Solo Performance Blog – James Reilly – 14534340

I thought I would finish how this blog started, and we began with Matt’s artistic statement so I thought after creating my solo performance I would give you mine concerning In The Plus and hopefully I don’t sound like a mad man just someone passionate about a performance concept.

 

I have had time to reflect on my piece, and I realised this I not over, I have only just begun. This performance only just scratched the surface of asexuality and that being said I would like to announce on here now the foundations of what I am going to call the ‘In The Plus Project’.

 

I have wanted to do this for a long time, but this experience and this module has given me the drive to keep going. The In The Plus project will include the further development of my solo performance from 10mins to for now 30mins, and I shall apply to showcase this at Newvolutions festival in January. However more excitingly I have been thinking about this for a long time and where to take this next.

 

In The Plus was just the beginning and will be included in the project but more importantly the project will include a series of performance pieces bringing awareness to asexuality this will be in the format similar to Ellie Harissons Grief Series or more notably Shia LaBeouf’s #TouchMySoul and #HeWillNotDevideUs  or even more famously Abramovic’s Rhythm series. In an exploration of this my series of asexual projects will be a mix between performances such as the solo performance you have seen to installations to even documentation. I have many ideas to explore, and this will start from today.

 

I want to do this for myself and my community which I feel is the correct reason to do this for as I have a purpose for myself and other people. My aim as an artist/performer/actor is:

 

Explore emotion in creation.
Bring visibility to asexuality through the In The Plus project
Take creation seriously but have fun.
Nothing is wrong until you explore it.
Be open to collaboration and community-based ideas.
Be me, not something else.

Again thank you for giving me a platform to move my aspirations forward this module ignited a passion inside of me along with Contemporary Experimental Performance that even I don’t think I understand yet. I don’t know where the wind is taking me, but I do know it is taking me somewhere and even as my passion in theatre is strong and I plan to act on stages my passion for pursuing this project will only grow with it.

Also, a cake is fantastic.

Well that’s it folks my show is complete! Crazy! I have had a blast of a time, and I’m proud of what I have created so let us have a little reflection on my performance and the experience.

 

First things first I feel like I underestimated the toll holding a giant cake would be. I held it for a good 10 minutes. I had been practising in studio one carrying that for usually 5 minutes as I presumed this would be ok but I underestimated how long the audience would take collecting the cake. Due to this, I decided to improvise and make this a feature of my show. I could audibly hear the audience say “How is he holding that cake”. So I thought I would make a deal of this and come out of the cake crawling out saying “You have no idea how heavy this is” and I was audibly gasping. I feel this worked as it relaxed me as well as building a connection between me and the audience. In consideration of having an audience, this worked as it pushed me through to perform better. Hearing the audience put me at ease but also made me want to perform better.

 

I also found when creating my show in the performance the humour made the hard-hitting stuff more powerful. I had made a connection with the audience, and I and the audience had a bond, and this made it easier for me to perform my ending but also I feel made it emotional and meaningful for the audience and myself.

 

I also found having images to support my text worked perfectly. Having the audience engaged in multiple places in my space kept them intrigued and emotionally invested. It also built nicely to my ending with my running. The three beautiful things of running the voiceover and the projection worked in unison.

 

I would change only one thing from my current show, and that would build it and not make the shift from crazy funny to serious so quick as it happened so suddenly. It was vital for it to be included but if I were to do it again, I would still have it included just slowly build to that moment rather than such a dramatic shift.

It was important when considering the creation of my performance that I had created something that should be viewed as a debut and a professional production. In response to that, I decided to create a certain amount of programmes for the audience to see.

 

Programme

 

The programme I created included a front sheet, a poem written for my show that unfortunately, I had not to add this to my performance due to the time limit and also i had an acknowledgements section in my programme. I feel it was a nice touch to my performance on the day.

Because of my inclusion of cake I needed to include warnings about the allergy contents of the cake. It was important for me to this in a risk assessment context. Below is some JPEGS of these warning signs:

I came to a decision as much as this was serious I would make humour of it to fit the style of my performance. In response to this, I decided to include a joke around usually shows warnings for strobe but not mine as it has warnings for cake. I feel this created a further relaxed atmosphere, but it was also essential I did this for my performance.