After the Performance !!

If there was one thing you got out of the experience designing or performing piece, what was it?

One thing I learned from this experience was that when performing your planned piece, you cannot focus too strongly on following the proposal you laid out before. During the performance there were many aspects of my piece which I adapted in order to make the piece work better. An example of this was when reviewing the first pictures that were taken during the first of the five mini-performances, although you were able to see our actions and faces, you were unable to see the reactions and interested onlookers and passersby. Another part of my performance that was decided on the day of the performance was that the camera was not only going to maintain a single distance from the performers, but be a variety of different distances away. Close-ups and long shots were used to show details as well as the overall performance. The final thing that I took in from this performance was that it is always good to have an additional person on your team (not including performers, photographers and managers) that can compensate for the unexpected happenings that can take place in your performance. For me, it would have been good to have a person who was there just in case the trash blew away, as it was a very windy day. Allowing the trash to blow away would have defeated the object of my performance, but interrupting my performance to pick it up would ruin the atmosphere connected with the piece.

If you could eliminate or change one in the process, what would it be, and how would this change the process?

            If I were to recreate this performance again, I would not go to as many locations and I would focus on attracting people’s attention to just one area. Another addition I would make to my performance would be to have a large, digital timer displayed. This would allow better synchronizing of the performers when throwing and picking up the trash, and would add significance to the overall theme of how time goes by, and this still seems to be an issue on campus. In addition to remaining in one spot, I would move the camera around the performers on a tripod (to steady the camera) to get different perspectives of the performers and the people observing them.