We made our mark

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.

 

Can i stop counting?

‘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.

 

 

 

 

 

T.A.N.K Part 7 – The Final Test (Performance Reflection)

On reflection of the Tanks performance I think one of the highlights was the atmosphere we tried to create once the audience had stepped into the weighing room (Tank Testing Zone). With the sound of a tank rumbling through the battle field and the crew chatting there motto, we tried to create an unease and mixed tense within the audience. Also with the audience being trapped inside the tank once the chairs were at the side as well as the netting over the top of them it heightened the atmosphere. I further developed our idea I would like to have restricted the audience view, by this I would have probably made a replica of the tanks crews mask and had them wear it while inside the tank.

 One of the main aims of our performance was to show how important the tank was not only to the grandstand but also to Lincoln on a whole. Although the tank was not built at the grandstand it was tested on the area opposite the Grandstand West Common and also Burton Park. What we wanted to try and achieve was to show how important Lincoln and the area around the Grandstand was during the Frist World War.  Also how a the design of the machine conjured up by 3 men, Sir William Tritton, William Rigby of Fosters & Co and Major W G Wilson of the war Office, could change the way we fight in war.

 Some issues that accrued during the performance, partly ones that I noticed, the majority of us were a bit shaky on the line and the timing of the dialogue. Noting want had happening earlier in the day, one of the team not making it due to serious illness, we had to change and swap around some of the lines, which didn’t help because we got muddled with the lines and would stress about don’t knowing perfect enough to be comfortably with not having them written done. One of major issue which I would have further developed on was the movement of the chairs. The original Idea was for the four of us in the group to move the chairs one on top of each other, under each other and back around again to signify the movement of the caterpillar tracks movement along the ground. The movement which we did sort worked, but when it was left down to 3 members it was a bit more slowly and sticky in places and felt a bit jagged.

 Overall if had further time to develop our idea, I would experiment more on the movement of the chairs or even try a different way of portraying and building the tank, maybe to the same size as a real one?, and see how that would affect the space we were working in. Another possibly idea would be to involve the audience, make them build the tank without know what they doing and then show them what they have made.

The machine that changed the face of warfare forever.

Little_Willie_early_design

Post show blues

‘I can take any empty space and call it a bare stage’ ((Brook, P. (1996) The Empty Space, New York: Touchstone. P7))

 

This quote highlights the feeling my group were experiencing on the day of our site specific performance, there were many changes in our piece which occurred leading up to the final performance. The changes we made included the scattering of pennies. This decision was made to make them look like people scattered around; reiterating the idea of the deaths. The second change was saying numbers rather than facts; this created a more poignant feel to the piece as it highlighted the sheer amount of deaths that occurred.

 

9000 pennies flag of pennies

 

In retrospect of our performance I believe if we had the opportunity, we would have done things such as painting the grass, this would have illuminated further the representation of the soldiers’ deaths within the flag, and how they represented queen and country. Overall I feel we achieved a brilliant performance, as we connected with the audience and managed to remind them of the work that the Lincolnshire soldiers achieved. The final part of our performance is to take the money to the charities that are described below, I feel that this connects with our idea of rejuvenation and reinventing the grandstand into something that it once was.

T.A.N.K Part 6 – The First Test (The Preview)

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With our Tank full established and now in a complete form we now felt it was time to do the first test, as we had a preview at lunchtime on the morning of our performance, we could you use this time to see what did and did not work.

One problem which did occur was the absences of one of the crew, so we had to quickly find a solution on how our tank would work with only 3 crew members. After discussing through the possibilities and improvising around having only 3 crew members we came up with a solution.
The solution was just to carry on as normal, do everything we had practised before, but this time with a slight difference. The Tank Officer would hold the netting over the audience at the front by himself and the 2 crew members left would move the chairs alongside the black box. Normally it would be 4 crew members moving the chairs which gave it that caterpillar movement. This decision would make the tank move a little bit slower, but the essence of what he a trying to portray would still be there.
The Tank Officer would set the scene, lead the audience into the testing zone, and place them into the black box, while the tank crew spoke their motto “From the blood, through the mud, to the green fields beyond.’ and moved the chairs alongside them.

Analysing the Preview, (the first test), everything went as we had plan earlier only a couple minor hiccups happening during the performance. One notably hiccup was the back end of the tank (Chairs) collapsed. But all we could do was carry as normal getting through the first showing to the 2 audience members that were involved, and then rebuild our machine for the second showing. The Preview gave us a great opportunity to practise and to see how the machine we had created would affect the space we were working in. The space surrounding the tank, I would say was not affected in our performance, but the space that we had created inside the Tank, were the audience would stand or sit, we had created a kind a claustrophobic atmosphere were by anyone standing or sitting inside would feel trapped with now kind of escape from being inside this killing machine.
What also gave the space its atmosphere was the crew reading out the dairy extracts while facing inwards towards the audience entrapping them in moment of realisation that the machine they were in, eventually became one of biggest changes in warfare. Not only did the tank change the face of warfare, but it affected those who powered the machine into battle and also those who came face to face and lost their lives at the hands of this new machine.

As LT. Otto Schulz of the Germany Infantry said in his diary: “One stared and stared as if one had lost the power to move ones limbs. This big mental monster approached us slowly; someone had shouted ‘THE DEVIL IS COMING’” ((http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Y0ZHESxVEc))