KEEP:
Exploring the audience/performer relationship… this is pretty obvious and basic, and I think most of us in our work explore this relationship in interesting ways without conscious effort. The pieces that have intrigued me most in this class are ones that disrupt and expand the conventional audience/performer relationship. Reiterating what some other people have mentioned: one-on-one performances (actually, I originally intended for Human Again to be a one-on-one performance, and it sort of is, but it lost most of that personal one-on-one connection in both performances, mostly because of time. I know a lot of people mentioned moving on from the gallery-work, but I do think the performer/audience relationship is interesting to explore in a gallery versus a theater setting. Performance installations interest me (the performer is physically present), static visual/video arts less so (performers not necessarily present)…
HOWEVER, this is a formal interest rather than a content-based one, and I do want to continue making work from a content-based perspective, i.e. making stories, turning pieces of information into works of art, etc (following Taylor’s idea of form follows content). This is maybe just a me thing, but I find it really difficult to make engaging work when the starting point is purely formal. BUT ALSO making stories does not necessarily mean narrative, I am super interested in making non-narrative work.
LEAVE
I want to leave behind the process we’ve been using so far of making individual work and trying to layer it/put it together to create meaning. It has definitely led to some interesting work, and new things discovered about pieces when they’re put in a new context, but I would like to try other methods of devising, i.e. working in a smaller group. I want to leave behind the idea of making one piece with fourteen people–I think it’s super difficult to get every voice heard, and inevitably people’s voices and works are lost.
Another thing we’ve been doing is giving feedback, but not giving too much time to actually work the pieces. This is mostly because we haven’t had that time, but as the class progresses I would like to make work, get feedback, and then rework that piece.
WANT
There’s nothing new that I really want, just changes and adjustments to what we already have, like working in smaller groups. I would like to maybe explore specific methods of devising? We’ve had some readings but we haven’t actually tried anything out in the studio… and maybe there are methods of specific devised theatre groups that we could try out?