You can’t put a price on life

Lauren Olerenshaw / / War and Loss

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.

The T.A.N.K: Part 2

Ben Middleton / / T.A.N.K, Uncategorized

Once we had decided on creating the tank as a model, like the monument to be established on the roundabout at Tritton road, we thought about how we were going to make the tank. Several suggestions were tried from hay to cardboard boxes but we decided on using the chairs from the Grandstand because ‘materials themselves have been limited to those that efficiently make the general object form’ ((Morris, R (1993) ‘Anti-Form’ in Morris, R’s Continuous Project Altered Daily: The Writings of Robert Morris London: MIT Press)) the chairs replicated the tank in an easy, but still ambiguous way. Plus, we liked the idea of creating the tank out of objects that were already in and or left in the grandstand because, like the grandstand they had equally been forgotten about .

Since we decided to build the tank out of the chairs, we experimented with looking at the chairs already being there when the audience walked into the room, this worked well because at first the audience had no clue what it was, being just a pile of chairs and some netting set up in a specific way the tank still looked ambiguous enough that the audience would not understand what it was until the performance was underway and the use of soundscapes and dialogue would help them to understand what the sculpture was representing. Alternatively, we looked at simulating the movement of the tank’s caterpillar tracks with the chairs, we thought this image worked well and we decided to build the tank movement wise whilst the audience walked in.

Furthermore, we looked at how this movement was quite repetitive and we believed that each movement we made should be precise and repeatable; this is since the tank was quite mechanical we wanted to replicate that mechanical sense by making the movements accurate and in a form of repetition. We did this by using the whole group to move the chairs where two people would be in perfect sync with each other on each side to make it look like the tracks were moving perfectly; also, we would hold the chairs over the line of the other chairs to make it look neat and mechanical. We decided to add the mantra of the tank force ‘From the blood, through the mud, to the green fields beyond’ here since we believed that the mantra spoke of the goal of the tank and its forces.

Once we had established this much we wanted to look at how we could integrate the tank to the Grandstand, although the tanks were never really used or tested at the grandstand, however, we know there was trench training on the west common ‘Crenelated earthworks just south of the grandstand identify the location of a former training trench from WWI.’ ((Heritage Connection Lincoln West Common online: http://www.heritageconnectlincoln.com/character-area/west-common/64/description (accessed 25th March 2013) )) Additionally we found a picture in the archives on the first tank, Little Willie on the west common,

Little Willie normal

we can assume here that maybe the tank was brought to the west common to test out on the practice tranches to see whether it would be able to cross the trenches on the warfront.  Even though the tank was never really at the Grandstand we still believed it to be a strong part of Lincoln’s history much like the Grandstand that had been forgotten.

Producing a Stable Diet: Appetizer

Rachel Miller / / The Odds Are Stacked

As our piece has  moved over hurdles over the past few weeks  we as a group have been looking forward to the finish line for our final product.  In order to created our journey from the start to the end, we first looked at the space’s connotations and how we would apply them to our process.

Once a resting place for the homeless, the Grandstand a fellow outsider of Lincoln society stands on the out skirts of the city looking in. From the glory of  temporarily housing the once lucky to the unlucky. The potentially rich to now the penniless; We discovered an overall theme of loss permeates this building. Similar to site specific choreographer Willi Dorner we too looked into the past and future of our site.  We also found similarities between his findings from his Snienton Market project in Nottingham in 2005 and ours from The Grandstand. ” I got to see a place which seemed to me empty, silent and uncared for… I had a feeling that the perspective of tomorrow seemed vague and empty” ((Dance4 Toolkit 2005)) As we were shown around inside of the Grandstand on our second week we came to realize that the future of this space is a question mark.  Likewise to the market, the insides of the Grandstand are empty and in terms of the weighing room (our main performance space) it also seems uncared for. Taking this into consideration along with the theme of loss, we explored further into the spaces  past purpose as a racecourse center and felt it necessary to continue looking into its journey from being a positive to a negative space.  So in order to capture some of its old life we felt we needed to critically address what our performance could include with inspiration from Mike Pearson’s Why Performance study notes this helped us question ” What happens here, has happened here, might happen here” (( Pearson, Mike,2011,Why Performance,http://www.landscape.ac.uk/landscape/documents/eventpapers/toolkit/1whyperformance.pdf,Accessed 12/03/2013 )). When drawing upon”what happened here” we were intrigued by the loss caused by the gambling and betting that would of taken place, and how that experience can turn from being a positive to a negative experience.

We even placed a bet ourselves at a local betting shop in the opening race for the Cheltenham festival to get a first hand experience of  the emotions that go through a person when gambling.  From a personal perspective, i was a little unsure about placing a bet due to my beliefs. As a Christian i am taught that seeking wealth and love of money is not the root to true happiness. Even though  gambling is not directly mentioned in the Bible, it does mention that a love of money can be a curse and cause all kinds of  downfall:  Ecclesiastes 5vs 10-17 ((The Holy Bible, New Century version,2003:Thomas Nelson Inc))

” 10 Who ever loves money 

Will never have enough money

Whoever loves wealth will not be satisfied with it “

“13 I have seen real misery here on earth:

money saved is a curse to its owners.

14 They loose it all in a bad deal 

and have nothing to give their children.

15 People come into this world with nothing,

and when they die they leave with nothing.

16 -So what do they get from chasing the wind?

17 All they get are days full of sadness and sorrow,

and they end up sick, defeated and angry.”

 

Here i have highlighted the words in this passage which i find most significant to my personal thoughts on what loss is and also its links towards gambling and the emotions it can cause.  When betting on a horse to discover it  lost, it did result in some emotion of defeat although i was not in complete distress because i lost, i did it for the experience but i was reminded a  real gamblers aim is to win. When i was  in the shop i observed  that the majority of spectators were men. It posed the questions of : Are some of these men fathers? Back in the days of the Grandstand the likelihood of spectators being fathers was most likely, as it is a place of heritage. A place of memories for some families and Grandparents. Another was; Have their trips to the betting shop been made apparent to their children? What is the probability that this is how they increase their money to provide that bit extra for their family; in hope they do not loose it completely ? This relates back to verse 14 They loose it all in a bad deal. This could be the definition of all kinds of gambling. When the Bible talks about children here, it can also show  loss through a generational context rather than just in the present. It gives an insight into how gambling and loss can have a butterfly effect in the future.  Here is were this passage links loss with the Grandstand.  in depicting how loss can  have a chain reaction with its past and future.

So to make this journey slightly personal i decided i wanted to include some of this scripture in the piece, however due to timing issues instead of  having a line each from the chapter, we collectively chose verse 15 as we all felt it conveyed a harsh but true reality. The mention of the word nothing we felt related very contingently with the last line of the poem which we recite at the beginning of the piece. ” The Horse gets nothing“. (( Bastasa,s,Ric ,2010” the horse that i am riding”,http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-horse-that-i-am-riding/, Accessed 12/03/2013)) Furthermore showing loss can affect all things regardless of what race your in.

 

 

 

 

 

RAF At The Grandstand – Memorial Flight

Christopher Greg Sellers / / War and Loss

During the final rehearsal for Safe Bet  my idea has developed a good deal.  I looked at the RAF debrief I had constructed and saw that the main focus of this was to fly the aircraft continuously  I thought therefore that the audience could practice flying over and over again and I didn’t want to give them another speech. As we are trying to depict the horrors of war I thought it would be a good idea to juxtapose this with something negative. I therefore had another inspection of the Dambusters book and found a list at the back of all those aircrew who had lost their lives. I have consequently decided to read these, ordering the recruits to practice flying during this. My main aim in giving the piece a memorial was to portray issues of” ownership and occupation,  individual and group identity, power, boundaries, rights of inclusion and exclusion, memory” ((Pearson, 2011, p144)).

Following this sequence, I wanted the audience to wreck their planes, just like the airmen’s lives were wrecked. My first idea was for the audience to place their planes in a burning bin for them to be engulfed by the flames. However, due to health and safety procedures this was discarded. I then thought the same effect could be given if the planes were ripped up and then scattered on the ground , like a battlefield. Though a defect in this plan came when I was reminded that I am repeating this exercise three times, therefore the new groups would already predetermine the activity before it was started, if planes are lying on the ground  The world I am presenting depicts “performance as overlapping situations: one place in two different social occasions at one time ” ((Acconci, 1996:65)). Therefore, I thought the audience members could tear their planes to pieces then drop them in a bag. Yet, during the final rehearsal , due to the windy weather the pieces blew away. Thus, I needed to take the pieces inside.

 

Forgotten Items Housed In The Grandstand, One Of These Being The Tombola Which I Have Utilised 

 

20130130_155742

 

As the performance is centred around betting, one of the forgotten items housed in the Grandstand is a tombola. I am therefore going to ask the audience to place their scattered planes into the tombola drum . By theoretically gambling with lives , I am emphasising how poignant the situation is . Once the names are in, I will turn the tombola , as if they have become one of many forgotten many . Through the glamorisation of war, the audience will  react naturally given the sad circumstances. However, I do mention that by gathering up the remains they will never be forgotten, highlighted by the RAF motto.

During feedback, I was told that people found it hard to tear up what they had made , and gradually, as the names sink in, the audience no longer want to fly their planes. This is , in effect ” A restoration of the absent present” ((Pearson, 2010, p46)).

Works Cited

Kaye, Nick (2000) Site-Specific Art, Great Britain: Routledge

Pearson, Mike (2010) Site- Specific Performance, New York: Palgrave Macmillan

A Taste of History

Emily Holt / / 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.