Category Archives: lifestyle

Final Blog: Time to think things over and reflect

by

 

 

The Final Look

 

To me, the set came out wonderfully and much better than I excepted as I felt I was in a representation of my mind as well as the mind of another young adult.

IMG_4102

 

 

Why have I chosen…

Plain paper?

I have chosen to use plain paper because whatever is written on paper from the government and the media is usually full of empty promises, threats and praises towards their young population. It is also aesthetically pleasing to the eye when the lights hit the whiteness of the paper.

As shown:

IMG_4116

 

Newspaper?

This shows the media to be the only source of information about what the government is doing; they are the middle man but a corrupt middle man so the newspaper is scattered and scratched into a ball to represent their untrustworthiness.

Rope?

As said before in my other blogs, the rope represents the restraint and barriers we, as young adults, must try to break through in order to be trusted. It is just one big obstacle course with a lot of strings attached. These strings must be cut.

Union Jack Flag?

Just a reminder of where we are living and how ‘patriarchal’ we are as a country and how the government is too, supposedly.

Chair and Table?

Isn’t it better to be delivered bad news when sat around a table? Well supposedly it is, but the other reason why there is a chair and table is that they represent myself and other young adults who are trying to better themselves with education and studying hard for a £23,000 piece of paper. Additionally, they represent the constant sitting down one does when looking for a job and filling in applications or how hard it is to get a job as an inexperienced, untrusted youth of today in a recuperating UK.

 

The Experience of Performing

Well the piece felt like it wasn’t really quick from when I was practising it but, I felt a therapeutic release of stress as I performed it. It became an outlet which is what I wanted but, I felt that when I practised saying my opinions in a particular area of the soundscape, they had become personal and I have tainted the performance with my ideas. So, I took a risk and practised for half an hour before the performance with very open ended opinions. I think it went well and made the piece more all about the media rather than me. Finally, I was allowed to be the ‘mind’, the extra to the piece which is what I liked.

I will be truthful and say this was a first for me, to do a piece this artistic and abstract making was a big step but, discovering this side of theatre and performance was exhilarating and the freedom became a wonderful gift. To be able to create a piece for something I am very passionate about and express it and bring it to the table but not by throwing words into people’s mouths. There has been too much of that already.

I wanted that human to human connection as “we judge the limits of human endurance [and] value experience” (Birringer, 1998, 12) so this is an experience to see where we can push the limits with what is acceptable to perform and how to act as human in real life. I wanted to show “the ‘truth’ or ‘identity’ dominant culture” (Birringer, 1998, 16) as when this ‘truth’ and ‘identity’ is focused onto the audience, like in the journal article of Solo in Soho: The Performer Alone by John Howell whereby in the 70s, performance art “flourished in an atmosphere where the focus is on the audience” (Howell, 1979, 153); this is a quote from a piece where the interaction is hands on communication with the audience. My performance is communicating with the audience mentally through their imagination as a “performance earns the disdain of audiences wishing to be entertained or satisficed in terms of their analytic desires” (Birringer, 1998, 12). I wanted to keep the audience interacting with me with the openness and freedom of expression of their minds.

I feel this quote says a lot about my performance,

“if we observe how contemporary performance art,…derives their energy from direct experimental knowledge of bodily sensation or privation and how they transmit perception of sanctioned violence, discrimination and social deprivation in the body of politics through increased physical brutality on stage”

(Birringer, 1998, 15)

For me this quote shows exactly why I chose to do performance art instead of something which is autobiographical where all feelings, evidence, experiences and interpretation can be in one safe place; where nothing goes wrong and the audience have time to think on the matter and decide what side they can be on or not. It is time to reflect on what the world has given us and how to handle it through the mind of the audience.

The soundscape I felt went well as it was the first time I have ever edited audio together with the software called Audacity. Where I recorded YouTube clips such as:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7yRenBc_Zs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iL51Tsh6Sdg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WF0twf3u5wA

I used the style of a 1930s radio show to present the soundscape of the mixture of media to make it a bit light hearted and show how backwards and right winged the Tories are acting when it comes to a very 21st century problem. I feel that they need to get with the times and actually look up and take a big long view on what they are doing to the next generation as it is they who will step into their shoes in 5 years time or so; as “process-art are perhaps crucial at a point in history where state institutions can no longer guarantee economic and political integrations” (Birringer, 1998, 18). When I was putting the soundscape together I started to understand even more why it was important to use different media as this is what ‘millennials’ are always in contact with ie smart phones, apple watches, tablets etc. As these make it easy to access reports, hopefully, some of the audio will have been heard by the audience beforehand so they can experience it again and second question and analyse the topic better.

So this is what I felt about my performance experience of the piece.

 

 

 

Evaluation

What I liked?

  • Finally performing it
  • Having the set as dramatic and artistic than I thought it was going to be.
  • Finally cutting the string after practising without it.
  • Hearing great feedback as well as constructive criticism from my peers.

What to improve on?

I feel I need to use levels in the piece because there wasn’t any definition in it whatsoever. I needed to be “sensitive to the dramatic rhythm which is established” (Lecoq, 2000, 31) in every performance. I felt like I didn’t listen to the area and my body so the performance didn’t show enough depth with the contact of the space and the performer. Next time I must play with the idea of expanding out of the alcove into a bigger space or just practise with the framing and string then without it.

My opinions on the piece need to be clearer I felt, and I was disappointed within myself that I didn’t put enough courage into stating the opinions or sayings of the ‘mind’ I was stuck in as “words are approached through verbs, bearers of action, and through nouns which represent a designated object” (Lecoq, 2000, 50). So, if I was going to say it, I needed to say it with all my body and not half-heartedly.

The feedback from the audience and luckily it was my target audience, was positive; they liked it and thought it was inspirational and uplifting to see a performance about the current issues in such an abstract way. They said it felt as though they were in a mind and it was easily interpreted and open to change and that their issues came through it. Most of them felt it needed more vocal interaction from me which I agreed with and, the performance needs to expand or I must find something to do with the space used.

 

Overall, I felt as though this experience of working with me was very challenging but rewarding to see a performance devised entirely by myself. I may carry on with this concept and develop it in the future as I think it will me great to see it go further.

As it is all about ‘Mind over Matter’

 

IMG_4118

 

 

Work cited:

Birringer, J (1998) Media and Performance: Along the border. Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press.

Bruno, S. and Dixon, L. (2015) Creating Solo Performance. London: Routledge

Howell, J (1979) Solo in Soho: The Performer Alone. Performing Arts Journal, 4 (1/2) 152-158.

Lecoq, J. (2000) The Moving Body: Teaching Creative Theatre. 3rd edition. London: Bloomsbury Methuen Media.

Playing in the Space

by

I had Bob Dylan, the the self-righteous voice of his generation playing in the background during the session to inspire some ‘beat the system’ vibes.

 

What did I have with me?

Rope: To show entrapment, restraints, ‘no strings attached’ and obstacles.

String: Tedious, hard to work with, represents the little niggles in life, the things you don’t look for and more obstacles.

Chair: used daily for rest, support, working, schooling, leisure

Table: to eat at, place items on, dinner time,

Scissors: represents a way to release oneself from the situations of today, rewriting the saying  ‘one step at a time’ to ‘one snip at a time’.

Paper: represents constant debt, bills and loans in the mail, media becoming overwhelming and getting everywhere.

 

What did I do with the space?

IMG_3870

 

IMG_3871

I just played around with the rope and let it go where it fell on the chair and it turned out to look like a spider’s web.

So I thought what a spider’s web means to me:

  1. Strong
  2. Attachment
  3. Resourceful
  4. Entrapment
  5. Silky
  6. Invisible
  7. Beautiful
  8. Entangling
  9. Stuck
  10. Versatile
  11. Delicate
  12. Sustainability

These words relate to the good and the bad of what a young adult can be and do if given the chance.

The piece shows there is a problem to be solved and when you accidentally walk into a spider’s web your instinctive response is to get the heck out of it! So that’s what I felt when performing in the space with the entangled rope and string around me. I felt very pressured to get out especially as initially I went a little crazy with the string whilst wrapping it around me and the chair; this caused me to panic and feel a little claustrophobic with the mess I had got myself into. This was in fact, a blessing in disguise as it became the development of the beginning of my piece. I remember the feeling of anxiety and being trapped when the news of the increased rate of student loans came out in 2010. By remembering this reaction, I had an intuitive response to help the audience and myself understand that feeling of anxiety by transforming it into a physical representation and, to make the message clear, I will produce a new report soundscape.

By the way,with the chairs and tables, my first thoughts were that it resembled a ‘mind palace’ ; this term is used in the popular BBC drama Sherlock starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman. The origins of the ‘mind palace’ came from Cicero who called it the “Method of Loci” (Sachs, 2016) this is “the journey method” (Sachs, 2016) through the memory by training it.

 

This method “was invented more than 2000 years ago” (Sachs, 2016) and was used by the Greeks as well as the Romans “to memorize and give speeches that could last for hours” (Sachs, 2016). It worked because the speaker “mentally placed the key points of their speech in locations along a familiar route through their city or palace” (Sachs, 2016) so they can visualise the particular place and remember the relationship to the point that they travelled to. They went through their mind palace as though it is a treasure hunt of sorts, “and in each location retrieved the item representing the next key point they wanted to talk about” (Sachs, 2016).

 

IMG_3884

 

My piece will represent a very messed up, disorganised and confused mind that needs a good tidy up so it can have a fresh start on everything that is happening. By applying the ‘Method of Loci’ my piece will have this sort of ‘treasure hunt’ idea by exploring the news and events that have changed the lives of young adults in the UK.

Work cited: Sachs, H. (2016) Memory Palaces and the Method of Loci. [online]  Germany: remebereverything.org. Available from: http://remembereverything.org/memory-palace-the-method-of-loci/ [Accessed on 15 April 2016].

 

Yiannis Pappas

by

A Berlin Artist who uses “visual language” such as photography, performance, installations, video work and “intervention practises” (Pappas, 2016).

I have chosen his style of work because of its use of “issues of confinement as a form of personal, economic and religious conflict” (Mai-hudson.org, 2016). This works well for my piece as his work the ‘A Key’ shows the frustration and tedious task of each conflict of his meaning of the performance but also the conflict and clashes of my generation and the government.

 

a key                                                                                                                 (Mai-hudson.org, 2016)

 

Yiannis Pappas will be “making his way through a sequence of ‘cells’” (Mai-hudson.org, 2016) and he only has ‘A Key’ as “his only tool for escape….which he uses to break through the walls” (Mai-hudosn.org, 2016).

What I found interesting was that it also symbolises “a lack of imagination” which is shown to be basic and simple because Yinnias Pappas’s performance is of a “repetitious action and insistence on escape” (Mia-hudson.org, 2016). I was prompted to adopt this style in order to make me as a performer escape from my set filled with rope and string and  arouse the audience into having the same feeling of isolation and discomfort.

Yiannis Pappas has “a critical interest in space, as sites of physical and symbolic enactment.” (Pappas, 2016) This is shown in his work ‘A Key’ by making it physically hard to be within and to watch. The discomfort rings out to show the subject of ‘conflicts’ that happen throughout life. I will be taking that discomfort and portraying it physically in my piece.

Cited Work:

Pappas, Y. (2016) About. [online] Berlin: http://yiannispappas.com/about  [Accessed 21 April 2016].

Mai-Hudson, (2016) Despina Zacharopoulou: Corner Time. [online] New York:  Mai-Hudson. Available from http://www.mai-hudson.org/as-one-calendar/2016/3/10/intervention-yannis-pappas [Accessed 21 April 2016].

An In-depth ‘so far’…

by

sign-lost-confused-large_trans++qVzuuqpFlyLIwiB6NTmJwfSVWeZ_vEN7c6bHu2jJnT8

 

I need to summarise the process I am leading myself and the show into, clearly and in an efficient way.

From the beginning of this project, I was very keen to make the word ‘Balance’ a key part to my show. A ‘Balance’ of life such as taking a look at self-help books taking abstracts from them and bring that to a performance but I felt this was not enough. So, I started searching in personal information and general information on what is wrong, right or in between in this bizarre and curious world. I looked for things that can be shown in a clear topic but made in an abstract and artisan way with a predicable acting monologue or performance; I wanted to create an art piece,

I looked at a broad range of artists such as Denis Calvert, Hannu Huhtano and Caitlind r.e. Brown and Wayne Garret (Page: Picture Stimulus). They all experimented with Light on life balance and the use of space with captured light. Some were artists who used the human body to show balance and how precise you must be such as Tabias Hutzler and hand balancing by Diamond Productions; some had a human connection using material objects such as stones, pebbles etc. like Michael Grab who has a lot of patience, confidence, precision and does it for the love of it. All these artists have stimulated me into using the concept of balance for my solo performance; this is not the literal form of  balance but applying the word to other concepts and taking little things from it and combining them such as the balance of art, physical theatre and lighting and not just sticking just to one in the show.

I have found a way to bring balance to myself as a performer and to a topic that can be a form of feelings and opinions about my life and my fellow students and I took inspiration from what our next stage is after our degree. This is obviously life and the pressures that we will face and leaving the warm, safe security blanket called education.  Having this security blanket taken away from us is all well and good although we have learnt some very good life lessons during our student years however, there are problems ahead of us as young tax paying independent UK citizens. The struggles for millennial adults in the real world is harder than ever now with a multitude of newspapers, news channels and even the government calling us the new ‘lost generation’.

Fitting quotes:

“Arising generation that finds college expensive, work hard to come by and buying a home an impossible dream.”

“Generation born into economic good times, only to be hurled into global economic meltdown in the first years of their careers.”

(Ball and Clark, 2015)

 

“While barriers were being lowered in some sections of society, young people in particular were having to cope with far more difficult circumstances.”

“Hiking up university and college fees and excluding young people from the higher minimum wage rate is not the way to build a fair and prosperous Britain.”

(Johnston, 2015)

“More and more people, most of them young are being locked out of opportunities and privileges many of us have taken for granted.”

(Dugan, 2015)

 

Looking at these quotes as a young adult makes me worried and stressed on how my future will pan out and how even more tough it will be to sustain myself the way that other generations have. Will it be impossible or will there be another gateway that can solve all these problems?

After researching the problems young people face, I noticed the importance of money in this economic climate is shown to be crucial than ever before. To get somewhere in this prestigious world, it is who you know more than what you know that makes the difference more than ever before.  For my generation, the economic depression is worrying and I want to make sure that I and other students are not disheartened by  it by bringing some help and certainty of living to the next generation. We have learnt from the previous generation and the next one will learn from our mistakes with the help of education, especially for me as this is the key to unlock another door into a sustainable world.  Mine is the lost generation as deemed by The Guardian which refers to Britain’s youth at risk of being ‘lost generation’,  by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) results in October 2015. The article says that “under 34 – suffered the biggest slide in income and employment and now faced higher barriers to achieving economic independence” (Johnston, 2015) This view is continued by the Independent which said that Young people are suffering their ‘worst economic prospects for several generations  and there is a “worrying age inequality gap” (Dungan, 2015) with the worst “worst economic prospects for several generations” (Dungan, 2015). In order to see some light at the end of a very gloomy tunnel and beat the system that the government has given us, it has never been more important for us to be educated, resilient and care about what our future will be so hopefully we can make it a brighter one.

There was an article in the Guardian entitled ‘Generation self: what do young people really care about?’ by James Ball and Tom Clark which used the words from Ipsos Mori on generation Y, “this generation is born into economic good times, only to be hurled into global economic meltdown in the first years of their careers.” (Ball and Clark, 2013)  This meltdown is the crisis that I and many students have feared so we struggle to carry on studying so we can make a stand and not let this economic downfall harm us by bettering ourselves; education and showing a strong will and stubbornness will help us carry on through tough times so our future’s bright.  The Guardian article by Ball and Clark also says “The generational shift in attitude towards benefits is perhaps the most frightening shift for advocates of the welfare state” (Ball and Clark, 2013) it continues by saying my generation is suffering because, “Ipsos-Mori’s social research units …, says it is easy for politicians to miss the point of the differences – or the battle – between Britain’s generations” (Ball and Clark, 2013).

Let’s look at the phrases/words that spoke to me:

  • Arising generation
  • College expensive
  • Work hard to come by
  • Impossible dream
  • Economic good times
  • Only to be hurled
  • Meltdown
  • Being lowered in some sections of society
  • Far more difficult circumstances
  • Excluding young people
  • Not the way
  • Young
  • Being locked
  • Opportunities and privileges

 

These words/phrases stand out for me and reflect the experiences that other students/young adults have felt through our independent lives so far. The word that comes to my mind when looking at the list is ‘constraint’.

 

 

I took this word constraint and played a bit of a word association game with myself to see how far I can go:

  • pressures
  • restraints
  • coercions
  • compulsions
  • oppressions
  • deterrent
  • discouragement
  • freedom
  • hindrance
  • liberty
  • aggression
  • allowance
  • permission
  • warning
  • containment
  • subjection

The list can go on…

The next thing I thought of was to associate these words with physical things and scenarios such as:

  • Chains
  • Locked room
  • Rope
  • A cage
  • Entanglement
  • Detention
  • Prison
  • Spiders web
  • Cave
  • Maze
  • A cell

Getting the idea of entrapment led me to find an artist who inspired me and led me to Despina Zacharopoulou and her piece, Corner Time.

As said in the blog all about this artist’s piece, “This performance explores the mental spaces that open up during control exchange in human relationships” (Mai-Hudson.org, 2016). Her precision and patience is quite symbolic for the feel and representation of my chosen topic of the unbalance a situation of economic justice of young adults.

References

Ball, J. and Clark, T. (2013) Generation self: what do young people really care about? [online] London: The Guardian. Available from:  http://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/mar/11/generation-self-what-young-care-about [Accessed on 12 April 2016].

Dugan, E. (2015) Young people suffering their ‘worst economic prospects for several generations’. London: Independent. Available from:  http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/uk-inequality-young-people-suffering-their-worst-economic-prospects-for-several-generations-a6714226.html [Accessed on 12 April 2016].

Johnston, C. (2015) Britain’s youth at risk of being ‘lost generation,’ warns equality report. [online] London: The Guardian. Available from http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/oct/30/britains-youth-at-risk-of-being-lost-generation-warns-equality-report [Accessed on 12 April 2016].