Audiences
Untrained Effort #33
What i love about performance is that, whilst you are making something, you have in your mind’s eye a group of people. At least it is like that for me. When i create, there is an invisible group of people in the room - the audience. Many artists do not do that and, in my opinion, it shows.
I am firmely in the camp that advocates creating as an act of dialogue, of exchange, of transformation. And none of these things can be achieved if i make in a void, oblivous to the fact that someone, somewhere will be experiencing the project and will bring with them feelings, knowledge, perspectives i can’t even begin to immagine.
This, for me, is one of the most exciting parts of making theatre and performance and probably why i prefer this form to any other type of creativity. There is, for me, something powerful in the (often controled, choreographed or intentional) encounted of bodies and minds. Some are moving, others are listening. Some are doing, others are thinking. Some are feeling and others are being present… and it is not always the way you imagine it to be!
I had an absolute blast last week, creating and presenting Живо Тесто / Live Dough as part of the Sofia based festival Девет Слона / Nine Elephants. We made a durational performance set in a banitza shop where audiences could come and go and listen, through headphones, to real life interviews of the people who work in this traditional yet capitalist driven business. Audiences could choose the channels they listen to, switching between the interviews, fairy tales and news articles or a soundscape.
Observing how people react to art is probably my favourite passtime! I was able to stop passers by as well as chat with seasoned festival goers. I didn’t expect people to stay more than 10-15min (because, perhaps, my own attention span is not great these days). I was amazed however at how many people stayed for longer, sometimes braving the blazing sun or the fact that seating was limited.
Bulgarian audiences are unkown to me, for the most part. I haven’t done work in my home country/city in years and never site specific. I was pleasantly surprised. People show up, often with kids in tow. They make the kids take part or wait while they do. Everyone asks questions and tells you their honest opinion, which is so refreshing. They are curious about form and content as well as how things are made. They are patient.
Needless to say, i had a great time. Over 80 people stopped in the 3h we were performing which is a massive success in my books, especially for site-specific performance with limited capacity (only 20 headsets on average at a time). It also gave me hope.
Too often, in the UK, we battle to get people through the doors. Projects are underfunded, venues are overstreatch, people are oversaturated and communting is hard (to name but a few). Here things aren’t much different but there is apetite to take part. There is an effervescence that i hadn’t witnessed in years. Maybe it is because there is less on offer, comparatively. But even as i write this, i am unsure about this statement as Sofia is breaming with stuff to do.
I don’t know. Maybe the (often extreme) professionalisation of the arts sector in the UK means we take ourselves too seriously. Maybe we are tired of being in survival mode and the work is suffering as a result too. Or there is so much going on everywhere that we struggle to shine. Or it is simply cultural: Balkan directness and joie de vivre VS English stiff upper lip and bottled emotions. Regardless, for me, the equasion remains the same: equal parts “what do i want to make”, “who is it for”, “what does it say” and “how would they feel”. With a sprinkle of “what’s the fundamental reason they should gift me their time over anything else they might do intead”.
Simple yet fundamental.
Other things i am up to these days…
I was sponsored to go to Finland and pitched the Becoming […] residency/concept tour project at the IETM meeting. I had an amazing time discovering Espoo, the second biggest city after Helsinki as well as the Northern Oulu where the sun never sets. I’m still digesting what i learned and the things we spoke about, including slow travel which i am very keen to make a bigger part of my practice and way of being generally.
I am going to Leeds next week, to continue developing my new project about the themes and topics of return. I’ll be at the University of Leeds as part of the Play/Space programme learning about binaural and 360 sound. Please do say hi if you are local, let’s grab a cuppa!
I am working with Lancaster Arts on their “What happens if” programme which matches artists to academics to explore a specific topic. We are working on the themes of dissent and will be sharing a little something something on Saturday 5th September. Stay tuned for more developments soon!
Since 2024 i’ve been part of a cracking team investigating the links between food and racial justice. I am excited to let you know that our work, TOFU, will be shown as part of the Sheffield Theatres Open Works Festival on 30th September and that we are Arts Council Funded! My culinary and performative adventure continue and i cannot wait to share them with you.
In Bulgaria, i am now part of a very cool organisation called Bodil (thisle in Bulgarian). It is entirely artist led and aims at creating art that connects people, especially with/from artists based outside the big cities. On June 21st we organised a family friendly festival at Hija Bonsovi Poliani and we cannot wait to put togehter an Autumn version + many more interesting things brewing!
If you are still here, thank you for reading! As a gift, enjoy this picture of me in the winds of the Helsinki strait, looking like a baba. #goals
I'm always overjoyed to be able to get glimpses into people's creative processes, so thank you for sharing! It's also encouraging to hear about the engagement and responses of Bulgarian audiences (and my ongoing corresponding discouragement about British ones).
Everything you are up to sounds wonderful, Lora. Thank you for all of it 🙏🏼💚
I found wisdom in some of the stories I heard through the headphones…these were people opening up and sharing their wisdom about life, which I loved and to be honnest I am still eager to listen to them once more and until the end this time. Comme quoi we can connect to any human being, remotely, with a total stranger with a totally different profession, social class, etc.