Open Space... and some thoughts on Aesthetics

A week ago, my performers and I staged 'The Failure Project' at Open Space, part of the International Workshops Festival. A very weird experience...

All that time ago, when I first sent in my application form to be considered for Open Space, I was very early on in the process. I didn't even have my performers back then, except for Hayley, and the whole piece was a speck in my mind at that point.

We arrived on the Saturday and immediately, two elements jumped out at me that worried me - firstly, the space was MASSIVE. Much bigger than Performance Space 1. I was concerned that the space would be too big for my performers, and would drown out the piece. We didn't have much time to deal with the bigness of the space either. Secondly, the lighting. I already knew that the lighting of the space would be simple - that's fine, I thought, we can deal with that. I had read on the website that there was a lighting rig and thought we could come up with something simple but atmospheric. When I arrived, I realised that by 'simple' lighting, they meant 'the lightbulbs on the ceiling' - no lighting rig at all. AH!

OK, I thought, never mind, we still have the music, our props, and most importantly of all, the performers, their tasks, and their interactions with each other and the audience.

So evening came along and it was time to perform - we were third out of four pieces to be shown that night (the other three pieces were all dances). I took my seat and watched my performers on stage.

My first instinct was: it's bombing. In fact I whispered to my boyfriend in the middle of it "(the audience hate it!)". My boyfriend looked at me and nodded in sympathy. Oh bloody hell. My performers marched through the performance valiently, giving it energy, trying to use as much of the space as they could, trying to connect with the spectators, but they didn't have an audience to bounce off of like they usually do. Which is fair enough, I guess - the audience are not obliged to do anything.

Sarah Jane told me that she had received some really positive comments after the show from audience members who had come up to her...Mandy also had the theory that dance audiences tend to be very subdued in general, whether they like something or not. I don't know about that...So was I wrong in thinking it went badly? I won't get the chance to receive proper feedback from the audience there that night so I probably won't ever know. I have confidence in this piece, and in the performers. So I don't feel bad about Open Space. But for me, what I was watching in front of me that night felt - as alien and strange.

What became clear to me on that night is just how much of the piece has been constructed and designed. I hadn't realised, but I made it for Performance Space 1, and outside of that context, without the lighting I had designed, with the restrictions on our actions due to the dance floor, without any of the filmed material, the atmosphere was completely transformed. This is reassuring for me to know. I had been having some problems before the festival about the aesthetics of the piece - despite all my talk about construction the design of the piece is fairly minimalist (I think), with many elements dependant on the improvisational nature of the piece, and I was worried that people could then conclude that because it wasn't conventionally beautiful, I hadn't put any thought into it. Having now seen the difference it makes to the piece, I don't think that now.

So where does that leave us in terms of taking the piece to other places? I still want to, and I don't think I have to compromise the peice in order to do so. So if I'm going to find a way of negotionating these two worries, I need to take the same time I did in creating the aesthetic for the original piece, in order to create a NEW aesthetic for a NEW space and context. A one hour technical rehearsal, never having seen the soace before,is not going to cut it.