Great questions, Karen, ones I've been pondering myself! We don't know what the room is going to look like, how many people will be there, what the other groups will be setting up and how we'll be able to maneuver in the space. This has me worried about taking people on an actual physical tour of the performance.
I'm sorry to be the voice of dissent here, but I've never been on a tour-guided performance that was interesting or that really worked. I think the main reason I haven't liked them is because the idea works practically but there's seldom little more thought that goes into the meaning making part of this role. Do you know what I mean? I worry too, that we're starting to put in stone things that the performance group (Which of you are taking this on?) should really be brainstorming about and researching.
As far as working on the installation goes (Which of you are working on that with me?), I'd like to have some space between installation and set. I'd like to have a separate area where the audience can engage with our research (in the form of an installation) in their own time, in their own way, as they're milling in, during break, whatever... That said, I also think it would be nice to have some of our installation work function as set pieces or props or some such thing. If the space doesn't allow for actually moving the audience through our set/installation, maybe we can create three/four installation areas around/in front of which the performative action can take place? ... As soon as I have a group to work with, these are some concerns we can address.
Hope it's ok that I air these concerns. Thanks for your feedback!
Best,
Lisa
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Thanks, although it was Bryan who raised the questions.
My guess is that the space will be a rather large conference hall like the one Moises Kaufman spoke in at last year's ATHE.
I agree with you that we will want to do more than just lead a tour. What do we want these stops to signify? What snippet of thought can each stop provoke individually and how can we use these stops to play off of each other (I'm thinking here about Gambaro's INFO FOR FOREIGNERS in which, at one point, two groups see each other and one comments on the voyeurism of the other). Because NOLA is such a voyeuristic tourist site of hedonism (at least that is one image of the city that circulates), I think there is great potential to capitalize on this and use it to make a larger point about how skewed our understandings of the city may be.
I like the idea of the installation functioning as both set and research - especially because this was an aspect of last year's Come Together panel that people really were excited about. I think create spaces around which the performance can happen that also contain research is a great idea. Hopefully (and I will check with Marla and the organizers on this), they installation can be left up for people to experience on their own as well, carrying the memories of the performance but also giving them the freedom to see the details of the research that the performance much necessarily shorthand in some way.
Lisa's post also provides an important reminder: for those of you who aren't Shelley or Bryan, you should contact us ASAP with your preferences for working on the installation or the performance. There will be overlap, of course, and we will probably all be called on to do something with the performance as well as help out with setting up the installation, but we need to determine who wants to focus their talents on the performance/staging techniques of the performative part, and who wants to help plan and create the installation.
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