Scratches

So, last week were the scratches at college! We did the first one on Tuesday and then had to reperform something for Thursday, which were held as open performances. 

As I had been really struggling turning my tea conversations into a more traditional style of performance I decided to do one on one performances for Tuesday. I finally managed to do the performance embodying other people's stories. Something that I have been trying to do for weeks.

I enjoyed the performance and some interesting aspects came from doing it. I realised that if I want the conversations to be a performance in their own right I still have a lot of work to do in the framing of the activity. I probably got a lot more out of the experience than the tea takers did! I knew that I was passing on other people's information and stories but this was lost on a lot of the participants due to the fact that I hadn't framed the activity throughly enough.

I really liked that there was a natural progression to the conversations and the stories that were told. I started off my first story by saying that I was an 86 year old woman, then telling an anecdote. This then inspired the tea taker with me at the time to embody the story of their own Grandma and say to me in return "I'm a 96 year old woman". I then retold this story to the next tea taker - who in return became their two and a half year old nephew, and told an anecdote from his perspective. I loved that other people also took this concept on board (and would really like to know from the participants how this felt to them by the way :o) )

The conversations took a turn when one tea taker told a story that was actually about themselves, from then on the theme of memories and people's grandmas emerged but all about themselves, which was great. 

Actually witnessing this progression finally allowed me to see a way to write the show!! The empathy inherent in the telling of stories swung between being someone else and being yourself. The conversations naturally drifted back to being about them rather than embodying another character or person. This really showed me that this is what I have been working towards. Also being able to see how it felt to embody someone else's story finally gave me a hook into the script writing.

I still want to work on this section being a performance on its own, as it is a great way of getting material and has a great deal of performative quality and value for the participant that is yet to be excavated. So any further feed back from people that saw this section would be great as I don't feel as though I have fully explored this option yet.

Anyway, on to Thursday. So, I wrote the show on Wednesday and performed it, unrehearsed, on Thursday; which was incredibly nerve racking but turned out to be the best thing for me. Being under so much pressure by having limited time to write something meant that I couldn't over analyse anything and talk myself out if it. 

There are loads of things that I need to consider now, such as the materials I am using, the delivery of the work, and expanding the script. I feel in a good place to be able to do it though and am working on finding a director to help me with some of this, as it is incredibly hard for me to be subjective about the work. I suppose that is one thing about working from process; you become so embedded in the work and the process of how you got there that it is hard to step out of it again to be subjective and a little cold about it in the editing. 

I got some really helpful feedback from everyone that saw the performance on Thursday but any further thoughts would be greatly appreciated!

P.S big thanks to Harriet for documenting it for me and getting it on the net!

South Bank Tea and The Scratch: Rain, Rain, Rain!

Well... this is what happened to me last week trying to do South Bank Tea...

I got pissed on (haha)! Rain and tea don't go together very well! 

Eventually the sun came out long enough for me to get a two-in-one tea participant outside the Tate Modern.

An amazing lady stopped with a little girl (who had the best suggestions when it came to my project). It turned out that my tea participant had just put up her painting exhibition at the Barbican (the lady not the little girl). We chatted about art and morals, and I tried to explain empathy to a seven year old; which as it turns out is a great way to see whether you truly understand something yourself! 

I did intend to try the 'I'm a 40 year old man' tactic - but my participant didn't need any encouragement in opening up and telling me a story. It was like she had a sixth sense for what I was doing and jumped right in. This lady even gave me an idea for a similar project that she has been thinking of herself, but not being a performer, said she would find it difficult. I now have her card, so you never know where that might lead. I love having tea with strangers - you never know who you are going to meet. 

I think that I definitely want to try and have more conversations with children as my project progresses - Holly (the girl) came up with things that I would never have thought of. I want to spend more time thinking about the potential role of children in this work... but right now have to skip ahead a bit and think about the scratch; so will have to revisit.

I tried to do Oxford Tea this weekend and went on my merry little way to find the Brother's in Yarn in Henly-on-Thames with the hope of having tea with them as part of their project.... the rain came down and stopped the tea and the Brother's in Yarn cancelled the rest of their tour anyway! So no luck this weekend :o(

After feeling a little panicky about this project recently, I have had to take a step back in order to be able to do the scratch. I have been trying to put what I have done so far into a 'show' as that is what I envisage the final show to end up being; this is what I understand the scratch to be for... but it seems to be causing me problems. What is it that is making me panic about the project?

I feel like I have tried to run ahead of myself by putting a 'show' together, it just hasn't happened for me - and now I am worried that the project isn't going to work at all. As Doug would put it "I need talking off a ledge" (which hasn't actually happened for a while)!

Anyway - backing away from the ledge - I have gone back and reread my original proposal that I gave for the diploma stage assessments. One sentence that I wrote really jumped out at me; "The process in creating Organic Theatre is as, if not more important than the final product".

I think that I have simply forgotten that process is the key here. I need to acknowledge where I am at with this project (which is not a bad place to be in as it is progressing) and keep moving forward. I have been trying to drastically change the shape of the work, and force it into something that it isn't yet.

I set up the project in such a way that each stage of the process would be performative in its own right. Each stage organically evolving into the next until it is at a stage where I am happy to put it into a more traditional 'stage show'; which, at this stage, I have to acknowledge, may end up not being the right format for the work. Naturally I am going to encounter problems if I force myself into doing something with the work that isn't right for it at this stage. 

I have decided to stick to one-to-ones for now. I am going to embed the scratch in the process, rather than producing something abstracted from the project specifically for it. I think that it will be interesting to try tea with people that I know and in less of a public setting. 

I also think that now is a good time to get some real feedback on the work that I have been doing to help me progress with the project... and stay back from that ledge!! :o)

Pinpointing the project

I spent all yesterday desperately trying to pinpoint what I am trying to do with this work and how best to represent it in a scratch.

So far I have been really enjoying myself, having tea and chatting with some people around London, but that big 'so what' keeps cropping up for me. I have needed to think about moving the project on and to do that I need to understand exactly where my interest lies to push that aspect further. 

As I mentioned in a previous post Kira O'Reilly suggested that I try and embody people's stories by telling them as my own to see how it feels. This didn't work as it felt so awful to have lied to someone when they were really open and truthful with me. When discussing this problem in the VLP forum last week Doug made a really good suggestion that I simply frame it differently. If I don't pretend that I am telling the truth about me then it is not as deceitful. As I have previously mentioned, I was really looking forward to embodying different ages, classes, races and genders. Doug suggested that I make this a little more explicit in the same way that Tim Crouch does and state "I am a 40 year old man" - this will instantly allow the participant to know that the story is not my own. 

So, back to the 'so what'! Why do I feel compelled to want to do this so much? Yesterday Rich suggested a book for me by Grant Kester. I have actually been reading an essay by Kester in a different book but Rich's suggestion made me go back and pick it up again yesterday. Rereading the text I began to pick up on the theme of empathy and once again remembered my tutorial with Kira. It is what happens whilst relating to someone that interests me, how you tell stories to understand and how you have to have empathy to relate to someone's story.  I think that the following quote is the best summation of what I am aiming to do with my project,

"Rather than entering into communicative exchange with the goal of representing "self" through the advancement of already formed opinions and judgements , a connected knowledge is grounded in our capacity to identify with other people. It is through empathy that we learn literally to redefine self: to both know and feel our connectedness with others."

(G. Kester: Conversation Pieces The role of Dialogue in Socially-Engaged Art 1998)

Rather than representing my own opinions and beliefs in this project I think that I want to find a way to physically represent how I understand the exchanges, and maybe how the participants have understood the project. Maybe by telling the stories as my own this will enable me to see a way in. 

I have also been thinking a lot about the 'Emancipated Spectator' by Ranciere. It is a text that I am now using a lot in my dissertation - I am only just getting to grips with the bloody thing! Anyways, I have been thinking a lot about ways of knowing, community and difference. The thing that makes us equal is that we are all unequal, we are all different. I am never going to be a 40 year old man, so what is happening with the empathy there? 

I'm going to do Southbank Tea today... if the rain holds off! I am aiming to gather enough material to put something together for the scratch next week. I have decided on a plan of action but we'll see what comes out of today before I get any further.

Wimbledon Tea

Last week I had tea in Wimbledon before a VLP forum. I have become very aware that I need to work really hard on this and keep up the project or it is in danger of falling on its arse! (I have such a way with words don't I!?)

Anyway, I finally got some women to sit with me! I am going to write mostly about this next lady as she not only was amazing but helped me to think about what i am doing.

This tea participant felt compelled to sit with me once I told her that I was doing a theatre project as she is on the board of a theatre in Wimbledon. On the way to meet her granddaughter herself she was thrilled that I wanted to do a project inspired by my own Grandma and was more than happy to talk about that. 

We discussed why Grandmas can be so influential in our lives. She told me that she had been raised by her Grandma during WWII. We talked about her grandchildren and her relationship with them... she has a very theatrical family :o) 

We hit upon the subject of narrative; something which I am beginning more and more to focus on. My Tea buddy told me that she is all for abstract theatre with no narrative, but feels it is like looking at a beautiful abstract painting... it needs explaining to her! I said that I knew the feeling; which led us on to talking about what was important in theatre... wouldn't we all like to know the answer to that one at the moment! This lady stated that no other art form is more about being human than theatre, and what better way to express our experience than in story telling! I totally agreed with her... which is when I decided that it is time to move this project on.

I feel like the 'first phase' of this project is completed and need to analyse that a bit to work out the 'second phase'.  I feel like I know that people will sit and talk with me, and that the majority of the conversations will be about relationships. I need to work out what I want to focus on and how to put the material that I have so far into something that resembles a performance for the scratch.