Archives

Tech Day

May18

When I first started pulling together idea’s for my solo performance, never did I envisage such a wide use of technology. For a technical novice such as myself, tech day was therefore quite daunting as I worried whether the images I had in my head would be possible in practice and how they would become reality. Luckily with my wonderful tech team I felt in safe hands and was allowed to experiment with different lighting states in order to find the effect I desired.

The first challenged was the task of creating a pair of moving curtains for the start of my performance. For the start of my performance I will be stood in front of the curtains with the studio hidden behind. The curtains had to be able to open as if by themselves so the tech team devised a pully system attached to a scaffolding which can be operated at the side. There were initial issues with too much friction but through experimentation, the curtains were able to be both opened and closed through a one sided pully. The bright floral print works well and compliments the area in which the audience will be sitting, allowing a flow between the outside and inside of the studio.

photo 1 (1) photo 2 (1)

 (Tech day,  17/5/2014)

Lighting is also a huge factor in my piece as it signifies the change in mood and reflects whether that moment is dominated by the public or private self. For my public self, the lights are bright and colorful with mixtures of pink and yellow flooding the acting space to create a positive and happy atmosphere. This will contrast with the dull, harsh lighting of the private self. At the climatic part of the performance I will walk backwards through slots of harsh, blue light feeding through gaps in the tabs. This effect proved to be successful in creating the dark, eerie atmosphere I am aiming for at this point of the performance. All the while the projection of myself will be played and through video experiments, I will be able to interact with the projection through song, harmonies and physical movements.

 

 

Projection experiments

May6

Today was an important day in the development of my performance. From early discussions, I knew I wanted to use a projection of myself, however felt apprehensive as to whether it would work. From trials in the studio we experimented with different places and ways of projecting my image. We first projected straight onto the glass window which worked well, however would limit my performance space as the image was fixed to the glass, minimizing the ways in which I could interact with it. We then moved the image onto  a white sheet which could be hung from the grid.

 

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(Taken by myself, 06.05.14)

The final effect would of course be more complete with the cloth stretched and hung from above and the projection scaled to size. This would allow me to interact with the projection much more freely. Now I know the projection works, I can finalize my script and film the finished projection.

‘I’m only Human’

Apr17

Even previous to the discovery of Laurie Anderson and her work intertwining song with multimedia and speech, music and singing was always something which inspired me and therefore an element I wanted present in my performance. Songs for me are the most beautiful and direct way of creating emotion and feeling and so felt would work well with the themes I wanted to explore. The music of Christina Perri has been a great influence to my work, with many of her songs creating part of the performance. At the moment I am toying with different idea’s for a title for my piece and the main thought is ‘Human’ after 0ne of her sounds with particular prevalence for my work. I will not be performing the entirety of her songs; instead I shall use snippets and experiement with the way in which they will be sung and whether they will be live or pre-recorded. Here is a link to one of her songs, Human:

 

The lyrics from this which I will be singing a cappella are:

 

But I’m only human
And I bleed when I fall down
I’m only human
And I crash and I break down
Your words in my head, knives in my heart
You build me up and then I fall apart
‘Cause I’m only human

 

These words beautifully complement my performance in which I try to explore the notion of public/private self and the perfection many of us crave; we are all human and will therefore make mistakes and will undoubtedly go through periods of lows and difficulties. Her songs explore the emotions we go through as human beings as she transforms her life struggles into the beauty of music, just as Spalding Gray transforms his struggles into performance. Other songs I will sing include,’ I believe’ and ‘The Lonely’.

 

Works Cited

 

AZ Lyrics (2014) [online] Available from http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/christinaperri/human.htm [accessed 17 April 2014]

Youtube (2014) [online] Available from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5yaoMjaAmE [accessed 17 April 2014]

The tulips are too red

Mar15

Through discussions in class, I was introduced to the American poet Sylvia Plath whose work famously talks of her depression and attempted suicide. She turned the tragedy of her pain into beauty through the words of her work. Her work is a real inspiration for me when trying to create my own poems which will be spoken in my performance. Here is an extract from one of her poems, Tulips.

The tulips are too red in the first place, they hurt me.
Even through the gift paper I could hear them breathe
Lightly, through their white swaddlings, like an awful baby.
Their redness talks to my wound, it corresponds.
They are subtle : they seem to float, though they weigh me down,
Upsetting me with their sudden tongues and their color,
A dozen red lead sinkers round my neck.

 

Nobody watched me before, now I am watched.
The tulips turn to me, and the window behind me
Where once a day the light slowly widens and slowly thins,
And I see myself, flat, ridiculous, a cut-paper shadow
Between the eye of the sun and the eyes of the tulips,
And I have no face, I have wanted to efface myself.
The vivid tulips eat my oxygen.

 

Before they came the air was calm enough,
Coming and going, breath by breath, without any fuss.
Then the tulips filled it up like a loud noise.
Now the air snags and eddies round them the way a river
Snags and eddies round a sunken rust-red engine.
They concentrate my attention, that was happy
Playing and resting without committing itself.

 

The walls, also, seem to be warming themselves.
The tulips should be behind bars like dangerous animals;
They are opening like the mouth of some great African cat,
And I am aware of my heart: it opens and closes
Its bowl of red blooms out of sheer love of me.
The water I taste is warm and salt, like the sea,
And comes from a country far away as health.
(Poetry Foundation, 2014)

 

I have also read extracts from her novel, The Bell Jar, and a particular section jumped out at me. The words beautifully explained how I often feel when overtaken by depression and I knew I would have to include them into my performance.

I guess I should have been excited the way most of the other girls were, but I couldn’t get myself to react. I felt very still and very empty, the way the eye of a tornado must feel, moving dully along in the middle of the surrounding hullabaloo.  (Plath, 2003, p.4)

 

Works Cited
Plath, Sylvia (2004) The Bell Jar. England: Harper Large Print.
Poetry Foundation (2014) [online] Chicago: Available from http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/178974 [Accessed 15 March 2014].

‘The Naked Self’

Mar5

In class we were asked to create a piece of work based around a set structure we had been given. This was the start of our creative process. The basic frame to initiate ideas was:

 

-Lights go black

-Empty Chair in corner

-Spotlight from the side

-A voice is heard

Initially I found it hard to create an idea as to what should happen and found that the reason for my difficulty was that I was thinking too much instead of just allowing idea’s to flow; after all no idea is a bad idea as they can lead you to new and more intriguing thought and vision. Eventually I ended up daydreaming about silly things that made me happy as a person, which then inspired me to go into a piece on emotion. As dialogue, I listed all the things which make my soul happy and give my life joy. Some of the words are silly little things, others play a much bigger role in the happiness of my life. Here is a snippet of the text:

 

“Animals. Disney. Singing. Friends. Dancing. Summer. Chocolate. Shopping. Puppies. Disneyland. Photographs”

 

The words are simple and I expect that as more idea’s build so will the dialogue however I wanted the start to be simple and concise. I imagined a person (me) to be sat on the chair delivering the dialogue, reacting naturally to the words as they are spoken. I also wanted bright warm colours such as pinks, oranges and yellows to fill the stage as the dialogue progresses, reflecting the happiness from the words. As influenced by Laurie Anderson’s use of multimedia and from suggestions from others in the lesson, I thought that whilst the words were being spoken, synonyms of the word ‘happy’ would be projected simultaneously such as, ‘cheerful’, ‘elated’, ‘joyous’ and ‘contented’.  I then imagined a sudden change of tone with the introduction of a sound effect of either white noise or a door slam. After this, the dialogue would begin again however this time instead of happy words being projected, the words will juxtapose the spoken word. Projected words would include, ‘depressed’, ‘melancholy’, ‘troubled’ and ‘pained’. Whilst this section is being performed, the lights will flicker between the colour and the harsh spot around the chair.

 

For me Solo performance is a very self-expressive form, as Bonney suggests Solo performance is a, “naked presentation of a single person(a)” (1999, xiv). Although this is only my first initial idea and structural features of the performance are undoubtedly going to change throughout the process of devising, for a solo piece of work I believe that it makes sense for even in a small way the performance to be a personal experience. This personal exploration can then be shared with an audience allowing them to wonder how the piece may be personal to them or someone close to them. Emotions are something which are a big part of my life. As a sufferer of depression, it is difficult to control how I feel on a daily basis and often become a prisoner to my own mind and thoughts. Although naturally I am a happy, bubbly and outgoing person, this part of me is often hidden and for a year I hid the illness I suffered from, in the fear of people changing their perceptions on who I was or judging me for my illness. Luckily I have found the strength to become more confident about it and feel that maybe through performance I can express something personal and important to me whilst reaching out to others who may be suffering with a similar illness or at least make the whole thing less of a taboo subject. Regardless of where my performance goes, I know that song will be an important part as it the one performance method which gives me the most fulfilment. I hope to play with these ideas further as the weeks go on.

 

Works Cited

Bonney, Jo (ed.) (2000) Extreme Exposure: an anthology of solo performance texts from the twentieth century. New York: Theatre Communications Group