Safe Bet again, I would have the audience follow closely behind me, as this distance became apparent once I was at the bunker and was waiting for all of the audience members in my group to arrive. Because I had to perform this to 3 groups, the waiting added on time to my performance which in turn, delayed me from moving swiftly from one group to the next.

Once the audience were at the bunker, I asked them to get into the ‘trench’ and I began to inform them of how the trench was used. They were then given a surprise order to take cover. The audience did take cover, however some members of the audience did this quicker than others. This could be because of the surprise of the order, or it could be because the order was shouted and it startled some members of the audience. If I was to perform Safe Bet again, I would remind the audience that they would have to perform an exercise so they had this knowledge present in their minds.

At the end of the trench performance, each group was asked to empty their bag of dirt into the ‘trench’ and say their full name and place of birth. They were then told about how the Lincoln Grandstand was used to train soldiers to build trenches. At this point the audience were now amalgamated with the history of the site. The audience received this without apprehension and were led back inside where they waited to be taken to the next performance in the rotation. The waiting of the audience was to bring them back into the time frame they were in at the beginning of the performance.

My next role in the performance was the recitation of the poem. This was done to the sound of The Last Post played live with a tenor horn. The poem was recited with my back to the audience, while facing a small room full of chairs and an incredibly bright, white light. This was to give the impression that I was giving a memorial service but that the poem wasn’t meant for the audience because they were still alive, but rather, the poem was meant for all those who had died, portrayed by the empty chairs I was facing. The light symbolized Heaven and God,  because those who have had a family member or friend die hope that they have gone to Heaven. The use of the light, the live music and the ignoring of the audience created a powerful and emotionally charged exchange between the audience and myself. This performance was about death and the reality that not everyone who goes to war comes back, which completely contrasted with the enjoyment the audience had experienced when they took part in the trench performance. The ignoring of the audience also pulled away any role the audience had, and placed them back into the position of spectator. The audience were then led away from me, and this concluded my role in the performance of Safe Bet.

I feel that the time frame given to develop and produce the show was used effectively and was evident in the final product, with everything the audience experienced being anticipated and planned for, and not simply something that happened by chance. If there weren’t the time restrictions that we had, I would have wanted the poem to be performed 1 to 1 as although there was a strong connection between the audience and myself during the recitation of the poem, it would have been even greater if the audience experienced it individually.

Post Show Hope.

Abigail Dawson / / A Restoration

Kastner and Wallis’s typology of land art (1998) suggests involvement: “the artist in a one-to-one relationship with the land, using his or her body in forms of ritual practise” ((Pearson, Mike (2010) Site Specific Performance, Palgrave Macmillan, p. 33)).

Our performance developed a significant amount from this first stimulus. Originally we wanted to become a part of our architecture physically, playing around and finding shapes and spaces that our bodies could reproduce or fit into. Willi Dorner stated that to “see the space you also have to feel the space. Feel closer to the city. Closer to where you come from” ((Pinchbeck, Michael (2013) Site-Specific Performance Week Two: Practice [shown at Lincoln: The University of Lincoln. Main Admin Building] [viewed on 23/01/2013])). From this we were able to become a part of the landscape around us, be physically in touch with the architecture that has been built over the years. By being part of the architecture, thoroughly connecting with the space around us, it enabled us to gain a solid understanding of our site. We studied The Grandstand’s past and the many different experiences it has encountered through the years, its current present state and we ended in searching for hope in the site’s future. This would not have been possible if we did not connect with it, physically and most importantly emotionally. The relationship we had with our site was strong. From this we endeavoured to take our audience on a journey through past, present and future. We wanted to “recreate journeys and see how time has affected memory of the movements and memory of the space” ((Pinchbeck, Michael (2013) Site-Specific Performance Week Two: Practice [shown at Lincoln: The University of Lincoln. Main Admin Building] [viewed on 23/01/2013])). The aim was to have the audience experience the many different events that had taken place at The Grandstand, from World War One, the role of women during the war, the treatment of horses at the races and finally the dilapidation of The Grandstand itself. The journey the whole class created for the performance was successful overall. By the time spectators arrived at our restoration piece they had been given sufficient time to form their own opinion of The Grandstand. This made it easier for them to write down what they thought the site should become, through experiencing its past and present it enabled the audience to contemplate on the space’s strongest function. The responses we received from the spectators were excellent and nobody refused to participate. Each and every one wrote down their own suggestion, many quite similar to the 200 we had already collected and attached to our restored stands. An unexpected response we received was some spectators writing on ideas already attached, such as demolish, and they wrote answers such as ‘no’ or ‘don’t demolish’ next to the suggestion. Although unexpected, we were pleasantly surprised and delighted with how the audience were engaging with our performance. We were thankful for their participation and helping build the hope for the site’s future. We successfully managed to show that “a space is not empty but full of meaning” ((Goven, Emma, Helen Nicholson and Katie Nicholson (2007) Making a Performance: Devising Histories and Contemporary Practices, London: Routledge, p. 121)), we believe we brought the meaning back to the site through our performance.

As a part of our post show performance we took the twine with all the suggestions attached into the centre of Lincoln town. We then laid the twine across the high street, allowing the public to attach any ideas they had. Many members of the public approached us, asking what it was we were doing. It was explained to them what we had done in our performance before hand, and that we were then bringing the future of The Grandstand back to the public. Some people added their own ideas and others just wanted to take a look at the suggestions already provided on the twine. It would be fantastic in years to come to think that The Grandstand may become something from one of our founded suggestions; we would have given the site a future. Our performance became “a restoration of the absent present” ((Pearson, Mike (2010) Site- Specific Performance: New York, Palgrave Macmillan, p. 46)). We leave this project with hope, hope that our site won’t always stand bare and vacant and hope that it won’t always be forgotten by the people of Lincolnshire.

Here is a video of a part of our post show performance:

T.A.N.K Part 5 – Final Preparations

Callum Pepper / / T.A.N.K

So after months of preparation, the day was nearly upon to test out our tank.
The plan was all sorted; movement and text were set, all we needed to do was the final checks:

Step by Step guide on what action will take place:

1: The Tank Officer sets the scene for the audience
“It’s the First World War on the continent Britain and Germany are locked in a gruelling battle on the ground.
“If only”
Asked Admiral Bacon
“There was a machine capable of laying its own tracks fixed with the means of offences and defences”

Early 1916 Sir William Tritton and William Rigby of Fosters & Co held a meeting with Major W G Wilson of the war office in a secret location here in Lincoln. During that meeting they designed a machine that would change the face of war forever. That first machine was tested on Lincolns Burton Park and the land you see opposite us West Common

Ladies and Gentlemen please step this way to witness the testing of the first tank. “

2: The Tank Officer leads the audience through the weighing rooms curtains and makes them stand inside a black box marked out on the floor, The Tank Crew build the Tank around the audience placing the netting over their heads for roofing.

3: The Tank Crew read out extracts tacked from diaries of those who served in the Tank Corp and those who saw the Tank in battle

4: The Tank officer makes the audience leave the tank and tells them to stand against the wall looking at the outer shell of the tank, while the audience are moving the tank crew, apart from the Officer get inside the tank.

5: The Tank Officer reads out the Men and Machines article from the Lincolnshire Echo, during this the Tank crew interject with dialogue about the tank in battle

6: As the Tank crew finishes of their dialogue and one of the crew leaves the tank, the tank officer leads the audience out of the testing area, while doing so the tank is dissembled

The most important part of our performance is the timing of the dialogue. The dialogue needs to overlap each other as if the words themselves are part of the tanks caterpillar’s tracks moving along flowing within to each other without pausing. After get some constructive criticism from our lecture Michael, we all felt a lot more at peace with what we had created and was looking forward to putting our machine into practise.

Setting up our Stage

Emma Taylor / / The Odds Are Stacked

‘I can take any empty space and call it a bare stage’ ((Brook, P. (1996) The Empty Space, New York: Touchstone. P7)) says Peter Brook in his book The Empty Space. And that is exactly what we faced when we turned up at the Grandstand- an empty space. We were to bring this space to life with our performance.

On the morning of performance day we had several things we needed to sort out and confirm with each other. First of all, we had to decide whether or not we were going to use music- we had previously discussed using the famous William Tell Overture, as it has a connection to horse racing due to Spike Jones covering it in 1948 as an underscore to a horse racing commentary. We all agreed to use it, as it would start just as we rip the newspaper off of ourselves and as we gradually begin to build the excitement of shouting out horse bets and odds. Another thing we had discussed previously was using quotes about gambling from in the Bible, especially as we had found that one we thought fit nicely in with our theme of loss: “People come into this world with nothing, and when they die they leave with nothing.” Ecclesiastes 5vs 10-17 ((The Holy Bible, New Century version, 2003: Thomas Nelson Inc)) This quote sums up the journey that the Grandstand has gone through; it went from being nothing, to being an active and focal point of Lincoln, and now has gone back to being nothing (this time in a metaphorical sense.) It also describes the journey that our piece will take; the empty Grandstand, which then comes to life through our performance and through sound and movement, and then gets all packed away and goes back to being empty.

We began to assemble our set, and by this I mean we wallpapered the walls with newspaper! We taped out the outline of the horse on the floor, along with the box for where the audience were to stand. We wanted the audience to be in the centre of the action, similar to how The Performance Group’s “[p]roductions such as Dionysus in 69 (1968-69) avoided end-on perspectives [and] put the audience closer to and often in the action” ((Allan, P. and Harvie, J. (2006) The Routledge Companion to Theatre and Performance. Oxon and New York: Routledge. P149)) We then covered the rest of the floor with the newspaper. We did come across a problem whilst we were setting up, as we were performing in the daytime and it was quite a sunny day, the room would not be dark enough to see the projection of Muybridge’s moving horse. To combat this we started to cover the windows with newspaper to try to black them out, this worked to an extent- it did not make it dark, but made it dim enough to be able to see the projection. The room no longer looked empty; in fact it looked incredibly busy with it being almost completely covered in newspaper!

Due to the TANK group performing in the same room as us, we needed to find a way to distinguish between their performance time/space and ours. Around the room were heaters fixed up on the wall, when they were turned on they glowed red and cast a red light around the space, we decided that we would turn these on when it was time for our performance that way there would be a change in atmosphere.

Soon it was performance time.
We had a fair sized audience, and the box we had drawn on the floor for them to stand in was actually a little too small. But this wasn’t such a problem, as we were able to walk around them. We created a really great atmosphere when we were shouting out the odds of different horses, the music worked really well underneath too; it felt exciting and slightly chaotic, which was what we were after. At the end of this section we threw large handfuls of the betting slips into the air above the audience and they showered down upon them, they seemed to really enjoy this and looked in awe as the slips scattered around them. The only thing that didn’t work so well in performance was when we all lined up in front of the projection and held up copies of the Racing Post to allow the projection to be projected onto the newspapers instead of the wall. In doing this we were too far to one side of the projection, so it obscured the view of the video slightly.

As we swept away the newspaper on the floor I could hear members of the audience asking each other what the black tape on the floor was, and then as the final pages of newspaper were pushed aside I could hear them gasp as they realised and acknowledged that it was a horse. When we brought out the plate of Tesco meat, a few members of the audience laughed as they made the connection to the scandal.

All in all I think the performance went brilliantly. I believe we effectively brought the Grandstand back to life, we made it stand out and become noticed and we helped to, as Mike Pearson states, “enhance public appreciation and understanding” ((Pearson, M. (2011) Why Performance? http://blackboard.lincoln.ac.uk/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_tab_group_id=_2_1&url=%2Fwebapps%2Fblackboard%2Fexecute%2Flauncher%3Ftype%3DCourse%26id%3D_67088_1%26url%3D)) of this site. Many of the audience may have arrived with very little knowledge or idea about the Grandstand, but I am confident that they left with a much better picture of how things would have been and felt in its many histories.

How To Build A Grandstand

Daniel Ridealgh / / A Restoration

The Purpose of this blog post is to give further detail into the process of rebuilding the two stands to scale.  The Lincolnshire archives contained two separate maps of the original Grandstand trio;  one was dated 1906, the other 1946, the trio being the Tattershall’s stand, the Grandstand and the Silver Ring stand.  By collaborating what was shown on these two maps I was able to sketch out the two stands at a scale of 20 ft = 1 inch.

The Silver Ring stand (which is the bottom sketch on the image below) was the largest of the three stands, with a width of 170 ft.  The size of the entire pavilion meant that foundations would have covered the ground beneath what is now flat grass land.  At points along our reconstruction we felt these foundations as the twine was supported at corner sections with foot-long tent pegs.

The actual “Grandstand” (the top sketch on the image) was far smaller than both the Silver Ring and Tattershall stands, this was because it did not include in it’s architecture any form of pavilion styles steps.  This building was used for those who wished to pay to sit in a private viewing box.  The other stands would have been open for any to stand on throughout the day.  When we reconstructed this particular stand, we could not support some corner sections with pegs as a concrete car park now sits upon the old foundations.  Therefore we were forced to use chalk to complete the parameter of the Grandstand.

photo

 

It was at this particular visit to the archives that I also discovered  the track was “three hundred acres, first used as a racecourse in 1771” (( Williamson, James (1890) A Guide Through Lincoln, Lincoln Printers: Lincoln.  p.23)).  Which meant that racing events still occurred at this course prior to the construction of the three stands in 1856.  After further investigation we found that a single stand, also named “The Grandstand” was constructed on the site before the trio.  This stand was much smaller than any of the three built afterwards and stood significantly further away from the track. This perhaps was the reason behind it’s deconstruction.  It was both too far away to be beneficial to race-goers and to small in size to accommodate the crowds.