During the course of our second seminar I observed how the general public responded to our interpretation of Carl Lavery’s 25 instructions for performance in cities. He designed these “instructions” in the hopes of getting students to devise, using his instructions as; “a stimulus, not a strait-jacket” (Lavery, 2005, 230). In extension of their purpose, I found the instructions to be an activity open to analysis of audience/performer relationships.
The parameters of our site (the High Street), has become a familiar location that I traverse routinely with several singular purposes; to shop, to get somewhere, and to meet people. Under Lavery’s instructions, however, I was suddenly walking backwards, following animals, and watching as my classmates asked people for directions to a fake location. The absurdity of these actions didn’t strike me because I was engaged in my role as a drama student. But upon witnessing the responses of the general public, I observed myself and my classmates as they did. They had no idea we were drama students, which made for a different perception as to what was going on.
Upon reflection of my observations, I noticed that there is a tacit agreement that comes with the High Street, where people don’t notice the people around them because they are performing the same actions as everyone else: shopping, travelling, or meeting people. Throw a performance into that mix, and we get a spectator/performer relationship that Pearson and Shanks in Theatre Archaeology describe as;
“the performance event exists as a locus of experiences – spatial, physical, and emotional – preserved in the bodies and memories of the varying orders of participants” (2001, 54)
This is further elaborated as a separate experience for both parties. So going back to the notion of a tacit agreement taking place on the High Street, we find that there are several things we did that blended with the typical experience of the High Street (asking for directions to a fake location), and some that did not. Shouting at buildings, asking to buy furniture from café’s, chasing pigeons: actions that don’t occur naturally, which the public became witnesses to. We broke the tacit agreement, and suddenly people were aware of us, and analysing us.
The question I now have is what did they think was going on? What were they seeing in comparison to what I was seeing?
Work Citations:
Lavery, C. (2005) Teaching Performance Studies: 25 instructions for performance in cities. Studies in Theatre and Performance. 25 (3) 229-238.
Pearson, M., Shanks, M. (2001) Theatre Archaeology. London: Routledge.