Audience Feedback
- Impressed by use of space, the bigness of the thing
- Freaked out by language (trying to find out more about this!)
- Wished that they had more time in the space.
- The first bit when we were standing in the "air lock" bit between the two doors was a bit unnerving. The fact that we were all herded together and asked to relinguish our cards felt quite sinister - this feeling was actually exaggerated by the very polite messages (although I had been reading "If this is a Man" at the time). Leaving my id card felt like I was leaving my legitimacy behind; in retrospect this made me think of how horrid it would be if we had ID cards (government ones) because you wouldn't be legitimate without it.
- The first thing I saw was the piece with Jessie and Kwaku. I thought this was about how a person's sense of identity is fragile and can be undermined by comparisions. The similarity of the two costumes gave a sort of anonymity, but then also emphasised the difference between the two performers. Identity then seemed to be not wholly subjective - the bodies themsleves kept some remnant of individuality. I.E. not all performance.
- I enjoyed the fact that when we were given pens people were compelled to write something. In this way I felt that it showed how people are compelled to perform their identity - to send it out and assert it.
- I like the Claude Cahoun (spelling? I have no idea) images - really added to the idea that gender and identity are performed. The overall feeling was that, actually, identity is something that although we perform, we do not own.
Personal Feedback & Thoughts
- I think what we created in the tine constraints was pretty great and I think we surprised ourselves with the volume of things we managed to include.
- I got the feeling that everyone really enjoyed the interactivity of the whole piece, which is obviously great, and I felt pleasantly surprised to see people who'd finished their other squares joining in and having a go at all the other squares they didn't have a chance to try. From very early on we had always wanted people to have the chance to experience more than one square, we tried to think of ways of doing this logistically, of something to unite them and move them onto another. But this was problematic with the ideas of the free space, the space for the audience to be audience and impartial and not forced perform. One thing we didn't expect was when someone watching the labelling square left in the middle of the performance to go and explore around the other spaces, which i know was particularly off putting for Kwaku and Jessie. While we expected and encouraged the audience to walk around and experience everything around them, it would be good to look into this further and whether this freedom is something we'd love to encourage more or try to rein in and control
- but it also meant that some of the squares would have to be rather rushed for the audience not to miss out. I do think this would have ruined the clarity and integrity of the pieces somewhat, but I do believe that this project could have worked better over a longer period. In doing so though, Jack, Jessie & Kwaku would have definitley needed some preparation in endurance performance; we were already bordering into theatre of cruelty, which again i'd like to explore more of.
- From my personal experience of the Cyber section, we definatly would need to secure the rug in normal a bit more securely to stop the wheely chair getting stuck (doh), but also something that we considered but would have LOVED to include was for the cyber participant to be carrying a camera with a projected live feed. I feel this would have brought another interesting dimension to the piece and really tie in all the reasearch we did into technology and cyber more efficiently. However, from my research I also know that if this was something we attempted in this performance as it stands, it would have made a rather prominent statement, whatever that statement maybe, and I would feel more confident in further looking at the effect camers have in the theatre space.
- Would have to have had a more collected focus, as while I really liked the fragmented nature of exploration of the piece, would be nice to work on getting all the areas more fused together and working one; if not artistically then definitely in terms of the timings of the piece. While we did practice the pieces running in succession and try to time it well, it was difficult for one element to not finish before another and know what to do with this. I do feel this is something that would come together and as a work in progress was to be expected really!
