Tea Parties...

… an event that is constructed through process, ritual, and etiquette. This maybe an odd thing to be trying to construct a performance about, but I have been thinking a lot about tea!

As you know I have recently changed my research paper… so where does this leave my practical work??? The main premise of my research is investigating and analysing everything that I believe theatre should be, which as you know from my previous post, is a highly process driven theatre that responds to site, audience, its previous performances, its performers, and a theatre that outs its own construction. I want to try and begin to work this into the Space-In-Between Project.

The first section of the performance, I feel, already addresses a great deal of the above points. The performance is constructed in front of the audience and in conjunction with them. It therefore, outs it own construction by being about process, and will be different every time as it responds directly to each individual audience member. The performance has already taken place once (Harriet’s (In)Visible piece) and is now organically changing to respond to the site (55 Leroy Street) and its performers (i.e. my inclusion into it). For those of you who don’t know about Harriet’s (In)Visible performance, I will post a link to Harriet’s blog in case you want to look it up. I have to say that it has been really interesting for me to be part of this process and see a performance develop in this way; especially since I was involved in the first trial of the performance structure during our first assessments.

The second part of the performance is where we want to try and test the water with a few more of my ideas. Harriet and I have both been looking at projections in terms of how they can be used in a performance and why they would be used. I like them because I think that they out their own construction in a lot of ways. As they are projected onto surfaces they also allow you to simultaneously view the texture of the surface underneath the image, hence, it doesn’t allow you to think you are anywhere other than the room you are in! As with so much theatre it is literally projecting into a space (as I have said before).

What we are thinking with section two of the performance, is that it would be nice to project ourselves on top of our live selves – but doing the reverse actions. This is (hopefully) to highlight the rehearsal process that goes into a performance and allow it to become embedded into the actual work. We have already decided that the performance is going to be based on, and structured by, repetition. There are a number of reasons for this decision and we are hoping that the projection will help us express some of them (of course there is no sure way of knowing until we have performed it).

So… back to tea. Last rehearsal I was really beginning to think about domestic habit since Harriet had found an article about the poor housing conditions of Leroy Street inhabitants in the 60s, and the building is now about to be turned into luxury apartments. The one thing that I could really see as connecting the past, present, and future histories of 55 Leroy Street was tea! It was even once a base for London Tea Stores! The area that we are going to be performing in has tea written all over the wall from a previous work of art… so tea it is! 

The more I thought about tea the more bizzar it became. I have begun researching into tea parties and etiquette and it appears to fit my research well (for now at least). Tea parties are very much about process, and one of the best things about them is that they (I believe anyway) are historically appropriated. Although the nature of the tea party may not differ too much the reason for having them does. Historically they were very much about community and introducing a new neighbour. They were high society events. However, one of the websites that I am looking at argues that in today’s society, as life rushes past, we have lost the ability to stop and appreciate the small things in life. Tea Parties are about live, human interaction – a reason to take tea and socialise! Not far off my beliefs about theatre!

You have to check out the website I am using I think it is hilarious. I am hoping that as Harriet and I unpack and take tea and repack over and over again with the projections continually doing the reverse it will become an even more absurd concept. I am loving the idea of the panels obstructing the audiences view that can capture the projcetions as Harriet has discussed on her blog: there is a good chance that Harriet’s image will be projected on to me and vice versa. We are also wanting to try things out such as flurring out the table cloth to catch images. These are both ways of Harriet and I playing around with vision and perception without using any ‘trickery’. I want everything to be on display for all to see.