Author: Stephenie Clubley

T.A.N.K.s for the memories

Stephenie Clubley / / T.A.N.K

“Devised performance, as contrasted with conventional theatre, results from the identification, selection and accumulation of concepts, actions, texts, places and things which are composed and orchestrated in space and time according to a set of governing aesthetics, ideologies, techniques and technologies.” ((Pearson, Mike and Shanks, Michael 2001, Theatre/Archaeology, London:Routledge, p.55))

The T.A.N.K group started with a fragment of information from the Lincoln Archives about tank test-driving on Lincoln’s West Common, and we added to our collective knowledge with other such fragments; masks the tank crews wore, the motto they had, the dangers they faced. Our first attempt at constructing a performance based on these fragments resulted in something too theatrical. The text we used at first was made up of dialogue that was too character based, and didn’t work. The focus had to be the tank’s history, not ours, if the piece was to work. We re-wrote this, but then we were unable to procure authentic-looking tank crew masks. We tried to create our own interpretations from the resources we could find. They were very stylistic and consequently jarring when put into a performance that was aiming to be more factual. Mike Pearson says “Assemblages – performance and document – are inevitably partial. Rooted in uncertainty, they all require acts of interpretation. And there is no end to what can be said about them, to how they might be interpreted.” ((Pearson, Mike and Shanks, Michael 2001, Theatre/Archaeology, London:Routledge, p.56)) This is true, but when working as a small group alongside other small groups to create one collective performance you must keep in mind whether your style of interpretation of your data compliments the rest of the complete piece.

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Isolation T.A.N.K.

Stephenie Clubley / / T.A.N.K

The T.A.N.K. group originally wanted to to represent the claustrophobic environment that the interior of a real tank would have created by performing to a small percentage of the audience at a time. We were going to create a tent-like structure of material in between the caterpillar tracks made of chairs to make the body of the tank. Three actors would have supported this structure while one performed inside to between 1 and 3 audience members, and the speaker would swap with one of those outside each time new audience members arrived.

This idea partly stemmed from a discussion about The Long and Winding Road, a live art project by Michael Pinchbeck; particularly the section where Pinchbeck wrote a one-to-one performance piece intended to take place inside a parked car that had been the center of the project. ((Pinchbeck, M (n.d.) The Long and Winding Road, Online: http://www.michaelpinchbeck.co.uk/installation/the-long-and-winding-road/ Accessed 10th April 2013)) We had information about the experiences of those trusted with testing the first tanks, including the dangers they were faced with, and we wanted to impart that information in a personal and direct way. Inviting the audience into our vehicle to listen at close quarters seemed like an excellent way to create the level of intimacy we were looking for. Continue reading “Isolation T.A.N.K.”

Horse: Nature’s Athlete, Tractor and T.A.N.K.

Stephenie Clubley / / T.A.N.K

Whilst developing our group’s piece at the Grandstand, we wanted to explore the relationship between the tank and its evolutionary roots. During the First World War, heavy haulage tractors were used to transport naval guns. The concept of the tank was first touched upon by Admiral Bacon in 1914 when he remarked, “If a machine could be capable of laying its own bridge, being equipped with means of offence and defence, it would be of assistance in trench warfare.” (( William Foster & Co (1920) The Tank: Its Birth And Development, Tee Publishing))

 

Before the invention of the tractor and the complete mechanisation of farming, horses were the farmers’ choice in work animals. They were used to pull ploughs and transport everything from carts of produce and raw materials to people and their tools. Other breeds of horses were bred for the purpose of entertainment, such as the racehorses that would have attracted the crowds to Lincoln’s own Grandstand.We wanted to show the relationship and transition between horse and machine in our performance piece. We felt it would create a stronger link with the site, through Lincoln’s rural setting and the role of the horse at work and in entertainment.

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Entrances to Hell

Stephenie Clubley / / Uncategorized

Entrances2Hell.co.uk describes itself as “The constantly updated catalogue of entrances to Hell in and around the UK”. It is a tongue-in-cheek collection of photographs depicting dilapidated or unusual doorways that don’t seem to fit with the scenery around them. They are submitted by users from all around the UK and after being authenticated by the website administrators they are listed on the website with a name and it’s own fictitious mythology, often with humorous results.

"Airfix"

“Airfix has a reputation as a place where lovers meet and is where the devil finally married his 2 childhood sweethearts Milly the Milkmaid and Linda M. Daventree in 1761. Since their marriage these two have given birth to almost 17 billion little-devils who have already been sent to distant star systems to follow in their fathers foosteps. Birdsong here is always performed as an improvisation around the chords B flat minor and G7. The tunnel of Airfix has had the new long-life light bulbs installed along its entire length.” (Entrances to hell around the UK: Airfix, n.d.)

There do not seem to be any specific guidelines for spotting an ‘entrance to hell’, but from studying many of the photographs the general consensus is that these places are mostly neglected, grubby spots in an urban landscape that look anomalous. Many of them are places that would be unsettling to loiter around alone in the dark, and if they did happen to be portals to an other-worldly dimension it may be fair to say that it would not be an ideal tourist attraction.

Bricked up wall at the grandstand

This photo, taken at the Lincoln grandstand, depicts a keystone and archway above a patch of brickwork that looks conspicuous amongst the rest of the wall. This suggests there used to be a doorway here. In Mike Pearson’s Theatre/Archaeology, he asks us to consider an archaeological artefact. “Do not begin with the question, ‘What is it?’ Instead ask ‘What does it do?’. Enquire of its social work: What does it connect through its design, exchange and consumption?” (2001, p.53) The reason for the closure of this door is most likely simple disuse, but walled-up doorways always present room for curiosity and questions. One cannot help but wonder what kind of doorway once stood there, for whose use it was intended, and where it once led. Are there any traces of the other side of the doorway on the interior of the building? If there are not, it only adds to how unnatural the traces on the outside look. An open doorway can look mystical and inviting; a closed doorway can look threatening but still prompt our inquisitiveness.

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Non-Places and the personal

Stephenie Clubley / / Uncategorized

“Walking through
the underpass
under Cold Blow Lane
near Millwall
football ground
surrounded by mad fans
fighting
and police
while carrying two bags
of food and drink
I just walked
through it all
like walking through a film”

(Mirza/Butler, 1999)

In this ‘age of information’ we are constantly immersed in multimedia everywhere we look. For someone living in this age, it is quite easy to imagine your personal life as a film. As day to day events unfold and coincidences reveal themselves, they can become interlinked in ways that sometimes seem like they must have been scripted.

This illusory ‘film’ of your life is something only you will ever be able to see through your own unique viewpoint. No two people experience the same sights and sounds around them in the exact same way. If you were a Hollywood producer striving to recreate someone’s life on the big screen, you would edit out the majority of the mundane and the everyday. People would be interested in watching the immediate events leading up to John F. Kennedy’s assassination, but less so in watching the three hours spent on an aeroplane between Washington D.C. and Dallas.

Marc Augé states that “If a place can be defined as relational, historical, and concerned with identity, then a space which cannot be defined as relational, or historical, or concerned with identity will be a non-place.” (1995, p.77-78) However this does not prevent non-places like airports, bus stops and elevators from becoming  concerned with identity on an individual level. This is exemplified in Karen Mirza and Brad Butler’s film extract of ‘Non Places‘, where personal experiences are written as subtitles and laid over monochrome shots of ordinary walkways and stairwells. These places are not unfamiliar to anybody who has visited an urban area, but the subtitles illuminate invisible echoes of inner thoughts. “…the personal voice, translated into subtitles. There is no voice-over, so the lines are read, as it were, in the viewer’s own head. Personal memory, which might be thought alien to the very idea of a non-place, is here drawn close to it.” (Rees, 1999)

Mirza and Butler bring the personal in the non-place to light by evoking subconscious memories of non-places within the viewer that they may have previously overlooked.  “Some shots evoke an oblique connection between the story and the image – a train passes as the text refers to a railway station – but others imply a greater distance, a space for the viewer to fill by drawing on their own memories.” (Rees, 1999)

This ‘space for the viewer to fill’ invites the viewer to consider non-places with a dormant significance. Perhaps next time they pass such a non-place, they may find themselves smiling as they remember it afresh as their main meeting point for friends in their first year at university; the place where they sheltered from the rain the one time they locked themselves out of the house; or the first pedestrian crossing where their crush held their hand while waiting for the green light.

 

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