Keep It, Leave It, Want It

1. I really like the work we’re doing in regards to stories, memory, and how we remember things in distorted/different ways just by the mere nature of how our minds work. I really think we could continue pushing these ideas especially if we move toward a more narrative-based performance or pieces. Perhaps we should look for ways to expand on certain performances or bring different objects together under a larger narrative or performance.
2. I feel like we haven’t really done much with the theme of “Shit of Everyday Life” or if we have, it’s always taken second-place to a different theme or a broader idea and doesn’t really come through all that well. I would say this would be an opportunity to explore something more in depth, but I feel like we aren’t all that interested in it to begin with and we’re gravitating toward themes that seem much more interesting to us. Maybe we can continue to come back to it in other ways, but for right now I think we should drop it as a major theme/priority.
3. I feel like we’ve talked a lot about failures—different kinds of failures, different ways of failing, authentic versus non-authentic failure, etc.—but we haven’t talked much about success. Now, I know success is boring and probably wouldn’t be as interesting to explore as failure, but I feel like it would be a good counterpoint with which to think about failure more deeply. We may not necessarily have to create any sort of performance or object to be shown in public, but we might think of success in order to think more critically about what it means to fail and what different kinds of failures mean.

Keep it

I really liked the beginning of the performance, and I’d love to continue in that vein, with the audience taking up the space in a non-traditional way (standing and traveling through it) but perhaps with more direction (that can still be implicit). A lot of the work that resonated with me and seems to resonate with the audience is the things presented in darkness/ alone/ blindfolded, a theme we wanted to explore more. Perhaps we should play with having more darkness in the room and introducing light to exhibit important things (spotlighting a performance, a video playing on the wall, a flashlight that lights up). This would tie into themes of failure and audience surrender as well.

Leave it

I think we should abandon the museum structure in favor of more continuity/ narrative. There could still be museum-like portions, (partitioned into corridors?) but perhaps they would be more thematically grouped and evenly separated by performance moments, and we (the performers) wouldn’t be present beyond an art installation capacity (Bailey in the box, for example).

Want it

It seems that a lot of the kind of work we’re interested in presenting calls for dynamic space, in that we want to have corridors and large spaces and cramped spaces. That being said, I think it could be really cool to have moving walls, like cloth hanging down that’s on wheels so we could change the shape of the space throughout the performance really easily and still stage it all in one place. This could also be used to sort of herd the audience in a specific direction without having to explicitly tell them where to go or what to do.

My friends’ impressions:

Friend 1

-really disliked the sections of not knowing what to do, or rather, what she could do

-didn’t know bailey’s thing was about hiccups or that carina’s thing was about the syrian refugee crisis until someone told her later

-geography board thing broke her heart

-super impressed w/ Omar’s knowledge of the black panthers + his puns

-felt like kimmy’s ledge piece ‘got me’ as in understood her

-other impression of bailey’s thing ‘it was weird because it seemed like he should be the vulnerable one because he was naked in a box but once you put your head in the hole you’re the vulnerable one’

-several pieces ‘made me think about words’, paige’s genesis video, sarah’s federalist papers

-Would you recommend devised theatre to a friend? ‘I would recommend it to my friend who I see theatre things with’

Friend 2 (who had to leave midway through the milling-about portion)

-was one of the first people led into the room. Entertained herself by trying to figure out if the music was truly from beauty and the beast or a facsimile

-liked gabrielle’s letter thing

-volume issues with some of the ipads

-Paige’s OCD poster ‘i was into that’

-Kimmy’s barking was ‘scarily realistic’

-liked Paige’s genesis video. She saw it because gabrielle (a good friend of hers) directed her to the closet. same deal with bailey’s piece, saw it because a friend of hers in the class specifically directed her to it

-Would you recommend devised theatre to a friend? ‘not to anyone specifically empirical’

Mine:

The people I invited were both some of the first to be led into the room, and standing there for 5-10 minutes blindfolded with no direction while loud music looped was irksome. Both described an internal battle about whether or not to take off the blindfold, because they were standing there for so long that eventually they were sure that they had done something wrong and were screwing up the performance by not taking it off. Both eventually took it off, saw that everyone still had theirs on, and felt more bad for having screwed up the performance in that way. I don’t think we can make people endure stuff like that unless there’s some kind of point directly related to the thing they endure. For that piece, it seemed like the unreasonable duration was an unintended consequence, not related to the content of the piece, but for the people who came in early, the experience became all about the duration. They also both described feeling tentative about interacting with stuff for the rest of the presentation because of it.

I think a lot of things would be solved by just spending more time preparing for the presentation. We might have devoted more thought to the audience experience, specifically how we translate stuff from the context of being seen in class by each other to a presentation context. When we saw each other’s ELI5 pieces we for the most part knew their subjects ahead of time. The experience of watching Carina’s piece when we know it’s about the syrian refugee crisis is very different from watching it and trying to figure out what it’s about the whole time. We also might have communicated with each other better- I wanted to spend the whole presentation in the electrics closet without the audience knowing I was there, only to emerge at moments of my choosing, but I didn’t tell anyone except gabrielle. So maddie using the closet for the end of the opening piece and john checking twice to see if I was okay messed it up, but they had no way of knowing that. Actually maybe the communication thing is just a problem with me.

So because I was in the box, I was not checking my phone and as a result my two guests ended up going to Spencer Art Building. Somewhere at the intersection of my shows usually being there and me referring to it as a gallery of performance work, meant they spent the afternoon wandering around that cavernous hanger on the other side of campus. Here are my impressions from my perspective.

First of all, for me personally, given my perspective in relation to the exhibit itself, it was really interesting to see the way in which people moved about the space. There was definitely a lot hesitancy, a sort of dance around both the box and the pieces in general. I would say one of the most interesting moments was when everyone stopped in their places to watch Kimmy’s performance. I couldn’t even see the performance but I could also see the way in which people as I moved to look around at them through the holes in the box people would look back or I would catch them looking at the box in relation to Kimmy’s performance.

Also, much like sheep, people very much had to be lead to put their head in the box. I think there was this consistent issue of choice and in fact people really only did what they were compelled to do. Through the holes I could keep track of people who did and did not participate in the box and I think there is a lesson to be learned here about guiding. When you make something the only thing you can do, people will do it.

Personal Thoughts:

I…can’t comment much because I didn’t actually get to see any of our showing. I couldn’t enter the room at all during the “museum gallery” phase,  otherwise I’d spoil the grape costume, and a vinegar costume wouldn’t have made any sense.

So uh…just from the planning stage, I was hoping for a little more cohesion? That’s a lot to ask for considering we threw the ordering together within three furious hours, but there was nothing resembling a unified theme ~ which I think is more than fine for a first showing, but perhaps we should do more focused work from here on out?

Thoughts From 1st Friend:

“It was a compilation of things that I don’t think are related, but maybe they ARE related, but if you look hard enough maybe you’ll find a relation between all of those. I assume. Not something I was willing to do.”

“What struck me was that a bottle labeled ‘taste me’ was enticing enough for people to taste. You don’t taste things that you don’t know what it is or you don’t know who drank it. It could be anything. Did I drink it? Absolutely not.”

“I guess I’d let someone feed me if I knew them…and if it wasn’t bread. I did not accept food from the mysterious nude Christmas lights man. He was laying on the floor. That wasn’t right.”

“I got the sense that a lot of it was symbolizing different types of struggles that come with established structures. There was one about how not everyone has an equal chance in society, the criminal justice system…one about religion. I think it was about how these establishments are unfair…although if you don’t think they’re unfair, you might not see it that way.

“What kind of questions does this piece provoke? Everything in the system is broken. Everything. Maybe not the sewers…the sewers get a B-.”

“What did the artist achieve? That’s weird because if it was a group of artists I don’t think they were all trying to achieve the same thing.”

“I’m pretty sure the piece mostly felt cautious. I was cautious of being blinded by lights. Cautious of random substances. Cautious of watching a video where you watch a video with a shower that is clearly on. What if it was a naked person? It wasn’t.”

“If there’s no question about the pokemon cards, the pokemon cards were unfair. Tell me who, anyone, who would trade a Dewgong for a Zapdos? Who would do that without context?”

“I thought the opening was trying to create a sense of reliance on societal cues around you. Like, there was a part where people started clapping, and I felt a need to also clap. But why were they clapping? Why should I clap?”

“I thought the grape thing was really good, but I like puns. Maybe people who don’t like puns wouldn’t even notice, they would think about the actual message. And the message isn’t that puns are great, the message is that society has problems. But puns are great. I think it’s hard to view seriously when someone comes out wearing weird purple clothes. No way.”

“Federalist papers? We were all reading different things? I was just focused on getting through it. You all fall into a trap where you’re all just saying stuff. I guarantee you that nobody knew what they were talking about. I voted nay because I didn’t know what was happening. Can’t vote yae to something you don’t understand.”

“Albinism? The weird balls? I got it. People are different.”

“The person going around doing graffiti? No idea what was going on. But people were laughing. Was it supposed to be funny? There was a lot of laughing at things that weren’t funny. This is what happens when you have people in things. If you plucked people from North Adams there would be less laughing. I guarantee it. Men’s Wearhouse.”

“Law and Order? Great. But it relates to one of my classes, so maybe I’m biased. If people had put themselves in the seat of the girl who was crying, maybe people would understand how hard it is to talk to someone who is yelling at you when you can’t yell back.”

“…People are very trusting in that they put their face in a box when they don’t know what will happen afterwards.”

“I went into the closet that had a sign on it. Apparently there was a another closet that did not have a sign on it, so I didn’t know to interact with it.’

“Go see Zootopia, out March 4th.”

Thoughts From 2nd Friend:

“I think of the grape/raisin performance and the constitution one, those are the ones that come to mind.”

“Kimmy’s performance was the most overtly political by far, and so I was trying to figure out how it related to the other pieces and the room.”

“Using humor to talk about serious things or serious things to talk about humor…I’m not sure which is which whoaaaa. I guess…what it means for people to be laughing at the things you’re saying and what it means to incite that reaction. Yeah. That’s a reaction.”

“…I just like the visual of it [the Federalist Papers.] Just the imagery stuck with me.”

“I remember Bailey’s box…I…Bailey’s my friend, so I was trying to sorta make him break a little bit. Like, make conversation with him, which is not what you’re supposed to do I think. So…that relationship, audience disrupting the performance.”

“If you have the performer in a place that’s very accessible to you and you’re comfortable interacting, then uh…”

“How many things did I eat? Just a piece of bread. I was wondering though, were there gluten free options? This was an ablest performance.”

My Thoughts; what worked/didn’t work

• the whole thing seemed not necessarily too long, but too disjointed and with too much “dead air” in between– there were these awkward lull periods between performances and because the structure was so loose and story line weak, it was hard to keep people; i noticed people leaving throughout the event
• it was better when we gave people things to do than let them just do whatever because many would get confused and didn’t feel comfortable participating; the things that invited people (enter here, drink this, etc) worked well; also things where we directed them without words created a similar, open environment
• people were confused about “the point” or the general motifs or “story” of the show; I think there needs to be more cohesion or at least natural transitions
• In doing Carina’s juxtapositions, it didn’t go as quickly as we wanted because we had to go through one door–perhaps if we were to do it again, we’d fine 2-3 routes we could take people into the same space so there is less waiting around inside the gallery space
• people were gathering around the david carter reading–i wished we’d had a picnic blanket or something
• I think we made an good event given the little time we had to put it all together, but more time would have proabably helped with cohesion.

Friend’s Reflections; what worked/didn’t work

• Bailey’s box was strange and weird, and one person liked the piece (and in general likes the pieces that made them feel a bit disoriented and uncomfortable); my other friend was freaked out by it and did not want to be fed bread
• They both liked being led and blindfolded into the space with music and clapping
• The student films felt very “student filmy”– they did not particularly like sitting and watching videos or the genesis room
• the Syrian Refugee Crisis was confusing–they weren’t sure what they were watching, and because it wasn’t on the schedule, they were confused if it was a part of another performance
• there was an awkward lull after many of the performances where they didn’t know what to do (and neither did we, it seemed), so perhaps more clarity and intention would help in the future
• favorites were omar’s slam poetry, law and order, carina’s juxtapositions, david carter story, bread box (one person)
• Kimmy’s piece didn’t really resonate with one person ( I think the new viewing circumstances may have affected the impact), and the albinism seemed strange and out of place for the other person.
• Thought the federalist papers piece was uncomfortable in the bad way because people were just speaking over each other and they didn’t see the point in the whole of the show
• The gallery showing was too long. One person wholy preferred the live performances to the gallery showing, the other liked the gallery too.
• they could not find a connection between the pieces and did not know how they were related
• In general, they both thought it was a really cool experience
• One person thought the show was too long

My thoughts:

I felt the opening worked well- having everyone led in one at a time set up the rest of the showing as something out of the ordinary, and different than they may have been expecting. However, I think it did lead to some confusion as to what they were supposed to do after their masks had been lifted. I think it very quickly moved from a more personal experience to an overwhelming sensory stimulus.

There was also a bit of aimlessness in the museum style- it worked well, for some exhibits, such as the video in the closet or Sophia’s story, but there was a hesitancy to really sit and and observe something. I felt people very quickly moved through different pieces and then were left standing around with nothing to do.

This made the live performances much more valuable I think. Everyone had arrived prepared to be more traditional audience members, so they were really ready to stand and watch Kimmy and Omar perform. I also enjoyed the diversion of the live performance, and almost wished we had had more going on throughout the room (not as separate events) so that audience members would have had more chances to engage with actual people, and to participate in something for a longer period of time. Interestingly though, I feel that Bailey’s piece suffered with people approaching in ones and twos- I think we got more out of it by watching the faces of those who were getting fed bread before us.

Other’s thoughts:

Interestingly, most people who participated in the Federalist Papers voted Nay in my final questioning. One person who came suggested that was because the Federalist Papers had come after Kimmy’s and Omar’s performances, and so people were less inclined to ratify a Constitution that at the time really only supported more well off white men.

I had one person come who was very confused as to what was going on for most of the presentation and so was unsure how to interact with the objects or fellow audience members. They likened it to a modern art museum with interactive exhibits. They also found some of the live performances easier to connect to in comparison with the other pieces.

Personal Reflections

• I really thought the “Human Again” piece worked really well as the introduction to the whole showing. It worked very well given the amount of people. I was very surprised to find that no one actively stopped participating by taking off their blindfolds or sitting down, etc. They went along with it to the very end.
• The beginning of the exhibition was really chaotic. At some point, I remember hearing all the exhibits kind of coming to life at once and hearing barking from one place, shouting from another, reading from one, music from another. It felt like a very very distinct shift in tone from the “Human Again” piece to that–which maybe worked or maybe didn’t for each particular audience member.
• I think spatially the exhibits were organized really really well! The room felt like it had a natural flow. Not in the sense that the objects all shared a similar goal, theme, relationship, etc, (because that wasn’t our goal) rather, it just all worked together in the space correctly. Also, all the performances seemed to work very well in their adjusted locations.

Guest Reflections

What Worked/What Didn’t Work

• Bailey’s box was a draw. One of them did enjoy it (mainly “because I got food.”) while the other one did not even approach it because she felt really uncomfortable about “him just wearing underwear and no shoes.”
• Omar’s Enraged Edibles was a hit. They both thought it was funny, but also very poignant in the way it addressed/handled issues “we’ve all learned of and have been exposed to.”
• Other notable favorites were Paige’s “Adam + Eve” video and Phoebe’s “Law & Order” performance.
• Carina’s Syrian refugee crisis performance was a source of confusion for both of my guests, but it was interesting to watch/listen to them try to figure out what it meant because after about 5 minutes of bouncing ideas of each other they decided that it had to be about the Syrian refugee crisis.

General Thoughts

• The performances were better than the objects. They felt more important or pressing than the static gallery pieces especially if they had to get moved around from location to location.
• They enjoyed the performances and being moved around much more than the free time in the gallery because it felt like it gave them more purpose.
• Preferred having clear instructions on what they had to be doing either by being moved around for a performance or by seeing a sign. One of my guests was willing to interact with anything and tried to see it all. The other guest was only willing to interact with objects that had explicit instructions like “watch me” or “taste me”, but not with the more abstract or unguided ones.
• “I didn’t know if we were allowed to interact with each other or talk in the beginnin.” But after a while they both agreed that they felt more comfortable doing so. And after they talked to people, they felt more comfortable doing different things and seeing the objects.
• They had no clue what our (the class) role was in the whole thing. Were we actors? Were we showing them how to interact with things?
• They felt like it was too chaotic early on, but that things mellowed out as they went along.

My thoughts:

– For the time we had to put it together (all of 3 hours, basically), I think that it went well. However, I do think that some things were clunky/awkward…but I think that with more time and planning we’ll be able to get things back to where they need to be.

– I loved the beginning. I think it was so strong the way that the audience was brought in in silence with blindfolds on, and the way we were able to make them stay put without having to use explicit instructions. Going from the relative silence of the back hall to the too-loud space was great. The energy was high, and the audience was ready to be involved.

– People were definitely afraid to DO things. They weren’t sure if they were supposed to walk around and touch and play. This caused me to want to encourage them by saying things like, “Have you tried blahblahblah?”. But then I felt like a car room show person and was confused about my relationship to the audience. Overall, I was unsure of what I should be doing.

– From my perspective, the more hands-on things worked better than the more passive things. For example, I think that people (once they got over their fear of moving around) liked interacting with Bailey’s box, watching the Genesis movie in the closet, going outside to watch Carina’s performance, and being involved in the Federalist Papers bit. That being said, I was surprised — but it seemed like the videos DID NOT WORK very well. With all of the commotion and noise, I felt like people didn’t want to sit down, put headphones in, and watch videos. It took them out of the experience too much, in my opinion.

My guests’ thoughts:

-The things that mainly stood out were: Getting applauded (inversion of normal performer/audience roles), David’s piece, Kimmy’s Black Panthers piece, Genesis video, getting into the elevator, getting fed bread.

– They were often left unsure of what to do, but the unclear boundary between actor/audience member was interesting

-The experience of being one of the first people with the blindfold on standing in the room got to be kind of old (because you end up standing in the same spot for 5 minutes without anything to do)

-Loved the really participatory pieces — but again, wanted to be involved in the more passive pieces which wasn’t as exciting. So essentially, the rules were different for some pieces and that was hard.

-What was powerful was the potential both the performers and audience members to do anything at any moment