A Stage of Transition...Part Two

And so, with these considerations in mind (among others), I took part in the Archiving Practice Workshop led by Chris Clow. I had no idea what these workshops would entail, and was completely unprepared when I turned up on the Tuesday, to be told I would need to have some practice ready to show and to be filmed the next day! This year I'm having to get used to working in ways which don't seem natural to me - it felt strange prescribing everything I was going to do and explore next term in my Research Proposal - I would usually let my process develop more organically - and it felt strange here, rushing into practice when I didn't feel ready to. Sometimes, though, using different working methods can bring illuminating results, and it did here with the Archiving Workshops.

On Wednesday I spent most of my 'practice time' explaining to Chris my interests - I then followed this with a silly exercise between me, Elpida and Hayley, almost like a version of Follow The Leader, where Hayley and I had to follow Elpida through a series of difficult dance moves (at which I was embarrasingly terrible). It was all thought up on the spot - I hadn't given any consideration beforehand to it - and as a result it wasn't very engaging or illuminating.

I knew I had to have something more interesting and engaging the next day, and one which had more relevance to my project. I decided to set myself a task, in the same way I planned to set my performers tasks in the process leading up to my Festival piece - a task which was relevant and unique to me.

I arrived the next day with a text I was going to read to my audience (admitedly, the only part of the task I did not put too much thought into - originally, the content of text itself wasn't important, I just needed it to have something to read, but of course, every text brings it's own added meaning to the situation, which I realised quickly). The text was 'Molloy' by Samuel Beckett, which I was currently reading in my spare time. I brought with me a Grapefruit and a knife. I slowly ate the entire Grapefruit, cramming as much of it into my mouth as I could, whilst reading my text.

There were a few questions I wanted to address with this task?

• Could I manage both tasks together (to eat and to read) and could I succeed at both of them?
• I hate grapefruit - how would I deal with eating an entire one? What issues does it bring up in terms of the body, disgust, and violation?

I didn't know how the task would go - to my surprise, it became in engaging, fascinating, difficult, even distressing moment. The spectators who witnessed it (Chris and Elpida) told me how they couldn't take their eyes away from the scene, how they were moved from laughter to ............., how it was difficult and uncomfortable to watch me in obvious discomfort but how at the same time they willed me to continue and finish. There were also issues of voyeurism at play - I was locked in my own private world during the task, never once acknowledging my 'audience', and at times they wondered if they should be watching me at all.

As the 'performer' in the task it was a strnagely intense experience - extremely physcial and psychological, constantly battling opposing emotions; one willing me to stop before I was sick, the other willing me to continue to the end, the other telling me not to think about any of it, just read the text and eat the fruit.

The next day I recreated the task with another food and another text, but it had lost it's 'magic' from the previous day. We all knew what we were in for this time, and the change in text (this time I chose a deliberately light-hearted one, in response to a request from Chris) and food (celery - les messy than Grapefruit) didn't add anything interesting.

But I think I'm onto something here. I can't quite quite theorise or explain it right now - for the moment, it only exists in the moment, in practice- but I'm excited.