In starting to think about the practicalities of my project and how I’m going to manifest my vision in the studio space, I have been conducting research into looking at performance artists who specifically work with nature as I wish to bring, to an extent, the outdoors indoors.  Whilst reading Alison Oddey’s Reframing the Theatrical: Interdisciplinary Landscapes for Performance, which spoke about the connection between the artist, the spectator and the performative space, I came across an artist called Richard Long.

This is his manifesto:

“In the nature of things:
Art about mobility, lightness and freedom.
Simple creative acts of walking and marking
about place, locality, time, distance and measurement.
Works using raw materials and my human scale
in the reality of landscapes.

The music of stones, paths of shared footmarks,
sleeping by the river’s roar” (Long, 2014).

 This relates very much to my piece in that what I envisage is a performance that surrounds the notions of memory, of journey, of distance and the crossing of boundaries between what was and what is.  By bringing materials from the outside to the inside, there is this transference from it being taken from its original habitat and placed somewhere it doesn’t recognise.  This creates a feeling of artificiality in an attempt to recreate and also parallels the notion of bringing the past into the present, the memories of the subconscious to the conscious, to the forefront of the piece.  Long’s text based pieces, predominantly A Walk in a Green Forest, relate to the monologue I have created as the thread through, the journey, that the audience will follow.  His writing is typographical in style and follows the process and speed of thought.  In this particular piece, the text was beautifully descriptive, “magnolia trees like patches of snow” (Long, 1997) and through this I gathered that this was a form of documentation.  Throughout many of his pieces, he involves the placement and displacement of stones and the replacing of these on his worldwide journeys, experimenting with the polarities of distance and place.

By looking into the work he creates through sculpture I was able to draw a connection with the idea of texture.  That the performance space I do create triggers various emotional reactions for the spectators.  I.e. I wish to use a soft blue fabric to represent a lake, with the stepping stones placed on top of this un-moving, made of a courser material.  In these two textures alone there is a juxtaposition in thought and feeling which will hopefully encourage the spectators to relate to the piece in a way that feels memorable and personal to them.  It will also allow me to, within my monologue, experiment with the way I move around the space in terms of the connection I have to the materials and the way I use the objects within the space.

Spaceinbetween (2005) China Clay Fast Spiral

Spaceinbetween (2004) Five Long Paths

Researching Richard Long’s work reminded me of Jonathan Livingston Seagull which I was encouraged to read by my lecturer.  A short fascinating read and beautifully descriptive, it informed a small section of my monologue where I talk about flying on a plane for the first time.  I use the following quote as verbatim in my show: “The speed was power and the speed was joy and the speed was pure beauty” (Bach, 1994, 16).  Instead of talking about a seagull however, I, through this quote, refer to a plane! This book really encouraged me, throughout the process of creating my own script, to think about detail and the structure of language so the audience can become attached to my piece through thinking and feeling certain emotions, as they feel fit, through the language that they hear.

Nicholls, N. (2014) Staging Ideas.

References:

Bach, R. (1994) Jonathan Livingston Seagull. London: Harper Collins.

Long, R. (2014) Richard Long. [online] Available from http://www.richardlong.org/ [Accessed 19 March 2014].

Long, R. (1997) A Walk in a Green Forest. [online] Aomori, Japan: Spaceinbetween.  Available from http://www.richardlong.org/Textworks/2011textworks/47.html [Accessed 19 March 2014].

Long, R. (2005) China Clay Fast Spiral. [online] Haunch of Venison, London: Spaceinbetween.  Available from http://www.richardlong.org/Exhibitions/2011exhibitupgrades/chinaspiral.html [Accessed 19 March 2014].

Long, R. (2004) Five Long Paths. [online] Braga, Portugal: Spaceinbetween.  Available from http://www.richardlong.org/Exhibitions/2011exhibitupgrades/fivepaths.html [Accessed 19 March 2014].