fragments of a teddy boy (2012)

7/30/2019 Fragments of a Teddy Boy (2012)

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This booklet aims to reflect upon my compositional strategies in

the making of Fragments of a Teddy Boy.

My composition is cross disciplinary and I borrow strategies from

across art forms. Music, creative writing, map making andstorytelling are blended together in this booklet as a personal

compositional strategy. Bogart & Landau ((2005) suggest the

key to compositional work is to do a lot in little

timewonderful work often emergesfrom our impulses, our

dreams, our emotions.(138)

As an artist who creates work based on storytelling and anecdotalexperience my practice seemed to blend perfectly with the

process of developing fragments of material. The fragments are

joined through the connective tissue of self despite them being

created impulsively. The fragments can be read inter-relationally,

as they have all developed from related stimuli, or they can be

read alone. It is important to remember whilst reading this

booklet that the artist, by definition is someone who works in anexpressive idiom, rather than a cognitive one, and for whom the

great project is an extension or development (Schon: 1983)

Fragments are the fragments of the memory, my memory, her

memory, his memory, your memory, fragments of biography and

of autobiography. They are fragments that I want to be whole yet

the pieces dont quite fit, bits are missing.

Fragments of a Teddy Boy is a reflection on memory which all

began with a loss in my family. This happening in my personal

life triggered a visual memory which kept playing over and over,

in my mind, like a tape recording on repeat


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Music

The C.D is

the instrumental version of the song Running Bear Loved Little

White Dove.


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The song played over and over like a tape recording on repeat in

my visual memory. The song became the heartbeat to the

performance and played a vital part in the process, in both

composing material and generating material. The repetitive

agenda stayed with me from the beginning to the end, becoming acompositional strategy in itself. Lone Twin discuss how music is

often integral to their performances and central to their

storytelling practice. They explain how they associate songs with

trying to feel at home and seeking the familiar in an unfamiliar

place. We often associate particular songs to particular memories

of experiences in such that every time we hear that song we are

reminded of that particular experience. (see Williams & Lavery:

2011) Anne Bogart identifies a slight dilemma in her viewpoints

which I can relate to as part of my process using music How

long, How short do you leave a piece of music? When do you

change and in response to what? (Bogart: 2005: 102) Early in the

process I considered removing the backing track completely from

the performance but decided it was either all or nothing. When Iremoved the music there was a flat feeling to the performance,

something was missing. The song in practice seemed to set a

particular tone and tempo and this restricted the rhythm of the

performance. Performing alongside a constant, repetitive

instrumental felt like being stuck in a rut, there were no highs and

lows in the performance, it was all on the same level. Toward the

end of the process I decided to use the song alongside every newfragment of information (see repetition) in order to mirror my

material generating processes. As emphasised by Donald Schon

(1983) these decisions are difficult to reflect upon he (the

practitioner) is dependent on tacit recognitions, judgements and

skilful performances. (1983: 50)


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It is often difficult to discuss my compositional practice as it is an

embodied knowledge, a knowing from doing and often my

reasoning behind certain decision making is difficult to articulate,

it is just a feeling, a knowing I cannot describe.

As part of the process I began experimenting with the

compositional structure of the song in order to structure my

material. Some of these influences still reflect in the overall

compositional structure of the performance. (Introduction, verse,

bridge, chorus, verse bridge chorus, verse, bridge, chorus, finale)

The song is similar in terms of structure to a story and the song

tells a whole story of its own.

The story that the song tells made an impact on the compositional

strategies at play in the performance. It is the story of two star-

crossed lovers, a real Romeo and Juliet story. The story ends

when the pair drown in a river in their efforts to be together. (see

distortion) The fish bowl, which came into play initially through

automatic writing, aimed to substitute the rhythm of the songwhich I removed away from this fragment. As a strategy this was

difficult to sustain and could have been polished more in the

rehearsal process. As a non-musical individual it was difficult to

sustain the rhythm of the song and continue telling the story at

the same time. The compositional element explored through the

fish bowl could be further explored, the bowl made some

beautiful sounds as an instrument..In reflection I would like to

use the song as a literal heartbeat (particularly in the Elvis

Station) and have it decreasing as the fragments progress,

reflecting the story of Running Bear and Little White Dove, but

also the nature of the personal stories I am sharing (my initial

starting points reflected death and loss.)


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Distortion

I would like to

tell you a story.

It is the story oftwo star-

crossed lovers.

A real Romeo

and Juliet

story.

Distortion as a compositional strategy is discussed by SimonWaters in his article Living Without Boundaries.(1994) in the

section entitled Maskinghe suggests the essence of masking is

therefore that something is concealed, but that it is still present,

and that its presence is somehow sensed, despite the intrusion of

the second (masking) element. In line with Waters discussion the

story became the concealed element whilst the fish bowl filled

the role of the masking element. The story became distorted as itwas told underwater.

The story of the song is the story of two star-crossed lovers, a

real Romeo and Juliet story. The story ends when the pair drown

in a river in their efforts to be together.

My head submerged in the water aimed to reflect the star crossedlovers fate and their experiences of the water which was keeping

them apart.

As their hands touched and their lips met the raging river pulled

them down. Now they will always be together in their happy

hunting ground.


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I have begun to think of the distortion evident in memory and

how stories are changed over a course of generation. The stories

are subject to multiple translations, memory storage and,

repetitive telling and are filtered through beliefs, behaviours and

ideals. In this light the telling of the story through distortionreflects modes of storytelling in that each time a story is told it is

tampered with and parts are lost, leaving only a small fragment of

the story. The story is based on layers and layers of trace and

becomes about what is left rather than what is lost as Pollock

adds Liveness means articulating the multiple layers of

translations and draft that make up (for) memory (Pollock:

2005:11) Initially when I began this it was the chorus of the story

which was on repeat in my mind, I have filled in my memory

gaps but the distortion through the fish bowl reflects these gaps.

I was particularly conscious of the storytelling in a fishbowl and

as a performer this strategy was a challenge as I was unable to see

the audience reactions and responses. This made it hard to judge

the impact of the storytelling process. As a performer I can

normally intuitively sense the success of individual strategies

through the reaction of the audience. With my head in a fishbowl

there was no awareness of my surroundings and it became

difficult to measure the impact of the fragment. I did experiment

with holding the fish bowl rather than placing it on the floor to

make it more visible; however this was un-practical the fishbowl was too heavy. Additionally I experimented with my feet in

the fish bowl in line with the personal anecdote One toe goes in

the fish tank. However the mode of distortion supported both

the cognitive nature of memory and the story of the song.


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Repetition

Repetition as a compositional strategy seemed unavoidable when

developing these fragments. Firstly the process began with an

experience which played over and over in my head. Secondly theinfluence of the concept of habitus as a repetative matrix of

perceptions (Bourdieu: 1968: xx) transposed through the

multigenerational line. Thirdly the nature of storytelling, we tell

and re-tell episodes both minor and major to colleagues, loved

ones, therapist and priests, strangers on the train, a wedding

guest. (Bolton: 2010: 7) Finally the influence the repetative

nature, attached to the rehearsal/ compositional process, has onthe development of ideas. Professional practice also includes an

element of repetition. A professional practitoner is a specialist

who encounters certain types of situations again and again. (60)

I hoped that the repetetive nature would become familiar with the

audience in order to set the scene/ repaint the picture in the build

up to new snippets of information (see accumilation.) as Goulashidentifies What we call learning may arise through repetition

(2000:37) I hoped repetition would enable audience members to

remember specific parts of the story, the parts of the story that are

repeated are essentially the backbones to the performance. The

bits that are solid memories.

I have always been a little weary of repetition in performance andmy composition is not solely repetative. A slight change in the

narrative is added each time reflecting Mcgowans statement

Everytime we remember, it seems, we add new details, shade the

facts, prune and tweak. Without realising it, we continually

rewrite the stories of our lives. (Mcgowan: 2009)


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Repetition also challenges the material as a process strategy.

Repeating and repeating material allows me to recognise the

habits, restrictions and familiarities that re-occur through the

practice and material. The music also reflects the looping of these

stations and as Waters interprets the loop has much to do withnarrative, acting as an essential component of memory and recall

(Waters: 2004: 88) Accumulation reflects narrative structures and

as Waters adds can be used to great effect in combination with

fragmentation . The following is a map of an accumilation

process evident in the composition.

Repetition is discussed by Freud in his discussion of the death

drive. Repetition helps aid our experiences and memories of the

world in which we live and is a strategy evident in the storage of

memory and memory retrieval. What appears to be reality is in

fact only a reflection of a forgotton past. (Freud: 1920: 19) We

constantly repeat experience, we educate ourselves particularlythrough repetative modes of behaviour Repetition as a

compositional strategy aims to give the audience an embodied

version which can then be subject to multiple layers of further

translations. T

2,3,4

Elvis Accumilation

Sideburns,

glasses,

wig.

I am not Elvis, he was

not Elvis.

1, 2,3,4

The chorus

on repeat.

3,4

Elvis movement

iconography.

4

The story of

the visual

image .


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Mapping

Mapmaking

fulfils one of

our deepestdesires:

understanding

the world

around us and

our place in it

(Harmon: 2004

1)

I often map my

work and

material as part

of my

compositional

process. A mapbecomes part of

a story to be

created and

enactedit

becomes a

subjective

imagining

instead of an

objective tool

(Perkins: 2003: 6) Mapping can be seen as a strategy to compose,

a strategy to edit and a strategy to document. As Waters

emphasises mapping as involving the making of diagrammatic

Created on 02 02 2012


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or symbolic representation of a route or journey. This sense

allows mapping to become a form of trace leaving or

documentation in itself, or to function as a stimulus for more

metaphorical interpretation. (Waters: 2004: 87)

Mapping forms an overseeing position in order to fragment re-

organise and play with the stations and material practically This

particular map demonstrates images, actions, ideas and texts

halfway through the process of developing Fragments of a

Teddy Boy.

The performance space is split into three, mirroring the stationsevident in the work. Some ideas, text, images objects,

movements overlap and these are the materials I am undecided

on categorising. Reading diagonally the material divided in each

station defines how the material currently exists alongside the

other material. (e.g. fishbowl, coughing, a flask of peppermint

tea) Some of the materials are developed at this stage, some are

not.

Mapping as a compositional strategy and research methodology

is widely discussed as a process in social sciences and history and

there is much discourse centred on maps as related to lived

experience. Maps of my practice include cognitive maps or mind

maps, geographical maps, spatial maps and material maps. I map

for multiple reasons, to push my composition forwards, togenerate ideas, to visually define the composition in written form

and to understand. Mapping is a process, it is a composition, I

could give it to someone else to perform, It is a way of

interweaving material, of interweaving stories, it is overlooking,

it is reflecting, it is constant editing, it is playing, it is breaking up


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the pieces and putting them back together again, a compositional

jigsaw. My journey with material can be documented through

these maps and each map is a separate composition in itself.

Stations are also another compositional strategy I favour in thatthey allow me to incorporate multiple fragmented narratives in

my work.

This idea of stations as a compositional strategy was introduced

in the first weekend after bringing to the table four separate

pieces of material, (two stories about my life, an automatic

writing text, a flask, and a text borrowed from Scar Tissue byGrewel.) I improvised with the material using stations. Changing

the shape, size and placement of the stations allowed a lens to

challenge the material. Stations are also realised through mapping

strategies and the pair are interdisciplinary in my compositional

process. For the purpose of discussing stations I am going to

continue my discussion on mapping as a compositional strategy.

The following are a series of simple station maps which recordmultiple compositional ideas for placing initial material into

space.

Station1

Auto-writing.

Flask as an

interruption

Station2

Recital of Scar tissue

autobiographical female

perspective A 21 year old

woman discusses the abuse she

has suffered at the hands of her

partner.

Station3 Two stories

of my life. An Elvis

lookalike singing

running bear on

Karaoke.

1 2

3

1

2

331

2

Created 03/10/2011


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This method of composing material allowed a lens for me to

explore material, edit material, construct new material and blend

existing material

There are several narratives at play throughout the performancebut they are fragmented through the composition of the stations.

The following is a map of my final stations and a breakdown of

the material.

1.

1.My visual window

Who he was.

Who he became.

The life of the King.

How it is.

The zooming man

Interrupted by the Story of

Running Bear and Little White

Dove distorted by the water. And

the creation of the raging river.

2.

2.Chorus.

Elvis. I am not Elvis.

Iconography

The story of the story.

Memory Fragment Hard Bastard.

Memory Fragment Ibiza.

Memory fragment lobster

Memory fragment dual carriageway.

3.

4.

3. When I was an

egg.

4. List of inheritance. (intro)

Teddy how she became.

Interruption Christmas time

Teddy how she is


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The station maps I created on the previous pages are a way of not only

experimenting with my material and layout of stage space but also a

way of collectively documenting and placing the stories of the

performance space. I aim for the maps to provide a graphic stance on

my performance but also to communicate my performance to an

outsider. Mapping is certainly a process I would like to explore further

in that there are many other maps I can develop in regards to memory

and storytelling. There is much more to be said about mapping as a

process, as an experience, as a cognitive process, as a document (of

both memory and event), as a composition and as a space.

Mapping binds my arts compositional practice to scientific practice

and to geographical practice. The relationship between the social

sciences and mapping is of particular interest to future projects and

perhaps can be implemented in other areas of my practice. How can I

develop ways of mapping? How can I measure my results differently as

a process? How can I map stories in different ways?


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Moving forwards

with mapping it is

important to note

Jake Bartons works

Barton exploresmaps as a collective

storytelling

memory. In the

work spectators are

asked to enter a

tunnel like

structure andattach a memory to the place on the map where it occurred. As a

compositional strategy the spatial and geographical areas of mapping

can be explored further as a personal compositional strategy

alongside the concept and material structuring maps presented in this

booklet. How do collective multigenerational histories and stories sit

on a geographical map. What shapes, patterns, lines (if any) do they

encounter? And how, then, can these reflect in final performance

structures?

Images from Winter: 2006)


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TEXT

Here are 26 letters ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWQYZ Now write a

text for performance. (Etchells: 1999)

01/10/11 A method for generating automatic texts (exercise with

Claire Hind)

1) Face a wall.

2) Talk non-stop even if it is repetitive, do not stop talking, if it

helps imagine an open window. Talk for five minutes.

3) Jot down anything you remember from talking

The following is a fragment of the response.

AAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

An old man on a mobility scooter zooms by the window.

IT MEANS GOING FAST.

He is wearing breathing apparatus and there are wires

coming out everywhere.

There is an elderly lady holding a stack of paper. She

looks exhausted. Ash hangs to the ceiling.

And I am stuck on a supermarket slide.

And my shoes are missing

And my feet hurt.


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These methods for composing material sit alongside Dadaist notions of

developing discourse. write quickly, without any pre-conceived

subject, fast enough so you will not remember what youre writing and

be tempted to re-read what you have written. (Breton quoted in

Meizer: 1994: 168) The text on the previous page was developedthrough a series on rinses and re-writes and elements of the initial text

sit in the final performance of Fragments of a Teddy boy. The text is a

complex collage of perspectives on people, experiences and self. And

although generated impulsively still can be related to experiences of

self as Butler argues There is no I that can stand apart from the social

conditions of its emergence. I began to relate this text to my own

recent experiences in line with the material I had already composed.The stations began to connect via the connective tissue of recent self-

related experiences.

The thought process for generating text around improvisation

techniques is problematic in linguistic articulation. Etchells(1999)

discusses this language as not concerned with linguistics and discourse

but with the event, in that the speaking of an improvised text bringsabout different textures which are important to the final outcome of

the performance text such as thought, repetition, self-correction,

hesitation and so on These elements are evident in the initial

automatic composition as I consider the ways in which the text is

documented alongside the way in which the text is spoken. This is

articulated in the score of the automatic writing through the way I use

different fonts, bold lettering and so on.

I use language in my performance as a way of painting a picture and

entering the audience into a mimetic contract (Culler: 1975: 193).

The final performance text, circulated through repetition, was a way

for spectators to re-imagine and re-imagine, through Barthes notions

on the realism effect, the scenario I was painting with language.


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OBJECTS

A Teddy bear,

seemingly un-precious

its innards spilling

out, A handwritten

list with no meaning,

A Visual image

playing over and over

like a tape recording

on repeat, A mirror

and brush filled withprecious few tangled

hair, A bible scribbled

with crayon. A

porcelain doll neat in

her box, A

photograph hanging

on the wall, Aninsubstantial chair

empty.

Memories will begin to surface as you go away to hunt through

treasured belongings and personal memorabilia. Says Elaine

Aston she goes on to discuss memory props as ways of getting

started on autobiographical performance projects and listsclothing, childhood toys, popular songs, childrens books and

teenage magazines, images of icons and family photographs as

examples of these aids. (Aston:1999: 102)


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I began bringing objects into my work initially as an

improvisation tool and this process stuck as a development tool.

The initial objects were the teddy bear (used in the final

fragments) a statue of a fairy and some string. I was also toying

with the idea of objects as associated with people, such as

inherited items or gifts and used this notion to develop stories

based upon personal histories and stories.

Similarities in this method can be highlighted in Walter

Benjamins discussions on childs play theory in which he

suggests a process of bringing oddly found materials into play to

be creative with such as a web of stories. And my web of

stories in relation to the objects can be seen below in the form

of a mind map. The many stories associated with the objects

could form many more performance fragments.

Created on 24/11/2011


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Developing Movement.

My strategy for composing material normally associates itself

with the transference of the somatic into the semantic and in

order to develop movement sections for the performance Ireversed this strategy. Beginning with a list of ten words

(semantic) I sought to develop embodied movement sequences

(somatic) realising the linguistic word. I then recorded and

monitored movement sequences by placing myself in a

witnessing position and using automatic writing as a textual

document. The first and final results of this strategy can be seen

below as a textual record.

Ten Action Words - 14/11/2011 - Knotting. Crumpling.

Forgiving. Arguing. Persevering. Zooming. Paddling. Breaking.

Neglecting. Leaving.

A Movement Based Response to the Sematic with the Somatic -

Backward fast, left arm signal wave. FSR - BSR. - Right leg wrap

round left leg, arms stretch to touch floor (balance lost) BSR. -

Sprint fast diagonally, chest jump up. BSR - FSL. - Bang hard

attempting a conversation with the floor, monkey like. FSL - Fall

to CS. - Attempt floor star sideways. Stand turn to side, lift left

leg, point foot, place to floor, lift right leg, point foot, place to

floor, repeat. CS. stand, mimic 'oar sequence.

A Dialogic Response to Movement- Reversing like a ticking clock

tick tock tick tock. Vines entwining, ducking below. A breaking

free from all thats pulling down. Banging like an ape, melodic,


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rhythmic. Scared to dip a toe in the

water in the fishtank and fight with a

sword.

A Final text - 30/4/2012 She ageingbeside a ticking clock tick tock tick tock

vines entwine and she struggles against

balance. Scared to go near the fist tank

in case she is reminded

Movement material was later

developed through research into the

1950s teddy boy culture, rock and roll

dancing, observations of Elvis and

personal observations and memories.

These movement sequences sit

alongside the teddy boy image. The movements throughout the

process have mainly been stylised, restrained, gesturalmovements which lend themselves to the performances of Meg

Stuart. The development of movement sequence particularly

borrows from dance choreography.

Many of these ideas realised themselves in the second weekend

with Beth Cassani. Instrumental in this weekend was automatic

writing responses to fellow artists work. The responses aided a

moving forward compositionally. The following text

demonstrates a dialogic (Bakhtin) response relational to the

initial performance movement work.


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The smell of burnt mince, running bear goes on for a long time, like

the chocolate game, confetti becomes something, a shape a word.

(Response by Holly Johnson)

A story generally speaking has a gist, something that the whole

story is about and I can relate my gist to the visual image, the

visual image and sound of a man who I didnt meet till four years

later, singing in the pub on the Karaoke. It is a story of him

through my eyes.

A story generally speaking is a linear structure, something

constructed with a clear beginning, middle and end with highsand lows in-between. (see diagram) Although my practice, I

would say, lends itself to this form the straight line seen in the

diagram is broken, the lines do not quite join up. I tend to leave

gaps as a performance strategy in order for them to be filled by

the spectators. I fragment the telling of my stories so that they

are never read with certainty and so that they they reflect thenature of memory, I can not remember everything!

The fragmented methodology challenges the general structure

of a story and lends itself more leniently to storytelling through

the form of a diary. But I did generate some of the text with the

structure of a story in mind,

a beginning and middle witha climax before the end.

(see story structure map

http://www.musik-

therapie.at/PederHill/images


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/Struct1.gif)

How he was, the beginning. A fully fledged ted thick ginger sidies

way passed each ear an original teen rebel. Combining strands of

hair the comb is used on a regular basis like a routine the rightside is combed first, the results an overblown quiff with a ducks

arse at the back.

How I remember him, the middle. A chorus of swear words, a

love for a dog, a ropey cough, an arm in a bandage, you better

have plenty of food in he is coming to eat you out of house and

home. How ironic.

How it is now, the end. Everything as it was nothing moved

museum like, nicotine hangs from the ceiling and the ashtray

overflows with an essence of nicotine hunger the chair is empty

and everything is silent, eerily silent.

The story as a whole is fragmented as part of a

particular station, and a different part of it is

told each time the station is entered.

The telling of multiple short stories, or

fragments of stories in line with memory

amnesia lend themselves to the compositional

structure of the performance, in that fragments

of stories are told, broken up, mixed back

together and split across four separate stations.

I would estimate that there are around 40

fragments of anecdotes from different times,


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perspectives and settings evident in the performance Fragments

of a Teddy Boy. However I would suggest truth is a

compositional strategy at play in the development of my work.

The stories I tell are to the best of my knowledge the truth and

up until now I have stuck to the strategy. Perhaps it is time to

break this familiarity, to twist the truth, to manipulate the

autobiography, after all oral strategies are made problematic by

the influence of self- perception, the nature of storytelling

(Chinese whispers), and memory storage. So what truth are they

anyway?


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Collaboration 03/03/2012 - 30/04/2012

Whilst working as part of an ensemble I used my collaborators in

order to further open up the qualities of my objects. (see phase 1)

The objects at this stage included Elvis accessories, 12 eggs, afish-bowl, a mirror and brush, a flask, a teddy bear and a ball of

wool. Because I had been devising with these objects for a long

period of time, and because the objects were all of significance

personally, I began to believe that they were over-coded or as

Barthes puts it readerly. In order to open these objects up to

further meaning I devised a workshop with prime focus on

improvisation with the objects in order to open them up further tointerpretation or as Barthes put it writerly. The group helped

open up my imagination to the possibilities of the objects through

the development of a three minute performance piece using the

objects as stimuli. The results are as follows

The Fish Bowl The pair focused on the sounds you can develop

using a fish bowl. Their three minute piece was a soundcomposition using the fish bowl as an instrument.

The Teddy- The pair focused on childhood and childhood games

you can play with the teddy bear, using a common skipping game

in which the bear became the rope. This could have been added to

the ensemble piece alongside the string on the floor. There was


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also a quite sinister approach added through personal stories of

their childhood innocence. Every night I made sure I kissed

every bear, if I thought one had more kisses than the other I had

to start again and felt terribly guilty afterwards They take it in

turns to sleep with me. (Clare Henderson: 2012)

The Eggs The final pair focused on many connotations of an

egg, through the individual identities of each of the eggs raising

the debate surrounding stereotypes through clever language play.

Elements of these mini

performances realised themselvesin my final fragments and many of

the other ideas such as the

identities of the eggs were

experimented with personally. I

played around with the identities

of the eggs and decorated them in

line with a different identity andupon reflection I realised they

were no longer eggs and by giving

them identities they were no longer

serving their purpose as eggs; When I was an egg, When I was an

egg, When I was an egg. The decorated eggs also have too many

connotations with Easter. Even decorating eggs reminded me of

stories which are untold

Every Easter my school held the decorated egg competition and

every year me and my Nan would decorate eggs to try and win

the Easter egg prize. We decorated a bunny (which might I add

won.), Santa stuck up a chimney and Elvis. We also decorated


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some for fun after being inspired by a craft magazine, these were

ornate eggs.

Working as part of a larger group allowed me to sit as part of a

circle which as a solo artist I have missed. It made me feel like Iwas in the right place for sharing stories as oppose to on my own

trying to recall memories. Describing the knowing in action

(Schon: 1983) evident in the collaborative process is easier than

defining my own practice I think this is partly because I stood in

the role of dramaturge orchestrating and developing form and

compositional strategy whilst also directing and assisting in the

writing of. The reflective position this role placed me in allowsme to write more at ease about the process. The compositional

process has already been shared.

The Process Plan.

Phase 1) Introduction to my materials, objects and concepts.

In pairs engage with the object and develop a three minute

composition based around the object as Stimuli (collaboration

and objects.)

Phase 2) Develop an automatic writing text whilst listening to

an instrumental (Running Bear loved Little White Dove

(karaoke version by Johnny Preston.))

Phase 3) Develop an automatic writing text whilst observing

the sound wave document (Running Bear loved Little White

Dove (karaoke version by Johnny Preston.))


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Phase 4) Group improvisation incorporating phases 1,2 & 3

with an on/off space for discussion.

Phase 5) Adding Rules to the improvisation

Performers can only move in a certain way. Performers have to follow a specific floor plan. Play the game Grandmothers footsteps as part of

the improvisation.

Only one person is allowed to speak at a time.Phase 6) Write a story about your own life (this could be

anything such as what you did yesterday.)

Phase 7) Replace engagement with my materials with

collaborators autobiographical texts and materials.

Phase 8) Map each individual journey (reflection of sound wave)

with a different coloured string. (aesthetic)


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Phase 9) Direct, map, organize and rehearse materials and form.

The Sound wave as a

Compositional Strategy

Lines, Lines, Lines Up Lines

Down lines All around lines

Actually, no all around lines Only

up lines And down lines My line

Your line Our line Our family line

Our washing line Youre a line Ya


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mas a line Your mas my ma ya

stupid line Sound line Little bit

blurred line Stop it line, youre

making no sense You never make

any sense you stupid line Mum, hecalled me a line Sam, stop calling

your sister a line (Automatic

writing text in response to the

sound wave by Clare Henderson)

The sound wave became instrumental in the collaborative

compositional strategy. It provided a basis for the composing of

text, a way of moving through the space and reflected as a floor

pattern highlighted by the multiple layers of string. The floor

pattern works as topography, a way of visibly recording ones

movement through the space. This way of moving developed

from workshop sessions surrounding the sound wave as a stimulifor generating automatic writing text. The performance,

documented in map form, has similarities with Samuel Becketts

documentation of Quad however the actual pattern cannot be

pre-determined as there is an element of chance and

unpredictability in the collaborative performance.

Chance elements are added through the structuring of theperformance as a game of Grandmothers footsteps.

Grandmothers Footsteps as a compositional strategy developed

after being involved in workshop sessions playing with the

mathematical concept of Pi as a compositional strategy (Claire

Hind). As part of my practice led research I have been focusing


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on theories of habitus as a multigenerational disposition of

thinking, feeling and behaving; the idea that we follow in the

footsteps of our ancestors. Grandmothers footsteps was a strategy

for reflecting these ideas. Initially I added Grandmothers

footsteps as an improvisational rule (phase 5). Come with me mylittle innocents, theres a game that we can play. See how much

we can change your world whilst you look the other way. I have

been toying with following in the footsteps of my own mother

line and the idea of Grandmothers footsteps seemed to

compliment the stories that the group shared. Each individual

brought differing creativities conceptually and the challenge was

in making them sit together as part of the same fragment.

One collaborator in particular shared his autobiographical

experience of the violin. (phase6) He described his hatred for the

object, how useless he was with it and the awkwardness of it

underneath his chin. The particular story he shared told of the

first time he played for his parents after dinner, how nervous he

was, how he spent time shuffling the papers and how he played it

that dreadfully his dad left. I took the visual imagery from this

autobiography and realised it in the collaborative fragment with

the violinist in the role of Grandmother.

In reflection there was so much more that could be done with this

collaborative piece and it is something I am interested in re-

visiting in the future. I think I should have placed more faith in

the capabilities of my collaborators and incorporated more of the

texts that we generated in the workshop process. The decision to

use Grandmothers Footsteps as a compositional strategy added

comedic values to the performance and the girls sneaking behind

a crazy violinist and freezing when he turned around certainly


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added to the humour. I dont think I realised its humorous content

until the performance and this could have further potential to play

a more integral part to the fragment. In saying this, the

performers did increase their performance levels in the final

performance, this poses the question to myself in the role ofdramaturge how do I push my collaborators to work at

performance level in the rehearsal process?

The violinist sat in contrast to the girls whose movements in the

background were slower. The string under the lights omitted an

aesthetic glow which made the routes more prominent in the

space and the darker lit areas in the middle provided a void spacebetween the girls and the violinist.

The gender positions, the male as grandmother orchestrating

three females, is something I didnt think much about in the

process (there was another male initially involved in the process

as a sneaker.) However it became prominent in my witnessing of

the performance. The male appeared to be orchestrating thefemales but was not in full control over them and perhaps this is

something I could play with more as part of the compositional

ensemble process.


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fragments of a teddy boy (2012)

Documents