Women of War – Safe Bet

The Creation of an immersive moving picture.

Emily Holt / May 12, 2013 / Women of War

The Women at War were transcendent within ‘Safe Bet’ as a whole production. As the audience arrived, they were able to watch four ladies who were dressed in authentic 1940’s attire, performing their morning ritual of getting ready for whatever the day may hold. “Rituals are performative: they are acts done; and performances are ritualized: they are codified, repeatable actions” ((Schechner, Richard (1994) Companion Encyclopedia of Anthropology, ed. Tim Ingold, London and New York: Routledge)) The group thought that by having a couple of rituals signifying the morning rituals of these women, and repeating them, we would be demonstrating Schechner’s thoughts. We decided to use four actions linked with four objects: a comb; a perfume diffuser, powder and brush and some lipstick. The ladies were placed in front of four hooks in the exterior wall of the Grandstand on which, it is believed, the horses used to be tied to. These acted as the mirrors for the ladies but also raised issues of pre-war women, women that would have frequented the racing at the Grandstand, being ‘tied’ to the men of the time by marriage or by social conventions. The audience were able to view this happening for a while and passed it when walking into the Grandstands weighing room, where the majority of ‘Safe Bet’ took place.

Once the audience had taken seats inside, the women journeyed indoors and through to the back of the weighing room, which was concealed by a curtain. Since the piece was centered on three rotational exercises, this was a chance for the audience to be briefed on which rotation they would be partaking in first. Between each rotation the Women of War group came into the briefing room and presented some more rituals that women used to employ regularly. The first of these was to rub tea bags on their legs to stain them the colour of stockings, this was done as stockings were difficult to come across during war time England. Not only was it a way of showing a historical fact, but this linked in with our ‘tea’ theme and was a talking point for the audience. The smell and look of the act was noticed on several occasions. Secondly we explored the drawing on of stocking seams, down the back of our legs in eyeliner pencil, this was also a way to make it look as though they were wearing stockings during the war. This was met with exclamations of “my nan used to do that” and “what are they doing?” from some audience members, showing a mixture of confusion and nostalgia. This gives evidence towards “nostalgic performances are more suasory than other forms of nostalgia because they involve embodiment, enactment and/or performativity.” ((Barry Brummett (ed.) (2009) Sporting Rhetoric: Performance, Games and Politics, New York:Peter Lang Publishing)) Towards the beginning of the process, we thought about filming some of these actions instead of performing them on the day. In retrospect I am pleased with the effect the live performance had on the audience that a pre recorded film may not have had.

Once the audience had been rotated between all of the exercises the Women of War stepped forward and stood in between the two male army officers. By standing next to the men at the front of the audience the group were showing the shift from women lacking power pre-war, to the beginnings of equality with men during the war, with women taking on new roles and exerting power themselves for the first time. Once the audience had returned, the Women of War thanked them for coming to give blood, as a group we had recently found out that the grandstand had been used as a donation station for blood and wanted to include this somehow within our piece. Acting as nurses, the audience were instructed to follow the women into the next room and wait for a nurse within the marked box. This was met with some nervous laughter from a few audience members. Once the audience had been taken to the box, the Women of War left to set up the factory space.

With the sewn cloth hanging above us, pointing to the bathroom which had become a factory, the audience were instructed to begin their next shift. Four or Five audience members were instructed to enter the factory itself and take a seat on the bench. The rest of the audience were stood looking in from the doorway giving the effect of a museum exhibition such as those we saw at the museum of Lincolnshire Life. The structured scene worked well, with Vera Lynn playing to create atmosphere, and the noise of the sewing machines breaking up the femininity of her voice. An audience member told us later that this mixture of sounds, enhanced by the aroma of tea and perfume had made her quite nostalgic and a little sad. The whole piece was a juxtaposition of abandonment and business. A ghostly nod to the way of life that the grandstand had seen, women taking center stage in society and bringing together the community. The tea representing the taking of that community from the grandstand itself.

As it happened, all of the audience members that received the tea were male, this lead to an alternative reading of the taking of the tea. As well as it being the downfall of community, it could also have been interpreted to be the women taking the power (tea) from the men and pouring it down the drain. Until recently, women were not rewarded for their efforts during the war; therefore another reading could have been the women taking the rewards from the men and tipping them away to say ‘we deserve this too’ or something along those lines. The fact that there were many readings to the taking of the tea is very interesting and has been my favourite part of the experience. Learning how gender, age and even personality can affect how you interpret an act or performance to mean completely different things.

On reflection…

Phoebe Wall-Palmer / May 11, 2013May 13, 2013 / Women of War

‘Site may be transformed by the disruptive presence of performance seeking a relationship other than that of a ready-made scenic backdrop of against which to place its figures.’ ((Brook, Peter (2008) The Empty Space, London: Penguin Classics, p. 45))

On the 1^st of May 2013, our group attempted to inject life back into a site that normally lies silent. The research process meant absorbing and collecting the history of the sites past, thanks to The Lincolnshire Archives and The Museum of Lincolnshire Life, for example.

On performance day there were a few last minute adjustments. We had been told that the Grandstand had also been used as a place for blood donation, so we decided that when we take the audience through to the next section, after the rotation, we would thank them for coming and donating their blood to us. This was another moment of the past momentarily switching into the present, showing our aim for celebrating the Grandstand’s history. In addition, it introduced some humour into the piece, as the audience did not know what was coming next.

There were a few hiccups throughout the performance, where the rotation did not work as efficiently as we had hoped, and some audience members were waiting longer than others. We do hope, however, that as our sub group was a distraction in the same room (applying make up etc.) it meant that the piece did not fall flat, despite the extended time the audience had to wait.

Furthermore, when asking some audience members after the performance, it was clear that some had not noticed the stretch of material along the weighing room. In many respects, it proves the effectiveness of the entire piece as it shows they were immersed in the performance. The material was not on a persons ordinary sight line, as it was above them. As we realised through our ‘Drifting’ task at the beginning of the module, it is not until you intentionally look away from familiarity that you see the unnoticed. If we were to repeat the performance then the positioning of the material however, would be one to reconsider.

Our feedback from the audience was hugely positive and we were all so appreciative that the community had returned to the Grandstand once again. Specifically for our piece, an audience member described a slight sadness and wistfulness when watching us in the factory scene. The combination of 1940s music, the smell of tea and seeing a vision of the past being encapsulated within the space seemed to provoke this feeling. I feel our sub-group achieved the reconstruction of the past and celebration of femininity, but also embodied the hard work and strength that women would have had to demonstrate. We just hope that our representation did them justice.

We all became a ‘disruptive presence’ ((Ibid.)) to the normal order of the site. But I feel it was a worthy disruption. Hopefully, the Grandstand does not lay silent once again, and our project has highlighted the potential for the site. One day, the gateway to Lincoln will hopefully exist once again.

The Women of War during dress rehearsal…

We made our mark

Jamee-Lee Fleming / May 11, 2013May 11, 2013 / Personal Posts, Women of War

The journey of our site was an exciting experience, from the abandoned building that stood at the end of my street to creating and performing past events that connected to the Lincoln Grandstand under its own roof. By visiting and collecting information from The Lincoln Archives and the Lincolnshire Life museum and other useful sources, we managed to explore the reoccurring theme that stayed throughout our performance groups and bring them to life. Our theme that we were connected to as a whole group was War, the history of the Lincoln Handicap races and the history of the building itself. We split up into individual groups to explore and develop further in our chosen themes.

The women of war group which I was apart of explored sewing as we found an old sewing machine inside the Grandstand. We used the idea of the John Newland piece “The Riddler’s Jacket” as a representation of the sewing of the linen for the aeroplanes during the war. We did this by creating a trail across the ceiling leading from our performance space as an indication for the audience to watch. This was not just our main attraction to the piece; we also focused on the beauty and fashion of the women. To reflect this, we performed routines of getting ready for a day at the factories, by putting on make up and making ourselves presentable. First of all, we wanted to make use of the space inside and outside of the space. Starting with outside, we used the wall where they used to chain the horses up for the public to spectate whether they will be good enough to bet on before they race. We performed a sequence of putting on make up, perfume and brushing our hair until the audience were escorted into the building. The second part consisted of music, drawing lines of the back of our legs and dabbing teabags on our legs, to represent the fake tanning they used to do. Then as we escorted the audience to the next room, we got ready for our main section.

Our aim was to show what a day was like in the factories such as how busy and the loud noises from the machines. To show this, we used sewing machines, with one of us sorting the material out and the other sweeping the floor, whilst we did this the pace of the piece was fast also. This was to represent the mechanism of a machine. Because community was a part of our piece, we wanted to show the difference between the community now and what it was like back then. Whilst we were re enacting our “machine” routine, at the same time cups of tea were being made. When they were drinkable, we passed the cups of tea to our audience as a symbol of community and bringing people together. Then suddenly we would take the cups of tea away and throw it down the drain in front of them to show that there isn’t a community anymore at the Grandstand since the races ended.

After that we presented to the audience ginger bread at the refreshment kiosk at the Grandstand as it was served amongst with fruit and alcohol beverages to the race goers, and then we joined them to sit on the Grandstand whilst another group did a section about the Grandstand’s feelings and that the past has faded away from the site in which that was our cue to leave as we were the representation of the people of the past.

As a whole group, we had a confident and focus presence throughout the performance. With the leaders taking the audience on a controlled tour around our site, we were able to show them creatively what we had been learning over the past five months. Each individual group tackled the facts and figures that they had found and developed their piece through projection, textiles, music and live art. We all presented this in a clear and exciting way for the audience to see for example, we made sure we used as much of the site as possible, for example our group used the bathroom so the shower was our entrance and exit with the use of the shower curtain as the door, there was a groups who used the walls to project an image of a horse and camouflage themselves into the wall by using newspaper. There was also the use of the outside, where the audience at the beginning took the beginning seats to see the women of the war group using a wall to which was used to tie the horses before the races. There were the two other groups which marked out the two other Grandstand which where relevant to the site.

As an individual of the whole performance, I felt that the site was used to its full potential and that we brought history back to the grandstand with a wide range of audience members to experience this with us. Even though many groups themes were war, we all took one aspect and all created something different between us which linked in with the site. Some other groups were based on the horses and the history of Grandstand which made the audience think about what the site could be used as next as it is a shame that nothing is being made use of it.

In Reflection

Sophie Jane Bullivant / May 7, 2013May 8, 2013 / Women of War

The Women of War characters were a prominent part of the beginning of our performance, Safe Bet. We performed a repetitive sequence in front of the wall, next to the Weighing Room. The four hooks on the wall symbolised a mirror for each woman, and we continuously moved down the line of hooks, applying different make-up at each mirror. For example, I applied powder at the first hook and then moved to the next hook, passing the object to another woman, whilst also receiving the lipstick. The sequence continued while the audience were greeted by the sound of the megaphone.

The first performances took place in a rotation format, and the audience went to the different performances in small groups. During the rotation, the audience returned to the seating area in the Weighing Room, to await the next performance/activity. We, the Women of War, remained in the corner of the room, and applied make-up and styled our hair. We also dabbed tea onto our legs and drew black lines onto our calves, which was a popular act of women during the war, to create the illusion that they were wearing silk stockings. Thus, the scent of tea and sweet perfume drifted through the room, for the audience to feel absorbed in the piece, as their senses were heightened. The action of waiting was also a chance for the audience to reflect on what they had experienced so far. Wolfgang Iser states that “Social communication […] arises out of the fact that people cannot experience how others experience” ((Iser, Wolfgang (2001) ‘Interaction between Text and Reader’ in Colin Counsell and Laurie Wolf (ed.) Performance Analysis, London: Routledge.)). As a result, the ‘waiting in limbo’ space that was created was an opportunity for the audience to briefly share opinions.

After the application of make-up, we (as the women) stood proudly in front of the audience. We wanted the audience to see the women as merely being on display, as they were during the pre-war period. Thus, we highlighted our smart, feminine attire and pristine make-up by posing in a row. Our position was a direct contrast to the factory scene that occurred later, where the women had a true purpose and an important role in Britain’s success in the war. Our journey and the transformation of the women throughout the performance is represented through the large cloth that we hung above the length of the Weighing Room ceiling. The cloth also symbolised the aeroplane wings that the Women of War sewed in the factories, and the fact that we used unwanted clothing of our fellow group members also emphasised our strong theme of community.

The Women of War’s main piece of the performance was the factory sewing scene, in the kitchen/shower room. The scene can be regarded as an exhibition and a piece of ‘Museum Theatre’. Catherine Hughes states:

In this age of deconstruction, the new focus on education has rattled the foundations of museums by bringing up questions about how we view knowledge, how we perceive the learning process, and how we determine whose point of view is dominant ((Hughes, Catherine (1998) ‘The Nature of Museums and Theatre’, Museum Theatre, Portsmouth: Heinemann.)).

Thus, the audiences’ reactions made each of us realise how thought provoking our scene had been. For example, my role was to greet the audience and invite a maximum of five people into the kitchen space. Ironically, the audience members that I chose were all male, yet this happened at random. However, a member of the audience later stated that he found the close proximity of the male audience highly poignant, as it highlighted the contrast between the genders, and suggested that the women’s hard work was, in contrast, overlooked by the men during the war. I informed the audience member that this was unintentional, yet the selection of the five males had created a new perspective of our scene. Another unexpected audience reaction that occurred during the scene was when the audience had their tea swiftly taken off them and poured down the urinals. There were many sighs of disappointment and reluctance, which highlighted the happiness and comfort that people feel with a cup of tea. Furthermore, the reactions emphasised the important message of the scene, which consisted of the tea representing community, and how community is literally being ‘poured down the drain’. Also metaphorically, the removal of the tea signifies how the Grandstand site is currently wasted and discarded. Cathy Turner reflects on such an occurrence, believing that “each occupation, or traversal, or transgression of space offers a reinterpretation of it, even a rewriting” ((Turner, Cathy (2004) ‘Palimpsest or Potential Space? Finding a Vocabulary for Site-Specific Performance, New Theatre Quarterly, XX (4) pp. 373-390.)), and personally, the opportunity for a plethora of meanings and audience interpretations, is the essence of site-specific performance.

A Taste of History

Emily Holt / April 28, 2013May 12, 2013 / Women of War

Theatre and performance has always been a feast for the eyes and a delight for our ears, but what about those senses that are hardly ever explored within performance? During our research, we happened across some information which told us the exact refreshments that were served during the races at the grandstand from the serving hatches outside. The items were; gingerbread, fresh fruit and alcohol. We had already found out at this point that the Grandstand was no longer licensed to sell alcoholic beverages so we knew that this was out of the question from the start. During our process we have also already decided to play with the audiences sense of smell by using tea and perfume during the piece, experimenting with emotional memory being triggered by scent. Once we had learnt of the refreshments, we decided to take this idea one step further and experiment with taste. “Taste, however, is linked to the olfaction and therefore deserves mention. The Bread and Puppet Theatre shares freshly baked bread after their performances, and it contributes to the communal meaning of their work” ((Whitmore, John (1994) Directing Postmodern Theatre: Shaping Signification in Performance, United States of America: The University of Michigan Press))We wanted taste to be a integral part of our performance like the Bread and Puppet Theatre, we just needed to determine which tastes would bring the most meaning into our performance. By using our own emotion memories we have decided that the smell of baked gingerbread alongside tea links in with the community feel of the piece, Ideally triggering thoughts of community events that people would have attended; such as village fetes and charity fundraisers.

By using taste our aim is to create a sense of the community that the Grandstand previously enjoyed when it was in use. We really want the audience to feel as though at any second a horse race could begin or a soldier could walk through the room in which they are sat. Our first idea as to where to serve the gingerbread was to do so on a table decked out with some bunting, that we found at the grandstand itself, to recreate the community fete feeling as the audience arrive. However when we learnt that another piece was taking the audience on a small tour of the outside parts of the grandstand, and that it included the serving hatch where they actually used to serve the gingerbread, we decided that we couldn’t ignore the sense of authenticity that this would add.

We may come into some difficulties serving outside however. “At site environmental conditions may change and need to be accepted or actively countered” ((Pearson, Mike (1010) Site-Specific Performance, Palgrave Macmillan)) The weather will play a huge factor in decided if we can do this on the day or not. For example if it does rain we will have to think of a way to either serve it within a container that is waterproof or go back to the original idea of the community fete table as the audience enters the weighing room. We will have to be prepared for both eventualities of course. Other than weather, we need to be aware of factors such as insects and birds as the food with be served outside. we also need to be aware of hygiene when dealing with food and drink. We will solve this by covering the food inside until it is served on plates, washing the mugs thoroughly with boiling water and washing up liquid in between shows and washing our hands regularly.