‘Lend a Hand’
What We Did https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=am9Z3b7m3iI
Our performance wanted to explore the past of the library, whilst paying particular attention to when it was a Grain and Goods Warehouse from July 1907 to 1967. We wanted to use the elements of postmodern theatre where “drama is emptied of most of the features that have traditionally defined it, such as character, plot” (Schmidt, 2005, 11) two elements which were not used in our piece. Our final performance was called ‘Lend a Hand’ and took place at the bottom of the main stairs in the library and the First Floor refuge point, for 12 hours from 9 in the morning to 9 in the evening. At the entrance of the library we had hand drawn maps which the audience members could take in order to find our piece. We also placed 8 arrows made out of grain around the library which led the audience to the bottom of the stairs and then to us on the First Floor. At the bottom of the stairs was a laptop playing a video demonstrating what we wished the audience to do, draw around their hand and place it on the pile. The arrows and map then directed them to the refuge point, where there were 5 of us sitting around a table with a pile of grain in the middle placing grain, a piece at a time, onto a hand each with PVC glue. Initially the audience’s contribution was just providing an outline of their hand, but was still essential to our piece. Then one audience member asked if she could actively join us and place the grain on her own hand, which opened up a new element to our piece for further audience participation. We covered the refuge area in hessian to represent the bags within which grain used to be transported and to also transform the space and make it more relevant to our piece. We also had a soundscape on loop of machinery noises to make a more work-like atmosphere, with a claxon that sounded every 55 minutes so we could have a 5 minute break, with two half hour breaks for lunch and dinner. The completed hands were then displayed on the wall the other side of the refuge point and were left as an instillation overnight. We took inspiration from a number of practitioners such as Marina Abramović, Lone Twin and Forced Entertainment.
‘Lend a Hand’, 2016
‘Lend a Hand’, 2016
The History of the Library
For the first couple of lessons we were allowed free roam of the library to explore the space and find places and see it in a way we never had before. This led to a range of discoveries about the space, such as the library within the library which is actually someone’s office and the refuge point, a feature that students pass every day. We were also given the task of finding out the history of the library, something we had never considered, we had noticed the writing on the side of the building, but not what actually happened to the library before it became what it is today. To find out about the past of the library we asked a member of staff if they could help us, where upon we discovered that the library provides tours and they gave us the information they normally provide on the tours. The library was the Great Goods and Grain Warehouse as part of the Great Central Railway, as the warehouse was by the docks it was easy to load and unload the goods. Goods traffic, however, then moved to the roads and the warehouse lost its purpose. It was sold by the British Rail in 1967, it was used by 2 builder merchants for 30 years but by 1998 it was vacant and derelict. A property developer attempted to convert the building into luxury flats, which didn’t happen. It was the University of Lincoln who finally acquired the lease of the building in August 2003 and turned it from derelict to a fully functioning library in just 12 months. Through the conversion from derelict to library they added an extra floor and a mezzanine and exposed the brick work.
Our Journey
For our second seminar we were required to read Immersion which stated that “traditional theatre, the staged fiction creates a discrete alternative world, and the house lights are blackened so as to help the audience forget their physical reality” (Klich and Scheer, 2012, 128). As soon as we formed a group we agreed that we wanted the audience to have an active part in our performance and didn’t want them being passive members as in traditional theatre. Initially, when we were developing ideas, they were more Site Responsive rather than Site Specific, we were considering both how the “’performance’ and ‘site’ inform each other so that an active relationship between them remains” (Birch and Tompkins, 2012, 2). But we were using the space to gather performance material but not integrating its past. One of our original ideas was to draw 3 audience members to our performance through offering them a price upon completion. We were then going to blindfold one member and have the others guide them through a set of tasks that had been placed throughout the library. If they completed the tasks correctly they would gain freedom from the library and receive their price. We came up with this idea as we were trying to use the whole of the library, a theme that carried on with our next idea.
We thought of highlighting some of the libraries features which we had only noticed from our exploration of the library. We then realised that we were not being Site Specific and we wanted our “invention to offer(s) the spectators new perspectives upon a particular site” (Kaye, 2000, 121), so we went back to looking at the history of the library. Through doing exercises during class such as standing in the elevator and staring at a particular spot and seeing how people respond, we decided that we wanted to use the elevator and First Floor refuge point as they were confined spaces. We wanted to see whether people would still come into the lift if we were there as people like their personal space. One member of our group thought of the idea of having two tea parties happening simultaneously in the elevator and the refuge point. Another member of the group pointed out that we could use grain instead of actual tea to relate it back to the history of the library. We thought about having a trail of grain to lead the audience to our performance, when we presented this idea, however, it was pointed out to us that it was hardly connected to the history of the library and not Site Specific. We were advised to keep the idea of grain and develop a list of ‘101 Things to do with Grain’ and spending time within the space with grain to see what ideas sparked. One day we were in the refuge point and just decided to draw around our hands and fill them in using the grain. Marina Abramović: In Residence helped influence us at this junction as within the piece, Abramović sets a series of tasks for the audience to complete, one of which is counting rice. She set this as “this exercise deeply improves concentration” (Bonfiglioli, 2015) it helps the audience “practice doing something without purpose” (Bonfiglioli, 2015). An idea we found interesting and wanted to develop with the use of grain.
Our Influences
We were shown ‘dreamthinkspeak’s One Day, Maybe which looked at the May 1980 uprising for democracy led by the students in Gwangju in South Korea. They wanted to imagine what it would be like for those who had died to walk in the shoes of the people there today. Artistic Director Tristan Sharps created a video in the Gwangju market place and stated that the production will take “every single thing I am experiencing at the moment…the spirit of everything…we will recreate” (dreamthinkspeak, 2013) in a different space. A concept we thought was interesting and could be taken and used in relation to the Grain and Goods Warehouse by bringing the atmosphere of a factory back to the library, which is why we had the background noise. As to not get tied down with trying to make everything exactly like a factory we took further inspiration from Sharps when he said that they were “not aiming to recreate in a representational way…it’s the spirit of it we want to recreate” (dreamthinkspeak, 2013). It also led to us deciding to do 12 hours to represent a normal working day and experience, on a small-scale, the discomfort workers of the time would have felt. We also looked at ‘Lone Twin’ and their piece Totem where the two members attempted to carry a fallen telephone pole along a straight line through Colchester town centre. Those who helped them carved their initials into the pole along the journey. “The performer’s costume and activity signaled their place as strangers yet also acted as a catalyst for the public to interact with them” (Govan et al, 2007, 125). We decided against a costume as we were showing the libraries function of the past meeting with its function of today, also we wanted to keep with the post-modern theme of not having a character which a costume would have done. Although we were not strangers to the library as ‘Lone Twin’ were to Colchester, like them the task we were doing did make us strangers in a familiar place, which was interesting to see the audience being cautious of us as they were unsure what we were doing, when in reality we were just the same as them. ‘Lone Twin’s “physically grueling effort expanded by the performers drew attention to the actual process of labour inherent in the piece” (Govan et al, 2007, 123). Although our task was not particularly physical, it took a lot of effort and concentration, we draw attention to our task through the amount of time we spent in the refuge point, as audience members would walk past us multiple times during the day and see we were still there. This helped to make them think about the past and what labourers had to go through, it may also have helped them realise how we now don’t have labour this intense anymore, it is mostly done by machines. As a group we looked at ‘Forced Entertainment’ who make “little attempt to pretend to be anything other than ourselves” (Lowden, 2013), an element we were keen to maintain in our piece. “Nights in This City approaches the real city as palimpsest, by acting out a writing over of sites already written upon” (Kaye, 2000, 11). Through our piece we were also doing something similar as the library has its history and its function of today yet we “blend[ed] fact and fiction and…shape[d] the real material in order to develop the creative project” (Govan et al, 2007, 131).
Analysis of Our Performance
There were many strengths and weakness in our piece, which has helped us develop and learn more about Site Specific. It was our goal through this piece to make the people who attended the library to look at it differently, or in a light they hadn’t before. This I feel we achieved as people asked us why we were using the grain, so we were able to educate them about the past of the library and its function as a Grains and Goods Warehouse. Audience participation was more than anticipated, which was shown as we expected around 30 hands to be left and completed, but we ended up with 54. Also by the fact we had one audience member actively interacting with us and taking part by bringing her hand to us and asking if she could join us for almost an hour. She also asked why we had chosen to use grain and complete this task, so we were able to educate her about the past of the library, something she admitted she wasn’t aware of. This then developed our piece into allowing audience members to join us if they wished too, as from then on we had a free chair at the table which they could sit in. We did this with two more audience members later in the day, who were given the opportunity to join us and become active members within our piece. This piece gave us a number of experiences, helping us learn about ourselves and the conditions of those who would have had to work in the Warehouse. We experienced a 12 hour working day with only 2 half hour breaks, broken up by 5 minute water breaks, in the heat and realising how dehydrated you can become in 55 minutes without doing anything particularly physical. In this modern age there are hardly any jobs that require intense concentration of doing one task over and over. We did get to experience this, however, and it gave us a small glimpse into what the workers of the past would have had to go through, but with worst conditions and harder manual labour. A particular strength was our ability to continually adapt our piece during the performance in order to improve it, such as developing the audience participation and putting the old pictures of the library on the hessian in order for the passing audience to see them clearer.
There were also a number of weaknesses that we would take into consideration if we were to do this performance again. One major weakness was that we ran out of materials, in particular glue and grain, we were aware this might happen as we got more hands than anticipated. We did, however, have a plan in place if this were to occur with a member of the audience bringing us supplies. Although there were some details we had thought of in advance, such as the old pictures of the library, which we managed to do, there was a white edge from where it had not been cut properly, displaying where we had run out of time. This leads to another weakness, however, as there was a lack of teamwork within the group, with a certain few members doing the work while the others did little preparation for the performance and contributed no materials. We tried to prepare for the conditions we would be under, such as being in a confined space, with glue fumes and the heat, by bringing plenty of water and substantial food to keep us going. By the end, however, it was hard to carry on as we became tired and had headaches from the fumes and heat and concentrating on such a specific task for a substantial amount of time. Unfortunately this did lead to a lack of focus during the performance where members became distracted, particularly towards the end as motivation started to lack.
‘Lend a Hand’, 2016
Reflection
The amount of audience members who took part took us by surprise, but showed our performance was successful at gaining their attention. Even if there were audience members who did not contribute their hands, we had many people stare as they walked past, intrigued to see what we were doing. What worked particularly well in our performance was managing to keep to the routine of the day for the whole 12 hours. It allowed us to get into a working rhythm of collecting hands, placing the grain on the hands, leaving them to dry and then putting them on the wall. The day had a sense of order as people knew exactly what they were doing and when. If we were to do this performance again however, there are a number of improvements we would make such as paying more attention to the finer details. One detail we would pay more attention to is cutting the pictures precisely and having chairs that fitted better with the time period of the Grain and Goods Warehouse, instead of the usual library chairs which we used.
‘Lend a Hand’, 2016
Works Citied
Birch. A and Tompkins. J (ed.) (2012) Performing Site-Specific Theatre. Hampshire: Palgrave MacMillan.
Bonfiglioli, G. (2015) The In Residence Diary. Sydney: Kaldor Public Art Projects. Available from http://www.mai-hudson.org/kaldorartistresidency/2015/7/17/the-in-residence-diary [accessed 15 April 2016].
Dreamthinkspeak (2013) ONE DAY, MAYBE by dreamthinkspeak . Available from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLUeQ90hu-Q [accessed 15 April 2016].
Govan, E., Nicholson, H. and Normington, K. (2007) Making a Performance Devising Histories and Contemporary Practices. Oxon: Routledge.
Kaye, N. (2000) Site Specific Art: Performance, Place and Documentation. New York: Routledge.
Klich, R. and Scheer, E. (2012) Multiple Performance. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Lowdon, R. (2013) Q&A with Forced Entertainment. [interview] Interviewed by Paul Clarke, 24 October.
Schmidt, K. (2005) The Theatre of Transformation Postmodernism in American Drama. Amsterdam: Rodopi.