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.