Prior to any form of education on the subject, to the best of my knowledge I know that I’ve encountered only a few performances of site specific. One was at the Galleries of Justice in Nottingham where the tour group was led by an actress portraying a prisoner who provided information on the location and what gaol conditions were like prior to our own prisons. Another is a similar kind of experience atTintagel, Cornwall where at some ruins a monk recollected tales of King Arthur one of him taming a Wyrm and one of him finding/creating the round table.
To be brutally honest, learning that our group’s performances are going to be at the gallery didn’t truly sit well with me. What with knowing that we would have to abide by the rules of the gallery and respect it, therefore limiting the possibilities that could be devised within the space. Over the last year and a half of coming to the university I’ve heard a few different stories of some quite absurd works at different locations and I was interested to see what we might be able to do. Yes we will still be able to flex some creativity but the space is a public location and so some of the more offensive concepts that could be conceived will either have to remain within my head or here on the blog posts. That is of course with a clearly visible “NSFW” in view.
Looking around the gallery though there was in fact a great deal of inspiration for theatrical pieces whether that was from the proxemics or some of the instillations themselves. One room was filled with clocks and mechanical pieces. One wall was lined decorative pocket watches alone. In fact there were a lot of clocks/ watches there, Grandfather clocks in particular. That could lend to some interesting type of piece of theatre. One room I found particularly interesting was one with pictures of peoples faces and across them half of an entirely different image. In the centre of the room was a sofa and I just found it an almost daunting experience to sit in the seat and take in the size of the room. Overall though I suppose that the space does in fact offer more possibilities than I initially thought.
Leave a Reply