How We Work With Space

Last time we met we began by imagining the space we were walking into when we entered the stage. This time we sat in the audience and thought about the qualities of the space we were conjuring. There were key questions we asked in order to consider this:

What are the rules that govern this space? Are they different from the rules that govern our everyday lives?

What is possible in this space that isn't possible anywhere else?

What demands does this space make upon us?

What do we have to leave behind in order to enter this space?

Why do we seek out this space?

Who is the spectator in this space?

Having posed these questions we then laid out chairs in different audience configurations. We wanted to find out what our relationship would be to the spectator, and this helped us to determine the audience/performer dynamic we would play with in this piece.

We then put objects we had been working with into the space to see how they sat within the context that was developing. Now we were able to start making decisions about what belonged in the space and what didn't. The hostess trolley which had featured quite strongly over the past two rehearsals was unceremoniously ousted, however the fairy-cakes remained. It's a great moment when you start 'knowing' things like this! A period chair asserted itself for the first time and was terrifically helpful in the development of the work over the next two days, and some objects 'hung on in there' with the proviso that they might not make it through too many more rehearsals - such as the old gramaphone records.

We stood back and looked at what we had made; it had a solidity quite in contrast to the abject ephemeral quality of our last piece, and it stretched the imagination temporally as well as spatially. The battered old trunk, covered in labels raised questions as to the journey which had brought it here; the 1950s suit and sunglasses referenced film images quite distinctly. We talked about the space and its potential until we felt compelled to enter it - there was a game afoot, now, and once we had smelt it out we wanted to embody the potential we had created.