Monthly Archives: March 2016

Adam Page & Stomp

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Adam Page

Musician and solo artist Adam Page has provided me with an abundance of ideas for my show. He is an Australian solo performer that specialises in music looping. He performed at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2013 and it was that performance which drew my attention to him. He is an insanely talented guy who can not only make music out of the most random and bazar objects, but he can also hold the audience’s attention throughout.

(Adam Page, 2013)

The following performance shows his ability to create music out of everyday objects that were lying around, including a sweet potato. I really like the idea of using lots of items and it has influenced me to slightly alter my performance. I originally wanted to make music only from the restraints themselves. Although after watching Adam Page use a multitude of objects to create a layered soundscape, I realised this would create more depth.

(Adam Page, 2012)

Whilst watching how he uses different object it made me realised that I could use objects that remind me of my relationship with my parents, sister and boyfriend. I would have them laid out around the tv screen to create three separate areas of objects that represent the three people I speak about. This would allow the music I create to represent the whole of my relationship with them rather than only the negative restraints. I want to portray how much these relationships mean to me and portray them in a good light, rather than portraying them as a burden as that is not how I see them.

Stomp

After researching Adam Page, it reminded me of Luke Cresswell and Steve McNicholas’ show Stomp (1991). I have always loved this show and I jumped at the chance to incorporate something similar within my own performance. The whole show consists of the actors creating beats and music out of everyday objects such as bins, sinks, brooms, newspapers etcetera. After watching both Adam Page and Stomp I have been experimenting with beats and sounds from everyday objects in my house, for example, photo albums, mugs, letters, pens etcetera. I hope that with the involvement of a loop box, I could create a detailed soundscape similar to theirs.

(Show & Stay, 2013)

Work Cited

Adam Page (2012) Adam Page Solo in Wellington 2009 – Kumerwah. [online video] Available from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkRTj6YeqLY [Accessed 25 March 2016].

Adam Page (2013) ADAM PAGE at the Edinburgh Fringe FULL SHOW. [online video] Available from http://youtu.be/ivZQFIGwX4E [Accessed 25 March 2016].

Show & Stay (2013) Stomp Show Trailer. [online video] Available from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-KDj0AHymU [Accessed 25 March 2016].

Language & poetry

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I have been looking into language over the last week, reading books and watching plays in the hope of finding inspiration for my shows dialogue.

I watched Nicholas Hytner’s film The Lady in the Van (2015) and I was enthralled by the use of language. The words within this film were so satisfyingly beautiful, yet witty and piercing at the same time. The use of language from the character of Alan Bennett, a Northern writer, displayed much of the descriptive language I want to include in my own piece. His creative use of adjectives, juxtaposed with harsh swear words, brought something quite beautiful to the not-so-beautiful meaning of the sentence. I really liked the way that Haytner wrote the dialogue for this movie, however much of it was based on the actual writer Alan Bennett’s book titled the same The Lady in the Van (1989). I looked further into his writings and have taken a lot from the way he powerfully yet poetically describes situations.

This descriptive use of language reminded me of Chris Goode’s play The Adventures of Woundman and Shirley (2011) that we read in class. Although I don’t particularly enjoy the play, I did acknowledge Goode’s fantastic ability to bring situations to life through language. He uses descriptive detailed metaphors with a sprinkling of nonsense, for example, ‘All over his body: Weapons, sticking out at crazy angles like the cocktail sticks in a cheese and pineapple hedgehog at a little kids birthday party. His whole body a torture chamber’ (Goode, 2001, 7).

The-lady-in-the-van   Wound_Man_Artwork_compressed

An example of the language in The Adventures of Woundman and Shirley (2011)

(Hull Truck Theatre, 2012)

An example of the language in The Lady in the Van (2015)

(Movieclips Coming Soon, 2015)

Listening to the poetic nature of the language from this play and film lead me to look into poetry. I stumbled black upon a poem that I read during GCSE English in school, The Road Not Taken (1991) by Robert Frost and Louis Untermeyer. Whilst studying at school the poem had not relevance to me, it was simply another run-of-the-mill stock poem that all 17 year olds had to study. However after reading it again at an older age, and with the current emotional crossroads lingering in my mind, this poem suddenly makes so much sense and I would really like to incorporate this poem in the opening section of my performance:

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim, Because it was grassy and wanted wear; Though as for that the passing there Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black. Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

(Frost and Untermeyer, 1991)

Work cited

Frost, R., Untermeyer, L. (1991) The road not taken: a selection of Robert Frost’s poems. New York: H. Holt and Co.

Goode, C. (2001) The Adventures of Woundman and Shirley. London: Oberon Books.

Hull Truck Theatre (2012) The Adventures of Wound Man and Shirley. [online video] Available from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ud5jsvC1x4g [Accessed 17 March 2016].

Movieclips Coming Soon (2015) The Lady in the Van movie clip – Move in day (2015) – Maggie Smith, Alex Jennings Movie HD. [online video] Available from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OnFs3DN1eNU [Accessed 17 March 2016].

Hair Peace

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Last week I watched the fantastic Victoria Melody perform another one of her smash hit shows. Melody is an award winning solo performance artists with a background in Fine Art. What I absolutely loved about her was her personality. She was full of energy and seemed to be comfortable around everyone she spoke to. One reviewer stated that ‘she is either an idiot or a genius, it’s up to you to decide’ (Melody, 2010). Personally I think she’s a genius. Her infectious personality clearly transposed into her performance as she managed to confidently portray quite serious social issues, whilst being ‘unpretentiously funny’ (Hutera, 2015). Her background in Fine Art means she explores the scenarios and topics in great depth. She often ‘immerses herself into communities and become an active participant in the rituals as research for her work’ (Melody, 2010).Throughout her careers she has immersed herself with numerous social groups and careers. She has become a pigeon racer, a champion dog handler, a northern soul dancer and a beauty queen. It was her experience as a beauty queen that influenced her next performance Hair Peace (2016).

Hair Peace (2016)

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Hair Peace was an exploration into the origins of hair extensions. Whilst partaking in Mrs Brighton beauty pageant for her show Major Tom (2014) she wondered who the hair extensions that were being sown into her head belonged to. This prompted her to travel the world and speak to members of the hair industry, forensic scientists, and those whose hair makes the extensions. One review stated that ‘it is the journey rather than the arrival that is interesting here’ (The Guardian, 2007), which I believe sums up this performance very nicely. It was certainly interesting, as an audience member, to be taken on this journey of discovery into the profitable work of the hair market.

What I took from the performance

  • Her casual style of delivery – It didn’t seem as though she was acting at all, but rather explaining her story to a group of friends. Personally, her casual performance really put me at ease, and by the end of it I felt weirdly comfortable around someone that I met only an hour ago. I would really like to incorporate this casual delivery into my performance.
  • When asked how much she improvised, she stated that it is 70% scripted, 30% improvised – This keeps the performance exciting as it allows her to occasionally deviate off script to react to the audience. Having a strict structure can affect the relationship between the actor and audience. It can make the whole performance feel more formal. I want to create a relaxed atmosphere and connect with my audience to allow them to become part of the performance, and if they wish to engage in conversation with me, then the structure will allow for deviations.
  • The structure of the performance and layout of the set – The set was three televisions placed in three corners of the performance space. Each screen represented a separate person (her sister, the forensic scientist, and her friend in India). I really liked this layout. Three separate areas for three separate people, and the televisions representing these people. I think that I would be able to incorporate this into my solo performance with the three people I wish to talk about (my boyfriend, parents and sister).

hair 2

  • The use of media and home videos – Not only did the televisions project the three people, but also videos of her in the pageants, photos of her sister, and videos of her time in India. Such videos allows the audience to understand the backstory to her performance. The videos and pictures of her sister allowed the audience to know her as a person more than a name, which allowed them to get more involved in the narrative. The same with the videos of her in the beauty pageants. This has made me consider the use of media and video in my performance. This would complement the verbal explanation of my story and enable the audience to visibly see what I will be discussing. For this I want to use a short video compilation of my home videos that will be projected at the beginning of the performance, before the lights have come up on me, and before any spoken dialogue. I have many (rather embarrassing) home videos of me performing in my living room to my (very patient) parents. Luckily my mum captured most of my existence on video tape, so there are plenty of clips of myself performing, right up until the present day. These will allow the audience to understand that I’ve wanted to perform since a young age, thus the performance concept will hopefully become clearer.

Bringing the screen into the theatre

Using multimedia on stage is a relatively recent phenomenon in the large scale of theatre. ‘Where early television advertised itself as bringing theatre into your home, it seems now as if theatre advertises itself as bringing television or cinema into your local theatre’ (Giesekan, 2007,4). Many performers and theorist believe that the inclusion of multimedia element destroys the liveness of theatre as ‘performance gains its power from the fact that it is created as we watch’ (ibid, 1). However, I personally disagree with this as the inclusion of video can create a new layer of space and time within the live performance. Freda Chapple and Chiel Kattenbelt agrees with this concept and state that ‘the closed continuum of time can be broken, as video can introduce a different dimension of time in the performance’ (Chapple and Kattenbelt, 2006, 71). Thus through video I would be able to take the audience to different moments in time, such as my childhood, and bring external people into the performance space via digital media.

Work Cited

Chapple, C., Kattenbelt, C. (2006) Intermediality in Theatre and Performance. Amsterdam: Rodopi.

Hutera, D. (2015) Hair Peace at Pleasance Courtyard, Edinburgh Festival. London: The Times. Available from http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/arts/stage/edinburgh-festival/article4527528.ece [Accessed 8 March 2016].

Melody, V. (2010) Victoria Melody: About. Available from http://www.victoriamelody.co.uk/about/index.php[Accessed 6 March 2010].

Melody, V. (2010) Victoria Melody. Available from http://www.victoriamelody.co.uk/home/index.php [Accessed 6 March 2010].

The Guardian. (2007) Hair Peace at Edinburgh festival review – the secret life of locks. [online] London: The Guardian. Available from http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2015/aug/24/hair-peace-at-edinburgh-festival-review-victoria-melody-pleasance [Accessed 7 March 2016].

Giesekam, G. (2007) Staging the Screen: The Use of Film and Video in Theatre. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.