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Reflecting on Anger/Frustration Track

Thinking about my work at this point in the process, I am left with a thought from Sontag’s work of camp as the spirit of extravagance, it is about the ambition of the work, not just the style itself. There is a track I am working on as part of my performance that I find myself really struggling with at the moment; a track in which I am talking to the audience about my frustration and anger about what I experienced with the doctor and that I didn’t feel I was being listened to. I feel as though I am struggling to really perform the material with style and an element of camp, because I am approaching the work as a text that I don’t know in my body, therefor the passion and ambition that I have for this work is not translating. On reflection, I need to revisit the text, editing it to make sure it feels right when spoken out loud, and learning it so that I can feel in fully in my body and experiment with it.

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ITN Rehearsals

digging deeper into my own exploration of camp. Currently, in regards to my own work I have attempted my own definition of camp.

Camp:  Conceptualisation explored through a dark, glamourised and stylised aesthetic approach. This style evokes emotion and a reclaiming of the past.

For reference I have included rehearsal footage that contain this definition of camp. Below you will see choreography footage from the track titled ‘Don’t Leave Me Behind’ This specific track explores a transitional point in the work. I am exploring feelings of loneliness and fear of what could happen if I don’t find a way out of this rut that I am stuck in. I have created video art to explore these feelings through movement, this video art element will play alongside my live presence on stage. The dualistic presence of self creates a thoughtful and reflective tone. This stylised approach, mixing voice, video art, lighting and music all contributes to my own definition of camp stated previously.

To further explore my own approach in engaging with the convention of camp, I have included rehearsal material from the A Ghost in Your Own Home track. This truly plays with my own convention of camp that I created through engaging with Susan Sontag’s Notes on Camp, to create my own definition and exploration of camp. This footage conceptualises periods of mental health issues through exploring a dark, glamourised and stylised aesthetic approach through a tame use of persona in creating the ghost aspect of myself. This conceptualisation explores the feeling associated with isolation, specifically due to dealing with identity, skin and self image issues.

For A Ghost in Your Own Home, I specifically travelled back to my family home in Blantyre to record material and rehearse there, as a way of revisiting the location and memories of where a lot of the material for my autobiographical input happened. This was taken as inspiration from Heather Agyepong’s The Body Remembers, as in this piece she explores themes and ideas of how the body remembers trauma, and how location and space has a relevance in recalling memories and making authentic work. Revisiting my old home and the memories from here to progress my work was a way for me to also reclaim this part of my story, to find empowerment in creating meaningful performance moments that speak of the struggles and stigma associated with mental health.

Don’t Leave me Behind (experimentation and rehearsal)

`A Ghost in Your Own Home’ (experiment and rehearsal)

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Notes on Camp, Susan Sontag, 1964

I am playing with the convention of camp. On reflection, this is a way for me  to own this dark segment of my life - through expressing it in a stylised and performative manner.

*Sensibility - the quality of being able to appreciate and respond to complex emotional or aesthetic influences. I feel as though sensibility is at the core of my work and practice as an artist.

Camp is described as an aesthetic ‘sensibility’ and as ‘too much’. This is how I want my work to be consumed. I am putting a lot of my vulnerability and myself into this work, and these parts of my life were too much, so if my work reflects this in its camp style, then I will have succeeded. I am attempting to show the viewer through performance, my conceptualisation of mental health. The realisation (through discussion with my peers) that my work delves in and out of camp is an exciting discovery.

The following are extracts from Sontag’s work that I found to be relevant at this point in my process

See Susan Sontag notes on camp:

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I am really drawn in and inspired by Björk’s art making, as multimedia performance artist she has a keen aesthetic eye and extremely stylised and over the top approach that pushes boundaries within performance art. She is one of the first singers that I remember claiming her place in the arts as a performance artists, due to her flair and self expression. The qualities of her voice and the way she experiments vocally is something that I admire. The aesthetics of the work and performativity is something that I aspire towards. Her work is often within the category of camp.

In mutual core, Björk accessing her own stylised aesthetic to convey the earth’s geology as a metaphor for human relationships. this brings to mind the notion of camp as *elaborate. I found referring to this work particularly useful in creating the disruptive, red, bejewelled alter ego that features in the track titled Saboteur within my performance album. I am taking this method forward in my own work: Embodying or personifying something in order to be able to forward the narrative. The idea of aesthetic sensibility is strong here.

Tutors note: You include a range of artists references and outline why they are relevant, additionally it would be beneficial to your own understanding to flesh out why it's important to you, how it connects to your work, and what you take forward into your own work.

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We work with music, dance and theatre because we believe this can speak to an audience in the most rich, delicious, complex way.

The performer and performance is always central - the words, the moving, the voice, the rawness, the feelings, the work, the pleasure, the pain. We want to see craft and skill and HARD WORK. We want to see REAL THINGS HAPPEN.

- RashDash

They have described everything that I want to see in my own show. I feel as though this speaks of the idea that the extremely personal becomes the universal. This is the type of work that I want to create. The work that people spend precious time crafting in order to share work that means something in the world. I want to push boundaries in my work, and go to the edge of what may be scary and revealing ... but to then also say within the work I am still here and these things, these experiences make me who I am. 

I want to put on a good show .. to immerse you in a world of performance that draws you in with the story, lights, sounds and visuals. I want you to feel things.

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"To give love to our inner selves we must first give attention, recognition and acceptance. Having let ourselves know that we will not be punished for acknowledging who we are or what we feel we can name the problems we see" - bell hooks

“The body is an archive. It remembers everything - even the things that the head forgets.”

- Heather Agyepong

These words truly pin the reason for making my own performance Breakout,  this work The Body Remembers by Heather Agyepong, and the words of bell hooks, resonate with me on a personal level and have inspired me to make this deeply autobiographical work, that is a mode of reclaiming space and removing shame. 

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Rehearsal process  - Thinking about aesthetics an composition of the piece at this point. The colour red is prominent, in association with acne, anger, depression. The mirrors add an duality and stylised layer within the work that I should explore further; the idea of self image, perception and just what this brings to the space on stage. What visuals and moments can I create in the space with the materials to help the audience understand them in the context of my story?

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Performance album, performance structure inspiration.

Transitions to new sections.

Storytelling.

Emotion.

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Performativity.

Persona.

Camp.

Taking inspiration from iconic artists in music in order to develop my own video art that conceptualises mental health, giving the audience a chance to step inside my min; this was how I worded this expression to a tutor throughout the creative process.

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I was inspired by Louise Orwin’s work. She often critiques society, beauty and the patriarchy within her work, which are themes that I explore and critique within my own work,

In her performances Humiliation Piece and Pretty Ugly, I was very drawn to the way she engaged with materials, specifically in these two pieces where the materials often feel like residue from the journey left on the stage. This felt alive for me in creating my own work. I felt inspired by the notion of materials as residue of a journey, or an experience. It never felt quite right to have a section pass and have a moment of, “Okay this part is done and I will take these materials off stage now”. It felt to me that the materials were vital parts of the storytelling and it was fitting for them to remain on stage as a reminder, a residue of the journey that I had experienced and shared with the audience.

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“James Joyce told me once: “In the particular is contained the universal.” I appreciated the advice. It taught me that the closer attention I pay to my “particular”, the better chance I have of reaching you in yours

(Quote taken directly from The Guardian article above)

This is important to my own arts practice, as I have a desire to reach people with my work, to make them feel seen and heard.

Throughout this process I am constantly trying to find ways of connecting with my audience through the work that I make. As I discuss further on in this blog, the aesthetic sensibility of camp is a way for me to achieve this universal connection through the personal, autobiographical making.

[intothenew-jenkelly]

For me I am drawn to a number of conventions/ways of making that Bryony Kimmings leans into to make her work. The use of narrative communicated through strong performativity. Autobiographical content that creates meaningful work. The Aesthetics. The camp performativity. The music videos. The music.

In I’m a Phoenix, Bitch, I am connected to the themes of healing and resilience.There is a dark honest, but pure hope.

[intothenew-jenkelly]

Embodiment and Wellbeing - Week 9

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There is something that I am in the process of discovering. I am acting on an intuition that something of value can be gained from an open and honest dialogue with my audience

Nick Cave

From this Nic Cave quote, I started to think about the presence of vulnerability and shame as themes within my work. This encouraged me to revisit the work of Brené Brown (see below)

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Performance Venue - The New Atheneum

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Embodiment and Wellbeing - Week 8

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Embodiment and Wellbeing - Week 6