Category Archives: Performances

Experimenting and Finalising Details

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After planning everything out it was now time to test our ideas in front of an actual audience. Having never done anything like this before we were interested to see how, as the gainers our bodies would react. The gainers were sat down and as I was wearing the more sexual outfit, I was also handcuffed to my seat giving over even more control to my feeder. We then decided to place the audience in a square. We as the gainers were facing them as one side of the square, then they filled the other sides. This ensured everyone could see all angles of the process.                                                           unnamed2

To test what outfits worked best together we decided the feeders would change gainers after a period of time, so all possibilities could be looked at. However, in the actual experiment this will not be the case as a bond will need to be formed between feeder and gainer. My first feeder was more sceptical about how far to push the boundaries. I often found I had to lean my head in rather than feel forced to eat or drink what was in front of me. Personally, I felt as I was giving over complete control some force was needed. As the feeders changed, I found the task more difficult. My third feeder for example put together some interesting food combinations I found hard to stomach. By the end of the process the sickly food almost became too much to handle and that was after only ten minutes of consumption. It seemed the audience reacted well to our own reactions. Some food dripped down and gagging also began as the experiment went on, which when doing a durational piece is sure to happen with this project.

When the experiment ended the audience reacted well to the varied gainer outfits. They liked the fact we were all in different outfits, yet they were all black. However, for the feeder it seemed the best outfit was the server. So, for our final piece we will dress the feeders as waiters, which will be interesting as a waiter wouldn’t normally push the boundary of feeding a consumer. We have also decided everyone will be handcuffed, as those who weren’t often moved their hands without thinking about it. Through all being handcuffed, you will literally be forced to eat and give over complete control.

          (Above: ‘The Set’ and Below: ‘The Gainers’ Taken by Kirsty Jakins:22.11.13)

‘Rituals are more than structures and functions, they are also among the most powerful experiences life has to offer’ (Schechner,2004 ,p70)

After finalising most details within the work in progress, we began to realise how difficult the durational task will be. For the audience it can be seen as a ritual, with the feeder going back and forth and holding the fork to the gainers mouth. It will also be a powerful experience depending on who is chosen for each role. Whatever way it turns out the experiment will be completely different. Some feeders will be more forceful, others more forgiving. Some gainers will be able to stomach more, others may be sick after twenty minutes. It seems this last minute decision will completely change the experiment, and will make the final piece an interesting watch.

Works Cited

Schechner, R. (2004) Performance Studies: An Introduction. London:Routledge.

Force Feeding Relationships…In A Babydoll.

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For our work-in-progress session, we performed a live experiment. Primarily, this was to gage the reaction and reception from the audience, allowing us to alter and change variations within our experiment as was needed. So this experience would be as close to our final piece as possible, and to give an authentic feel to both us as performers and the audience, we drew straws the day before to see who would take which position; the Feeder, or the Gainer. (I use the term Gainer here loosely. We are not eating to gain weight, or for either party to receive sexual pleasure from the act of feeding or being fed. In our experiment, I use the term simply to define the two separate roles).

Once we had drawn straws, and roles were decided, we were able to decide on costume. Our intention of dressing differently was to see which pairing of the Feeder and Gainer went well together; looked more aesthetically pleasing, and whether or not these costumes affected how the audience viewed the piece.

(Experiment in progress: Images by Jakins, Kirsty and Lauren Watson, 22.11.13)

Typically, the Feeder/Gainer relationship is sexual, and although as a group we do not have that sexual attraction or arousal by the concept, we still chose to represented the sexual side of the fetish to see the reactions of our audience. “Theatre is, and has always been, a place which exhibits what a human body is, what it does, what it is capable of” (Sheperd 2006, p. 1), and our experiments embody this idea of the theatre. This experiment is primarily about us exploring our own limitations and relationship towards food, and in doing so our “live performance often does involve the senses in ways that transgress the boundaries of the visually iconic and of the linguistically and musically sonic” (Banes and Lepecki 2007, p. 3). During our short experiment, the Gainers repeatedly gagged, and struggled with the food presented to them. These reactions transgressed those boundaries, not only expected of a performance, but also blurred those of  the private/personal. To gag or be sick is usually a very personal act, and usually brought on by illness. So to show this reaction in public, and from being self-induced by consumption created an entirely new atmosphere and piece for the audience. And because “audience members bring their whole bodies with them into the auditorium, not just their eyes “Ridout 2009, p. 18). their actions and reactions to our physical reactions will be as vital to the experiment as the participants themselves.

(Experiment in progress: Image by Lauren Watson, 22.11.13)

This experiment and our final piece will “reveal histories – they propose practices, privilege materials, mirror social conditions, and implement techniques” (Banes and Lepecki 2007, p. 2). As a UK size 12, weighing 10st 8lb, I am very conscious about my size and weight, more than often feeling uncomfortable in my own skin due to ‘ideals’ on how I should look, and our experiment is causing all of us to look at ourselves and our relation to food in a different light. Our performance shines a light on the often taboo area of ‘Feederism’, a social condition which isn’t highlighted or publicly talked about, and is only really addressed through documentaries. Although we aren’t Feeders and Gainers, we are openly exploring our own boundaries with food. According to Richard Schechner, “performances that insist on sharing experiences with partakers and participants; works that try to evoke both terror and celebration. Such performances are often very personal even as they are no longer private” (2007, p. 25), and our experiment does just this. A marvel at the food we create, and if not a terror in the audience, a horror at what we are attempting to complete.

Works Cited
Banes, Sally, Andre Lepecki (2007) ‘Introduction’ in The Senses in Performance, ed. Sally Banes and Andre Lepecki, Oxon: Routledge, pp. 1-7.
Ridout, Nicholas (2009) Theatre & Ethics, London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Schechner, Richard (2007) ‘Rasaesthetics’ in The Senses in Performance, ed. Sally Banes and Andre Lepecki, Oxon: Routledge, pp. 10-28.
Sheperd, Simon (2006) Theatre, Body and Pleasure, New York: Routledge.

Who draws the short straw? Work in Progress.

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We met as a group to discuss finalisations for our work in progress performance on the 21.11.13. The first thing we want to test with an audience is what we should be wearing. We decided each feeder and gainer will wear something different for us to see what works most effectively. Secondly, we needed to decide on the high calorie foods we will be bringing in. For our work in progress we chose a few foods known for being treats so we can get the most out of the experiment. Having already planned our set up i.e. where the table of food will be presented and audience sat, it was now time to discover who would be a feeder and who would be a gainer. We wanted to leave this decision until as late as possible, so chose the afternoon before. Below, I will place a video of the straw drawing process where we discovered our fate.

After establishing the roles we will take tomorrow and planning our experiment, hopefully now with an audience to test we can discover what elements to our performance will work most effectively.

Last Words, Last Suppers.

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Reckless Sleepers “share the agenda of Forced Entertainment in their rejection of the processes of ‘proper theatre’ or ‘big theatre’ that attempts to present ‘realism in an unrealistic way” (Tomlin 2008, p.361), and their piece Last Supper does just that; mixing real life final words, with those which can be imagined to be true, while all over a last supper. Sat at an elaborate dinner table themselves, “the Last Supper is a performance piece where we invite our audience to dinner, to eat and drink with us” (Reckless Sleepers n/a, online), creating an unconventional performance space within which we currently think of theatre.

http://vimeo.com/64879300

Interestingly, “it…gives voice to the voiceless” (Gardner 2004, online), despite the fact that the performers then go on to eat their own last words. These last words exist in a liminal space; taken and then imitated on stage from actors for whom the words will not be their last, and then being eaten, digested, as though they had never been there in the first place.

“While you might wonder why it’s worth doing, I am inclined towards the view of Timothy Leary who, staring death in the face in 1996, reportedly declared: “Why not?” ” (Gardner 2004, online)

Our performative experiment is dealing with food and eating, so to disregard Reckless Sleepers’ performance of The Last Supper would be unwise. Their intimate setting mimics that which we are hoping to create. Generally you don’t invite a large number of people round for tea, let alone strangers, and this becomes less likely when the topic of conversation is something highly personal. To reveal the last words of those who have died, either factual, fictional or imagined is something highly personal. Often those words are only said to loved ones, or to themselves, and not broadcast for the wider population to hear.

The notion of hosting a dinner party is not something private, and is indeed considered a social event. So to mix a private and public medium within their performance is interesting and thought provoking. The juxtaposition of the private and public is something which we are hoping to showcase within our performance of Feeder. The Feeder/Gainer fetish is a highly personal and private engagement when enacted within couples, so to host it in a similar style to The Last Supper, and framing it for an audience is unusual and adds another dynamic to the established task of the performance. With a contrast to The Last Supper, whose performance came alive by the use of words and language, our performance will have none.

Chewing.

Gagging.

Clinking.

Crunching.

The ominous and deafening silence will have its own underscore. However, this will not be from anything prepared, but from organic noises created by the piece itself. With the silence, the audience will be unwilling forced to focus more on the sounds and noises which occur naturally, therefore drawing them further into the performance. Though this might make some audience members uncomfortable, I personally feel that any other addition of sound would detract from the live performance, thereby giving the audience some form of escape; but when a performance is as intimate and personal as ours aims to be, the option of escape or distraction should be minimal. Our performance wants to push not just the performers’ limits, but the audiences’ too.

Works Cited
Gardner, Lynn (2004) ‘The Last Supper’, The Guardian, 19 November:
Online: http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2004/nov/19/theatre1 (accessed 27 November 2013).
Reckless Sleepers (n/a) The Last Supper, Online: http://www.reckless-sleepers.co.uk/project.php?id=7 (accessed 27 November 2013).
Tomlin, Liz (2008) ‘Beyond Cynicism: The Special Imperative and (Future) Contemporary Performance’, Contemporary Theatre Review, XVIII (3) August: pp. 355-369.

Feederism: What it means to be a female.

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Having looked into the concept of the audience picking out foods for us to try, we began to think about the idea of having no control. This then sparked a few thoughts about ‘feederism’. It seems this sexual fetish is all about one person having control over another, as you can see in the video below.

Within the sexual fetish it is often ‘the man preparing food and caring for the woman’ (Richardson, 2010, p.113.), but is this really care? As an all-female group it seems we all strive to look a certain way, and the idea of putting on weight would completely take away how confident we feel about ourselves sexually. Therefore, for our performance we began to question whether it would make sense for us to be dressed provocatively, or whether we should be dressed as ourselves as personally we would not find anything sexual about the experience at all. Also, during a day our bodies will not realistically show much change so instead it would be more testing how we handle loss of control over something so personal.

The idea of being fed and having no control for us seems daunting and not knowing what has been put into the calorific meals that have been created. If for our performance we decide last minute who will become the ‘feeders’ and who will be fed, this will ensure even more loss of control and test ourselves. We are looking at having the three chosen feeders to cook calorific meals the night before. The entire process will be filmed so audiences will be able to see what has been put into the food that the other group members will be consuming. If the film is silent and the people being fed have their back to the projection, they will yet again be giving complete control to their feeder.

‘Digital media is wonderful because it can be endlessly duplicated and/or presented without fear of the tiniest change or degradation. But, it is this very quality that is antithetical to the fluid and ever changing nature of live performance’ (Carder and Beardon, 2004)

With our piece, however, the idea of changing performance will only be strengthened. As time goes on and more food is consumed, the film showing what has been put into the food will become more grotesque for audiences as they can see how the quantity is affecting the gainers. Time is another crucial element with this piece. How far do you take it? We have been considering either keeping the feeding process going until all the food has been demolished, or continuing the experiment until the person can literally consume no more. If this is the case it may make for a more interesting piece as depending on who randomly gets chosen to be fed, different reactions and different amounts of consumption will occur. It seems this experiment will be more about pushing ourselves and testing our own limits. The feeders will have to deal with potentially pushing someone else too far, where as those being fed will have to push past personal boundaries of how they feel about their bodies and how much they can consume. In the video below we began to practise giving up control with a few foods we enjoy. As our experiments continue, we will slowly build up the intensity of giving over control.

Works Cited

Carver, G. and Beardon, C. (2005) New Visions in Performance: The Impact of Digital Technologies. Lisse: Tayler and Francis e-Library.

Richardson, N. (2010) Transgressive Bodies: Representations in Film and Popular Culture. Surrey: Ashgate Publishing Limited.