Rajni Shah in 2009-2012, created an unusual musical set in three acts called Glorious which was set around people, “what it means to live in a place, and what it means to gather together in a theatre… In many ways, Glorious was an attempt to create something that only existed in the moments when it was being made.”
“In Act One, the stage is stark and empty except for the central figure of Rajni, who wears a simple column-like dress. She sings six songs, accompanied by piano (played by Suzie Shrubb, usually in the orchestra pit) – and six local residents, who begin seated at the side of the auditorium, come up in turn and speak a short monologue between each song. The Act ends with the performers re-entering to place a bunch of flowers at the front of the stage, and taking a bow.”
This relates to our idea as we have been thinking about three stages to our performance…
pre performance- recruitment process, having the audience sign in, print their own footprint and sign their name at the bottom so they will be leaving their mark along with hundreds of other footprints in the drill hall so by the end of the day the hall will be filled and their name will become part of the drill halls history. We also like the thought of all sitting with our paint, boot polish and piles of paper as a pre set.
Like Rajni we want to use different forms of performance giving the audience a footprint to place in the space like Rajni’s use of daffodils being placed to make an interesting lasting image. We want our space to transform throughout the day so when the first audience members walk in in the morning the hall wont be filled as much.. during the middle of the day the audience would see the hall nearly full of footprints…then by the end of the day the last audience members would see a completely different image made out of footprints
“Act Two celebrates the coming together of people. Local musicians join all other performers on stage, and sculpted costume elements are added to the central performer to create the image of a body in a landscape. The same songs are sung again, but now to new arrangements created and played by the musicians; and musical underscoring also accompanies the six speakers, who revisit and/or expand on the texts we’ve already heard them speak. At the end of the act, everyone sings, and the costume is rotated.”
“Act Three has a much more elegiac tone. The costume elements remain in place, but have gathered an extra layer. Each performer only speaks one line of his/her monologue and then leaves the stage. At the end of the act, Rajni leaves the stage – leaving behind flowers, microphones, chairs, and the landscape of the costume. The show ends with the cycle of songs beginning again, this time played on stage on a Nagra reel-to-reel. Members of the company collect the flowers, and hand them out to the audience, inviting them to exit in their own time via the stage.”
When i looked at Forced entertainment i tried out my own use of cutting up text and repeating certain words and phrases.. i have also fragmented together the most interesting parts of Billy Lounds diary which i came across in the museum of Lincolnshire life which i could look at repeating key lines from. Also this links to our thought on poems and having them on a loop.
Our main performance would be the laying of the footprints to fill up the hall with maybe poems and diary extracts being heard…
Then our post performance would be re arranging all the footprints to leave a lasting image like in Glorious where “In each section elements are added or subtracted or the various bits are re-arranged. Chairs and flowers are moved around in different configurations; more and more sections are added to the costume; the monologues unfold a piece at a time; on each repetition the lyrics of the songs are truncated while the accompaniment expands from simple piano to dense and complex orchestration”….
Ideas for our lasting image include the fleur-de-lis – fleur meaning flower and lis means lily which is often associated with funerals, lilies symbolize that the soul of the departed has received restored innocence after death. Therefore this image would not only lay our respect for all the soldiers who trained at the drill hall but who also died and the fleur de lis is even embedded in the architecture in the brick work so this symbol literally relates to the building as well as metaphorically. But of course the fleur de lis is on the Lincolnshire Flag! When i went to the museum also on all of the engines made by Joseph Ruston, who built the drill hall, the fleur de lis appears on all the markings with his name on so it would also pay respect to his work!
So now as a group we need to discuss what we want our lasting image to be whether its the fleur de lis or the map of lincoln or another image which will really show what our piece is about… and also whether all the footprints will be moved again and end up in a pile in the shape of the image in the middle of the hall or whether we take away the footprints to leave the shape surrounded by the rest of the footprints in the hall.
Some quotes from audience members of Glorious…
“Ive never been on stage before, pure novice, a guy off the street, a retired pensioner off the street, but she and her little team have made me what this show is about”
“It’s also so much about the audience being a part of that gathering”