I couldn’t be happier to be able to say that my performance is all done and everything went smoothly and to plan. It always a nice feeling when all of your efforts and hard work seems to end in the way that you hoped.

I have never been so scared before a performance, due to the fact that I had literally put my all into all aspects of my piece. I hand made my own set, I made my own video, I wrote the script, it felt like I was about to be judged on everything and the fact that my piece was based around such a personal and difficult experience that I went through only made it worse. I got through it though, the technical aspects went perfectly and I didn’t forget any of my script or freeze up on stage when it got to the emotional section. As a whole I am extremely proud of how it went.

One thing that I have found over the process of creating my solo performance is how difficult it is to not have the security of a group. I’ve doubted myself a lot during the development of my piece and before the performance I literally had no idea how the audience would react to it. However the audience reactions that I received after my performance made me ridiculously happy and I couldn’t have asked for nicer comments. One of my main worries for the performance was the changes in atmosphere and I was concerned that there was too much of a drastic change from being funny to being serious. I thought the humour may have affected the emotion behind the piece, however the audience did seem to be really touched by the performance. They laughed in the earlier comedic section which I couldn’t of been happier about and the atmosphere in the room at the end was hopefully really powerful.

I made myself extremely vulnerable within this piece which I am extremely proud of and I can only hope that it paid off.

“The thing about performance, even if it’s only an illusion, is that it is a celebration of the fact that we do contain within ourselves infinite possibilities” Sydney Smith

Works Cited 

Smith, Sydney, (1771-1845) Sydney Smith Quotes, Online:http://thinkexist.com/quotation/the_thing_about_performance-even_if_it-s_only_an/219814.html (accessed: 16 May 2013).

Above is the video of the Little Red Riding Hood story that I made and incorporated into my solo performance. I knew that I wanted to highlight the stupidity of the story and in doing so comment on how fairy tales possibly trick us when we are younger into always anticipating a ‘happily ever after’ ending. To do this I decided a narration of the story would be quite effective and comical.
At first I was just going to tell the story on stage and comment upon as I went along however that didn’t seem to flow and in my opinion didn’t work well hence why I came up with the idea of the video. I have created the paused scenes for the narration and each is timed perfectly to the comment that I am making on stage therefore leading to a neat and tidy element of my performance.

From the very early stages of this process I knew that I wanted to create a performance that was quite atmospheric but I also wanted to challenge myself to create something that allowed the atmosphere to change making it a much more multi dimensional piece.
After initially exploring things that are frequently associated with children, I became more and more drawn to the idea of fairy tales and the cliché’s that they are filled with.  This also suited well with my desire to compare ideals to real life events. I knew that I wanted to start light and then build to a potentially emotionally moving end. Due to this the task clearly at the beginning of my piece was to lull the audience into a false sense of security.My aim was to create a setting that allowed the audience walk into the studio and think that they were about to watch a serene and pleasant performance, however my choices also needed to fit with the fairy tale characteristic of my performance.

So out came the glue, the scissors and the coloured card … I went to town on giant handmade flowers. Arts and crafts is typically quite child like and the flowers in my opinion made my stage. They were placed centre stage scattered around a leather chair where I was seated, symbolically I wanted it to be a representation of the desire to create your own little world in your mind and imagination, an ideal world that isn’t filled with the difficult moments we find in the real world.
My choice of music hopefully only supported this, and in all honesty I think the music was the main influencing factor on creating the atmosphere when the audience first walked in, I wanted something that sounded beautiful and calming however the piece that I chose also seemed to have a slightly sad under tone to it. Below is the music that I used within my piece as well as some photo’s of stages that inspired me.

 Fairy Tale Opening Music

I always imagined that the technical aspects of my performance would be quite simple, for me the real importance was based on the atmosphere that I was creating and the technical aspects would purely be used to support this to their best potential. I always knew that I wanted an atmospheric piece of instrumental music to open with and I always wanted the lights to appear to be closing in on me as the piece developed emotionally as this would represent my increasing vulnerability. Due to this I decided to have a combination of general lighting and then two different spotlights.
The general lighting would be used for the more comedic first half of my piece and then I had a soft slightly larger spotlight for when I start talking about myself rather than the fairy tales and then finally a very tight, sharp spotlight for when I’m discussing the rape. Each transition of lighting will be quite soft and done gently as I think this will best suit the emotional and atmospheric development of the piece.

I would be lying if I said that I hadn’t found the process of solo performance challenging and at times I have felt a little lost. Perhaps this is because my performance deals with something that is very emotional and difficult for me to discuss.However after much deliberation, a lot of editing and a hell of a lot of self doubt, I am proud to say that I now have a completed script that I am rather happy with.

There has been definite changes in my performance recently and though I have remained loyal to my decisions on topics and inspirations and I have altered the execution of them.Over the process I have considered a pupil/teacher role-play, I have contemplated playing a series of games with the audience and yes, these would all be appropriate in some manner but I’ve never been sure about how I would incorporate them into a final performance.

In my personal opinion, my strong point has always been writing … therefore I wanted to write my own piece. Something that fitted my intended playful beginning and then developing to an emotional end, whilst being in keeping with my theme of children’s stories, fairy tales and nursery rhymes. It was only when I sat down and began to write where it all seemed to fall into place. For the comical beginning I decided to stay true to the humour that I have with my friends, playful and witty, building on things that the majority of people can relate to and laugh at. I also found that the more I looked at fairy tales the easier I found it to make amusing comments about them.
For me the true difficulty when writing my script was to know how much was too much information in terms of when I was discussing the rape. I was well aware that there was a thin line between saying too much and not saying enough.

I can only hope that the script that I wrote allows that audience to feel a variety of different emotions. I wanted to create a slight feeling of nostalgia for when people were children, make them laugh and the stories they loved when they were younger as well as making them laugh at the party behaviour that the majority of us have gone through when we were older and finally I wanted to make them feel emotional and touched in listening to me discuss the most difficult experience of my life. I guess all I can do now is cross my fingers and perform my socks off.