Evaluation

For Site Specific I thought I was going to have a lot of ideas and be able to use the site really well. I did not realise how deeply linked with your emotions you have to be, and how imaginative you have to be, to make an amazing piece of Site Specific. It was a challenge for me, but I think I developed my senses and became wary of the site, doing this opened up my mind for lots of ideas.

Our original idea was not as good as we thought it was. We made the mistake of starting to devise our piece out of our site. This meant we couldn't take into consideration the space and how it made us feel. So when we took out piece into the loft it didn't fit in properly and didn't work. We couldn’t have prevented it as it was due to weather conditions that we weren't allowed up there.

We used our site to inform our development of our scenes and to give us themes and ideas. The site was our main source for research. I think we managed to show our response, verbally, to the site clearly and efficiently. Our piece involved the whole group and we made sure everyone contributed equally so that the end result was personal for everyone and dynamic. I thought it was good how we used our site not only to inform our themes and ideas but also in our actual piece, using the electrical wire to hang personal photos, as if it were a washing line. Doing this made it seem as if the houses were linking all of our memories together and making us a community. We didn't use the normal conventional theatre practices, we also used physical theatre and dance based pieces. This made our piece diverse. I personally felt we created an atmosphere for the audience, and for us, of nostalgia.

After we performed our audience came up to us and said they enjoyed it, that it was lovely to watch but they didn’t understand some parts of it. I think this was because our separate scenes were too linear and they were all so different. I'm glad that our piece looked good as we worked hard on that aspect but we concentrated too much on that and not enough on the emotion. Our scenes did not have enough emotional responses to the site within them. We did not make it clear, through our bodies, how we responded to the site. We could have gone even deeper into how we could use the space interestingly and how it physically made us feel. Next time I do something like this I would like to create a piece that is based on our physical movements in the space and the emotions involved in that.

Overall I enjoyed the process and development of our space and the performance and felt that our enthusiasm and excitement came across clearly.  Doing this piece I developed my physical and emotional awareness but I feel that I could connect to my site a lot more physically now I know what to expect.

Photo I used in performance