Performance Analysis 2014

Gravilo Princip by De Warme Winkel

300 el x 50 el x 30 el by F.C Bergman
The immortals by Suzan Boogaerdt en Bianca van der Schoot

Master of Fine Art in Scenography, HKU

Teacher: Mart-Jan Zegers
YiLing, Hung

For these series of performances, I choose three performance to discuss further which
are based on their similar ways of presenting. Some similarities but also some differences
among them, I will explain my opinion further in this paper.

Gravilo Princip by De Warme Winkel

The stage was empty at the beginning. It was quite a strong first image to me. When we
entered the auditorium, backstage crews were still busy around. When did the show start?
It was hardly to notice, the curtain-up didnt exist in this case. The way they built up the
stage wasnt for the sake of being watched clearly for audience, the flexible, or messy
spatial set-up breaks the understand of context by watching movements on the stage. The
way to get a clearer picture of the whole story line was watching the frames which were
filmed on stage while performing. Basically, they used a lot illusion and confusion, not only
the setting on stage was seen clearly, but also the role shifts between actors, crews, and
soundmakers. This show deconstructed some common definitions of elements related to
performance, such as how to start and end a show, the roles of actors and crews shifts,
and telling the story by watching the stage or looking at the screen, etc.. They created a
high recognizing (or understanding) tension by deconstructing the performance.
Related to my own creative process, I find it is quite important that a maker/ designer /
artist has his or her own way to define things. When I, as a designer, go through this
process of defining, or re-defining things, first of all, I should deconstruct their original
definition.

300 el x 50 el x 30 el by F.C Bergman

How did this performance relate to audience? In my opinion, the connection was more
built upon those images which were represented on the big screen, than the real actions
on stage. What could we, as the audiences sit from a certain distance at the auditorium,
see on the stage? Only the outdoor space of this village, (which was also interesting, that
in reality, we were in an indoor hall, but we were kindly placed in outdoor space in this
show.) and the actor, sit and did fishing during the whole performance. So we actually
relied on the images on screen a lot for capturing the whole story, even more than we did
during watching Gravilo Princip, because in 300 el x 50 el x 30 el, we almost knew
nothing without the screen. Did we go to theater for watching a performance or a movie? I
felt they try to blur the border between. Besides the method how they represented the
story of Noahs Ark, also they used the real elements, such as trees, grass, pigeon and
water, were on stage made the tension higher between actors and audiences. It was very
interesting that they used real objects for leading audience into a fantastic world.
I like the way they tell a story, by playing the confusion between reality and fantasy. We
entered the performance hall from outdoor, but what could we see on stage directly and
clearly was only the outdoor space; we dont feel strange when we see a tree or a pigeon
in our daily life, but when they showed up on stage, they become fantasy. One part of my
research is trying to discuss the similarities and differences between performances and
daily lives. What role am I as a scenographer? Am I showing others how to see our daily
lives as performances or making our daily lives become performance?

The immortals by Suzan Boogaerdt en Bianca van der Schoot

There was no stage in this performance at all, I would call the whole performance
happened in a spatial installation. The layout of this installation was two rectangles which
were overlapped, one was bigger than another. Things happened in the inner box, but as
an audience, we sit in the outer box and couldnt see through the inner one, only through
the screens showed those framed images from actors who were inside the box. This
performance had the most tension among these three performance I picked up, the maker
used quite direct and strong visual elements to challenge the senses of audience, by the
sounds, colors, smells and abnormal images. Actually when actors played in their little
room, there was no any story, only overwhelmed amounts of images were shown to us.
But, in my own opinion, the story line was all about layers of watching and being watched.
At the first, we entered and sit in this outer box, and watched things happening in the inner
box through those zoom-in scale screens. Before the end of the whole show, actors
stepped out from their own rooms and sit beside audience, this action was quite symbolic
which conveyed the idea that they were also part of us, who were watched by us but also
watched someone else with us. When the whole show finished, we, audience stepped out
the outer box, and went back to our real world. The spatial layout helped me easily
connected to the action those actors did during the performance: they were in the box at
the beginning and then stepped out for rejoining.
Actually the actors acts were not for story-telling, those actions had no context at all,
or I would say the function of their actions in the inner box was only for conveying the
critical attitude towards the fact that we have overloaded information nowadays. But the
whole performance couldnt be completed without the participation from the audience:
entering, watching and leaving.

My background is architecture, while dealing with architectural project, I always see

living in a space is also one type of performance, although maybe it is different (or it
should be different) from those performances which happen in theater. But because of my
knowledge of theater was too limited, I couldnt define my concept and thought clearer
before. But during the past months, these performances we went and also the discussions
with makers or actors helped me a lot to understand more the structures of a performance,
the layers in a performance. I think no matter we talk about seeing real life as performance
or seeing performance as real life, its all about a matter of dealing with fantasy and reality,
the proportion between them: how much fantastic element I would like to put in and how
much real element I should consider about in one performance/ architectural project.