“All of time and space; everywhere and anywhere; every star that ever was. Where do you want to start?” (Matt Smith, BBC, 2010)

The idea that Site specific performance relies primarily on that which is around us is what makes it important. Take a chair, for example, alone in an empty room. The site specific performance will come from the emptiness of the room and the solidarity of the chair. Perhaps a monologue told from someone sat in the chair about their life, they sit on their own in the centre as their words and memories fill the space around them. On another side of the coin, a performance taking place in the a food court of a popular shopping centre will have a busy, crowded and food related feeling.
You can take “Everywhere and anywhere” and turn it into a performance space and that’s what is fascinating. What’s even more fascinating is time, and how that comes into play on what the outcome of the performance would be. Take the room with the chair, for example, give it a few years that room might become something completely different. But you may still choose to do the play about the empty room, jarring the audience as it’s a clash of what is there now and what once was. I think the most interesting performance would be in a building’s ruins about what it used to be.

I find site performances about the places they are actually in most fascinating.
And that’s why I don’t like doing Grantham.

The Grantham task started out being ‘have some empty shops, but think about science too’ which was fascinating, and relevant, and I could understand, but slowly it’s become just about the science. I don’t get how it’s site specific any more. Our group has tried our best to stay on the shop idea with the science, as this is what site specific is about. I get that the ‘site’ is the whole of Grantham and it’s history, but I feel ignoring the rich setting of empty shops is a bit of a let down, as there was so much potential and I’m assuming these shops will not be available for next year’s students.
There were talk of shop mannequins, and mirrors with vanity, and performances watched through shop windows and these seemed fantastic. Where did they go?
It’s just a shame, but I hope our group’s Human.Inc will at least be able to attempt to encompass both shop and science successfully.

Matt Smith, BBC (actor) (2010) Doctor Who Season 5 [trailer] Available from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpbmMhNe6aA [Accessed 22 March 2014]