Week 4

Site specific – week 4

This week we looked and worked in our groups for our performance. We started in the classroom and talked through and recapped ideas from last week. We didn’t get as far as we wanted last week so we thought a new approach to the project would help our ideas. We went back to our space, where we thought we could do our piece and find that we came up with ideas that were sticking so we keep coming up with ideas; unfortunately none of them were strong. 

Our ideas were based around the concept of empowering women and the feeling of what women were told to do and what they couldn’t do. My idea for using power to women song was a good base for it to develop into a song that is sung by women from that time. We came up with ideas to use physical theatre for example we are going into the classroom in regimented fashion so it shows how strict they were with young ladies in the past. 

Doing some research, I have found a book review and a book, which can help with the research for our ideas. They are about what it was like for girls to go to school, so in the 1940s there were more girls going to school as before, although society in general didn’t think girls should be following in boys’ footsteps when they went off to school, when they were deemed old enough to be sent away to school; although, if the girls were sent away from school, they would be mostly from a small number of the wealthiest section of middle classes’ families, they would go to a school in the south of England,as they were extremely expensive, modish schools, as they thought it would provide a better education for the girls, but it was common in the upper region of middle class families that they wouldn’t send their daughters to school. These girls were from a wealthy family provided a more select and sheltered environment for the girls to learn in by getting in resident or visiting governesses,and if the family could afford the extra lessons like dancing, singing, and painting they would be able to have them. If the family felt it was acceptable for their daughters to become more intellectually accomplished, they would be allowed to sit in their brother’s lesson with visiting masters. 

Here are the links to the where I found the information:

https://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&lr=&id=idgbsHRSpF8C&oi=fnd&pg=PP2&dq=1940s+girls+schooling+england&ots=FtBMEVfpCS&sig=fRr3MMx9wioHc1tgoj4pBy5oFuM#v=onepage&q&f=true    

http://www.history.ac.uk/reviews/review/689

The location we chose is a collation of small spaces we found at an intersection of corridors. We will use two corridors that lead off the main corridors, we will use the main corridors as our audience seating. We chose this space because it could be used in various ways; for example, using the corridors as different scenes: we will move in the four sections and turn in a circle with the audience in the middle. We also find we can use the wall and the enclosed space to help with the idea that the girls had limited jobs they could do. 

I hope finding this information will help fuel some ideas that we could use to develop our piece. I also feel that a site specific performance should be about the space they are performing in, but I feel that it has to be about something deeper than what is obvious. 

Here are my ideas of what needs to be included in a risk assessment – picture to the right.