hannahclarkessp-blog

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My own intervention #2

Walking in straight lines My next intervention was I had to only walk in straight lines, therefore I couldn't walk around corners or bends every path had to be dead straight. I came up with this idea because I felt that it would force me to take a route I usually wouldn't take. I thought this would be an interesting intervention because I would have no clear destination and it would let me explore places I've never explored before. For example, I began by walking straight out of my flat and I usually would take a diagonal turn but this time I had to carry on going straight by crossing a road and going a route I don't take as much and am less familiar with. This made me feel a bit apprehensive because I wasn't sure where I was going because we can feel scared if we are in a location we don't know, but I also felt excited because I was going to see a part of the city I hadn't really seen before. I found this task very challenging because it was hard to always stick to this as some paths and roads forced you to bend and it was in some cases impossible to carry on going straight because of the design of the city with buildings and vegetation. I also felt it allowed me to understand the structure of the city more because usually I wouldn't take in the style or shape of paths but this task made me see that the city is designed in a way to force pedestrians to walk in certain directions, which I believe was extremely interesting.

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My own intervention #1

Bins My first idea for an intervention was the idea of following bins on a walk and seeing where this could lead me. I came to the idea because in a city the number of bins is increasing due to the increase in interest of keeping our cities clean. I thought bins would be an interesting object to follow because it would also indicate to me the areas that are at most risk of litter. I planned to follow bins as I knew this would be an object that I wouldn't struggle in finding in a city especially a busy one like Cardiff. I began by looking for my first bin and walking towards it and then once I was at that bin I'd follow anyone and do this until I was in an area that I wasn't as familiar with. I decided on following objects as a task because I believe it would make me take a different route to what I usually would and this would make me see my city in a different light, and get the feeling that I was no longer in a familiar surrounding which can be exciting. During this task, I came to the conclusion that there quite a few bins in Cardiff but yet still quite a bit of rubbish which made me think that the quantity of bins doesn't have much of an effect on the cleanliness of our streets which made me feel disappointed. As well as that I also noticed that there are many other ways and routes to walk in the city and I feel I could take in the surroundings much more because I wasn't focussed on a destination like I usually would because I was walking with no clear end.

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Intervention from the Reader 3

One task taken from the theory of Dada highlights the belief of immediate spontaneity, and the task it has implied explains that every walker is a potential mid-guide and leads to somewhere. I interpreted this to follow people for certain amounts of time and see what there journey by randomly picking people to follow. Before carrying this out I was sceptical because I didn't want people to notice me doing this as some may find it strange and so I decided not to be close to them but just see where they were going and follow at a distance. During this intervention it was interesting to get a feel for other people's journeys and where they go and wonder why they go there. It was also enjoyable to see how people travel to certain places and what tracks they take and see if they are similar to the ones I would take. It was interesting to see how other walkers can effect your journey and track as while I was walking I had to sometimes change my track or direction in order to avoid people which made me think that in a city with a large number of people walking, we all can effect each others walks and journeys. This doesn't always mean people can effect it sometimes new signs can change a walk or new paths creates can also. Overall this walk showed me that people are a massive part of a persons walk especially in a city where there are so many.

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Interventions from the Reader 2

Another intervention I carried out was to follow the tracks of any wildlife, plants, weeds and flowers in an urban area. I walked from my flat in the centre of Cardiff and began my journey following the weeds in the cracks of the pavement and then following every bit of wildlife I could see. I followed things such as flowers that had been planted outside buildings, trees and birds especially seagulls. During this intervention I noticed new tracks I could follow in the city and I also observed how much wildlife and vegetation was in an urban area, and there quite a lot in the city which could be due to making it look more eco friendly because of global warming and other issues we face today. This task interesting as it allowed me to really become aware of the surroundings in a city that I usually wouldn't notice or follow because when I'm walking in the city I follow buildings or pavements because I wouldn't associate nature with the city, but this task allowed me to.

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Interventions from the Reader 1

One intervention I tried out was during a walk I had to step on the cracks and find gaps and then make new tracks, becoming more aware of the surroundings, signs and surfaces. While carrying out this exercise I noticed the uneven surfaces as there were a lot of cracks in pavements and the design of the pavements. I didn't particularly enjoy walking on the cracks because as a child stepping on the cracks was bad luck therefore this exercise felt weird to carry out. I felt as though my speed had increased because I was purposely trying to step on the cracks which increased my pace as I wouldn't usually stroll on pavements casually as I would focus on what I was stepping on. I believe I couldn't concentrate on my surroundings as I was too focussed on making sure I stepped on the cracks and make new tracks, for example I didn't notice the people around me or the buildings I only really looked at these when I stopped to make a new track and it was interesting to see where I had ended up.

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Developing my Performance Piece 4

In our final stages of this process of developing this performance we wanted to tell the audience what we wanted to achieve as well as showing them, and by doing this we created a leaflet to give to the audience as you can see above. This was designed to give a bit of background of our ideas and our piece and to also share the message of it’s ok to talk about your issues and to share them as it can help. We felt this would be a good idea as the audience could read this while watching our performance because we feel as though the words being spoken in a public area of our piece our more important than the movements to show that it’s ok to share with the world. We believe our performance went well as the audience reacted in a way we wanted them to because with serious and dark confessions you could here a pin drop but with the funny confessions there was laughter to bring some light as some of the material was very hard hitting. We wanted the audience to laugh to add humour as we feel performances which are purely dark can be quite tough to watch to adding humour made it more entertaining for them. Some issues we felt that occurred with the performances was the sound as it was outside it could have been difficult to hear so we needed to make sure we were projecting our voices. Also, we didn’t have a clear order for the confessions which led to some of them not being read out, as this was annoying for us the audience didn’t notice and it didn’t effect what they saw. Overall, we were lucky that the audience enjoyed it and some said they were thoroughly entertained by hearing some of these confessions and also it was great that we didn’t have any interruptions as we were performing in a public place. We believe we were successful in achieving the message we wanted to broadcast due to the reactions during and the responses after our performance.

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Developing my Performance Piece 3 The image above is our site for our performance, you can see that it is the outline of a church and we like the symmetrical look of it. We wanted to begin the piece at the entrance of the site and then welcome the audience in as if it was a real church. We then wanted to begin the confessions with each one of us at the square pillars to separate us out with us being at different levels to show we are all different characters with different sins. We needed to decide on how we would deliver the confessions and we thought that we should read each one of them while walking around but we wanted to develop this, so we decided to wear either a mask or veil to highlight how the confessions were anonymous and then when we say the confession we take off the mask to show the person is revealing their secret. We decided to walk around as we say the confessions to add pace to our piece and so that it isn’t static and to link with the location of a church where people like to walk around and explore. We then came to the idea that instead of masks we should wear hoodies and pull the hoods down when we say our confession to keep the costumes casually and link to modern day, because even though the site is an ancient site but people still have sins and confessions they want to share today as we could see by the posts on our anonymous website. Therefore we wanted to show that this is still relevant today.

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Developing my Performance Piece 2

Once we had our idea of confessions in mind and our location for our piece we now needed to collect peoples confessions. We discovered this website where people could post anonymous confessions for us to see called Curious Cat. We shared the link to this website to all our friends and families for them to post and we got many hundreds of posts of which we could include in our piece. We had to get rid of some posts as they weren’t very appropriate as we did know that some people wouldn’t take this seriously so we only used the ones we felt could help our piece. My group then made a script with each of us reading a certain amount of confessions. With this we then visited our site and blocked how we would move around the space in Bute Park.

We wanted to try and use as much of this space as possible and use the square pillars a lot because we felt these could represent seats in a church and it can also create a sense of uniformity as this area is symmetrical. they also allow us to create some levels during our piece. We decided that we should begin at the entrance to usher in the audience as if they were entering a church and the priest or vicar would greet them in. Our next step was to block how we would deliver the confessions.

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Developing my Performance Piece 1

Our initial ideas for our performance was that we wanted to perform in a very open and public place as we wanted our piece to send a message. Our task for this performance was to perform a piece in a site that had a clear relationship between the site and the performance. We decided firstly to walk around Cardiff to see if we could find any areas or sites that inspired us for our performance we found a spot in Bute Park that was a monument of an ancient Domican Friars. We brainstormed ideas about what messages we could share that liked with this holy area because we really wanted to perform in this area as it was in a public area where people could walk past and easily see. The theme we came up with was confessions as people mostly visit churches to confess sins to God to make them feel better. We wanted to portray confessions because it sends a message to people that sharing your problems can help you overcome them. So at this point in our development stage we had our idea and our site.

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Reading Summaries - Case Studies

Will Self on Location - Let your mind wander: take half a dozen young Londoners, give them a camera and set them free

This reading was written by a University teacher who gave cameras to students to film sites around London in order to see what them capture and what sites attract them. The writer wants to see if there is a relationship between the place, site and the atmosphere with how people mentally react in an area we are in. he wanted to see how the students reacted in areas and what thy documented which he believes can resemble how they feel. His findings from this was that his students said they had never experienced a walk like that before because they actually took in their surroundings and thought about what they were doing instead of just casually walking without thinking. He also explains the different types of walks that his students took and how they all represented how they felt or what they were going through as one of the students was going through a tough time which was shown through her walk as it was down an alley at night and you could hear her sobbing. Overall, the reader implies that they way people walk and where they walk can express a persons personality.

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Reading Summaries - Working Processes, Methods and Approaches

Walking in the European City, edited by Timothy Shortell and Everick Brown

This reading begins with an introduction about the methodology of walking in the city and how it can effect changes of peoples attitudes while walking around a neighbourhood or city. The task that this reader sets is that they want people to carry out methods or tasks while walking around. The intentions of this task is to get a greater awareness of the surroundings and also make people look at the environment and the way people walk in a different way. The reader explains that the reason why walking has been chosen is because its a part of everyday for everyone especially in cities as this is the most populated areas. This task also highlights that it can effect interaction with other people and how these interruptions and tasks while walking can make your knowledge of the area become wider. The reader goes on to say that the city is full of people who don't know each other which can make people feel not that secure, however this task could keep streets safer. This reader overall clarifies the makeup of a city and how these tasks can change this.

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Reading Summaries - Theory and conceptual perspectives

Mapping the Terrain: a Survey of Site-Specific Performance in Britain by Fiona Wilkie.

This reading explains the process of which artists choose sites and places of which to perform at. The reading also talks about a survey which has been carried out for performers about their site specific work and how its funded and their reasons for doing it. The reader begins by illustrating the geographical patterns of site specific performances and why the sites that are used are attracted by artists, it mentions that London is a difficult location due to its social and political problems. The reading also goes on to the funding of these projects and the economic context which has a major impact on what sites are available. The reader overall describes all the components that come with site specific performances such as the audience and it explains how street theatre reaches audiences who wouldn't necessarily go to the theatre in order to reach a wider audience. It concludes on the theme of the shaping of site specific performance such as where it can occur or what it might contain and how the material comes about. The reader asks a lot of questions as its intention is to carry out a survey for performers and practitioners, so not all these questions are answered.

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Reflections of class sessions 4

Along side rehearsing for our assessments, we have also been in class doing further research on examples of site space and place performances. We created a twitter page where we shared any performances we came across that we believed inspired us and our performances. The image below is an example of where a performer uses a location to create a message.

My interpretation of this image was that this artist was either trying to create a trail of his journey or he is creating a boarder. This inspires my performance as he uses the place to create a message and my group want to use our site of the Friary to send a message about confessions and inner demons which connect to our site. From class discussions my group wanted their to be an audience participation as we believed they would have a greater understanding as they will feel more involved and because they are on the site with us they should fee involved.  

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Reflections of class sessions 3

In the class session following our performances we discussed our ideas and thoughts of each others performances and what we believed was effective about them. Our intentions for our performance was to bring all the names on the memorial alive, our peers felt this was powerful as they could understand the stories of the immigrants and feel closer to them. This task connected with what we were learning in class about choosing a site and seeing what ideas it inspires you to think and how a performance can be made from the location. Now that this task was completed we now had to find a location of our own and come up with a theme that we felt should have a clear relationship. We walked around Cardiff to see if we could find any locations where we could perform and we came across an ancient monument Blackfriars Friary which was the site of a former Dominican Friary in 1256. As this was a place where people would come and worship and therefore we came up with the theme of confessions. This links to what we learnt in class as our site connects with our material.

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Reflections of class sessions 2

In one of our class session we visited a memorial in Cardiff that was dedicated to the Irish immigrants who moved to Butetown due to the potato famine in Ireland during the early 1900s. The reason we visited this site was because our first task was to create a piece within the area of what was Butetown that had a connection with the Irish immigration. My group decided to perform on the memorial which then gave us the idea to perform a piece that paid tribute to some of those people who left Ireland, as their names were carved into the memorial so we used these as part of our piece. The main theme of our piece was to show there were always new immigrants coming through into Wales like a cycle, we came to this idea as the memorial is in the shape of a circle with a infinity shape in the middle resembling a cycle.

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Reflections of class sessions 1

In our first few lessons on this topic of Site, Space and Place we began to discuss what we believed the word site meant and words and phrases that we thought linked with this. Some of the words that came out of this that we believed resembles site space and place were ‘public’, ‘private’, ‘large’ and ‘open’. This exercise allowed us all to create a greater understanding of this topic. We looked at examples of performances that involved site, space and place, one of these was a performance in Whitchurch mental hospital. This piece represented a sit space and place performance as the location was the first thing that was chosen and then the material comes about from the location, whereas most theatre pieces begin with the material then the location is chosen after. The company based in Cardiff first chose the hospital and then decided to base their piece on mental health as the it fit with the location. From this first session of the topic I learnt that I want my performance to have a clear connection with its location because its enhances the importance of the piece and also the audience can have a greater understanding as they will feel closer to the content of the piece.