Author: Lauren Olerenshaw

‘In addition, site-specific performance resides differentially and with different degrees of durability in the memories of those undertaking different types of tasks that contribute to its making. What might not survive, might alter profoundly or disappear totally, its site itself, rendering restaging unlikely. Site performance is also specific to period, to a moment in time’. ((Pearson, Mike (2010) Site specific performance, Palgrave macmillan)).

 

1,2,3… 400,401,402…1625,1626,1627…4898,4899,5000…7234,7235,7236…8997,8998,8999…9’000 soldiers from the Lincolnshire regiment gave their lives to ww1.

 

Can I stop counting now?

 

Our performance like all others were face with difficulty’s on the day, it wouldn’t be a show if everything went smoothly! The sun to bright for what we planned, burning our feet as we stood on our mound of coins, the sunburn hurting, our heads hurting. But its okay we made it to 9’000.

 

 

Although we had gone through many twists and turns to get to our final performance idea, and settled with the simplest idea we had, I thought it was the most effective, although one thinks of counting as something a child could do, we genuinely struggled very much, yes, we rehearsed counting. To count at a fast pace to 9’ooo required the greatest concentration we could give. The timing difficult to ensure we finished as the performance did and to make sure we had created our image of the United Kingdoms flag. My main aim was to make the audience feel the emotion we felt, we delivered the numbers and presented ourselves in a neutral state to not influence the audience, however hoping the reality of how long it took to say all these numbers gave them idea on the vast number of men who gave their lives. I feel it is important to not be embarrassed to approach the subject or shy, but to show pride, and to remember those we lost. By wearing the poppy we showed we were remembering and when turning the coins and laying them we were reflective and deep in thought, reflecting on all the information we had learnt. As I was speaking I had an overwhelming sense of connection that these were more than mere numbers these were lives some as young as the age of fourteen, that’s not a life lived to its full, that is a life over before it has begun. Having lost someone so close to me I could connect to what I was doing. When we reached the magic number of 9’000 I was proud to finally let the audience know what it was we were doing it for, by not informing them in the beginning they had the time to get their heads round the numbers and then by delivering this line at the end the reality of what we were suggesting would hit them and suddenly they would be awoken to the reality of the affects of war.

I believe our performance was a success although simple I feel it was affective and we achieved our aim, we now in the process have also managed to raise money, to give back. We have chose to split the money between  two charity’s, one of which will help the children of fallen soldiers and one which will help horses. Thus links to the entirety of the piece and the over riding themes, everyone’s theme had an equal importance and a strong message to deliver to the audience, I feel we gave The Grandstand a voice, and hopefully have inspired thought to eventually give The Grandstand not just a voice but eventually a purpose again. So The Grandstand can  regain its glory days and one day in the future people will study The Grandstand for its history and we will be there, part of the history.

 

 

 

 

 

At what cost do you give a life?

‘The penny is 94 per cent steel, 1.5 per cent nickel and 4.5 per cent copper plating or copper-pated zinc.’ ((Graham, David(2013)Artists and craftspeople turn to the penny as a new creative medium, Online:www.thestar.com(accessed: 06 May 2013)).

Pennies are something we find annoying, you always have them, you always feel their not worth a lot and they take up to much space in your purse. If you have 100 pennies you make a pound, 1’ooo and you have ten pound and 9’ooo you have 90 pound.

Dale Dunning is a sculptor in Almonte, he mainly deals with metals and giving these metals a new purpose in his studio called the Lost and Foundry, one of his recent works was creating a mask made entirely from pennies, similarly in our piece we are creating the United Kingdom’s flag out of 9,ooo pennies. Each of these pennies represents the life of a soldier, the soldiers from the Lincolnshire regiment who gave their lives in ww1.  Jeremy Deller describes the ideas in his book procession as  ‘ Having an idea for this kind of thing is the easy part, making it happen is a much more time consuming process’. ((Deller. Jeremy (2010) Procession, cornerhouse and Manchester international festival)). We had to try many different ideas to find one simple yet effective enough to execute. Therefore we decided as a mark or respect and to tie in with our British theme all 9’000 of these pennies were to be The Queen’s head facing up. Eventually through the duration of the performance the entire flag would be completed, with our parting statement being ‘ 9’000 soldiers from the Lincolnshire regiment gave their lives to ww1′.

Our idea had taken a 360 degree turn, when first visiting the site, we felt almost as if its purpose had never changed as though it would be filled with spectators at any moment or looking out the window we would see a tank or would see soldiers lining the grassy banks. ‘If site-specific performance involves an activity, an audience and a place, then creative opportunities reside in the multiple creative articulations of us, them and there’.  We visited each space, to feel them to find what they meant to us and how they could be used to the best of our ability. We then arrived to the Lincolnshire Archives and through extensive research started to develop passion towards certain areas, finding out the past of the Grandstand proved to be fascinating as it’s history went on for years so much so, we found out it wasn’t actually The Grandstand and The Grandstand had in fact been taken down and the stand we speak of as the Grandstand is actually The Tattershall stand. At first other members of the group shared my interest in a particular story of the Beechey brothers a famous story due to the nature of the mother Amy Beechey loosing five sons, through more research and development of ideas we knew in fact there was much more to it than what we were seeing. So many lives were lost so many grieving families and friends.  How to focus on one specific story? In Mike Pearson’s book on ‘Site Specific Performance’ he states ‘ To outline stances, attitudes and presuppositions’ you ask ‘Who am I and what am I doing?’ ((Pearson, Mike (2010) Site specific performance, Palgrave macmillan)). We decided that we were not storytellers  we wanted to present facts and we wanted the audience to understand how we felt for these soldiers who had given their lives for their country  with Lincoln at the time having a population of around 45000 losing 9000 men is devastating.  Many more were lost due to things such as the gas’s released from bombs.

The idea of the coins creating the picture came from the idea that all men in the war had vices. We spoke to a woman called Tracey who used to write to relatives and friends in ww2 and she said this’ I used to write to Paul my brother and friends like John and Nath the most because I knew they would look forward to getting them, it must have been horrible waiting for the post to arrive and you would be the only one not to receive any thing. I think you would feel so shut of and alone’. We thought for the Beechey brothers, letters were their vices, as in their letters they talk of all their correspondents. Through more research we found some men found comfort in things like poems and art. The picture we recreated was one that was drawn by a soldier form the Lincolnshire regiment.

With £90 worth of pennies we appreciated the sheer number  frim the weight if carrying them around and laying them out, when we had finished what were we to do with the money, give it back? Discard of it? Or put it to good use, we found charities that we could acknowledge in relation with out site and our favourite charities were:

The first  ‘Recycle a Race horse’  Lancaster based, it is a  rehabilitation centre for ex race horses.

(( http://www.thoroughbredrehabilitationcentre.co.uk/contact.php))

 

The second  ‘Bransby Horse, rescue and welfare’ this charity is based in Lincoln, it provides a sanctuary for equine animals that have

been abused and will try and find them a new loving home.

((http://www.bransbyhorses.co.uk/home/home%20about%20us% 20NEW.html))

 

The third ‘Scotty’s Little Soldiers’ A U.K charity that supports the children of those who have fought in the war, whether the soldiers

are fallen, injured or just away from home.

Not only were we aiming to make people aware of what these men did  for us to let us live in the country we do today. But we were spreading a much wider message that men and women are still doing this, fighting for their country to defend our honour and to protect and serve every civilian. We have to acknowledge the fight and sacrifice they made and still make today. By giving the money to charity we are giving back, not enough to end all suffering, but enough to acknowledge we care and appreciate what they do.

Looking at Mike Pearson’s Some approach’s to research he asks ‘In what ways can performance provide a context for mixed method research? How might it enable a synthesis of approaches, through a working together on site, about site? ((Pearson, Mike (2011) Some approach’s to research)). We asked ourselves how we could make a performance that would enable us to show all the research we had gathered so far, and how we could make it relevant to site. Although our initial idea was a performance based on the Beechey brothers and their letters home which was something we felt very passionate about, as we could not help but to feel a personal connection to the story through reading their letters and seeing so many personal items. However, further research provided us with statistics on how many lives were lost due to war and suddenly we were compelled to know more. We felt an emotional pull towards the Beechey brothers story as a mother lost five children, we then realised how many families lost relatives, nine thousand serving soldiers died, and many more people died due to  things such as the gases released, gases such as carbon monoxide. However remaining close to our original idea men lost at war and these men’s vices we needed a new idea. Nine thousand. How to stress the importance of this number? How do we provide a context for this figure?

 

We found the men had many vices, ways to focus there energy when of duty. This included things like poetry, writing and art, one of the pieces of art we were looking at drawn by a soldier from the Lincoln regiment, drew a British flag, which is what we recreated using string, as a performance on this string we will begin to place coins, and although initially we thought to let the audience contribute by laying coins we thought of the railings as a barrier and so wanted to restrain any contact by to the audience. In total nine thousand penny’s to represent each soldier from the Lincoln regiment who gave his life for his country. We feel this shows a good indication as to the sheer number of the fallen men. Weather permits, the idea of the sun shining on the coins which gives of a bright reflection, symbolises their lives and by using a very small denominator like the penny we are showing no matter, you can not put a price on life. For respect of Her Majesty The Queen serving soldiers we would place all coins queens head facing up, inspired by a task previously I had taken place in where the face of the head decided our direction. Deciding eventually after trying many methods, we would simply count stood on a mound of penny’s as the other members of our group would be turning the coins over and laying coins to fill the gaps to complete our image, they would take coins from  the counters feat and recreate the image of the flag.

Taking inspiration from Will Dorner, Gabby, Charlie and I attempted to use various spaces and objects to create shapes and images using various parts of our body. We tried to keep various forms of contact with each toher when creating these shapes, through linking arms or supporting each other in our positions for example.

‘Theatre is theatre but what do you get when you work outside of a theatre space’ ((Dorner, Willi 2005)) This was something we tried to keep in our minds while seeking inspiration. We tried to play with the idea that everywhere is a performance space and we should treat all spaces as a blank canvas and remain open minded.

 

Therefore when approaching our site we began to look at spaces, taking interest in the walls and the fireplaces an beams, falling in love with spaces because of these attributes. So we looked again but this time kept in mind the idea of a blank canvas as it didn’t matter what the space had it could be made to be ours however we wanted it. This is we began to be interested in outside spaces, being out in the open and fresh air made us feel free. Our choice was a patch of cross closed of with white railings. The railings should have made us feel confined and trapped, but had the opposite affect. We would however use the railings as a barrier from the audience to keep us separated from them, keeping us safe within.

 

‘Lincoln’s story’ a term given to us to summarise our research into The Beechey brothers, many people feel this story is not told enough and not enough people know about it. The case of the Beechey brothers is very famous due to the nature of the case. A woman, Amy who lived on Monks Road in Lincoln had eight children, five of which fought in battles such as The Somme and fought in countries such as Australia, all five of these children died, the only other case of a situation like this was in Gloucester. The Queen praised Amy Beechey for her sacrifice, Amy’s reply was this ‘It was no sacrifice Ma’am. I did not give them willingly’.

 

Further research has given us a personal connection to the story, Amy Beechey left to the Lincolnshire Archives many of her sons personal items, such as letters form the boys that they sent home, documents and death certificates. We have spent quite some time looking over these letters and documents trying to gain an understanding as to how they felt and what was going on at the time. We realised that for these boys the letters were a vice, a means for them to make it through each day, upon further research we found many men who fought the war had vices such as art, poetry, reading and writing. Although further research is needed, I don’t feel it is ever possible to truly understand what these men have lived through and seen, I feel it is possible though, to create a sensitive performance that does not just state the facts of their life and story but instead attempts to make audience members aware of significant emotional extracts.

The personal connection we feel, comes from a relatable relationship of family members, we gain a  sense of Amy Beechey’s fear for her sons lives and understand the level of pain she must of felt every time she received a letter. The pride she felt as they entered and the pain as they departed.  We can not help but to see the wider scale of this, this city must have been a city of sorrow as around 20% of lives are taken. Leaving so many citizens in the city devastated, not just mothers, but brothers, sisters, fathers and friends. We are yet to find a suitable way t represent the devastation, and to demonstrate an understanding of the amount of lives lost.