Site specific: day two

Today's lesson began with us splitting into two groups and being given an individual picture of a location we had put down on our brainstorm. We had a picture of a slip roof in Chatham dockyard. Originally built in Tudor times the slip roof was used to  construct ships. I think the beauty of the area is that the fact that it is empty,  gives us a huge scope for ideas. In addition, the large space means there is plenty of room for audience and performance space. Furthermore, it's location is  very central to Medway and easy to get to for us , making the location practical. The only problem would be controlling the light. As the roofs would be hard to close, we wouldn't be able to achieve a blackout if we wanted to, nor will lights be very effective. So while it has positives about it, in terms of a performance space for a creepy and eerie piece, I don't think it has the atmosphere or suitability to allow us to do so.



At first. Ideas were very hard to come by. Mainly because the space was so empty that we couldn't really think of anything that we could do. We toyed with ideas of smugglers looting ship parts or builders on a building site being trapped by the collapsing roof, however they had no real storyline or meaning to them. It took us a long time to create anything. In the end we settled for a post apocalyptic setting, yet nobody knows why the world has become the way it is. The slip roof setting made out as if our characters were waiting for a boat to get out of the country.

In the beginning we had numerous people mime ways of getting into the building before bumping into one lone survivor, who had been on his own for a week. Everyone had came in search of the boat which had never came.

The other group came up with a quirky interactive piece based around mental patients, where they introduced us to the room and immersed us in the performance which I thought was quite cool. I think both our pieces had some aspects that we could certainly use in our final piece. I think the group I was in began to think more about a potential storyline hence our piece was slower. However, I really liked the fact the other group included the audience in the piece, which added to the atmosphere and built on the ideas we has created last lesson. So I think we can definitely implement the ideas of the two groups together somehow.

Site specific: day one

Today, we began working on our final unit, site specific performance. The first thing we done in smaller groups was to brainstorm all the places that we thought would be a good place to perform a piece in, before sharing our ideas to the group. We were limited to our local area in terms of where we were allowed to think of. As getting the cast and audience to a place, say 2 hours away would be expensive and inconvenient.

The next part was to choose one place where we would like to perform and start to think of some ideas of what we could perform. Some of us in the group liked the idea of tap n tin, a nightclub, for it's multiple room, which would be very good for a promenade style performance. However, as a nightclub it would be very expensive to hire for a night and we would be limited in what we would be able to do in terms of set. I think the whole group liked the idea of Fort Amherst in Chatham, not only for it's atmospheric and creepy tunnels, but the fact that it gives us the option to perform inside and outside so light isn't a restriction. It is also a much larger space than tap n tin, so promenade works just as well, if not more so as the interior lends part of the atmosphere.

Of course. Our location influences the content of the piece. Therefore we began to think of what kind of pieces we could create. As finding a scripted piece to fit 13 people into would be near impossible. We came up with the idea that fort Amherst is being used as a mental department where, somehow. The insane are being drawn to something within the fort and calling it their home. We thought using a camcorder film would also add to the eeriness of the piece, before bringing the video to life in an interactive performance that involves the audience, breaking the forth wall. Of course these ideas are all very young. However, unlike other times spent devising, they seem to be flowing much more freely than ever. I think we need to carry on looking at potential ideas to make sure we have though of a range of ideas and not gone for the first one we thought of.