Here is just a collection of items/experiences from the 90’s that I can remember. This starts my research into what it was like in that era and how people experienced the same thing:
Since the first meeting, my mind has been going crazy contemplating potential ideas for my own Solo Performance. Some have scared me, others have stuck since day one. I’ll talk through some initial ideas here..
Painting
In all of my ideas, I want to provoke the audiences memory. I want them to leave thinking about their own lives and how far I have come in mine. I thought about covering the whole floor and walls with white paper to symbolise that everything in life starts blank, if you want it to be. There are no mistakes and it’s a fresh start. I would give each member of the audience a paintbrush and paint and allow them to draw what they wanted. To paint their first memory and their most recent. To paint the event that was most hardest in their life to the most joyful moment.. I don’t quite know how it would finish or what it would provoke but I liked the idea of being children again, learning to express through other means of communication. To be creative..
Dance
I have always thought that the medium of dance or interpretive movement is an organic and beautiful way to communicate inner feelings without the traditional setback of speech. The body is your being and to express deep anxieties with suitable music interested me. I have always been confident to dance and move, especially after studying Physical Theatre in semester A and would like to incorporate an emotional piece of movement into my Solo Performance.
Music
For me and for pretty much every other young person, music is the key to my life. Expressing your emotions through a particular song is something you cannot experience unless you feel a deep connection. Lyrics, the various instruments, the deeper messages all contribute to the emotional impact you have for the song. Prompting an emotional connection to something in your life is something I’d like my audience to feel. Whether it be a happy, depressed, tense, excited song.. everyone in the audience will have their own memory and that’s what I find beautiful. How many people in one room can witness the same event yet inhabit a different memory and feeling? No matter what path I go down for my performance, I hope to use music in this way.
Stand-up
Stand-up is a path I would love to explore however you have to be funny, or even have a shred of funniness in your body. I can be funny in the spur of moments.. I just don’t know if I can pull off a whole performance being funny. I watch stand-up’s continuously and I feel it takes a special person to convey themselves in that manner. I would love to go down that route and I pray someone would find me funny! People laugh at me, not necessarily with me..
90’s
A group of 20-25 year old’s in a room, talking about the 90’s produces a raw and magical experience for all involved. Reminiscing over the television programmes, comparing the hideous outfits and singing the awful, cheesy songs interest me and I would like to contextualise my performance to that era. Entwining a comedy element to this is something I would like to achieve and I feel by talking about the 90’s this will stimulate memories and experience for my audience. Sharing my own personal experiences of what went right and wrong for me could hopefully produce a sentimental atmosphere.
Autobiographical material
I have a full 20 years of life experiences I can draw upon to make my work autobiographical. I like the fact that some Solo artists draw upon past events in their own life and portray it in an entertaining way. I have a HUGE catalogue of negative and positive experiences that could be uncovered and performed in a comical way. There have been parts of my life which are hard to talk about, I have been so low, thinking I was the only one going through this horrific stage and bundle of emotions, however as I have grown I’ve come to realise that I wasn’t the only one. I would like my Solo Performance to contain the dark periods of my life, go back through it in a comical and enchanting way resulting in a happy ending for all. I am a very emotional person so I feel my autobiographical material should have an emotional connection to the audience and visa versa.
Erin Hurley draws upon emotion and memory in her book Theatre and Feeling and acknowledges that “we theatre people share an intense interest and curiosity in the subject of feeling” (2010, p.x). What I begin to feel is an exact replica of what I want to achieve when she states, “it is easy in the theatre to create a moment on stage when everyone in the audience feels the same thing. But what I find much more interesting and challenging is to stage a moment in which everyone has different associations and feels something different (Hurley 2010, p.ix). This is what I want to create for myself and spectators.. hopefully through the ideas I have previously discussed.
A piece of Solo Performance I have researched and enjoyed watching is ‘Step Pad Poetry’ by Matt Chewiwie. This simple concept is turned into a long and enchanting piece of emotional dialogue. An open field of autobiographical dialogue draws us in through simple funny lines and I have used this as an inspiration of what I would like to achieve! WE CAN ALL HOPE..
WORKS CITED:
Chewiwie, Matt (2008) ‘Step Pad Poetry’, Online: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OoouBqguWzg (last accessed: 04 February 2013)
Hurley, Erin (2010) Theatre and Feeling, Basingstoke: Palgrave.