Monthly Archives: February 2016

Layout and materials

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I want to be sat in a sharply defined white spotlight with several representations of my goals dimly lit outside of the spotlight e.g. traveling backpacks, dance shoes, microphones, maps, stage lights, costumes, music scores etc. I want to be sat on a Cajon drum throughout the performance and have a loop station by my feet.

spot loopdrum

Each restraint is made up of different material that I will use to create a beat or noise. I think that realistically I will have to choose materials that I can make a decent sound from, however at the moment I would really like to chose material that has something to do with the aspect I would be talking about. Below are some ideas:

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Handcuffs (boyfriend) – My boyfriend is in the police force. This has always been a dream of his. This means that he has a permanent job at home, and although I’m over the moon for him, it does alter my dream of traveling with him after university.

nuts

Nuts and bolts (sister) – Last year my sister had major back surgery to re-correct her spine. She had to have metal plates put into her back to keep her spine in place, and so I gave her the nickname ‘Bolt’. For me, this operation was the turning point with my relationship with my sister. She matured a lot from this experience and so the 4 year age gap shrank, meaning I saw her as more of a friend than a little sister. This new relationship is something that I am reluctant to move away from.

paper chains

Paper chains (mum and dad) – Ever since I was little, we made paper chains at every possible occasion. My parents are understandably reluctant for me to grow up and have always placed a lot of importance on spending lots of good quality time together. Although they are extremely supportive of my aspirations, being brought up in such a tight-knit family, it places a lot of pressure on me to stay locally and carry on these family traditions.

First performance concept – Freedom & stillness

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I want to create an autobiographical piece based on my constant battle between my aspirations and my family and relationship ties back at home. I never intended to by tied down by love, or have a relationship with my family that would make me think twice about leaving. I grew up very much with the aspirations to travel the world, achieve my goals, and chase my dream. I have always wanted to be an actress in musical theatre; I want to go to drama school, and go wherever it needs me to go to achieve this. I was always independent and had no intention to be tied down by anything or anyone. However life threw at me things I couldn’t ignore.

My relationship with my boyfriend

My relationship with my sister

The pressures of ‘family time’ from my parents.

Through music, technology and storytelling, I want to metaphorically stage these three aspects. Stage my internal battle between my love for home, and my need for a career. How I feel tethered to home life and unable to chase my dreams. I want to be sat in a spotlight, centre stage, on a drum box with a loop system by my feet. Outside of the spotlight there will be objects that represent my goals. I want to be loosely attached to three restraints (representing the three aspects of my life) that will be made from three types of material (chain, wire etc.). These will be loose enough for me to move within the spotlight but no further. The show will begin with me playing a drumbeat that will be recorded into the loop system and played under the entire show (this represents myself).

I shall talk about each aspect of my life individually (all the while sat on the box to represent my lack of mobility in life). Each time I speak about an aspect, I shall create a sound/tune/beat with the type of material that represents them. For example, a wire represents my sister as she use to play violin, therefore I play the wire with a violin bow and record the tune. Each tune is recorded into the loop box and layered on top on one another and the drum beat. After each aspect is talked about there will be a metaphorical musical track that represents my struggle between home life and aspirations.

At this moment in time, I’m not sure whether to include this. However to finish the performance I would write a song to sing along to the track that was created. As my aspiration is to do with music, I feel song and music would work well to portray this theme.

I really like the phrase ‘freedom and stillness‘ (Greenstreet, 2015) that Laurie Anderson used when asked how she would describe love. I feel it captures both the freedom and happiness one feels when in love, yet stillness through being emotionally tethered to this person. I feel like this would be the perfect title for my performance.

Work cited

Greenstreet, R. (2015) Q&A: Laurie Anderson. [online] London: The Guardian. Available from http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/may/16/laurie-anderson-interview [Accessed 20 February 2016].

Laurie Anderson

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Laurie Anderson is proving to be a very influential practitioner. Her use of short stories, music and technology has landed her right in the center of my research. After changing my mind numerous times, I have decided to perform an autobiographical piece based on the impact my family and relationship have on my career aspirations. Whilst researching her performance techniques I stumbled across an interview where Laurie herself summed up my performance in one simply sentence:

When asked, what does love feel like? Laurie replied ‘freedom and stillness. Lack of striving. Contentment’ (Greenstreet, 2015)

This phrase captures exactly the struggle that I want to portray. How the things you love most can sometimes be the things that can, physically and mentally, hold you back.

Anderson’s performances are often packed full of out of this world technological spectacles, dancers in eye-catching costumes and striking sets. Although I can appreciate how successful this theatrical construction was, I feel that it could sometimes overpower her social commentary and underlying stories. John O’Mahony commented that in more recent productions, Anderson’s work has become more reserved and focuses on the social commentaries and the music itself as opposed to the spectacle. Dirtday! (2012) ‘has little of her trademark back-projected hi-tec wizardry. [Suggesting that] those things get in the way of the music’ (O’Mahony, 2009). Although I shall take influence from Anderson’s earlier musical performances, I wish to stage my performance more simply like her later work so there are little distractions to the story.

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^ Original eccentric staging                                ^ More recent relaxed staging.

It is easy to get swept up in the musical spectacle, and overlook her extraordinary storytelling ability. ‘What people really love about Laurie Anderson are the stories she tells, and the way she tells them’ (McDaid, 2008). Many of her performances are social commentaries on current social situations, however the way she tells them, with her soft lullaby-like vocals, captures the audience and draws them into the story more. The way she speaks is beautifully poetic. The language she uses paints a picture that captures the audience through its abstract metaphors, using ironicaly beautiful words to describe a not-so-beautiful topic. This is something that I want to incorporate into the spoken part of my piece. Providing the audience with not only a physical picture of my situation, but a chance to create their own picture in their imaginations through the use of language.

Storytelling ability aside, it is undeniable that Laurie Anderson is most famous for her music. What makes her work stand out from other musical performance art is her avant-garde approach to music and sound. For example, The Afternoon of Automotive Transmission (1972), which was a symphony of car horns held in a park. The making of music from everyday objects is something I really like of Anderson’s work. In my performance I want to be tied down by three materials (chains, rope, wire, etc.) from which I will create sounds. These sounds will then be layered on top of one another to create a musical track. One idea is to be restrained by wire, which I would then play with a violin bow.

Like Anderson, I really enjoy minimalism in terms of music and I want to focus on avant-garde music as opposed to the standard structured song. Walt Whitman once rightly stated that ‘simplicity is the glory of expression’ (Whitman and Reynolds, 2005, 12). I want to use the loop system to create minimalistic sounds that then can be placed onto of one another to create a complex score of metaphorical music.

Work cited 

Greenstreet, R. (2015) Q&A: Laurie Anderson. [online] London: The Guardian. Available from http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/may/16/laurie-anderson-interview [Accessed 20 February 2016].

McDaid, C. (2008) Storytime with knobs on. [online] London: The Guardian. Available from http://www.theguardian.com/music/2008/may/04/popandrock3 [Accessed 19 February 2016].

O’Mahony, J. (2008) Adults are idiots. [online] London: The Guardian. Available from http://www.theguardian.com/music/2008/apr/07/electronicmusic.art [Accessed 20 February 2016].

Whitman, W., Reynolds, D, S. (2005) Leaves of Grass. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Steering away from autobiographical

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After researching a number of practitioners, and watching their performances, I have decide that I don’t particularly want to perform an autobiographical piece. Personally I want to perform something which is a bit more generic and relatable to an audience, rather than simply telling them a personal story about myself. Whilst watching autobiographical performances such as John Leguizamo’s Ghetto Klown (2011), I found myself skipping forward the recording because I couldn’t relate to any of his material. Whereas performances that are more about general life and society allow for all members of the audience to relate to the material.

‘The one-person shows is at its most interesting when it looks outwards rather than in, and, playing on the relationship between performer and audience, it wants to be a conversation rather than a monologue’ (Gardner, 2015) 

Work Cited

Gardner, L. (2015) Going Solo: How the one person show is gazing beyond the navel. [online] London: The Guardian. Available from http://www.theguardian.com/stage/theatreblog/2015/sep/02/solo-one-person-show-edinburgh [Accessed 18 February 2016].

Leguizamo, J. (2011) Ghetto Klown. [performance] London: Charring Cross Theatre, 27 October.

Music and storytelling

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Music has been an aspect that has cropped up many times within my research. I like the idea of multimedia and music technology along with storytelling. So the practitioner that automatically arose for me was Laurie Anderson.  She is an American experimental performance artist and musician born in 1947 in Illinois. She originally trained as a sculpture but then expanded into music, art, theatre and film. Her work has been described as avant-garde and has proved to be very popular, as her most famous song O Superman (1981) made it to number 2 in the UK music charts.

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Anderson’s blend of music, art, technology and theatre is something that I really admire. Performances such as Duets on ice (1974) saw this artistic combination come to light. She would stand on two blocks of ice on ice-skates playing a violin. She wouldn’t stop playing until the ice had melted naturally. I don’t wish to necessarily do anything quite this avant-garde, however it did make me consider the effects that music and theatre can have when combined.

This then led my research to performance artists whose genres overlaps between musician and actor, and whose work is less avant-garde. Two people that struck my attention are Tim Minchin and Flight of the Conchords. Both of these artists use song to enhance the storytelling of the performance with a lighthearted comedic edge. I don’t want to go down the route of standup by any means, but these artists have given me understanding of how to combine humour, song and theatre into one performance.

What I found also interesting is that, although extremely different, both Flight of the Conchords and Laurie Anderson commonly speak-sing they work, or move from song to spoken work effortlessly. I think this adds fluidity to the piece, eradicating the divide between song and speech. This could be something I explore in a later date.

Below are videos of all three performance artists.

(Andreas Valentin, 2011)

(Best of Tim Minchin, 2011)

(Ella Elise, 2006)

Work Cited

Andreas Valentin (2011) Laurie Anderson Duet on Ice. [online video] Available from http://youtu.be/2SGRvhseH6I [Accessed 17 February 2016].

Best of Tim Minchin (2011) Tim Minchin – If I Didn’t Have You – Full uncut version. [online video] Available from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zn6gV2sdl38 [Accessed 17 February 2016].

Ella Elise (2006) Flight of the Chonchords – Albi (racist dragon). [online video] Available from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-jVAHAuiS4 [Accessed 17 March 2016].