Site specific performance to me is a performance that is built around a specific location. The location we were given was shops in Grantham. We will also be doing our performances at the Gravity Fields festival in Grantham. The festival first came to Grantham in September 2012. The theme of the festival is science due to Isaac Newton being born there.

I decided to join a group about gravity as I felt my knowledge of dance could potentially link with the science of gravity. Isaac Newton’s theory on gravity is, ‘if an apple can fall from a tree why can’t something of a larger mass like the orbit of the moon and earth be due to gravity’. http://csep10.phys.utk.edu/astr161/lect/history/newtongrav.html

We have decided to keep the concept of our performance simple. In our performance there will be a duration of time and exercises. We will be split into three areas, Chelsea and Rory doing lifts, me doing strength exercises and Gemma holding a two litre bottle of water up. The four strength exercises I shall be doing are: the superman, the plank, knee extension and the bridge. Each time we do our exercises we will try to beat our last time. Therefore we will have a stopwatch projected on the wall timing how long we can hold our exercises. Our times will then be put up on a PowerPoint presentation so we can see if the duration of our exercises are increasing or decreasing. The audience will also see the physical effects it will have on us performers. We will also each be lit so the audience will see us clearly.

The aim of our performance is ‘to show how gravity always wins’. With every situation eventually gravity will take place. In our case gravity will deteriorate the muscles sustainability in the body. Gravity affects the human body from our blood flow to our sense of balance. It is actually due to gravity why we have to exercise, ‘when astronauts are in micro-gravity, the muscles of the body that keep the torso up right don’t need to support the weight of the body, so atrophy (shrinking) occurs. This muscle wasting is similar to that which occurs to people on earth when they do not get exercise, such as when they are bed ridden’. http://www.hsc.csu.edu.au/senior_science/options/space/2968/ss993.html

Process
When I started the process of site specific performance I first felt uneasy and strange as I am used to performing in a conventional theatre space. In Erving Goffman’s Presentation of self in everyday life he states, ‘in Ichheiser’s terms, the individual will have to act so that he intentionally or unintentionally expresses himself and the others will in turn have to be impressed in some way by him’. (Goffman, 1959.) He thinks that we perform everyday in our everyday lives and people put on a ‘performance’ particularly in different social situations. For example, you would ‘perform’ differently to a friend as you would to your boss at work. In site specific performance some performers find it strange as they are used to performing in a conventional performance space, usually a theatre. However if we think about performance being an everyday occurrence and something we do constantly it shouldn’t actually feel that strange performing in an unconventional space.

I decided to start the process by researching into the Gravity Fields festival. The festival is inspired by Sir Isaac Newton who is most famous for his law of gravitation. The festival also explores the physical sciences. I also wanted to do this by exploring gravity through performance. The gravity fields festival is also keen on audience participation so we originally wanted our piece to be quite interactive but due to our piece now being extremely physical and having health and safety risks we thought it was best if the audience just watched.

As I knew our performance was going to be about gravity I decided to look into the science behind gravity. ‘Gravity hurts, you can feel it hoisting a loaded back pack or pushing a bike up a hill. Gravity is not just a force, it’s also a signal that tells the body how to act.’ http://science1.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2001/ast02aug_1/ We realised doing something as small as holding a bottle of water or trying to lift someone or hold a position is putting strain on your muscles due to gravity. I decided to try and beat gravity for as long as possible by doing strength exercises. During the performance I will also be balancing in some of my exercises which is also a fight against gravity. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CuYx9mZCQA

As Isaac Newton is the scientist who came from Grantham and inspires the Gravity Fields Festival I decided to look into his law of gravitation. ‘Newtons law of gravitation is F=G x (m1+m2/r2.) The force (F) between two objects is the same as their masses (m1+m2) divided by (r2) the square of the distance between them. G is the gravitational constant. Weight is not the same as mass. Mass is a measure of how much is inside an object. Weight is a force acting on that. Weight is measured in Newtons. Mass is measured in kilograms. The mass of a given object is the same everywhere, but it’s weight can change. Weight is the result of gravity. The gravitational field strength of the earth is 10 Newtons per kilogram. You would weigh less on the moon because the gravitational field strength of the moon is one sixth of that of the earth, but your mass would stay the same.
Weight (N) = mass (kg) x gravitational field strength (N/kg).’
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/science/add_edexcel/motion_forces/forcesrev4.shtml

An original potential title for our performance was An experiment to challenge Newton’s law. Our initial thoughts were to ‘defy’ gravity in our performance. I thought one of the ways we could do this was to use mirrors to trick the audience into thinking we were going against gravity. We could also use our bodies to show attraction which links with gravity, as gravity forces all physical objects to attract to one another. In the end we decided to name our performance Sustain as we are sustaining the positions and we thought the name sounded professional, serious and scientific like our performance.

Through many weeks of over thinking our performance and adding too much to the performance, we decided to strip it back. The main theme of our performance is gravity and we realised something as simple as trying to lift somebody or trying to hold a position for too long is tiring on the muscles and the muscles will slowly start to deteriorate due to gravity. Gravity affects water in our bodies, on earth fluids are being pulled down by gravity and our muscle movement helps to move them back up.

I soon learnt that site specific performance is not acting and that characters are not needed to create a performance. This is similar to Carl Djerassi’s opinion on ‘science in fiction’, he says ‘for me the most important characteristic of science in fiction is that all the science and behaviour of scientists should be impeccably accurate … just because a play contains some allusions or even a few deliberate references to science does not make it science in theatre.’(Djerassi 2002, p.193.) I knew for our performance to look interesting and make an impact that we would have to literally fight against gravity for our piece to be accurate. When doing our exercises we are literally feeling the effect on our muscles and the audience will see the effects. There will be nothing fake about our performance. The audience will also learn about gravity and the human body through our performance like Carl Djerassi suggests ‘people do not pick up a novel or go to the theatre to be educated but to be entertained… but literature should delight the reader at the same time as instructing’. (Djerassi 2002, p.193.) I agree that people go to the theatre to be entertained but that doesn’t mean the audience can’t learn something at the same time even if they don’t realise it at first. I think going to the theatre or watching a performance is one of the best ways to learn because it is exciting to watch and keeps you engaged which is what the Gravity Fields festival tries to achieve.

Half way through he process our site was changed. McAuley states ‘in site-based performance, the site becomes the dominant signifier rather than simply being that which contains the performance, as the theatre building does in traditional theatre practice.’(McAuley 2005, p. 4.) Even though the actual place where we will be doing our performances, is in shops I felt that the actual site for our performance is the Gravity Fields festival and that science could potentially be our site and that it doesn’t have to be a physical space a website is classed as a site but is not a physical space. When our place was changed to the Lincoln Performing Arts Centre I felt the essence of our performance could stay the same due to the Science festival being the actual site. The core of the performance could be put in any room.

We had a lesson on Pilates to physically prepare for the performance and we were going to film this lesson and have it projected in the background of our performance to show pre-performance but we realised it was not needed and was taking away the authenticity of the performance. We also considered having a soundtrack to our performance but we realised that you don’t need conventional music to have a sound or rhythm to our performance. Henri Lefebvre thinks anything can have a rhythm including our bodies, ‘our biological rhythms of sleep, hunger and thirst, excretion and so on are more and more conditioned by the social environment and our working lives. We train ourselves, and are trained, to behave in a number of ways.’ (Lefebvre, 2004.) Even cities can have rhythms for example the traffic lights have a sequence to follow. Noises in a city can be like a musical score. Everybody has their own individual rhythms. The sound of heavy breathing and panting will be heard during our performance due to the physical strain we will be putting on our bodies and these noises could in fact be a musical score.

We were also going to let the audience walk around so they could see the physical effects of our performance up close but we have now decided to have the audience sitting in a conventional space so it is more inviting for the audience. Another challenge we faced was whether to allow ourselves and the audience to talk. We decided to do it in silence as it looks more professional and has a bigger impact and creates tension. We decided the best way to invite the audience into the space was to have chairs set up like an audience, even though this is how it would be done in a conventional theatre space, we felt that the audience would engage with the performance better and a seating area encourages the audience to stay. During our performance we decided to have two people performing at one time and the other two would be timing. As we didn’t need two people timing we decided to have one stood at the door letting audience members in which also encourages them to come in and watch.

The actual performance space we originally wanted to look like a laboratory due to our piece feeling very much like a science experiment. We were going to achieve this by putting up scientific diagrams around the room however unless done professionally it would take away the credibility of the performance. We decided to strip the performance space back like our performance and have a simple set up. We each clearly had our own performance space marked with either a chair, mats or tape. The rest of the room was clear apart from the chairs for the audience and we each had a single spotlight shining on us so the audience could really focus on our bodies during the performance.

Our performance is a durational piece as there is no time limit as we are testing to see how long we can hold the positions and how long we can fight against gravity. We will each have four exercises and once done we will keep repeating the cycle so if the audience wants to they can leave at the end of the cycle. Also when we repeat them we will try to beat the previous time. This will also test if the more you do an exercise, do you get better each time? Or do your muscles start to weaken making your time lessen each time? We also used a bit of pre-performance by showing previously recorded times for our exercises, we did this mainly so we would have a time to beat for our first performance of the day.

Evaluation

We had a lot of audience members show up to our performance. We had nine seats put out for the audience but it was evident that we needed more when some people had to stand up. The feedback from our audience was really positive as they said that they understood that it was about gravity, and because the performance wasn’t very interactive for the audience, they said that it added to the tension of the piece and they were on the edge of their seats thinking ‘is Gemma going to drop the water? Is Kayleigh going to drop her position?’ One audience member suggested that we do get the audience involved by having a guest slide on the PowerPoint presentation and challenging audience members to try and beat your time, obviously this can only be done with some of the exercises for health and safety reasons. This would make the piece more interactive which will be good for the festival as it is a family festival so the children will want to get involved. Something as simple as having a guest slide can change the dynamic of the performance from tense to more exciting and interactive. The tense approach I felt worked for our performance at the Lincoln Performing Arts Centre but the more interactive approach will work better for the festival. This again proves how the site of as performance can change the dynamic.

During the day we as performers started to feel like the performance was becoming repetitive and a bit tedious however the performance would be new to the audience so they wouldn’t get the same feeling plus the more we did the piece the more tired we became which looked effective to the audience. If we did want to change the piece so it didn’t feel so repetitive we could have extended the exercises each time. For example when doing the knee extension I could have my arms out as well so I’m not only having to hold my leg in position but my arms too, making the exercise harder and different to the last time I did it, so if audience members do stay for more than one cycle it becomes less repetitive.

On the day of the performance we were worried that being on the top floor that people wouldn’t find us. We put posters up to try and lead people towards our performance. We could have however used the lift to our advantage by having one of us stood in the lift encouraging people to come up to our performance and we could have used some pre performance in the lift by telling people a bit of what our performance is about. For example we could have read out Newtons theory on gravity to the audience.

I have learnt through engaging with the theory of site specific performance that a performance can excite and educate an audience without having to have the conventional characters and storyline. Site specific performances are best kept simplistic to create a really authentic piece. Space and time are also key components to a site specific performance and the core of a performance can be put in any room and can be adaptable to different places which our performance will be when we take it to the Gravity Fields Festival.

Works Cited
Djerassi, Carl (2002) ‘Contemporary Science in theatre: a rare genre, Interdisciplinary Science reviews, 27 (3) p.193

Goffman, Erving (1959) Presentation of self in everyday life, Doubleday anchor books, Doubleday and company inc. Carden city, New York.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/science/add_edexcel/motion_forces/forcesrev4.shtml (accessed April 15th 2014.)

http://csep10.phys.utk.edu/astr161/lect/history/newtongrav.html ( accessed March 7th 2014)

http://www.hsc.csu.edu.au/senior_science/options/space/2968/ss993.html (Accessed March 7th 2014)

http://science1.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2001/ast02aug_1/ (Accessed April 14th 2014)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CuYx9mZCQA ( accessed April 14th 2014)

Lefebvre, Henri (2004) Rhythmanalysis, space, time and everyday life, ed. Stuart Elden, trans. Gerald Moore.

McAuley, Gay (2005) ‘Site specific performance: place, memory and the creative agency of the spectator,’ The journal of the Sydney University arts association, 27: p.4