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.

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.

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].

“[The curtain rises to reveal a view of the lake, the moon on the horizon, its reflection in the water; Nina Zarechnaya is sitting on a large rock, all in white.]

Nina: Men, lions, eagles and partridges, antlered deer, geese, spiders, silent fish which live in the water, starfish and organisms invisible to the eye – in short, all life, all life, all life has been extinguished after completing its sad cycle…For thousands of centuries the earth has not borne a single living being, and this poor moon lights her lantern to no purpose.  In the meadow the cranes give their waking cry no more and in May the cockchafers are no longer heard in the lime groves.  It is cold, cold, cold.  It is empty, empty, empty.  It is frightening, frightening, frightening.

[A pause.]

The bodies of living beings have turned into dust and eternal matter has changed them into stones, into water, into clouds, and all their spirits have merged into one. I…I am universal spirit…In me is the spirit of Alexander the Great and Caesar and Shakespeare and Napoleon, and that of the meanest leech.  In me human consciousness has merged with animal instinct, and I remember everything, everything, and every life I live out in myself anew.

[Marsh lights appear on the lake.]…

I am lonely. Once in a hundred years I open my mouth to speak, and my voice sounds dolefully in this emptiness and no one hears…And you, pale lights, do not hear me…Towards dawn the decaying marsh spawns you and you roam till dawn, but without thought, without will, without tremor of life. Afraid that life might begin in you, the father of eternal matter, the devil, changes your atoms every instant, like those of the rocks and the water, and you continuously change. Only one spirit in the universe remains constant and immutable.

[A pause.]

Like a prisoner cast into an empty deep well, I do no know where I am and what awaits me. It is only revealed to me that in the unyielding cruel fight with the devil, the principles of the forces of matter, I am destined to conquer, and therefore matter and spirit will blend in a beautiful harmony and there will come the kingdom of universal will. But this will only be when little by little, over a long sequence of millenia, the moon and bright Sirius will have turned to dust…But till then horror, horror” (Chekhov, 2002, 91-93).

It was through creating the visual aspect to the set of my performance that I could draw connections with Nina’s monologue from The Seagull. In wanting to create a space that is based on memories and on the act of remembering, somewhere away from the realities of the world, I cannot help but draw comparisons to the character of Nina and the set of the play in which she is acting.  For The Seagull, Chekhov uses a play within a play device that builds a multi-dimensional layer as to the interpretation of the piece.  The ethereal nature of the monologue, based on existence, draws me to look at how I can use and structure my dialogue.  From this monologue, I gather the feeling that Nina is talking about a life outside of herself which gives her character a 3 dimensional outlook on life.  It is as if she is alive but looking down on herself at the same time and I guess this is what I’m trying to create myself in my performance.  By looking into my past for autobiographical memories, memories that can be shared and relatable to the audience in their essence, i.e. ‘the first time I…’ it is recreating a sense of childhood whilst maintaining a sense of immediacy in the present.

Reference:

Chekhov, A. (2002) Plays: Ivanov, The Seagull, Uncle Vanya, Three Sisters and The Cherry Orchard.  Translated from Russian by Peter Carson.  London: Penguin Classics.

This past week I’ve been playing around with more ideas surrounding the ideas of peace and serenity, feelings I want to evoke through my performance and the performance space.  It is therefore important that the dialogue I have supports this.  However, I’m finding it difficult to create dialogue in a space and an environment that I’ve already determined and solidified.  As a result, I briefly considered turning the imagistic quality of the space into an installation.  This way, I would alleviate my fears that I would be forcing the audience to think a certain way, a fear I have in terms of approaching the dialogue side to the performance, but despite this, I am confident that I wish to use dialogue as I enjoy the performative aspect of performing.  I just need to make sure that I approach it in the right way.  These are some of the ideas I’ve had:

INSTALLATION

*To be asleep on the astro turf – This would set up the premise of the piece – ‘I awoke as if from a dream’

*Yoga positions

*To focus on emotions – have a soundtrack in the background of peaceful and calm music that evokes certain memories

I then used these ideas to try to help me come up with ways as to how I could approach my dialogue.  I therefore researched into things to do on a sunny day and came up with the following:

*Walking

*Drawing/Photography

*Conquer fears?!

*Spend time with family

I then combined both sets of ideas in the hope of creating some text.  Walking has this inherent notion of journey and destiny that I figure will play a dominant role in the piece in creating a pathway around the space in which the meaning will bear relation to the way the text will finally be structured.

In moving from the silent, I started to listen to a few songs whose lyrics triggered some ideas surrounding the idea of memory, childhood and innocence.

“Fell from the sky

Fell from the sky and started walking

Leaving our footprints on the ground.

Wherever we go we make a sound…

Let go…

Before we’re gone forever” (Foxes, 2014)

Also including this concept of the past is a song called ‘Journey to the Past’ from Anastasia the children’s film.

“Home, love, family

One step at a time,

One hope then another” (Callaway, 1997)

It was in noting down these lyrics that I started to consider creating dialogue based on short autobiographical stories along the lines of ‘I remember…’ Thus the structure of the piece will enable room for movement and progression in changes of tone, mood and atmosphere.  Once the dialogue is written, I then hope to get an idea in terms of how I can then incorporate movement and action that will support the dialogue.  Not forgetting, of course, the importance light and sound will have on my piece too!

References:

FoxesVEVO (2014) Foxes – Let Go For Tonight (Official Video).  [online video]  Available from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pecj5GGjQi8 [Accessed 13 March 2014].

Anastasia Romanov (2013) Anastasia – Journey to the Past (Lyrics) (BluRay HD).  [online video]  Available from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEL0EGnHdsk [Accessed 13 March 2014].

In keeping with the fantastical and idealistic world that I’ve been experimenting with over the past few weeks, I feel I’ve developed a concept that now has room for progression.

These are the ideas I have accumulated over the past couple of weeks:

*To take a fairy tale and the structure of a fairy tale as the basis from which to create my monologue – taking on story telling in its literal form

*To perform the piece to children – recreating fairy tales – Sarah Lewis Theatre Maker and Designer – the production of Rapunzel at the Nottingham playhouse – a structure built in the centre of the stage which the actors climbed to give the sense that Rapunzel was actually in a tower  – to recreate something similar in our studio space, maybe as in The Princess and the Pea…

The first image of Sarah Lewis’ designs I like for the projection on the screen at the back which creates a sense of time and place that can be specific and personal to the audience.  The second the use of light through the curtain that creates a little shadow and gives an element of darkness to something so beautiful and the third image I like for its use of shadows that creates something wonderful and mystical in what is seen to be another world.

*Using the studio walls as a chalkboard – the body as text

*A Shakespearean fairy tale  – a dream within a dream

*Using song lyrics as the basis from which to create text – playing with tone, pace and structure

In being influenced by all these ideas, I now wish to create a solo piece that explores the performative use of space.  A place of escape, a retreat from the busyness of everyday life.  It will delve into the innocence and playfulness of childhood that will retain a fairy tale-esque feeling, combined with the idea of a journey into the world in which struggles and obstacles are faced.

At this stage, I imagine that the performance will be very visual. As a result of this, my next step is to focus on the dialogue and the content of the piece that will hopefully tie together and strengthen the initial concept created.

My Stage Layout – Initial Idea:

References:

Bignell, L. (2013)  Theatre Designer. Model Maker. Prop Maker: Rapunzel. [online] Nottingham: Nottingham Playhouse.  Available from http://lucybignelldesign.blogspot.co.uk/ [Accessed 3 March 2014].

Lewis, S. (2013) Sarah Lewis: Theatre Designer and Maker. [online] Nottingham: Nottingham Playhouse.  Available from http://sarahlewisdesigns.tumblr.com/ [Accessed 3 March 2014].

Whilst trying to accumulate my ideas and attempting to put them into some sort of a concept, I came across a performance artist named Lindsey Stirling.  She is a violinist who dances whilst playing, creating original music.

A contemporary twist on a traditional art form.

The aspects of her work that interest me the most are:

*Her use of shadows

*Her use of light and dark

*Her settings – elaborate and thematic

*To let the music do the talking – powerful imagery

*The beauty of the composition

Links to two of my favourite pieces.  The first is actually the first video I came across of her work.  Called Shadows it plays with the self and the shadow of the self, playing with synchronicity, cannonising movements between herself and the shadow and playing with the humour this creates when both fall out of the pattern. In a way this reminds me of the story of Peter Pan and his shadow that returns to this idea of the power of the imagination, the depths and inhibitions of the mind, the subconscious.

Earth. Air. Water. Fire. The 4 Elements. What attracted me to this video was her use of these 4 elements. All were imagistic, dancing in the rain, being surrounded by the wind, hot-footing the fire and gracing the earth.

 Imagination. Imagery. Illusion. Ideality.

References:

Fanpop (undated) Lindsey Stirling. [online] Available from http://www.fanpop.com/clubs/music/images/33546505/title/lindsey-stirling-photo [Accessed 3 March 2014].

Lindsey Stirling (2012) Shadows – Lindsey Stirling (Original Song).  [online video] Available from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGCsyshUU-A [Accessed 22 February 2014].

Lindsey Stirling (2012) Song of the Caged Bird.  [online video] Canada: Lindsey Stirling.  Available from http://lindseystirling.ca/videos/page/3/ [Accessed 3 March 2014].

Lindsey Stirling (2012) Elements – Lindsey Stirling (Dubstep Violin Original). [online video] Available from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sf6LD2B_kDQ [Accessed 3 March 2014].