Month: May 2013

On Monday at 11am in Studio 3 the solo performance Testomony was shown. It explored eating disorders, our relationship with food and body image.

My performance stayed true to my initial ideas with very little alterations. The performance was more chaotic than previously planned, the structure wasn’t as rigid, I played more with chaos and lack of control than before. I also wanted the performance to flow more as opposed to having definitive changes throughout the piece.

In terms of set design I used the wall of mirrors as well as positioning mirrors around my performance space, angled so as to reflect images off of one another. The idea of this was that when I moved to different places in the room, the audience would see different reflections of me as I would myself. Using these different reflections was representative of the different perspectives people have of our appearance including are own, how even when everyone is looking at the same thing each individual can see it differently. It might have also been useful to have included mirrors that alter the body, making it look smaller or larger than it is to continue this affect, this is something I would use if I were to develop and perform the show again.  Food was also scattered around the room including crackers, muffins and crisps and also a 1.5 litre bottle of coke.  The reason I chose crackers in particular was in many of the stories I found and in a few of the ones used in my voice overs, it was mentioned that they ate crackers to tide themselves over when they were hungry. As for crisps, chocolate and coke I wanted high calorie foods that some panic over and some overuse, it also made eating from the bin all that more sickening, I do not feel eating carrot sticks would have had quite the same affect.

On the mirrors I stuck up two tally’s one on the far left and one on the far right. On the far left it said “Starve” and the far right “Gorge”.  These were to demonstrate the extremes when it comes to eating food and the struggle to find a balance, they were purposely positioned far apart as they are dichotomies. Additionally, it was to represent how for an individual with an eating disorder, food completely takes over their life, in some of the stories I read they said there was a constant nagging voice telling them to put down that cracker, to exercise more, to purge. That starving or purging becomes completely addictive, it takes over their world.

Also as part of my set there was a table with a pen, chalk and hairbrush on top of it. This was purely for practical purposes during the performance. As for lighting we had a strip of white lights across my performance space, as the room is quite large I wanted to make it more intimate by focusing on a smaller section of space. Additionally, using the soundtrack of heavy breathing increased intimacy between the audience and performer. An intimate feel was ideal for the performance as I wanted the audience to feel as if they were inside the world of an individual with an eating disorder or in fact many individuals from the use of the voice overs. The voice overs told the stories, and my movements were there to physicalize their words to bring all of these stories to life.

I made some small errors during the piece, some things finished too quickly, I lost the rhythm with the exercise section; I was meant to stick to counts of 8 but got a bit confused somewhere in the middle. However, I don’t feel that any of these errors had an effect on the piece as a whole. The audience reactions for my piece were different to what I expected, as I concluded the piece by stuffing my face with food from out of a bin I expected this to be uncomfortable for the audience, but, a few members of the audience that I spoke to said the piece actually made them feel hungry, a couple of these audience members even bought quavers which were one of the things I ate on stage. I guess it is difficult to gauge audience reaction when you have not performed to an audience before, so again if I was to embark on this project in the future as part of the rehearsal process I would ask for people to come and watch. I would also include some direct audience participation in to my piece as well to involve them even more.

I also wanted to record the voice overs with a variety of different voices supplied by my fellow drama course mates, but unfortunately due to time constraints with the tech team I ended up recording them all in my own voice. Although the voice overs were still powerful, audience members thought that they might be about me, my story, which isn’t the case. I wanted them to be in an array of voices to show they were different people’s stories, it wasn’t meant to be about me, it was about them and it was their stories I wanted to share.

Overall, solo performance has been a fantastic module. It has taken me on a journey of performance like never before with such an interesting array of solo artists and performances. It has also been fantastic to see such a variety of solo performances from my peers and to feel inspired by their work.

I came across a promising article in Metro about new developments in the fashion industry for Israel.

One of fashion’s most ill kept secrets is eating disorders. Although some models are naturally quite thin, the pressure and stress can cause an obsession with being skinny, and in some cases being stick thin is the only way to get the job. However, thanks to fashion photographer Barkan’s determination to make a change, a new bill has been drafted “that would prohibit models from working with a Body Mass Index below 18.5” and  “In addition to regulating the BMI of models, this law requires advertisements to clearly indicate when they use airbrushing or any other computer alterations to a model” (Senman, 2013, p.30). This big change in Israel hopefully might inspire other countries to follow in their footsteps. Not only will the law protect the models themselves but those aspiring to be them. Additionally, knowing models have been altered or airbrushed helps teach the public realistic expectations of looks, making them realise no one is perfect, everyone is flawed.

Barkan realised how poisonous the image was that he was providing for young girls with his fashion photographs, when he met a wannabe model aged 15 and only 5st called Keti. Keti told her social worker that Barkan “will tell you I have to be this thin to be pretty” (Keti cited in Senman, 2013, p.30).  This was the shock he needed and after going “to her home four days a week encouraging her to eat, until she was a healthy weight” they went on to television to create awareness of the problem and to share Keti’s story and “immediately anorexic girls and women across Israel called Barkan, asking him to save their lives too” (Senman, 2013, p.30). This set off his successful campaign to the ministry of health.

 

Additionally, Cossar demonstrates Brazilian Model Agency Star Model’s new campaign in the fight against anorexia “The designers used Photoshop to turn real women in to life-size versions of fashion illustrations with disturbing results. Showing what women would look like if they had the same measurements” (2013, p.30).  The campaign shows how unrealistic fashion’s expectations of women are, however, there is a flaw with their campaign as Cossar suggests, “It does in fact replicate the images portrayed on “thinspiration” sites, which encourage eating disorders as a lifestyle. Worryingly, around 24 per cent of young people in a recent study have visited such sites online” (2013, p.30).

 

Personally, I find it repulsive that people would actually encourage eating disorders as a way of life. Having someone close to me go through it I can tell you no one deserves to suffer like that, mentally and physically. I was worried she could osteoporosis, become infertile or even die. It’s lucky she went to an eating disorder centre and got the help she needed, or she might not be the person she is today, she might not even be here today. So to think that there are people out there who would wish that upon people makes me angry. It upsets me that girls and boys will take their advice and go through all that pain just to feel beautiful, or in control or because they want to punish themselves. My heart bleeds for each and every one of them.

Works Cited

Cossar, Vicki-Marie (2013) ‘ Shock Tactics: Will This Brazilian Campaign work?’ , Metro, 13 May: 30.

Senman, Suna (2013) ‘Beauty and the Beast of Anorexia’ , Metro, 13 May: 30.

 

Images taken from:

Kate Moss: http://www.studded-hearts.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/kate-moss-allure-january-1993-sante-dorazio.jpg

Size Zero VSize 18: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-442138/Size-zero-vs-size-18.html

Isabelle Caro “No Anorexia”: http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/dec/30/isabelle-caro-dies-model-anorexia

In my performance I am using food itself to demonstrate our relationship with food; as it is not only those with diagnosed eating disorders who have issues with food. Many of us complain that we eat too much junk food, or that we have to finish what is on our plate even if we’re full, that we snack when we’re bored, that we give ourselves too big a portion and so on. It is interesting how rehearsing my performance has caused me to feel differently about what I eat and drink. During the piece I eat a couple of crackers, one and a half mini muffins, a few quavers and less than half a glass of coke. There are a fair few people who I think if they were to eat a cracker or two, a packet of crisps, a muffin and a whole glass of coke spread out over the day they wouldn’t think anything of it. But by eating all of this greedily out of a bin made me feel repulsive, even though I was eating and drinking less of it than some people would. There are people who drink coke as if it is water and eat fattening snack foods as if they are fruit and there I am feeling awful and also really full as if I have eaten a huge meal.

To help me perform with food I researched food in performance and came across an article from The Guardian’s website titled Have You Got the Guts for an Edible Performance. The article opens with the discussion of dining at the theatre then progresses in to cooking on stage and even audience participation with food.  Todd explains, “But theatre audiences aren’t just being encouraged to see and smell food. We’re being invited to taste it, too. On 26-27 February, as part of Ideas Tap’s Coming Up festival, Kindle Theatre will be staging a “theatrical banquet” with a macabre twist: the audience are cast as the last remaining subjects in an apocalyptic kingdom, invited by the waning queen to dine on the “leftovers of disaster” (2011, p.1)

The use of food in performance can involve the audience, allowing them to join with the actors, it can add an interesting and interactive element to the piece, and help set the scene for performance and ultimately make the performance more real for the audience. Additionally, Todd explains that food can also be used in performance to create an intimate connection with the audience. “Some edible performances are using eating to encourage intimacy or provoke interaction. Amy Godfrey’s The Biscuit Chronicles and Caroline Smith’s Eating Secret, for instance, have supplied audiences with biscuits and cake while sensitively exploring the issues of disordered eating” (2011, p.1).

Through The Guardian’s website I was able to find Amy Godfrey’s blog which has further information about herself and her work. Amy Godfrey is not only a performer but also a writer and life model. Godfrey has also previously worked with the NHS which may explain some of the influences in her performance of The Biscuit Chronicles which “is a bright new show that tackles the sticky-fingered question of the obesity epidemic and dieting with a spoonful of scepticism and a healthy helping of laughter. Amy Godfrey and her host of comic characters guide us through the highs and lows of life in the fat lane, drawing on personal experience and posing some provocative questions” (2010, p.1). Godfrey herself struggles with her weight, “Amy Godfrey has always been a little bit fat. Not fat enough to get her stomach stapled on the NHS but fat enough to get directed to the maternity section in M&S. She’s been distraught, frustrated and addicted to chocolate Hob Nobs so now she’s getting hysterical…and creative” (2010, p.1).

As for Caroline Smith’s performance Eating Secret, Groskop sets the scene as follows,” Dressed in a pink negligee, Mertle beckons me into her candle-lit boudoir. She is wearing her trademark rollers and as she bats her gigantic false eyelashes at me, the alter ego of lecturer Caroline Smith invites me to tell her a secret” (2009, p.18).

Smith dresses as a 1950’s housewife called Mertle, takes secretes from the audience one to one then puts them in to a monologue using the same words as the confessor.  “It sounds obvious, but we can’t escape food. And our relationship with it is so complicated. Because it’s not really about food at all, it’s about how to live. Everyone has a secret about it.” (Smith cited in Groskop, 2009, p.18).  Which is exactly what I am trying to demonstrate within my performance our complex relationship with food particularly how it can be bad for our health both mentally and physically. And how that relationship can develop in to an eating disorder as we lose control or try to gain too much control over how much, what and when we eat.  However, “Smith says the project is not about eating disorders” and “the food secrets aren’t all sad, Smith says “Some of them are quite funny” (2009, p.18).

One of the LPAC Technicians did discuss the possibility of me including the opportunity for the audience to eat food as well. He reflected back to a performance he saw about starvation. The audience walked in to a room and were offered a free buffet, once they had time to get some food and begin eating they were then shown pictures of horrific starvation, including starved children. He said everyone felt so guilty they couldn’t eat. He discussed the possibility of me using a similar tactic in my performance, which originally I was interested in but then I realised I didn’t want people to feel guilty, that was not the purpose of my performance.  Although I want the audience to think about their relationship with food, I did not want them to feel ashamed of it. I also wanted them to hear all of these stories from sufferers to understand what they have actually been through, so they had a real understanding of eating disorders rather than a generalisation from media sources.  I also used a lot of mirrors as self-image is another key problem when it comes to eating disorders, so many people are not confident in their bodies with little help from the media with size zero models and airbrushed celebrities. Furthermore, I tried to create a sense of chaos and willingness to gain control that falls apart within my performance as many of the stories I read began with the individual trying to control something in a life they found top chaotic.

However, I think it would have been nice to have involved the audience more directly perhaps in a similar way to Smith by being able to share some of their own experiences with food and self- image.

Works Cited

Godfrey, Amy (2010) The Biscuit Chronicles, Online: http://amygodfrey.com/the-biscuit-chronicles/ (accessed: 08 May 2013).

Groskop, Viv (2009) ‘Deliciously Dark,’ The Guardian, 19 June: 18.

Todd, Bella (2011) Have You Got the Guts for a Edible Performance?, Online: http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/theatreblog/2011/jan/31/edible-performance-theatre (accessed: 02 May 2013).