Category: My Performance

One thing I swore that my piece was not going to be, was autobiographical. However, seeing as though it was connection to my previous ideas that I had been lacking, I thought it to be possibly the best thing for me to explore. I also wanted my solo performance to show who I am as well as my performative abilities. The desire to work with flowers was still present and I kept this in mind whilst beginning to write automatically. A page and a half later, I gave it a read through and before I could edit it, I video recorded my lips speaking it. In this monologue I speak of domestic abuse. This is a subject that I am very much connected to.

The flowers that I wish to utilize in my piece represent the breakdown of a person related to domestic abuse, particularly relationship abuse. I have an image of sitting in a darkened room with a single spotlight above me, a photo frame hung in front of me, a flower in my hands and tape across my mouth. Audio will play whilst the video projection of my lips will speak over the top of my taped mouth. The tape represents the inability to speak whilst the frame does a similar thing in that pictures are immobile and speechless, so it is as though I am the still picture. Nevertheless, I will begin to pick the petals from the flower signifying that my mentality as well as my physicality are both weakening until I am left with only the stem of the flower, only the skeleton of a person. The piece will continue where I will attempt to mend the flower, piecing it back together with the tape from my mouth. This symbolises the rebuild of a person and how hard it is to try and fix something so fragile. I also feel that the aesthetics here will be both ugly and beautiful simultaneously. The way in which the black tape covers the coloured petals shows the scars that cover a person, whether they are seen on the body or lived with internally, they may fade but will never disappear. Considering that all of the tape from my mouth will be wrapped around the flower, the end of the piece will finish by showing the ability to speak again, and like a flower, representing my growth in strength, happiness and beauty.

Throughout the duration of the sessions thus far, I have been interested in many ideas as a stimulus for my performance. I knew that I wanted to involve the audience by either allowing them to relate to my performance or for them to actually participate. After researching Tim Crouch, I recognised that he too, liked to include his audience within his performances. Although this idea of mine didn’t directly relate to Crouch’s work, it does however, resemble his artistic intentions.

There was a range of ideas that I had thought of exploring, from the theme of temptation to wanting to physically create a world of mystery and imagination. These ideas seemed too far-fetched and I had a lot of difficulty executing them to a professional standard. I was also unsure of the meaning behind my ideas and was ultimately not connecting to any of them. This meant that a change of direction was needed.

I recently came across an image that made me rethink my intentions. The image stated ‘THE EARTH WITHOUT ART IS JUST ‘EH”. This inspired thought about a world which exists without all artistic influences. A world which I could explore in a performance format. I was imagining life without music, sculptures, paintings, film, theatre, books and fashion etc. These forms of art don’t seem to fit under just one category, meaning that my performance would not be focusing on specifics and instead giving a general overview. I decided that if this was the direction I was to take, I would need to condense what I classify as “art” for the purposes of this project. In my opinion, flowers coincide with this notion of earth and art and I would really enjoy experimenting with them in order to explore this concept.

After discussing this idea with the rest of the group, I opted to take things in a different direction because my idea seemed too broad to explore. I understood that if I wanted to make further progress I would need to condense my content, but because I had generated so many ideas around this topic, it was too difficult to choose a specific path to follow.

After looking over my mind maps to influence my decision, I had noticed my passion for wanting to experiment with flowers. I decided that this was to be my stimulus.