‘This is about letting go. These are my balloons and I am leaving some things behind’ – Shannon Turnbull

Shannon Turnbull

Audience feedback is important to me as from this I can observe their reactions, understand any confustion that may have arised and establish an overall feel on what they thought of my performance. There are things I would have liked to have done better on the day, however due to windy weather I do not feel this obstructed or effected my performance in any way, if anything I think my performance benefited.

Post-performance, I asked some audience members to send me comments on what they felt worked, what they felt didn’t, how they felt at different times, did they establish an emotional connection and if they think the props worked throughout?

 

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After reading these comments, I appreciated their honesty and involvment and felt proud that I had accomplished my intentions. I made some people cry, smile and laugh, sing and even dance. I attracted attention from both the B&L building, the library and passers-by, interested in what I was doing, stopping to record and join in. I’m glad I excelled out of my comfort zone because I wanted to truly understand what it means to perform solo. I have enjoyed understanding various practitioners techniques in vocal delivery, creations of atmopheric settings, their use of multi-media and their continous progression from the start to achieve an exciting end performance, this has helped me in understanding that you shouldn’t rush and go with your first idea.. it should be a continour journey, exploring different possibilities.

From Spalding Gray’s notion of ‘being in the moment’ and Laurie Anderson’s use of emotional stimulation through music (both of which influenced my performance greatly), Solo Performance has shown me a different, more thrilling side of theatre in which a ‘one-man-show’ can entertain as much as a full-cast broadway show! Sometimes more is less.. I have enjoyed the long process from the creation of an idea, initial knock-backs and the changing of  ideas, the research behind practitioners, the research behind my own ideas with Bansky and quotations and finally the end performance which I hope benefited not only myself in the ability to actually let things go, start a fresh and say good-bye to Uni but also to my audience who I hope felt moved and empathy, towards my situation comparing it to theirs.

I leave this module behind with a quote (of course) that’s helped me in my time at Uni..

‘EVERYTHING IS OKAY IN THE END, IF IT’S NOT OKAY, THEN IT’S NOT THE END. NEVER A FAILURE, ALWAYS A LESSON’.

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Life is the greatest show on earth!

Shannon Turnbull

I performed The Little Girl and her Red Balloons on Wednesday the 15th May at 12 midday, on the University campus bridge to a crowd of around 30-35. I felt nervous, as anyone could imagine but I also felt excited. Excited at the fact I was performing outside wearing nothing but a dress, in such a public area. It was exhilarating to perform as Shannon but also as a Solo Performer, making the private, public knowledge. I wasn’t there to drone on about life/life quotes/sadness, I was there to perform aspects of my life in a reflective manner.

I trusted my narrative, however I enjoyed performing some improvised speech. Accommodating to my audience was something I felt I needed to do, to help them in understanding my intentions but to also include them. There were many people on the bridge who stopped, stared, joined in and recorded my performance and I appreicated the interest. At one point whilst I was shouting at the LPAC, releasing my frustration over essays, performances and dissertations, I asked.. WHO EVEN CARES ABOUT DISSERTATIONS?  One audience member responded with.. I CARE! This was humourous and I appreciated that someone felt comfortable enough to join in! I had to improvise and respond as I didn’t want to dismiss it and pretend it didn’t happen. Anything could happen in a performance and I wanted to incorporate improvisations in to make it more truthful. My performance wasn’t static as my audience followed me around the bridge as I moved around the area. Sometimes I was close (in their faces) and at others times I distanced myself, depending on my narrative. “Distance is always central to involvement in small shows, as when the physical distance is, in actuality, close, a special bond can develop between solo performer and viewer” (Reid 1997, p.6). I hope this bond was established in my performance, both whilst I was close to them and distant.

 

Here are some photos of my performance taken by audience members – (click on them to enlarge):

There were some things that went wrong in my performance but I feel I coped with them well and had to improvise on the spot. I wanted to let each balloon off singularly however as it was extremely windy, the strings got tangled and produced a big knot. I overcame this by using the balloons as a bunch rather than as singular problems. This worked and actually gave a bigger impact when I let them go, this was when I was thankful for the wind!

I also wanted to give out my song sheets for 5ive – Keep on Movin’, however there were too many people and if I stood there and gave them all out, this would have detracted from my performance. Instead, I let the audience give them out but was glad most of them already knew the song, hence why I chose a popular 90’s classic!

Overall, I felt my performance went really well and I was thankful for the turnout and support I recieved off my audience. There were very interactive when asked, yet fell silent at the right times. I’m happy that I trusted my up & down personality and delievered my piece in the mood I felt at that particular time.

 

WORKS CITED:

Reid, Gilbert (1997) You’ll become part of me: Solo Performance, Canadian Theatre Review, Issue 92, pp:5-10.

‘Be practical as well as generous in your ideals. Keep your eyes on the stars, but remember to keep your feet on the ground’ – Theodore Roosevelt

Shannon Turnbull

Practical issues need to be taken into consideration for every performance, both for health and safety reasons and budget conditions for overall cost of performance. Here are the relevant sources I have looked at in relation to a professional production.

 

Health and Safety issues.

  • Permission gained by Garry Richardson to write on glass panels of the bridge with glass pens/chinographic pencils.
  • Gone through performance with tutor to amend any dangers to myself and/or audience members.

 

Cost of performance with regards to props/costume/location.

  • Cost of location of performance: free as public space.
  • Cost of printing 10 Bansky posters:
  • White Victorian dress: £15
  • Make-up: all own.
  • Flowers, scissors, iPod deck, song sheets: all own.
  • 24 red helium filled balloons attached with ribbon:£15.98
  • x1 red Chinographic pencil: £2.21
  • x1 white Chinographic pencil: £2.21

 

Possible problems that could affect the performance.
  • The balloons may become too heavy, restricting me of movement. They could be too light and interrupt my performance, distracting both myself and audience.
  • The weather may influence certain aspects of the performance. If it is raining, I will not be able to write on the bridge panels as it will be too wet. I will also not be able to use my iPod deck and iPhone to supply music to the song. The song will still be included however it will be sung acapella.
  • Lack of audience: It will be difficult to not attract an audience due to location, but a lack of responses would not make sense. This would therefore effect my narrative.

 

Banksy posters have also been posted around the University. Some have been put up along the walk to Uni through campus, some in the LPAC and some in the library. I hope that students will see these and recognise me when they may/may not see me perform.

 

 

Telling a story.

Shannon Turnbull

Below is the first draft of my script. It is only basic and contains initial ideas, some of which I will keep and others I will progress and make stronger/cut out.

 

Audience are waiting for performance to start on the bridge.

I run from the LPAC towards the audience holding 24 balloons.

This is about letting go. These are my balloons and I am leaving some things behind.

If you let it, life can become full of regrets, heartbreak, pain, hurt. You feel like you’re screaming in silence and no one can hear you, you can’t even hear yourself. You start to observe life differently, first the positives but after a while, you seem to focus on the negatives. You distance yourself from the ones you love, you distance yourself from the ones that love you. You start to distance yourself from … you.

Let a balloon go.

You start to analyse EVERYTHING, question everything. Who are you? Where have you come from? What have you done to make this world a better place? What has made you who you are today? Who has made you who you are today? OI YOU, LPAC! WHO THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU ARE. WHO THE FUCK DO YOU THINK ARE TO TELL ME WHAT I CAN AND CAN’T DO. YOU BUILD UP CONFIDENCE AND SHOW PEOPLE THEIR POTENTIAL BUT TAKE IT ALL AWAY IN A SECOND. Essays, essays, feedback, performances, dissertations, blogs, essay, performances, feedback, blogs, dissertation, essays. I CAN’T DO IT ANYMORE! YOU’VE NEVER MEANT ANYTHING TO ME, YOU NEVER HAVE AND YOU NEVER WILL … this time next though you won’t have to miss me, but I guess I’ll miss you.

All I wanted was that bra, 32E, maybe a DD. Any colour, just that one bra.

Give someone some of my balloons, give someone else just 1.

I make my way over to the right hand side of the bridge where I grab my flower and scissors.

Life is not about finding yourself, it’s about creating yourself (cutting flower & sprinkling the petals in)

Grab my needle and pop a balloon in someone’s face.

Bollocks!

Life if not about waiting for the storm to pass, it’s about learning to dance in the rain (cutting flower & sprinkling the petals in)

Grab my needle and pop another balloon in that persons face.

Fucking bollocks!

Take just 2 balloons with me and walk over to the edge of the fence, climb under and sit above the water with legs dangling down. Let just one balloon go, silently. Nothing to say but everything to feel.

Solitary confinement is best when you feel like this, you don’t want to talk to anyone. You can’t talk to anyone. You don’t want to become a burden, making people worry. You don’t want the attention, but in a way you do.

Live every day as if it’s your last (word play with the quote) tell that to the people I have lost. Say it to all the people who have passed away and left me. SAY IT WHEN EVERYONE AROUND YOU IS FUCKING DEAD! Everyone is fucking dead.

Silence – estimated around 15-25 seconds

She was on the phone to me, crying.. ‘if he dies, it’s all your fault. It’ll be because of you!’ I could hear the pain, she just sat there on the end plucking at her wrists, folding the flesh over and cutting her veins. I was in Debenhams, bra shopping. All I wanted as a bra.. I’m definitely an E, no way a DD. Just a plain black one would be nice. I don’t need this on the other end of the phone. She was just crying..

When life gives you 100 reasons to cry, you show life 1000 reasons to smile (face changes)

Leaving,. Leaving. Leaving. Leaving uni, leaving the earth, leaving you. You’re leaving me.

I hold my one balloon and cuddle it for a while, I then cuddle it too hard and it pops, I show deep emotion and lay down on the wall. I turn it over in my fingers and eventually drop it into the water. I am happy with letting that balloon go, I am relieved more than anything. An audible exhale of breath will be heard.

I get up and join the rest of my audience. I collect all of my balloons bar the one left with one person. Maybe say to them, to hold it tight & don’t let it go.

When life gives you lemons, drink tequila! Drink it, shot it, down it. Grab a bottle, drink it with your friends and have the time of your life. Drink copious amounts of it! Find yourself in Superbull (ad lib and talk in a stream of conscious about Superbull experiences) You find yourself stuck, stuck in a moment when you don’t care what you did before and you aren’t worried about what you’re going to do after. You exist only in this moment and this moment is beautiful. There’s been times in my like when I have been in that moment. Nothing more, nothing less. Let balloon go.

Drag my hand across the bridge that should be (weather permitting) covered with life quotes.

I guess people rely on different things to help them get through. Some people refer to life quotes, but do they help? NO.She’s cutting herself, blood is everywhere and there’s nothing I can do. I just want my bra, why won’t anything fit?

You give someone all of your balloons and tug them up and down.

You feel the stress of life, weighing you down but you can see it, you can see in the distance that your goal will be achieved. Can you see it, in the distance? Just where the cathedral is. 5th September, you will be in that moment where you don’t care what you did before and couldn’t give a shit what you do after! When I’m down, singing helps to cheer me up. It gives you freedom and freedom is nothing but a chance to happy.

Here we sing 5ive – Keep on Movin’ (it is a happy 90’s song that brings back memories for all 90’s kids and as I give out song sheets with the lyrics on, my audience will sing)

Little girls with little heart, little smiles with little cheeks. Everywhere we go we become attached. Attached to the places we visit and the people we meet. I become attached to everything, does this restrict me from growing up? When will I know if I’ve grown up? How will I know when I’m ready and I have matured, when I find this bra, when the bra fits?

LIFE IS WHAT YOU MAKE IT!

KEEP CALM AND CARRY ON!

LIFE QUOTES CAN HELP!

YOU SAY THEM WHEN YOU HURT!

YOU BELIEVE THEM TO FEEL!

Let all the balloons go, happy, energised, cleansed. Walk towards the person who has been holding that lone balloon for a the whole performance. Take it off them..

Thank-you for holding onto this balloon. Thank-you for trusting in yourself to not let it go, this balloon is me, it contains who I am now, all my worries, my fears, but my hopes and aspirations. Thank-you for showing me I can let everything go but still have myself. Walk with me.

Walk my audience to the LPAC doors and let them in, I close the door after them.. attach my last balloon onto the door. Turn around and get out my last bit of paper, press it against the door and then walk off.

I believe that this is a strong narrative and even though I have referred to myself, drawn experiences from my own personal life and spoken in first person, I want everyone to feel something about themselves, what they could let go of and their experiences of growing up etc..Using the ‘hot seating’ technique, I feel I hit real and raw emotion and now feel this is portrayed in my script and hopefully performance. As Tim Miller comments “I don’t really think of it as performance art. I tell three or four stories and try to link them with some kind of metaphorical glue, as I said, and then share that with people” (cited in Gentile 2003, p.281)

WORK CITED:

Gentile, John. S (2003) ‘A TPQ Interview: Tim Miller on Autobiographical Storytelling’ in Text & Performance Quarterly,Vol 23 (3) pp:271-187.2

‘A well thought-out story doesn’t need to resemble real life. Life itself tries with all its might to resemble a well-crafted story’ – Issac Babel

Shannon Turnbull

The narrative of my performance came at a late stage. I knew what I wanted to say but I found it challenging to just sit there.. and write. I felt forced and I kept worrying about being too superficial and unnatural. I wanted my narrative to come from the heart, not constructed through pressure. Myself and some other Solo Performers met up discussed, helped and supported each others ideas and narratives which helped me immensely. To initiate the construction of my narrative, I gave my audience 3 motifs surrounding my performance: Hope/Aspirations, Letting go and Memories. From this I asked them to ask me questions about my life, what I feel, who I am and what I believe, this would be used to foreground my narrative and start the process of writing as it was to be recorded. Below are things I took from this recording in hope of catching something.

The first question I was asked threw me in at the deep end.. what is your biggest regret? Wow.. I didn’t know how to answer this one. I just sat there thinking silently. It was then when I appreciated silence because everyone was thinking, everyone was thinking different things and I wanted to elongate this a little bit more – strange I know, but this felt like an experiment for me. I answered..

My biggest regret is not something I have physically done, my biggest regret is something that is emotional and sometimes uncontrollable. It’s a part of my personality that sometimes I really don’t want. When something goes wrong or something bad happens, it’s the part of my personality that influences my reaction. I always want to please people and want to be liked.. I have a very up and down personality and this gives me advantages, however various disadvantages! But I feel that I have emotionally matured and that definitely comes with age.

How old do you think you’ll be when you think you’ll be happy?

I feel life is a blessing and ideally I would like to be 100% happy now. When you’re young, you have no responsibilities, you look better physically, you can do what you want. However on a more practical level, life gets better in your 40’s.. you have many life experiences that have taught you well and I think that even though ideally being ‘young’ is seen as better, it’s not until you have grown up that you really begin to understand who you are and what life is.

What was the best moment in your life?

There have been many but I would probably say the day when I saw Eminem live at V Festival in 2011. I was in a moment when I didn’t care what I had done before and I wasn’t thinking about what I was going to do after. I existed in only that moment and it was beautiful.. I was so bloody excited, I couldn’t stop crying the day before!

What was the worst moment in your life?

I don’t know, I don’t know if I could possibly list them all.. one time that sticks with me is, my dad nearly died 3 years ago. I was lied to for my own good and was told that he was in hospital for a routine check-up. I carried on with my life and went bra shopping one day with my mum and sister.. whilst I was in Debenhams, I received a call from my stepmum claiming that if my dad dies, it will be my fault as I’m out not caring. It was at this point I was told the truth, that my dad was seriously unwell and could possibly die. I was upset but understood that as there was nothing I could do about it, both my mum and dad had decided to keep it from me.. however, my step-mum decided to scream abuse and let me know that she was slitting her wrists on the phone whilst having this conversation. I have seen her do it before so I knew she was telling the truth. I didn’t know how to react, all I could think about was finding a bra as I DEFINITELY needed a bigger size! How absurd? I guess you can’t run away from the absurd. Life if absurd. I just kept thinking ‘all I need is my bra, not this!’ It was very surreal and it stayed with me for a long time as when my dad had got better, he didn’t believe me when I told him we had had that conversation. It upset me and I eventually fell out with him! To this day, he doesn’t ever want to discuss it.. 

It seems that in every serious event in your life, you find the positives and there’s always a funny thing that happens to you in the midst of chaos. Is there anything that you can incorporate this absurdity into your performance?

I don’t necessarily want my whole performance to be ‘absurd’ as that term is pretty ambiguous, however I want to use these hilarious moment in my life and drop them in to my narrative. You can spend your whole life regretting things and trying to change the way you react however, sometimes your initial reaction is the most natural reaction. It seems I have nice intentions but I have a mundane facade which I could use to fuel elements in my performance. Referring to life quotes, being negative and nostalgic will create a sad atmosphere however finding the funny parts in the narrative such as my bra mission, bra size, possibly singing one of my favourite songs will juxtapose the negative comments and create a happy and content atmosphere. I need to let go of somethings, so I guess I’m like Spalding Gray and need a cathartic release from some shit that has happened! Some audience members may feel it too, that’s what I like; the fact I won’t know as it’s so personal.

Will you miss Uni?

Wow, how cliché is this going to sound? Haha.. ‘I found myself here’. I literally have had the most amazing three years of my life and I don’t for one second regretting moving away and coming here! I get angry at the LPAC sometimes for the constant essays, deadlines, performances, feeback, DISSERTATION, meetings etc.. that we have to continuously do, but hey that IS what Uni is about! We pay for this so it is in our best interest to go to everything.. definitely sound like my mother, haha! I feel like when I leave Lincoln, I’m going to be leaving a little bit of me behind. I hope some lectures still refer to me, big headed I know but I have really enjoyed my time here. I’m going to miss the stability. I know I need to grow up and move on but when will I know when I am mature enough to move on? I’m going to be a big baby when I bloody leave! I feel like I’ll be leaving the bloody earth.

 

This conversation lasted around 45 minutes and after listening to it back, I wrote down significant things that were said and found a muse to writing my narrative. It will have to be re-worked but I feel that my emotion will dictate some of what I say on the day too. Everything depends on the weather, my audience and my emotions.