Last week we were asked to go to the grandstand and create a performance in the second half of our lecture. However, Rachel, Emma, Kash, Charlie and I decided to go and explore the west common and to try and get a feel for what an actual horse looked like, felt like and smelled like. Mike Pearson states that ‘Performance can function as innotive mode of enquiry and as a research output,’ (Mike Pearson, 2011) and we asked ourselves how our performance could be considered a research output if we hadnt actually done any reasearch ourselves! With that in mind we trekked out to the area of the common where the horses all were gathered, we just didnt consider the terrain before we did! It had obviously been raining at some point in the past as the ground was soaked through and the noise our feet made as we walked through was horrible, kind of squelchy! However the thing that struck me the most was the smell of the who place. It was a mild day and you could almost smell spring bursting through the clouds. The sun was trying to break through – which made our journey slightly more enjoyable that in previous weeks when we were all cold through!- maybe making some of us more daring than others, and eventually we reached our destination after passing a large number of manure piles on the way that didnt smell too nice! I think by the end of the day Charlie had gone off the idea of bringing Horse manure into the grandstand as the amount we saw was enough to put anyone off!!
Today for the second part of our lecture we were told to explore the grandstand in our groups, and while we were there we had to create a minute performance to share with the rest of the class for next week. Instead of going to the Grandstand my group and I decided to go to the West Common; which is the field across the road from the Grandstand where the horses would have actually raced 240 years ago. One of the major factors why we wanted to go over to the West Common is because the field is inhabited with horses; we wanted to experience the stench of the horse and observe the horse itself. The motivation behind this was the fact as a group we wanted to incorporate something to do with the senses and horses. One of the main reasons why I personally wanted to go to the West Common today was to examine the Grandstand from the other side of the road; I had a desire to observe the Grandstand from the perception of what it was like from a horses’ point of view.
However when we got to the West Common we did not think about the terrain of the field, once standing in the muddy space that’s when we realised it had been obviously raining sometime previously . Anyway despite the weather and the landscape we hiked through the field with the mud squelching underneath our feet. Sometimes we slipped, slid and got even got stuck on the terrain.
We attempted to get about as close as we could to the barriers but we had to stop as the ground was too wet; some of the group members had already ruined their shoes by stepping on a piece of terrain and getting their foot soaked with the slushy mud as it was unsafe to stand on that part of the grass.
Viewing The Grandstand from the West Common 27.Feb.2013
When we started heading back to the way we came we had to change our route as a horse had seen us and started to move towards us. This was a terrifying experience, we decided to split the group and to leave the West Common as soon as we could, to attempt to move quickly away from the horse we climbed a fence, when I was trying to get off the fence I panicked as the horse was getting closer to us in result of this I ended up stepping on a really slushy piece of terrain in which my foot got completely submerged in a puddle of mud; this went right through my shoe into my sock.
Luckily we all managed to survive this experience, well just! Once I had got to a safe part of land away from the horse I turned my back to see where the other members of my group were. Directly behind Eloise and Emma the horse had started to pick up speed, before they knew it the horse was in front of them. The horse started walking back to where the other horses were, stopped looked at the girls with a miserable look in its eye and then started to head back from the direction we had just come from.
With this emotional experience, we wanted to create a performance demonstrating the sheer panic that we felt as a collective. For next week’s performance we want to reveal to the rest of the class our journey exploring the West Common. We are thinking about getting the audience to line up in the dark, and as a group we are going to come up behind them and vocalise a horse sound in their ears; this is to share to the rest of the class the ambiance of the horse coming towards us to enhance this atmosphere we are thinking of getting some coconut shells and creating the sound of a horse trotting.
Mike Pearson states that ‘Performance can be employed as an effective research procedure in interdisciplinary approaches to landscape’ ((Pearson 2011, Why Performance)) I believe that this really relates to our West Common journey piece that we are going to reveal to the rest of the class next week. After experiencing the West Common terrain I have changed my mind on the idea of having horse manure in the room to create the stench of a horse as I have think I have seen enough manure to last me a life-time.
No vans were harmed in the journey towards the Grandstand!
Last week as a class we went to the Lincolnshire Archives to research a bit more about the historical background of the Grandstand. Whilst there Eloise, Emma, Kash, Rachel and myself came across a document which was designed in 1939; it was a drawing of a plan to turn the grandstand into a mortuary if Lincoln was badly bombed during the Second World War. It was there, at that moment in the archives where we realised that we all had an interest in this plan, so as a collective we decided to carry on this module as a group.
This is the 1939 plan of the Mortuary that we discovered as a group in the Lincolnshire Archives.
During last week’s afternoon lecture, in groups we had to create a sneak peek performance of what we were thinking at the time to do for our final piece. After talking to my group about ideas we decided that we wanted to incorporate something about horses within our final piece.
One of my ideas that I had was to have the audience wearing headphones and have a soundscape of horses, trotting, galloping or neighing playing on a loop through them. I wanted to incorporate something to do with the five senses within our piece. Another idea I had thought of was to put some horse manure in the room so that when the audience walked in they could smell it and relate the stench to the horse as we physically could not get a horse for our performance.
Individually before the group task of creating a 5 minute performance we had to answer the Mike Pearson questions about exercises in place after visiting a location. The task that I found the most difficult was the ‘ Write a postcard, describing the place with five words beginning with the same letter’ ((Pearson, Mike (2011) Exercises In Place))
The letter I picked for this exercise was the letter “L”, I selected this letter because when I first saw the grandstand I thought that the site looked “Lonely”. The Grandstand is an isolated building which is placed on the outskirts of Lincoln. I feel that people drive past the grandstand everyday but do not really notice it because it is unused. The only time when the Grandstand gets company is when someone is hiring the hall out for a children’s nursery or someone’s birthday; it is now known as a community centre not a racecourse.
The second word I had written down was “Lost”, I believe that the Grandstand is excluded from civilisation. When you stand on the steps of the Grandstand and face the west common you can see the top of the Lincoln Cathedral on the right-hand side above the trees. I feel that the Grandstand is quite a distance from the cathedral, because it is located away from the middle of the city and I believe that is where most of Lincoln’s citizens is.
The final word I had written down was “Large”, to me I felt that the Grandstand was quite big, I did not expect it to be that huge, I believe that when you view it from the golf course it looks like an old fashioned school.
I generally could not think of any other words that began with the letter L so I moved on to the next task. After I had finished the whole exercise, my group and I got together and discussed our answers to the questions. We decided to use the letter exercise to incorporate into our piece; we did this because both Eloise and I picked the letter “L” and for some strange reason we both had written down the exact same words.
When it came to show our performance myself, Eloise, Emma, Kash and Rachel all stood in a line in front of the class with post it notes on our faces covering our mouths. Written on the post it notes we had a selection of words that we felt as a group associated with the grandstand. For example we had words like “Derelict” “Damaged” Abandoned” and “Lost”. To portray the contrast we had an old sepia photo of the Grandstand demonstrating a busy day at the Lincoln Handicap which projected on the white board. To heighten the difference even further we had a sound effect of a busy crowd playing in the background. For the piece, we stood in front of the projection with neutral faces , one by one we slowly peeled a post it note of our face and then dropped it gently to the ground letting the post it note fall wherever it wanted to.
After performing the piece we received some feedback, what really intrigued my group was when someone in the class mentioned that the post it notes reminded them of betting slips especially when we let them fall on the floor as to them it looked like lost betting slips after a horse race.
This is the photo we used during our post it note piece. This is the Grandstand in May 1957.
When our class was first told by Michael Pinchbeck that the site our class might perform in was The Grandstand I had to ask what it was. As a second year drama student at Lincoln University I thought if I don’t know this place would our audience know it?
When I first visited The Grandstand, I thought that the building seemed isolated and abandoned from the rest of the city as it seemed so far away from the cathedral, the restaurants and the shops. I feel that it looked like the building had been neglected and shut off from the public because the front of The Grandstand was surrounded by a metal barrier so that the general public were restricted from going up to what used to be the seating area 240 years ago as it looked damaged and unsafe.
It was interesting to discover the history of the building; the fact that the site was used 240 years ago as a racecourse for horse racing really intrigued me so I went home and researched more about its history.
I discovered that the Grandstand was rebuilt in 1896 giving us the building that we all see today which is at the end of Carholme road and opposite the West Common. During the nineteenth century entrance to the grandstand cost a guinea and several race meetings were held at the grandstand every year. One of the most popular race meetings was The Lincolnshire Handicap; it was established in 1849 and took place in August. In 1857 the August meeting was stopped and the moved to the spring this became the main meeting in Lincoln.
I also found out that the racing was suspended for the duration of the world wars and when it was resumed the fortunes of the racetrack was in serious decline.
July, 22, 1964- The Echo reports on the announcement of the end of racing at Lincoln which was relocated to Doncaster Racecourse.
After the City stopped the funding to the Grandstand the racing was relocated to Doncaster Racecourse, today the Grandstand is used as a community centre until the Lincolnshire City Council decides what they want to do with the building.
The Cathedral. Again… But wait…Again. De ja vu. When doing my task of placing my card i observed the cathedral from the south side of Lincoln. Out side of the high street, on Sincil Bank where the Cathedral would seem to be at its highest. when looking at this card i found it hard not to be too predictable and apart from flying to see the Leaning tower of Pisa i could not actually find a building that wobbled. So i thought of this in an metaphoric way. Again. I thought about the cathedral being the focus point, championed so much as the main focal building in Lincoln. It appears so that all the building underneath the cathedral would wobble in fear that they have so much to live up to. It could be seen that in a way it over shadows all of the other wonderful buildings as its lit like a trophy in a Cabernet. In which the others cower and wobble with fear. The Holy qualities that the building possesses within questions the other building’s purposes. Although i felt it would also be fitting to shake the card slightly when i took the photo for some dramatic irony.
