I am questioning, everything.
What I have/n’t learnt.
What I have/n’t been taught.
What I know.
What I can do with that knowledge.
What I should do with it.
Where I should go.
How our past impresses upon our future path.
What we deem ‘important’ and ‘proper’.
What answers am I looking for and where will I find them?
Searching through my untidy piles of papers, I came across a few sides I remember writing when unable to sleep, having just chosen to take Solo Performance.
I titled them ‘Connect,’ this is how they read;
How I connect to the world, you, me, my world / place in it
Vocalising all connections
Love / comfort found in maths – Something to do with Sam McCarthy – who broke my heart by not living up to my 16-year-old standards/ expectations of him
Him – though that name was given to someone else entirely who made me smile
Ways my life has been I have written documents/ documented in written form which form / connect parts of my life? – Personal Statement, Letter to Rob, Post-it notes from first year, Keep reading Pumpkin
Trying to write the James Diary
Poetry – Wild Geese, Silken Tent – Poem for the Day – Ben and the ‘one night stand’ story – Shouting at Tom w/ the beautiful blue eyes
-My other blue eyed boy // Sludge eyed girl – cards, tags – gifts
Scrabble?
Writing on me? – Stories – scars – piercings —> deeper?
Mum:
DEFINITIONS
Dad: No words – Songs – Feeling – Actions > Words Happy Girl
Emma: Screaming at her wedding
Set: A 10 x 10ish circle of chairs – in the round: I want to see you, I’m letting you see me – because!
Daughter: “and if you’re still breathing you’re the lucky ones” – Arm swoop around head, cup / pinch chin and look in the eye
Chest / suitcase full of books – my – / texts / props – a pile of scrabble tiles
I recall envisioning a spiders web, made of string, connecting photographs, in an ascending spiral around the audience, which they could view and touch pre-show.
I remember feeling like I wanted to feel vulnerable, or rather show them that I was feeling vulnerable. In the hope that…? I am unsure what I needed from them.
Whilst the form (structural, textual and visual) of my final piece is far from this early idea – though it will still be predominantly performed in the round – I can see a lot of connective themes with my latest work. I am now in a place where I am thinking less about my recent past, which at the time of writing these notes was particularly painful post-break up, and am considering my past in terms of the journey that has led me to this point, what I have learnt along the way and where I will travel next. However, the sense of looking for meaning and connections in personal experience lingers; a general uneasiness with the ‘importance’ or the ‘significance’ of things, of my life, of me.
Trying to reign in / pin down concrete show ideas ready to put them forward in class. Help.
What I’ve got isn’t bad, it’s a show, or what could be. It just doesn’t yet feel like it’s doing my final undergraduate performance justice. Solo is an opportunity to put something out there, something of your own making, a piece of you for the world to see and judge and remember you by… currently, I feel a bit like I’m hosting a children’s tv show. It’s nice. And I think it’s nice because apparently I’m nice.
I get told this a lot, ‘Oh, you’
re so sweet’ ‘She’s such a nice girl’…
A ‘nice’ performance is not what I am aiming for. Now I’m not intending to go all Artaud and mentally scar my audience, but I would like to leave them with something more than ‘Yeah, that was nice… Whose is next?’