Tag: Thoughts

Ideas!

Martyn Horner-Glister / / Depression, Personal, Thoughts

I’ve just been musing on ideas for the final performance. I’ve decided that I want to use the experience of this solo performance as a kind of therapy. So here are some idea I’ve been throwing around…

  • I could have Studio 1 set up as the whole of my mind. Varying objects in different positions around the room could represent my varying anxieties. these could be anything from pictures from my past to beer bottles to old work uniforms.
  • I will have a projection of myself on the wall, interjecting whatever comes to mind at the time of recording. These could be criticisms of myself, swearing, words of encouragement, praise… Anything really. But I think I’d like to record the projection a long time before the performance so that I have time to forget what has been recorded and get a good and genuine reaction from it by myself in the performance.
  • I would like to do this with a small audience. Maybe only the first five people to turn up. However, I think that I’d like do this piece over the course of an hour, perhaps two, therefore maybe I should perform in Studio 3 where there is a ‘veiwing gallery’. I think that way if anyone should feel uncomfortable or unhappy with what I’m doing, then they are free to come and go as they please, as would be anybody else. I think, however, that I should have someone close in the room with me, which leads me on to my next point…
  • I may even use real people in my performance. Whether they are there to hold my hand at certain times or to offer encouragement. I think that without this, the performance could very quickly turn into public nervous breakdown. Nobody wants that! Certainly not me! Therefore I think it’s important to remember to have things in the room that are good in my life, and not all bad.
  • I would also like to use music. This is because I believe that music can alter moods.  As yet, I’m not sure how I’d use it, but I would have to be very specific about my choices.

So there you have it. That’s where I am right now with this. Please let me know what you think. I need the feedback to help me shape what I’m doing.

Cheers,

 

Martyn

So… What now?

Martyn Horner-Glister / / Class, Depression, General, Thoughts

In today’s lesson we went through some of the finer points of our essay criteria and what we should be looking at doing. This makes me feel better!

However, we also talked about the final performance itself.

Now as we went around the room sharing thoughts and ideas for our final pieces, I suddenly found myself wondering who has read this blog. I’ll be honest it was un-nerving. I’m not sure why but I got the feeling that a few people had read it. Up until today (as a narrow minded individual) I presumed that hardly anyone had read it, just because there were very few comments on any posts.  I can now see that this was wrong. Ah well.

The ideas I came out with in class are slightly different to those I’d posted earlier. I’ll tell you them now now:

I want to be open and almost autobiographical in my piece. I still want to address the issues around depression and how I’m suffering with it, but I’m doubting the idea again and wanting to revert to my original plan of the  Grumpy Old Men style of show.

Donald asked me why I was concerned about my piece. I confessed it was a case of worrying about people’s perception of me combined with managing to do the piece about depression with sensitivity and possibly getting it wrong. It was then pointed out to me that if the piece is about myself, there are no wrong answers. Fair point, I suppose. Then it was also pointed out to me that we leave University a few days after the show anyway, so why worry about what people would think? We’ll see.

We’d been made to think recently about the staging and atmosphere we wanted to create in our shows. This has made me think about how I’d stage my piece.

I’ve been thinking about having a projection of myself constantly against the back wall which could just comment along with what I’m saying on stage, almost as if it was my inner voice or my conscience. I’m not entirely sure, perhaps I’ll have it completely contradict me. This will be an ideal way of getting in material I have previously written along the lines of Grumpy Old Men. I’ve also thought that the whole space of the studio could be a performance space, so there would be no set place for the audience to sit or stand. For example, perhaps I could have props and set in different corners of the room and then something central, but then the whole time the projection is there on one screen. Always there, always judging whatever I do. It would be almost as if the audience was in my mind with me. I could even limit the audience, restrict the numbers by issuing personal invites and sharing an improvised experience. There is no reason for not imposing a condition that each invited member of the audience wears a certain colour.

All of this is food for thought. I’ll refine it and get back to you.

 

Martyn

 

Essay time.

Martyn Horner-Glister / / Class, General, Thoughts, Uncategorized

I’ll be honest. I’m stumped. I’m struggling with the essay for this module. There is a choice of five possible questions and they all rely on having seen some solo performances. I think I’m going to plump for the last question with regards to space, traditions, liveness (which I’m not sure is a real word), acting and non-acting.
Any colleagues have any thoughts?

Wait… what?

Martyn Horner-Glister / / Class, General, Thoughts

This week we had a very surreal sort of experience in our session.

‘Words, words, words’ said Donald (and Hamlet), ‘I want you to think about words’. The idea being that they didn’t have to make sense. Donald wanted us to understand that whatever we perform for our final solo performance it could end up being art for art’s sake. Or Gibberish, as I prefer to call it.

We each came up with a setting, a short sequence of lights and sound to create a mood for the beginning of a piece. It could be anything we like. We also had to introduce a human being doing something.

So, I came up with the following;

 

A dark space. Dry ice or smoke rolls across the space as a tight white spotlight comes on from directly above R. and goes out as ‘Aerodynamic’ by Daft Punk begins to play loudly.

Another tight white spotlight comes on from directly above L. and goes out after three seconds.

A third tight white spotlight comes on from directly above C. and goes out. 

The three spotlights flash intermittently and then cease after fifteen seconds. The music fades down to a more acceptable level as a General Wash fades up dimly to reveal a horseshoe shaped wall with three doors along it’s length. The music continues as a woman bursts through the centre door wearing a straight jacket which she is tied into. She has an itch on her nose.

 

We were then asked to hand what we’d written to the person next to us and let them continue the sequence. I handed mine over to David Halliday and he continued with the following;

She attempts to scratch her nose on her sleeves calmly. A slow beat starts.

The spotlights from before come up one at a time and in time with the beats. The beats speed up and the spotlights keep pace as her attempts get more desperate.

As the tempo increases the colour of the spotlights change. This continues for a minute.

The woman screams as the lights and sound snap out.

In the darkness there is a sniffing of the woman’s nose. This combines with the sound of water dripping.

 

We now were handed back our pieces of work and told to add text to it. This could be anything we wanted. A recipie, a speech, dialogue, a poem, a dictionary. So I chose to write;

The poem ‘If’ by Rudyard Kipling is delivered calmly by a male voice in the darkness.

 

This all seems nonsensical, and believe me, other people’s work was far more absurd than this. However, this simple exercise got the point across to the class that whatever we wanted to do, we could do it. Certainly food for thought.

Solo performance, or indeed any performance, doesn’t have to make sense. It can be art for art’s sake.

Biting the bullet!

Martyn Horner-Glister / / Depression, Personal, Thoughts

I think I’ve reached a decision.

I’ve unfortunately missed today’s session which is very annoying because I had my routine all planned out!

However, my decision…

I think I’m going to look into the perils of being a mature student, but, from the point of view of a sufferer of depression. Believe me; even just typing that was a struggle. Therefore, I will be looking at methods of performing and delivering a sincere message. Obviously, I want to have an impact on my audience, but equally I don’t want to upset anybody. I feel depression is a misunderstood illness and want to get out there the idea that is ok to talk about it. It’s hard, but I think it can be done. That’s why I’m going to blend in the everyday nuisance of being a mature student. I already have material written which I think can be rewritten to include elements of my condition.

Yes, my condition, if you hadn’t already reached that conclusion. I have depression and am in counselling. There, I said it. This is partly the thought behind incorporating my Twitter feed into this blog. I tend to use Twitter as an outlet and, as much trouble as it has gotten me into in the past with various people, I believe that seeing my state of mind will help give an insight into what I’m doing and why I’m doing it.

I think this performance as a whole could be of use, not only to me, but to others. I want people to be more aware of the illness so that they can see the warning signs either in themselves or others and not be afraid to do something about it.

My performance will be a blend of autobiography, comedy, facts, a slideshow and advice for anyone who may need it.

I would also ask for anyone who has any experience, thoughts or feelings on the subject to please get in touch with me. Either leave a comment on this blog or if you’d rather have privacy, email me at 09164187@students.lincoln.ac.uk and we can chat and throw ideas and thoughts around.

I look forward to hearing from you,

 

Martyn