Background and Aims of Research
During the Summer of 2007, a group of Scenic Arts and Theatre Design students took a performance based on Aristophanes’ The Birds to the Prague Quadrennial. The piece, which was an open air street style event, was inspired by and included the mechanical machines that they had collaboratively designed and created the previous autumn 2006. The performance piece was devised and premiered during Rose Bruford Symposium 2007, with SA and TD students performing, both at the Sidcup campus and subsequently in front of the Palace of Industry in Prague.
The Birds at PQ’07 June 2007
Based on this experience it was agreed that it would be advantageous for another event to be created to further explore the performative possibilities and context for the mechanical pieces. But with no Prague festival to aim towards, another performance venue and context would need to be found.
Finding the Partner Venue
This year’s mechanical pieces were based upon the drawings of Banjju Shyam, an artist from India. In his book The London Jungle Book, he illustrates his experiences of being an outsider in London, in the traditional Gond Art form. It therefore seemed appropriate to approach for our performance project, London institutions who in some way reflect the diversity of London’s populace and international history. Also, because at the point of looking for venues, we only had the actual pieces to show, it felt that we needed a partner institution or company for whom we could create the performance specifically. It seemed likely that the nature and context of the Banjju’s work, rather than the mechanical aspect of the students’ pieces, would be of interest to galleries and museums initially. (To further support this aim, the mechanical tutor, Steve Guy had recently run workshops in India with Bhajju Shyam at a Children’s book festival). From this we could develop the themes of traditional Gond painting and stories through running workshops, supported by a performance to animate the work. This idea felt more connected to the context of the work; was flexible and suggested more varied opportunities, than by finding a theatre venue or theatre festival in which to perform. Also most museums have strong education and outreach departments with which to liaise and develop a dialogue.
To this end a number of London galleries and museums were contacted, in November and December 2008, including, The Museum of Childhood in Bethnal Green, The Hackney Museum, The Museum of London, INIVA Gallery in Shoreditch, and The Horniman Museum, all of which, to a greater or lesser extent represent diversity within their communities, and have education policies which aim to share and celebrate the arts of the different cultures living within their boroughs.
The Horniman Museum responded positively and was keen to meet to discuss the proposal. The Horniman Museum, based in South East London has a rich history based on its collections of ethnography, including a wonderful collection of masks and puppets; natural history and musical instruments from around the world. This, together with a strong emphasis on hands-on educational workshops, and wider community involvement in the form of performances and classes, makes it open to a variety of events and initiatives.
Having met Louise Palmer, the Education Officer at the Horniman Museum and seen the suggested performance space, the possibility of taking the work there was secured in February 2009. It was too late within the funding year for the Horniman to offer the possibility of students running workshops along side the mechanical exhibition and performance, but future collaborations are possible and mutually desirable. This made it even more of an attractive option, because the museum saw the benefit of our coming there, as a way of attracting an older age group of students, rather than the more regular primary age group. With the objective agreed and the dates for the event set for June 2009, we set about creating the actual performance, now knowing the space and context for the work.
Performance Creation
It was decided that it would be a positive idea to open up the development of the Mechanical Theatre project to other programmes within the college, creating a more collaborative piece, and introducing new performance skills, and music to the work. The ETA programme showed an interest in this, and in order to make it of particular interest to their students it was agreed with their PD to ask a performance director to lead the devising process, with whom they already had a proven creative relationship. Director and performance devisor, Alexa Reid was engaged to take this on during the Symposium week 2009.
Over 5 days the students and Alexa created a performance, called A Menagerie of Machines which used not only the machines and the London Jungle Book story, but also other material relating to Bhajju’s history, woven together. The final piece was performed in promenade, in The Barn theatre. It was subsequently re- rehearsed in June 2009 in order to make it of a more suitable length and style to be performed at The Horniman Museum, to young children.
Horniman Museum Menagerie of Machines Interaction June 16th 2009
Performance and Museum Visit
On 16th 17th and 18th June 2009, The Menagerie of Machines was exhibited and performed at the Horniman Museum, in the central atrium area. Approximately 1000 children, teachers and parents either sat and watched the performances, or saw and interacted with the machines as they passed through the area. Many of the audiences were groups from local primary schools. There were also pre- school children with carers brought to the museum. There were seven 20 minute performances. The rest of the time the machines were on display with students demonstrating their movements and ensuring that no accidents occurred with the often robust interaction of the children. The atrium area where it was placed was a good size, very central (being between several galleries and overlooked on all sides by a walkway and staircase, within an open plan contemporaray building), and with good natural light. Access was good, and the museum staff were very welcoming and engaged.
Louise Palmer, the education director felt that the work brought an otherwise public thoroughfare space to life and that it complemented the other temporary exhibition of machines, called The Human Zoo. Louise emailed with the following feedback;
Really enjoyed having you and the students last week – I know that the audiences got a lot out of the performances and being able to interact with the automata and it was good to have that space animated. I think the only feedback is for our end – if we do this sort of thing again, I know that you need a designated changing area for the whole day so will not book schools in our handling gallery so that space is free.
It is always difficult to gauge how these things are going to work in a new context despite planning so was good to see that things worked out so well.
Discussions are underway to repeat and hopefully extend this event at the Horniman next academic year 2009/10, in line with their forthcoming temporary exhibition Myths and Monsters, and to work with the museum to devise ways to attract older secondary school groups.
Student Experience
Although involvement in the performance stage of this project was voluntary, 7 Scenic Arts and 4 Theatre Design students were involved, along with 7 ETA students. Others had expressed interest but were unable to be involved because their timetables prevented it. SA and TD students are generally reticent to take part in the performing although all were interested in managing the performance pieces, props, costumes and other aspects of the event. All the students were fully engaged in making sure that the machines were in good order and were being well demonstrated and presented at the museum. They were very positive about interacting with the public and responding to questions about the work. The students were all good ambassadors for the college, and were able to see their work in a completely different context from a more traditional performance venue, having direct contact with their audience.
Legacy
The Mechanical Theatre project started as a way to enable Scenic Arts and Theatre Design students to work together creatively outside the traditional theatre production framework. To extend this to find meaningful performance contexts outside the college environment for the work is now becoming established. With future collaborations planned it is clear that there are many performative and interactive possibilities for the Mechanical Theatre project machines and students, in a variety of public and educational settings. The negative side is that the students who have experienced this move on and each year there is a need to re- enthuse each new student group. Personally I would like to see the students find their own outlets for their work and for it to be student conceived and driven. For this to happen I believe the students would need to have an understanding of the direction in which they would like to take the work, together with an awareness of its value within a range of theatre and museum settings.
Pip Nash, Senior Lecturer Theatre Design
June 29th 2009
Staff Collaborators in the project;
Brigitte Lambert – Programme Director Scenic Arts
Steven Guy – Mechanical Theatre Tutor
Alexia Kokkali – Programme Director European Theatre Arts.
Pip Nash – Lecturer in Theatre Design
