I've been thinking about postcards ever since Louise posted her amazing pics. I think it would be great to make use of this tourist object in our performance.
My idea is that we buy a lot of postcards when we get to NOLA. On our working days (Thursday and Friday morning), I think it would be really great if we went out and asked people - New Orleanians and tourists alike - to write on the postcards - just a sentence or two describing the city, telling what they want the rest of the nation to hear/know about New Orleans, where they see the city in 10 years, etc. We can each fill out one as well and perhaps pull information from some of our research. The postcard writers could sign their postcards (probably first names only, maybe with their home city if they are tourists) or leave them anonymous. My thought is that at one of our installation sites, we could distribute these to the ATHE audience. In fact, perhaps one of the sites could be a "tourist shop" in which we comment on the tourist trade in NOLA (I'm sure we could fill it out with lots of knick-knacks that one finds in NOLA, or perhaps even bring some of our own tourist objects from NOLA that we may have found elsewhere (I have an offensive Mammy magnet, for example)). How do these images/objects construct an understanding of NOLA, and how might the text (of both the peerformance script and the postcard messages) subvert or resist that understanding?
Thoughts?
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Karen - I was thinking along these lines as well. Kind of like using the postcard in place of a program. Couple of thoughts in response.
1) NOCVB (New Orleans Convention and Visitors Bureau) has promotional items available for purchase/request. This includes four different types of NO postcards: culture, family, food, music. They're only $.10 each, so it might be cheaper than buying full price postcards from other stands/stores. This is something that we could buy in advance, or maybe order and pick up when we're there. Check out their website:
http://www.neworleanscvb.com/crm/index.cfm/action/viewform/formID/29/sectionID/2/subsectionID/111
2) I do like the idea of using a combination of contemporary and vintage postcards. However, we obviously won't be able to get our hands on as many of the vintage variety. But we could create our own postcards - i.e. scan the vintage images, put them on card stock, cut them out, and use them as postcards. I'm guessing this might create some copyright issues?
3) I also thought it could be interesting to use images from the aftermath of Katrina to create our own postcards. Something kind of disconcerting, combining a traditional postcard message with an untraditional postcard image. Like an image of the 9th Ward under water, with writing on the back that says "Wish you were here!" Or the opposite. A traditional postcard image with an untraditional message - say a postcard of a beautiful, historic home, with a quote from a displaced hurricane victim. But again, what images would we use so as not to worry about copyright issues?
Thoughts???
Also, I wonder if it would be nice to link up the "stops" on the tour with the "postcards" that will be distributed. Say, if we want the St. Louis cathedral to be one of the stops, would we like to use a postcard of it at that stop? Or should it just be a random variety?
I love the idea of using the postcards in our performances. Postcards capture a particular location--though always in a skewed/limited way. And using postcards nicely supports the plan of having locations organize our series of installations.
Postcards are also so much about projecting an image of a city or place (sometimes accurate, sometimes false). Louise--it is great that you found postcards on the convention and visitors bureau site AND that they not only have postcards promoting an image of the city, BUT they also categorize them into four themes that they want to emphasize. Certainly the Food and Music of NO have longstanding worldwide reputations reaching back a couple hundred years...
I love the idea of examining (and exposing to critique) the way that those in the tourist industry choose to present the city to the outside world, both in the past and now.
I also love the idea of involving people in our performance; both those we encounter in NO (by asking them to write on the postcards) and those who come to our installations/performances (by reading the reflections).
I wonder if we can skirt the copyright issues by crediting where the images came from? Plus this is for an academic/educational event, so I believe copyright laws are a bit less stringent in such cases.
I'm all for making our own postcards in addition to the ones we can obtain from the NOCVB. I'll look into purchasing those cards in advance of the conference.
I love the postcard idea. Maybe we can have the images in the powerpoint slide show as well as some of the handwritten messages?
I'm not sure how many people to expect at the performance and how many we could actually physically take through a performative installation. If we're just going to be in a big square conference room, we might think of the installation as being three/four set pieces that the performance interacts with/moves between (pageant plays without the cart)? Otherwise I wonder if the installation can be more of a lobby display that the audience interacts with and highlights what the performance deals with.
Thoughts?
I think we can plan on a large crowd for this event, as it is taking place instead of a the big speaker (e.g. Moises Kaufman) of past years. Plus, because all of the FGs are participating (at least I think all of them are - there are 15 participating FGs), we should expect the majority of conference attendees to be at this event. My thought is to give every attendee a sheet of colored paper to divide them into groups quickly and easily. We could then do the prologue to the whole conference, split into groups to hit the stops, and rejoin for the closing. I'm not married to this, of course, it's just what I thought would be quick and efficient.
I agree that the postcards are a great way to organize our event and to also really identify the "stops" along the way. I think we will be fine with copyright as long as we give credit. The nice thing about having bunches of postcards both to organize and distribute is that those participating in the event will come away with "memorabilia" that will both define (and if we follow the great suggestion to have untraditional cards) this will hopefully prompt a complicated remembrance of the piece.
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