Impel Theatre present The First Time at MEME 2013 (Winnipeg)

I've been crafting this experiment for some time now, aiming to air some questions for myself, and for people experiencing dance music and theatre . . .
What happens when we take two independent experiences - a piece of theatre, and a music performance - and let them lose at the same time? How are you impacted as an observer? What do you notice? How does this in tandem experience change your understanding of each individual piece in a way that you may not have viewed them when separate?

The First Time is an audio installation designed to be experienced in tandem with a live DJ set performed by John Norman - Friday will be the premiere of this experience, beginning at 7:30pm.

If you're around and interested, the audio file can be downloaded for free at memetic.ca/thefirsttime - simply download the file, select a meeting place, and turn up at 7:30pm. There will be a girl in a purple dress who will lead you to the Cube, where John will be playing.

If Friday evening doesn't work, that's ok too - the installation can be experienced at any time during the festival - and will create a different experience for you! Just begin at a meeting point, and slowly walk yourself toward the cube stage.

If you do participate, please share your thoughts here, by tweeting me @impeltheatre or using hashtag #memeFirstTime and #meme2013

Huge gratitude to the MEME festival for allowing this experiment to see the light, and to my volunteer devisers and performers on the project!






Created by artistic director Kendra Jones (www.impeltheatre.blogspot.com)

The First Time will take you on a journey immersed in the festival’s main stage atmosphere which will amplify your aural
experience of the event and your surroundings. In a festival dedicated to live
performances of recorded sounds, come enjoy two forms of recorded sound at once,
and share in a further amplified experience of these two art forms in tandem with one
another. Downloadable for you to experience at any point through the festival, the piece
is best experienced corresponding with a DJ set by Winnipeg’s techno-maven, John
Norman (Hype Muzik, UNT! Records).

Download link:

http://soundcloud.com/khemlab_johnnorman/kendra-jones-john-norman-music/s-QejNs

Instructions:

Step 1

Download the audio file to your phone, mp3 player, or some other portable audio
device

Step 2

Make your way to one of the meeting points shown here for 7:30pm on Friday
August 16th:
Meeting Point 1 – In the small triangle park across from the Burton Cummings
(Walker) Theatre – 364 Smith Street

View Larger Map
Meeting Point 2 – In front of MTC John Hirsch (Mainstage) Theatre – 174 Market Avenue

View Larger Map

Step 3

Wait for the girl. She will be wearing a purple dress.

Step 4

Put your headphones in. Press play at 7:30pm. This is best experienced on your
own, so resist the temptation to take them out at any point, or to chat with others. Let
the experience envelop you.

Step 5

Listen.

Step 6

Follow the girl. She will lead you to the Cube stage to enjoy the festival.

Step 7

Notice. Keep listening.

Step 8

The full experience is about 40 minutes long, and will then leave you the remainder
of John Norman’s set to enjoy the site and music. And don’t forget to stick around for
more great acts through the evening!

Questions? Email kendra@impelartists.com or tweet @impeltheatre – and don’t
forget to share your thoughts using hashtag #memeFirstTime and #meme2013

Janet Cardiff - Forty Part Motet @ WAG (to 28 April 2013)

You can hear the voices from the next room in the gallery, and are drawn in by the sound. Normally an avid reader of the gallery cards explaining the piece and its creator, I pushed past this, around the corner to the darkened room. A perimeter of speakers in an oval shape greeted me, with a group of benches in the centre. People sat, eyes closed, absorbing the sound, or moved through the space. My 8 year old daughter wanted to explore, so we circled the room, sometimes following the sound, and sometimes felt we were causing the sound to occur.

What was really remarkable was precisely what Cardiff desired the experience to be, the sensation of climbing inside sound. I've sung in a circle before, and even listened in a circle to others singing, however the sensation caused here felt different somehow. Perhaps it was just that - the sensory deprivation of a darkened room with no other objects, no colours. Looking at photographs, there have been versions of this in beautifully ornate churches, or more livened rooms, which I'm sure created another slightly unique experience.

I strongly recommend taking this in - the piece will be at the WAG until 28 April under regular admission.

For more info, check here: http://wag.ca/art/exhibitions/current-exhibitions/display,exhibition/125/janet-cardiff-forty-part-motet

The Performer Experience

The two performances I have been involved with this week have gotten me thinking about the performer experience in various forms of theatre. In the traditional, commercial theatre, the performer is a vessel; they experience physical work, speak words, move around the stage (in musicals, jump and dance about) but little consideration of the experience is given to their perspective. Everything is facing outward through the proscenium, targeted at the bums in seats who have paid their £30.

The two pieces I took part in seriously challenged this.

How We Met (still running at the RADA Festival - www.rada.ac.uk - until Saturday 7 July) is a piece of promenade theatre. Without giving too much away, I can tell you that the audience go through the experience one at a time, with headphones on and a host to follow, guiding them through a way of seeing while walking through the streets. As a performer in this kind of piece, with your small but important pattern to perform repeatedly, feelings of loneliness and solitude are evoked. Much like the people enjoying the performance, the performers are simultaneously together (as a unit) but alone (doing their specific sequence). Not unlike people every day in life, who are together in this experience of London in July of 2012, but alone in our own path and perspective. The performer experience thus reflects the audience experience, taking the performer on a journey as well.

Moving Forest (500 Slogans) was an entirely different style of piece. Part of a 12 hour performance art installation, we read the poem amidst all sorts of other noisy installation pieces, crowds out on their lunch, workmen going by. Even our interpretation of the poem, as a cacaphony of noise and sound, rendering us unable to pick out the actual value from the unending stream of information flowing at us in every day society reflected this. While reading, though, focused, moving in my pattern and reading the text as rehearsed, I found myself almost in a trance-like state, unaware of all the other noise around me, having blocked it out. I cannot speak for the audience experience too directly, but writer Matthew Fuller (of 500 Slogans) noted that coming outside to our cacaphonous reading was an audible break from the volume and noise of the other installations, despite its overwhelming sense on its own.

I propose that the most exciting pieces of theatre are those which help the performer experience something while they are helping the audience experience something; the performer is not simply a vessel, but a conspirator, experiencing and changing in the world at the same time as their auditor...each having an affect on the other.