Solo Performance

‘First find a subject that you are passionate about’ is still the best piece of advice for any would be solo performer’ – Gareth Armstrong.

Shannon Turnbull

The sticks and stones of a performance.

I would be lying if I said that Solo Performance isn’t challenging. I would be lying if I said I hadn’t struggled to conceive and find various ways of executing an idea. But I would also be lying if I said that I hadn’t learnt anything, hadn’t felt it exhilarating to push myself and hadn’t enjoyed how ambiguous ‘performance art’ really is.

Nothing is 100% set in stone just yet but here are some details about my upcoming performance.

Name of performance: The little girl with her red balloons (there is always hope)

Duration of performance: Between 8-10 minutes.

Location of performance: On the University campus bridge between Engine Shed and The Library

Stimulus and style of performance: Banksy’s street art of the little girl and her red balloon. Autobiographical style with general references.

 

Details/what is happening within the performance:

Over the next few days I will be plastering this Banksy  image around Uni campus. I want to do this because it may subtly stay in people’s conscious and maybe reminded of it if they see me performing on the bridge next week. They may make the connection between ‘those’ pictures they had been seeing on their way to lectures, with this real life ‘little girl and her red balloons’. By making the image resound in people’s heads who are not necessarily coming to watch my performance is something I find interesting. When I see powerful images, I think about them for a while and then they leave. It’s the way life works. You have something and then in time, it leaves. Maybe in a way, I want to recreate a similar reception to the image Banksy did when he first started graffiting it around Bristol.

The performance will start with my audience on the bridge facing towards the LPAC. The bridge is site specific in the way that it is seen as ‘a bridge of life’.. letting go of something only to start another journey across the bridge. The bridge will (hopefully, if I get permission from the SU) be covered in clique life quotes that some people seem to live their lives by. The juxtaposed reality from the dream many people live and the fact that it is the hard emotional trauma’s in life that make you grow as a person and not the life quotes that help you ‘get by’. I will be based in the LPAC with 30 red balloons. These balloons will represent emotions/memories/experiences/myself as a performer and as Shannon.. throughout the performance I will be letting these go in various ways, for different reasons.

As I run to the bridge, I turn when confronted by my audience and face the LPAC. To me, this building has given me laughs, confidence, potential, stress, depression, emotional anxiety and I want to show it what I am now, show what it has done to me, for good and for worse. Shouting at the building if it were a person, purging my emotions not just as Shannon Turnbull but as a typical Drama student in LSPA, a typical student of Lincoln, a typical student at university. I will then let some balloons go, I am unsure of how just yet but I feel that raw emotion will take over and influence what I will do next.

After facing that side of my life, I will take the audience to the other side of the bridge.. the side of the bridge that looks down into the water. I will leave them there and go round the barriers to just sit on the side, staring at the water. Staring at everything that could have been. I will still have the balloons and I feel that this position of leaving the audience and being solitary overlooking deep water contemplating if life would be the same if you were alive or not is powerful and quite challenging? I will draw upon personal experiences but I will also make the conscious effort to not make it a resounding project about me, myself and I. It will generalise and I will ask rhetorical questions to the audience. This may make them feel sympathy for me, this may make them feel uncomfortable as it will remind them of a part of their life they want to forget or it may not affect them at all. This shows that not everyone is the same and that many things can affect different people, in extremely different ways. There will be some references to my own family and my own experiences that I don’t want to push onto other people to believe. This are my views, no one else’s.

I will then turn and face the side of the bridge that holds the striking picture of the cathedral. Here I will recount happy memories of life, constantly referencing quotes appropriate for each story. This is where I will be graduating. This is where I will leave a little part of my heart in Lincoln. This is where life begins. Again, I will expose personal memories and use this as a main narrative however inside-jokes will not dominate as I would like my audience to be active not necessarily passive.

I am still unsure on how to end this piece but I feel my emotion will carry me to this point. This doesn’t mean I will improvise but a lot of my stories and intentions are built up on my emotion and as pointed out in previous blog posts, my mood always dictates what I will end up doing. However I will end on this quote, ‘there is always hope’ – even though I will have been using these life quotations and dismissing them throughout my narrative, I will end on one. Maybe they do help people get through, maybe they have to be said by someone who truly knows what its like to lose something accidentally and unintentionally.. or by someone who has gained something. By  letting all of your personal balloons go, gaining a sense of identity and clarity you are left with one little balloon, the balloon signifying who you are now and what you want to become.

 

Meaningful media..

Shannon Turnbull

What strikes me about Solo Performance is the range of media outlets and techniques you can use. Solo is about the self yet by working correctly with technology to create an atmosphere difficult to achieve by just human interaction, it infuses a piece in a way that becomes mesmerizing. It would be difficult to create something on this level but Avatar incorporate basic technological aspects to sustain audience attention and showcase potential as a Solo Performer.

 

I enjoy watching this piece and appreciate how her bodily movement connects to the projections behind her. This must have taken time and many rehearsals to establish her intentions. It is a promotional video so to sell Solo Performance like this is brilliant. Balancing heavy body movement, large and colourful projections along with the dark silhouettes which also embody the space, inspires me into wanting to embody my dialogue and physicality in my performing. 

There is an aspect of story-telling within this video, when discussing the cultural strain and strong reliability on social-networking sites in the modern day which in turn is communicated through different projections of various websites in the background and lines of speech overlapping the visual. This makes clear that media can help with the story-telling and by allowing yourself to embody and work with and for projections, it may help to clarify your piece and make for entertainment with the audience.

I would like to use media in my performance but not to this extent. I don’t want my whole performance to rely solely on media and projections, however I would like to have home video’s play in the background to set the scene, agenda and tone of my piece and respond to them in my dialogue. I would still embody space and create a bold connection to what is being shown however not communicate to the video and disregard audience interpretation and response.

 

 

WORKS CITED:

Avatar (2011) Solo Performance AVATAR Promotional Video, Online: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VajYFGNKemA (last accessed: 1st March 2013).

Small Talk.

Shannon Turnbull

On Thursday 31st January 2013, I went to watch a Solo Performance at the LPAC. I was unsure about what the performance was about however I refused to read the blurb as I wanted to experience it with no premeditated ideas or opinions..

Performed by Antonia Grove and directed by Wendy Houstoun, this delightful performance was cleverly put together yet I felt uncertain about understanding it. This made me question, do we have to understand a Solo Performance to appreciate the performers intentions? The opening consisted of minimum lighting and no sound, this made me eager in wanting to know the reasons behind it. Antonia presented herself on stage listening to an iPod. The sound of her chosen ‘song’ was played through multi-media allowing the audience to hear what she heard. The ‘song’ we heard on the iPod was a therapeutic tape. I thought this was a very nice idea and gave the audience the potential insight into what possible personal reason she had to listen to a ‘help tape’. She was pretty, slim and looked confident so surely she didn’t want to be anyone else?

The changing of wigs, shoes and personas allowed me to interpret this as her ‘changing’ herself with the help of the relaxation/therapeutic tape. This made me feel sorry for her as she was obviously not happy with who she really was. She embodied the space through repetitions of movement and her speech became funny. She made her inner opinions comical which eased the audience as I felt some were unsure of what was happening and how to feel.. she captured our attention by doing something so simple yet creative which I will take as an inspiration.

The use of space was extraordinary when she took on the persona of girl number 03. By shotting tequila and dancing around she began to get more drunk and started to throw herself around in such a mesmerizing manner. You could tell she was well trained using her body as her movements had been thoroughly practised and perfected. The use of movement was strong and I enjoyed watching the movement from her, it fit perfectly into the dialogue and didn’t distract anyone from what message she was conveying. In this video at 6 minutes and 10 seconds, you can witness the precise and structured bodily expression.

During the audible tape, there were repetitions of the discreet messages ‘who do you want to be?’ ‘be who you want to be’ – this not only was directed toward the performer herself but also to us as an audience ourselves. Seeking help should not make you feel ashamed and I appreciated how the notion of help addressed everyone in the audience. I started to look at myself and reassure myself on what and who I wanted to become. I would like to create this feeling within my audience, making them look at their lives and themselves whilst also addressing the tribulations in my life.

The use of song and music was also a good way to up the tempo as at some points I felt like the production was slowly dragging. Singing along to ‘Crazy In Love’ by Beyonce, in her own way Antonia familiarised this song with the last generation and made the dance quite funny in juxtaposition to the desperate song lyrics. I liked the fact that even though it didn’t seem to fit, I enjoyed the different pathways her Solo Performance was going down. Taking on the different personas of women and portraying them in various ways made me feel good to be female and by questioning who I was, I felt comfortable in her portrayals. Towards the end, she took the props and clothes off which differentiated herself from each character, cleared the stage and left, however she came back on to give an acceptance speech which I thought was quite fitting.

It ended and I enjoyed experiencing an hour long Solo Performance – THANK GOD, mine will only be around 12 minutes long! I then looked at the programme given to me before the show and saw “A girl should be two things: who and what she wants – Coco Chanel”. This made me feel empowered and accepted.

 

WORKS CITED:

Probe Theatre Company Leaflet (2013)

Grove, Antonia ‘Small Talk‘, Online: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPdMgt-uklY (last accessed 5th February 2013).

On your own.

Shannon Turnbull

As soon as I clicked to apply for the end of semester B module Solo Performance, I felt an array of mixed emotions. How could I do a performance by myself? What material could I use? Will I be too nervous and let stage fright take over? Am I interesting enough? Feelings of nervousness and apprehension made me begin to doubt myself and my abilities, however the curiosity and excitement of a challenge were too empowering to dismiss. I realised I chose Solo Performance because deep down I wanted to get up on the stage and showcase what I could really do. I know I am confident and have the ability to approach this module with an open mind so  I wanted to give myself a voice..

Not having to rely solely on group work enticed me, yet the thought of producing, rehearsing and performing material significant to myself was a scary thought. I had no one else to rely on but me. I felt like an open book, ready to start my first chapter!

So what is Solo Performance? After thorough discussions with fellow students, it became clear that the term was difficult to define. Its ambiguous and indefinable category prompted meaningful conversations into what constitutes a good Solo Performance?

“The best thing about the term ‘performance art’ is that it’s so ambiguous; it includes just about everything you might want to do” (Bonney 1999, xii). For me Solo Performance is a performance of self. One individual taking to the stage and conveying what THEY want. A seemingly confessional performance produced by THEM in which the audience can become involved due to the performers discretion. Not purely for entertainment purposes, it’s goal in provoking thought and stimulating an intimacy with the spectators distinguishes itself from ‘traditional’ theatre.

Difficulty in defining what is and what makes Solo Performances intrigues me and by studying Stand-Up, dance pieces and autobiographical material, I would like to test the boundaries and ask the questions ‘what is art, what is a solo performance, what is theatre?’ 

The discussions in my first class questioned, at what point do the audience become the actor and visa versa? In the research undertaken, I have noticed that every performer reacts to their audience in a different way, “but all, in presenting their personal observations, convictions and fears, [they] share an intimacy with their audience, built purely from their live presence and their words” (Bonney 1999, p.xii). 

The appreciation of this art form should be dissected, discussed and interpreted personally for each individual, therefore I am looking forward to involving myself and creating potential performance ideas.

 

WORKS CITED:

Bonney, Jo (1999) ‘Preface’ in Jo Bonney (ed) Extreme Exposure: An Anthology of Solo Performance Texts in the Twentieth Century, New York: Theatre