From my first experiment with black and red footprints we came to the conclusion that we needed to have gaps inbetween the footprints for us to be able to walk safely and without moving the positioned prints when performing. We then decided to only use black prints as the colour red was to signify the death of the 83 men in the 4th battalion and our piece is about bringing back to life the memories of the soldiers who trained in the drill hall focussing on the 1000 soldiers who were alive at the time they were in the site.
We tried out laying rows of prints across the top of eachother to represent a different journey of a soldier for instance if we found out a solider had lost his leg then his row of prints would eventually only have one set of footprints. However this idea was a bit far fetched and also from the Archives we couldn’t find as much as we’d hoped about individual soldiers. Again we then had to remind ourselves we wanted to remember the soldiers as alive not dead. I described our piece as “an absract installation art performance”, we want the visual impact to be astonishing and more of a metaphor of the 4th battalion than an obvious piece, we want to make our audience think and understand what we are representing.
https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=965825620108117&l=5049573155759259783
https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=965825620108117&l=5049573155759259783
At the drill hall we then tested out the speed in which we would lay the prints. Because we wanted to have an audio of ww1 poems playing Ipractised reading out in a fast speed “The call” poem whilst Laura and China laid out the footprints keeping up with my pace. We tried it with Laura and China both starting at opposite ends of the hall and walking towards each other, this would represent two armies meeting at war/ crossing over the borders. However we thought this would then be complicated and also because there are 3 performers as I would be also laying footprints it would then be an odd number and not look synchronised. As you can see from the videos the pace was a bit too fast as we then found difficulties with being able to lay the paper without the paper sticking to the next bit and our fingers being to slippery to grab them efficiently. Also the speed in which we as individual performers are able to move at vary therefore we want our piece to be more choreographed so we get almost perfect synchronisation. However we know that there may be complications on the day if someone drops a sheet of paper or can’t lay it quick enough as long as our feet move at the same time if we end up slightly further ahead that may be the case. But now we need to rehearse to get this as tightly choreographed as we can.
https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=965808010109878&l=7795448441121987616
We Practised in the corridor in the LPAC space to practise stepping left, placing down the right foot and then vice versa. It turned out that Laura and I had laid out the footprints different widths apart so we asked passers by which they thought looked the best and the said the ones i had laid which were joint by the corners allowing equal rectangle spaces in-between each joining one, one student also said that mine looked “more realistic” which is what we wanted for them to have a representation of regimented marching. By the end of the process i was very worn out as it felt almost like a gym workout squatting!
We then decided that for our piece to work visually the sound needed to be abstract too, as we did not like the impact of reading out the poems we felt they lost their meaning. We thought about printing poems and diary extracts onto the pieces of paper to still include the history but were told to not complicate it, and so our piece is simply a giant installation representation. We then thought about using the sound of a drill sergeant “left, right, left right” as this would be repetitive like our installation of the prints. This along with the visual projection of a countdown timer would create a fast paced installation process. The time of our piece is 16 minutes 40 seconds as that represents 1000 seconds for 1000 soldiers, with 1000 sheets of paper with a footprint on. We don’t think we can physically lay our 1000 footprints in that time period as it is physically challenging and like the theatre company Lone Twin who say their first pieces “were intentionally arduous and physically demanding…To our surprise, people sympathised with us. They gathered round and tried to help.” (Lone twin)
Therefore we are going to do 2 performances laying out 500 prints in each performance so that the audience will see how much hard work it is but we know that we will fulfil our task of laying out the paper, scrunching the paper then flattening the paper. We have been considering ways in which the audience may wish to help us such as joining in laying down their own footprint however due to our precise installation and ‘task’ like performance we need to stick to our synchronisation so the audience get “an experience where you enter into a space and witness things you wouldn’t otherwise”(James Hillier). So although the audience won’t be helping us in our installation they will be involved in the pre performance of the recruitment printing and signing process if they wish, which will help us in our aim to bring the present with the past. Gary Winters and Gregg Whelan, the directors of Lone Twin, say, “as politely as we can, we invite people to give us their attention. At times, they are invited to do something with us” (Lavery And Williams, 2011, 9) so through posters with poems that explain our piece, offering “spectators new perspectives upon a particular site” (Govan et al, 2007, 121) and we will show that it is up to them if they wish to stay and watch our installation through these poems, or simply walk past and appreciate what we are doing.
You may wish to leave,
But feel free to stay,
Our piece will progress,
So return through the day.
After watching a time-lapse video of “Taking out the old rig at the Drill Hall Lincoln and putting in a new one” (Youtube) in the Drill Hall we were inspired as it is visually a really fascinating thing to watch and looks crazy. Due to our piece being fast paces we thought that we could video both our performances and create a time-lapse video making it even faster to put on our blog after the day for the public to see if they missed it altogether, or if they printed their name and footprint but couldn’t watch it be installed or if they want to have something to remember what they watched on the day. We are thinking of also having the Rig video playing on the projection screen, during our installation, to juxtapose the history of not only the soldiers who trained here but also the construction of the building and now the present of laying the footprints. This along with a countdown timer from 16:40 to 0, will allow the audience to understand we are performing a ‘task’ we just now need to decide if we only play the video once or put it on a loop.
Govan, E., Nicholson, H. and Normington, K. (2007) Making a Performance: Devising Histories and Contemporary Practices. Oxon: Routledge.
Lavery, C. and Williams, D. (2011) Practising Participation A conversation with Lone Twin. Performance Research: A Journal of the Performing Arts, 16 (4) 7-14.
Hillier, J. (2014) Becky Brewis: James Hillier on directing site-specific theatre. Ideas Tap. (need reference book)